Intracellular Catalysis

Intracellular catalysis is constrained by the biological environment, which is tightly controlled for the living organism but may not be optimal for the reaction efficiency of a particular reaction pathway segment. Any chemical reaction that may take place inside of living systems without interfering with naturally occurring biochemical processes is referred to as "bioorthogonal chemistry," and it has emerged as a viable method for controlling biological processes. The toolset of bioorthogonal chemistry for medicinal chemistry and synthetic biology has been greatly increased with the invention of synthetic metal-based catalysts to carry out bioorthogonal processes. It has been observed that a broad variety of homogeneous and heterogeneous transition metal catalysts (TMCs) mediate many transformations, including cycloaddition processes and bond building and cleaving reactions. But there are many difficulties with using 'naked' TMCs directly in complex biological media, including poor water solubility, toxicity, and catalyst deactivation. Incorporating TMCs into nanomaterials to produce bioorthogonal nanocatalysts can solubilize and stabilise catalyst molecules, and the decoration of the nanocatalysts is used to provide spatiotemporal control of catalysis.