Despite being discovered over a century ago, a unified mechanistic understanding of the Pictet-Spengler reaction continues to elude us. In this issue of Chem, Zheng et al. go a long way toward finally answering this long-standing and occasionally controversial mechanistic puzzle by combining density functional theory with molecular dynamics in an innovative analysis.

中文翻译：

---

了解螺旋吲哚胺在Pictet-Spengler反应中的作用

尽管已经有一个多世纪的历史了，但对Pictet-Spengler反应的统一机理理解仍使我们望而却步。在本期《化学》杂志上，Zheng等人。通过将密度泛函理论与分子动力学相结合进行创新分析，可以为最终解决这个长期存在且有时引起争议的机械难题大有帮助。