Design,Synthesis, and Biochemical Evaluation of Alpha-Amanitin Derivatives Containing Analogs of the trans-Hydroxyproline Residue for Potential Use in Antibody-Drug Conjugates

Alpha-amanitin, an extremely toxic bicyclic octapeptide extracted from the death-cap mushroom, Amanita phalloides, is a highly selective allosteric inhibitor of RNA polymerase II. Following on growing interest in using this toxin as a payload in antibody-drug conjugates, herein we report the synthesis and biochemical evaluation of several new derivatives of this toxin to probe the role of the trans-hydroxyproline (Hyp), which is known to be critical for toxicity. This structure activity relationship (SAR) study represents the first of its kind to use various Hyp-analogs to alter the conformational and H-bonding properties of Hyp in amanitin.     

Colloidally Stable CdS Quantum Dots in Water with Electrostatically Stabilized Weak-Binding,Sulfur-Free Ligands

Colloidal quantum dot (QD) photocatalysts have the electrochemical and optical properties to be highly effective for a range of redox reactions. QDs are proven photo-redox catalysts for a variety of reactions in organic solvents but are less prominent for aqueous reactions. Aqueous QD photocatalysts require hydrophilic ligand shells that provide long-term colloidal stability but are not so tight-binding as to prevent catalytic substrates from accessing the QD surface. Common thiolate ligands, which also poison many co-catalysts and undergo photo-oxidative desorption, are therefore often not an option. This paper describes a framework for the design of water-solubilizing ligands that are in dynamic exchange on and off the QD surface, but still provide long-term colloidal stability to CdS QDs. The binding affinity and inter-ligand electrostatic interactions of a bifunctional ligand, aminoethyl phosphonic acid (AEP), are tuned with the pH of the dispersion. The key to colloidal stability is electrostatic stabilization of the monolayer. This work demonstrates a means of mimicking the stabilizing power of a thiolate-bound ligand with a zwitterionic tail group, but without the thiolate binding group.     

Exploring the Phase-Selective,Green, Hydrothermal Synthesis of Upconverting Doped Sodium Yttrium Fluoride: Effects of Temperature,Time, and Precursors

The aim of this work was i) to develop a hydrothermal, low-temperature synthesis protocol affording the upconverting hexagonal phase NaYF₄ with suitable dopants while adhering to the “green chemistry” standards and ii) to explore the effect that different parameters have on the products. In optimizing the synthesis protocol, short reaction times and low temperatures (below 150 °C) were considered. Yb³⁺ and Er³⁺ ions were chosen as dopants for the NaYF₄ material. Within the context of the second goal, parameters including nature of the precursors, treatment temperature, and treatment time were investigated to afford a pure hexagonal crystalline phase, both in the doped and undoped materials. To fully explore the synthesis results, the prepared materials were characterized from a structural (XRD), compositional (XPS, ICP-MS), and morphological (SEM) point of view. The upconverting properties of the compounds were confirmed by photoluminescence measurements.     

The role of the dynamic pressure in stationary heat conduction of a rarefied polyatomic gas

The effect of the dynamic pressure (non-equilibrium pressure) on stationary heat conduction in a rarefied polyatomic gas at rest is elucidated by the theory of extended thermodynamics. It is shown that this effect is observable in a non-polytropic gas. Numerical studies are presented for a para-hydrogen gas as a typical example.     

Dispersion analysis of triangle-based spectral element methods for elastic wave propagation

We study the numerical dispersion/dissipation of Triangle-based Spectral Element Methods (TSEM) of order N????1 when coupled with the Leap-Frog (LF) finite difference scheme to simulate the elastic wave propagation over a structured triangulation of the 2D physical domain. The analysis relies on the discrete eigenvalue problem resulting from the approximation of the dispersion relation. First, we present semi-discrete dispersion graphs by varying the approximation polynomial degree and the number of discrete points per wavelength. The fully-discrete ones are then obtained by varying also the time step. Numerical results for the TSEM, resp. TSEM-LF, are compared with those of the classical Quadrangle-based Spectral Element Method (QSEM), resp. QSEM-LF.     

Composite Likelihood Inference in a Discrete Latent Variable Model for Two-Way “Clustering-by-Segmentation” Problems

We consider a discrete latent variable model for two-way data arrays, which allows one to simultaneously produce clusters along one of the data dimensions (e.g., exchangeable observational units or features) and contiguous groups, or segments, along the other (e.g., consecutively ordered times or locations). The model relies on a hidden Markov structure but, given its complexity, cannot be estimated by full maximum likelihood. Therefore, we introduce a composite likelihood methodology based on considering different subsets of the data. The proposed approach is illustrated by simulation, and with an application to genomic data.