Organosilicon Biotechnology II: Biocatalysis at Silicon

The application of biochemical methods in organosilicon chemistry has the potential to provide access to otherwise unattainable chemical structures. The development of biochemical methods in silicon chemistry has been under exploration for approximately 40 years, and recently, methods have been developed for catalyzing transformations at silicon in which proteins have been shown to catalyze new-to-nature transformations. These new methods complement previous work in which enzymes performed more traditional transformations in which silicon generally played the role of spectator. This overview will cover recent developments in the field of organosilicon biotechnology focusing on the use of peptides and proteins to mediate transformations at silicon.