A New Generation of "Cholaphanes": Steroid-Derived Macrocyclic Hosts with Enhanced Solubility and Controlled Flexibility

The macrocyclic "cholaphanes" 3a-c were synthesized from the inexpensive steroid cholic acid. Like earlier relatives they feature substantial cavities with inward-directed hydroxyl groups, suitable for binding polar molecules such as carbohydrates in nonpolar media. New features are the externally directed alkyl chains, promoting solubility in organic solvents, and (in the case of 3b/c) reduced conformational freedom resulting from truncation of the steroidal side-chain. In particular, modeling shows that the smallest macrocycle 3c possesses very little flexibility, preferring an open conformation which is also revealed in the X-ray crystal structure of its pentahydrate. NMR studies indicated that all three cholaphanes form 1:1 complexes with octyl beta-D-glucoside in CDCl(3), with K(a) = 600-1560 M(-)(1). Cholaphanes 3b/c proved able to extract methyl beta-D-glucoside from aqueous solutions into CHCl(3). The transport of methyl beta-D-glucoside across a chloroform barrier was also demonstrated for 3c.     

Structural and Chemical Analysis of Materials with High Spatial Resolution

 An understanding of the correlation between microstructures and properties of materials require the characterization of the material on many different length scales. Often the properties depend primarily on the atomistics of defects, such as dislocations and interfaces. The different techniques of transmission electron microscopy allow the characterization of the structure and of the chemical composition of materials with high spatial resolution to the atomic level: high resolution transmission electron microscopy allows the determination of the position of the columns of atoms (ions) with high accuracy. The accuracy which can be achieved in these measurements depends not only on the instrumentation but also on the quality of the transmitted specimen and on the scattering power of the atoms (ions) present in the analyzed column. The chemical composition can be revealed from investigations by analytical microscopy which includes energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, mainly quantitatively applied for heavy elements, and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. Furthermore, the energy-loss near-edge structure of EELS data results in information on the local band structure of unoccupied states of the excited atoms and, therefore, on bonding. A quantitative evaluation of convergent beam electron diffraction results in information on the electron charge density distribution of the bulk (defect-free) material. The different techniques are described and applied to different problems in materials science. It will be shown that nearly atomic resolution can be achieved in high resolution electron microscopy and in analytical electron microscopy. Recent developments in electron microscopy instrumentation will result in atomic resolution in the foreseeable future.     

Probing the water coordination of protein-targeted MRI contrast agents by pulsed ENDOR spectroscopy.

A novel methodology based on electron-nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) spectroscopy is used for the direct determination of the water coordination number (q) of gadolinium-based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents. Proton ENDOR spectra can be obtained at approximately physiological concentrations for metal complexes in frozen aqueous solutions either in the presence or absence of protein targets. It is shown that, depending on the structure of the co-ligand, the water hydration number of a complex in aqueous solution can be significantly different to when the complex is noncovalently bound to a protein. From the ENDOR spectra of the exchangeable protons, precise information on the metal-proton distance can be derived as well. These essential parameters directly correlate with the efficacy of MRI contrast agents and should therefore aid the development of novel, highly efficient compounds targeted to various proteins.     

Vitamin-B12-katalysierte C,C-Bindungsverknüpfung: Synthese von Jasmonaten via sequentielle Radikal-Reaktion

Vitamin-B₁₂-Catalyzed C, C-Bond Formation: Synthesis of Jasmonates via Sequential Radical Reaction The Cbl-catalyzed electroreduction of 3-(2′-bromo-1′-ethoxyethoxy)cyclopenten ( 1a ) in presence of 1-cyanovinyl-acetate ( 8 ) gave, in a sequential radical reaction (5-exo-trig-cyclization of 1a followed by addition to 8 ), 1-cyano-2-(2′-ethoxy-hexahydro-2′H-cyclopenta[b] furan-4′-yl)ethyl acetate ( 10a ). This intermediate was transformed to methyl jasmonate ( 7 ; four steps) and epituberolide ( 9 ; three steps) in 20 and 31% yield, respectively, from cyclopent-2-en-l-ol.     

