"Chemical Tools and Models for Investigating Reactive Sulfur and Selenium Species"
Abstract: Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is an important biological mediator involved in a wide array of physiological processes. Much of this activity is associated with often inseparable roles of reactive sulfur species, including persulfides (RSS–), polysulfides (HSn–), and related molecules. In addition, emerging examples of reactive selenium species, including H2Se, play complementary and often more potent roles in biological redox chemistry. A significant challenge in furthering our understanding of these highly reactive S and Se species has been the lack of chemical tools for delivery of these molecules in biological contexts and the lack of suitable model systems for investigating fundamental chemical reactivity. This presentation will focus on recent work from our group in two primary areas: (1) Developing responsive small molecule donors for H2S and H2Se, and (2) Developing model systems to investigate the reactivity of dichalcogenide (RSS–, RSSe–, RSeS–, and RSeSe–) including their roles as synthons for bioinorganic model complexes.