Transition Metal Scaffolds Used To Bring New-to-Nature Reactions into Biological Systems

As a means to develop new tools to manipulate biological systems, transition metals have been looked upon as an area of high potential due to the bioorthogonality of new-to-nature reactions. To facilitate their incorporation into complex biological systems, researchers have mainly focused on the development of metal catalyst complexes, protein scaffolds, and nanocarriers to protect and preserve the biocatalytic activity of transition metals. The intent of this review is to summarize these structural scaffolds, which has steadily allowed researchers to push transition metal usage not previously thought possible within bacteria, mammalian cells, and higher-level organisms.