On injective enumerability of recursively enumerable classes of cofinite sets

To date the problem of finding a general characterization of injective enumerability of recursively enumerable (r.e) classes of r.e. sets has proved intractable. This paper investigates the problem for r.e. classes of cofinite sets. We state a suitable criterion for r.e. classesC such that there is a boundn with |-A|n for allAC. On the other hand an example is constructed which shows that Lachlan's condition (F) does not imply injective enumerability for r.e. classes of cofinite sets. We also look at a certain embeddability property and show that it is equivalent with injective enumerability for certain classes of cofinite sets. At the end we present a reformulation of property (F).Thank you for technical support, Wolfgang Eppler, for intellectual support, Alistair Lachlan, and for proof-reading, Martin Kummer. Thanks also to the anonymous referee     

Hubbard-like models in high spatial dimensions

The present paper studies the properties of Hubbard-like models in high spatial dimensionsD. In a first par the limit of infinite dimension and its main features-i.e.i) the mapping onto a generalized atomic model with an additional auxiliary field andii) the validity of the local approximation for the self-energy-are worked out in a systematic (1/D)-expansion. Since the hopping matrix elements have to be properly scaled with the dimensionD, the (1/D)-expansion is also an expansion in the hopping amplitude. Thus for small hopping theD-limit may serve as a proper approximation for finite-dimensional systems. The second part of the paper adopts the hybridisation-perturbation theory of the single impurity Anderson model in order to construct a perturbation theory for the auxiliary field of the generalized atom which can also be interpreted as an expansion in the hopping amplitude. The non-crossing approximation (NCA) is used to study the antiferromagnetic phase transtion of theD-Hubbard model in the case of half filling: the critical temperature, the antiferromagnetic order parameter and the free energy of the lattice system are calculated. The NCA-results are in quite good agreement with recent results from the imaginary-time discretisation method.     

Evidence for a monomeric structure of nonribosomal Peptide synthetases

Nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS) are multimodular biocatalysts that bacteria and fungi use to assemble many complex peptides with broad biological activities. The same modular enzymatic assembly line principles are found in fatty acid synthases (FAS), polyketide synthases (PKS), and most recently in hybrid NRPS/PKS multienzymes. FAS as well as PKS are known to function as homodimeric enzyme complexes, raising the question of whether NRPS may also act as homodimers. To test this hypothesis, biophysical methods (size exclusion chromatography, analytical equilibrium ultracentrifugation, and chemical crosslinking) and biochemical methods (two-affinity-tag-system and complementation studies with enzymes being inactivated in different catalytic domains) were applied to NRPS subunits from the gramicidin S (GrsA-ATE), tyrocidine (TycB(1)-CAT and TycB(2-3)-AT.CATE), and enterobactin (EntF-CATTe) biosynthetic systems. These methods had revealed the dimeric structure of FAS and PKS previously, but all three NRPS systems investigated are functionally active as monomers.     

Size control of dendrimer-templated silica

One of the most significant challenges facing the biomimetic synthesis of materials is achieving the requisite level of dimensional and spatial control. Typical reaction conditions for biomimetic silica synthesis allow for continued growth and ripening leading to the formation of larger nanospheres on the order of 200-600 nm in diameter. Herein, we have used polyamidoamine and polypropylenimine dendrimers as templates to expand the reaction conditions of biogenic silica production to produce a more robust synthesis leading to size-selective precipitation of silica nanospheres. Through the use of defined concentrations of phosphate buffer and main group metal chloride salts, we have shown that the biomimetic silica growth process is controlled by cationic neutralization of the anionic silica nanosphere surface. Neutralization minimizes electrostatic repulsions, allowing for agglomerization and continued growth of nanospheres. By controlling these concentrations, we can selectively produce silica nanospheres of desired dimensions between 30 and 300 nm without adversely affecting the template's activity.     

Characterization of individual atmospheric particles by element mapping in electron probe microanalysis

In this paper procedures for the characterization of individual aerosol particles by element mapping in the electron microprobe are presented. The number, size and qualitative chemical composition of particles is derived from a combination of secondary or backscattered electron images and element distribution maps. Accuracy of the size distribution and reliability of the qualitative analysis procedure were checked with silicate samples. In order to obtain a semi-quantitative estimate of the chemical composition of individual particles the count rates taken from element distribution maps are corrected for matrix and geometric effects using particle ZAF procedures.Dedicated to Professor Dr. rer. nat. Dr. h.c. Hubertus Nickel on the occasion of his 65th birthday