Selective Deuteration and Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange in Organic and Biological Systems
This community develops chemical methods to replace hydrogen atoms in molecules with deuterium or tritium, and uses these isotopic labels to study protein structure and function.
The work centers on catalytic strategies for selective deuteration, particularly of arenes, heteroarenes, and pharmaceutical candidates, using iridium, palladium, and nickel catalysts or electrochemical methods. A substantial portion of the research focuses on hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) to probe protein dynamics and structural changes. Recurring techniques include fast photochemical oxidation, NMR spectroscopy, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The community also investigates the synthesis of deuterated amino acids and the application of heavy water in reductive reactions to create stable isotopic labels for drug discovery and mechanistic studies.
The largest share of the community's output is found in hydrogen research, accounting for 1022 papers, which represents 0.2% of all hydrogen research tracked. Europium research contributes 218 papers, representing 1.0% of all europium research tracked. Iridium research contributes 133 papers, representing 0.3% of all iridium research tracked.
The community comprises 4,258 papers, published primarily in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Biochemistry, and Tetrahedron Letters.
Recent work continues to focus on scalable and site-selective deuteration methods, including electrochemical approaches for pharmaceuticals and the use of frustrated Lewis pairs for alpha-deuteration of amides and esters.