Summary
A peer-reviewed Nature study reports a haemprotein-catalysed reaction sequence that makes chiral oxazolidinones directly from unactivated alkenes.
A peer-reviewed study published in Nature on 23 September 2026 reports a haemprotein-catalysed sequence that converts unactivated alkenes into chiral oxazolidinones. The method combines aziridination with ring expansion, extending haemprotein-catalysed nitrene transfer to alkene substrates that the authors describe as previously outside its reach.
A cascade reaches a difficult stereocentre
Aziridination forms a small, nitrogen-containing ring from an alkene. In the reported cascade, that reaction is followed by ring expansion to produce an oxazolidinone. The researchers report direct, enantioselective synthesis: the reaction favours one mirror-image form of the product over the other.
That selectivity matters because the paper focuses on a stereocentre at the oxazolidinone’s 5-position, next to oxygen. The authors say methods for setting this particular stereocentre have been less developed than methods for creating chirality at the 4-position, next to nitrogen. Their computational analysis points to mutations introduced through directed evolution as responsible for the products’ enantioselective formation.
The substrate change is also notable. According to the paper’s abstract, haemprotein-catalysed nitrene transfer had been limited to conjugated systems such as styrenes. The reported reaction instead functionalises unactivated alkenes, offering a route from simple starting materials. The abstract does not provide yields or substrate-by-substrate results, so the reaction’s breadth and practical scale cannot be assessed from the available account.
Why the scaffold matters
Oxazolidinones are used in asymmetric synthesis and drug discovery. The paper highlights 5-(S)-aminomethyl oxazolidinones as important scaffolds for next-generation antibiotics targeting multidrug- and extensively drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Conventional routes to chiral oxazolidinones often rely on a “chiral pool” approach, using enantiopure amino alcohols as key intermediates. A direct route from alkenes could provide an alternative way to access these structures. The study reports a synthetic method and relevant chemical scaffolds; it does not report a new antibiotic or a clinical treatment.