Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128, Mainz, Germany.
Institute of Inorganic Chemistry I, Ulm University, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2024 Feb;11(8):e2303396. doi: 10.1002/advs.202303396. Epub 2023 Sep 7.
The term "in vivo ("in the living") chemistry" refers to chemical reactions that take place in a complex living system such as cells, tissue, body liquids, or even in an entire organism. In contrast, reactions that occur generally outside living organisms in an artificial environment (e.g., in a test tube) are referred to as in vitro. Over the past decades, significant contributions have been made in this rapidly growing field of in vivo chemistry, but it is still not fully understood, which transformations proceed efficiently without the formation of by-products or how product formation in such complex environments can be characterized. Potential applications can be imagined that synthesize drug molecules directly within the cell or confer new cellular functions through controlled chemical transformations that will improve the understanding of living systems and develop new therapeutic strategies. The guiding principles of this contribution are twofold: 1) Which chemical reactions can be translated from the laboratory to the living system? 2) Which characterization methods are suitable for studying reactions and structure formation in complex living environments?
“体内化学（in vivo chemistry）”一词是指在细胞、组织、体液，甚至整个生物体等复杂的生命体系中发生的化学反应。相比之下，在人工环境（例如试管中）中通常在生物体之外发生的反应则被称为体外(in vitro)。在过去的几十年中，在这个快速发展的体内化学领域做出了重大贡献，但仍未完全理解，哪些转化可以在不形成副产物的情况下高效进行，以及如何在如此复杂的环境中对产物形成进行表征。可以想象出一些潜在的应用，例如直接在细胞内合成药物分子，或者通过受控的化学转化赋予新的细胞功能，这将有助于加深对生命系统的理解并开发新的治疗策略。本文的指导原则有两个方面：1）哪些化学反应可以从实验室转化到生命体系中？2）哪些表征方法适合研究复杂生命环境中的反应和结构形成？
