CAS Scientists Help To Explain Diversity of Molecular Structures

By studying the variety of chemical substances and their structures recorded in the CAS REGISTRY^SM database, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) scientists have discovered that a limited number of molecular shapes are the frameworks for a disproportionately large percentage of reported substances.

As shown in the CAS study, half of the known organic chemical substances can be described by just 143 shapes.

The analysis, published in The Journal of Organic Chemistry, explains why certain molecular frameworks are more likely to be used in new compounds and may also help identify new regions of chemistry space ripe for exploration.