John and Roger recently published a commentary in the Journal of Cheminformatics on the “Technical implications of new IUPAC elements in cheminformatics”. It’s fairly short, and focuses on ambiguities that may arise in two areas: (1) interpreting chemical sketches and (2) SMARTS patterns.
Regarding (1), the main point is that Ts, the new symbol for Tennessine, is currently widely used to indicate Tosyl. While one could instead use Tos, a quick look at usage in sketches from recent patents indicates that Ts is 20 times more common than Tos.
Section (2) is a bit more technical, and covers ambiguities which must be addressed for writers of SMARTS parsers and generators, which may misinterpret existing SMARTS when adding support for the new elements.
Thanks to all for writing this. Definitely food for thought and inspiration for changes to the products mentioned.