This Account focuses on the coordination chemistry of the microbial iron chelators called siderophores. The initial research (early 1970s) focused on simple analogs of siderophores, which included hydroxamate, catecholate, or hydroxycarboxylate ligands. The subsequent work increasingly focused on the transport of siderophores and their microbial iron transport. Since these are pseudo-octahedral...

Biological nitrogen fixation by the nitrogenase enzymes has long been a touchstone for dinitrogen chemists.1,2 Both the enzymatic reduction and protonation of N2 mediated by these metalloenzymes (eq 1)3,4 and the industrial hydrogenation of N2 exemplified by the Haber-Bosch process (eq 2)5-7 employ transition metal-based catalysts to accelerate the thermodynamically feasible production of ammonia.

A new and very efficient one-pot synthesis, in water, of 6 pi + 6 pi electron zwitterionic benzoquinonemonoimines involves the first examples of transamination reactions in quinonoid chemistry and allows the introduction of functionalities to, and the fine-tuning of the properties of, a large family of molecules with interesting potential, both in supramolecular chemistry and as multidentate li...