Tiny molecular rings open new ways for designing better medicines

Cyclopropanes are organic chemistry's smallest rings.

The short version

• Three carbon atoms are joined in a triangle, creating a compact and unusually strained structure.
• Despite—or partly because of—this unusual geometry, cyclopropanes are found in many biologically active natural products and have important applications in medicines and drug discovery, from antidepressants to antibiotics and antiviral research.
• by CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies .

What happened

Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Cyclopropanes are organic chemistry's smallest rings. Connect these carbon triangles to an amine, a functional group with a nitrogen at its center, and you get aminocyclopropanes.

Why it matters

Such molecular substitutes that resemble an existing part of a drug but can alter important properties, such as biological activity and metabolic stability, are referred to as bioisosteres and have shown beneficial effects in countless cases.

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