Visible light induced oxidative C-H functionalisation of tertiary amines catalysed by the combination of graphene oxide and Rose Bengal was developed. This reaction avoids the use of stoichiometric amounts of peroxy compounds as terminal oxidants. This reaction is useful for tri-alkyl amines including chiral tertiary amines. Both cyanide and trifluoromethyl nucleophiles were shown to participate in this reaction, providing a-cyano-and a-trifluoromethylated tertiary amines.Graphene oxide (GO), a two-dimensional carbon sheet, is traditionally used as a precursor to prepare graphene. Its unique physical and chemical properties have attracted the attention of chemists due to potential applications in plastic electronics, optical materials, solar cells and biosensors, 1 but its potential as a catalyst in organic transformation remains relatively unexplored. 2,3 The feasibility and potential of GO as catalyst were demonstrated by the seminal work of Bielawski and co-workers on the use of GO for the oxidation of alcohols and hydration of alkynes. 3a Subsequently, RGO was reported to catalyse the hydrogenation of nitrobenzene at room temperature. 3b The use of GO and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) as "carbocatalyst" in organic transformations is a nascent area and should lead to exciting discoveries.On a different note, the use of visible light in organic synthesis has attracted the attention of various synthetic organic chemists recently. 4 The groups of MacMillan, 5 Yoon, 6 and Stephenson 7 have showed the ability of metal-based photosensitizers, such as Ru(bpy) 3 Cl 2 (tris(2,2¢-bipyridine)-ruthenium(II) chloride) (Fig. 1), as photoredox catalysts for organic transformations under visible light irradiation. 8 Organic dyes, which are often Fig. 1 Ruthenium bipyridyl complex and Rose Bengal.used in dye-sensitized solar cells, are considered to be cheaper and easier to modify relative to metal-based photosensitizers, 9 thus they are attractive alternatives as photoredox catalysts. The viability of organic dyes as photoredox catalysts has been demonstrated by several groups. 10 For example, Zeitler et al. reported eosin Y catalysed dehalogenation and enantioselective a-alkylation using a combination of photoredox catalyst and organocatalyst. 10a Fukuzumi reported a selective aerobic bromination catalysed by 9-mesityl-10-methylacridinium perchlorate (Acr + -Mes). 10b We have also demonstrated that Rose Bengal (RB, Fig. 1) was able to photocatalyse a-oxyamination of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds and 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO) using visible light. 10c Although GO has been reported as a photocatalyst for hydrogen production from water under UV irradiation, 11 the potential application of GO in synthetic photochemistry has not been explored. Therefore we wish to report the combination of GO and RB which works in synergy to efficiently catalyse the a-functionalisation of tertiary amines in the presence of visible light. The oxidative a-functionalisation of tertiary amines through highly reactive iminium intermedia...

Acinetobacter baumannii is a major human pathogen associated with multidrug-resistant nosocomial infections; its virulence is attributed to quorum-sensing-mediated biofilm formation, and disruption of biofilm formation is an attractive antivirulence strategy. Here, we report the first successful demonstration of biofilm disruption in a clinical isolate of A. baumannii S1, using a quorum-quenching lactonase obtained by directed evolution; this engineered lactonase significantly reduced the biomass of A. baumannii-associated biofilms, demonstrating the utility of this antivirulence strategy.

As a result of the low reactivity of simple esters, the use of them as nucleophiles in direct asymmetric transformations is a long-standing challenge in synthetic organic chemistry. Nature approaches this difficulty through a decarboxylative mechanism, which is used for polyketide synthesis. Inspired by nature, we report guanidine-catalyzed biomimetic decarboxylative C-C and C-N bond-formation reactions. These highly enantioselective decarboxylative Mannich and amination reactions utilized malonic acid half thioesters as simple ester surrogates. It is proposed that nucleophilic addition precedes decarboxylation in the mechanism, which has been investigated in detail through the identification of intermediates by using electrospray ionization (ESI) mass-spectrometric analysis and DFT calculations.

Pentanidium-catalyzed α-hydroxylation of 3-substituted-2-oxindoles using molecular oxygen has been developed with good yields and enantioselectivities. This reaction does not require an additional reductant such as triethyl phosphite, which was typically added to reduce the peroxide intermediate. The reaction was demonstrated to consist of two-steps: an enantioselective formation of hydroperoxide oxindole and a kinetic resolution of the hydroperoxide oxindole via reduction with enolates generated from the oxindoles.