AtTrxh3, a Thioredoxin,Is Identified as an Abscisic AcidBinding Protein in Arabidopsis thaliana

Abscisic acid (ABA, 1) is a plant hormone that regulates various plant physiological processes such as seed developing and stress responses. The ABA signaling system has been elucidated; binding of ABA with PYL proteins triggers ABA signaling. We have previously reported a new method to isolate a protein targeted with a bioactive small molecule using a biotin linker with alkyne and amino groups, a protein cross-linker, and a bioactive small molecule with an azido group (azido probe). This method was used to identify the unknown ABA binding protein of Arabidopsis thaliana. As a result, AtTrxh3, a thioredoxin, was isolated as an ABA binding protein. Our developed method can be applied to the identification of binding proteins of bioactive compounds.     

Density functional theory of chemical reactivity indices in some ion—molecule reaction systems

Three isoelectronic reactions, proton transfer (PT ), hydrogen abstraction (HA ), and electron transfer (ET ), of NH⁺₃ with NH,₃ H₂O, and HF have been studied using ab initio molecular orbital calculations. For the reaction of NH⁺₃ + H₂O, the energy of the transition state (TS) is higher than that of the reactants. This is consistent with the experimental observation that the rate constant is less than the average dipole orientation (ADO) rate constant. It seems reasonable that the reaction rate for the reaction NH⁺₃ + H₂O would hardly depend on the v₂ mode of NH⁺₃ at least for low-lying excited states (E_int≤ 0.714 eV) of the v₂ mode, because the v₂ mode contributes mainly to the normal mode orthogonal to the reaction coordinate at the TS . This is consistent with experimental observation. A similar prediction can be made for the NH⁺₃ + HF reaction. The electron-transfer processes for the HA reactions have been examined in terms of the intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC ). The order of reactivity with NH⁺₃ is NH₃ > H₂O > HF. It is found that the degree of the electron transfer and the reactivity are correlated with the absolute hardness (η) of NH₃, H₂O, and HF. This is in accord with the softness as the chemical reactivity index in the density functional theory. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Enzymatic Synthesis of Chitin‐ and Chitosan‐graft‐Aliphatic Polyesters

Summary: The title polymers, in which both the stem and the graft are biodegradable, have been synthesized for the first time in a one‐pot, lipase‐catalyzed, graft‐polymerization reaction (in bulk, at 70 °C) of β‐butyrolactone (β‐BL) and ε‐caprolactone (ε‐CL) onto chitin and chitosan. The reactivity order of the lactones was found to be ε‐CL > β‐BL ≫ γ‐BL (no reaction). All the graft polymers prepared are insoluble in common organic solvents.

Synthesis of chitin‐ or chitosan‐graft‐aliphatic polyesters.     

A novel promoter, heteropoly acid, mediated chemo- and stereoselective sulfoxide glycosidation reactions

The chemo- and stereoselective glycosidations of sulfinylglycosides and alcohols using a heteropoly acid, H₃PW₁₂O₄₀, as a new promoter have been developed.     

Intense THz-radiation from semiconductors under magnetic field irradiated with femtosecond laser pulses

The THz-radiation power from InAs reaches sub-mW level in a 1.7-T magnetic field irradiated with femtosecond laser pulses of 1.5-W average power. The THz-radiation power is related almost quadratically both to the magnetic field and to the excitation laser power. Furthermore, the THz-radiation spectrum is found to be controlled by the excitation pulsewidth, chirp direction of the excitation pulse, and the magnetic field.     

New methodology for synthesizing polyolefinic graft block copolymers and their morphological features

This paper describes a new synthetic route for polyolefinic graft block copolymers by adopting coupling reaction between terminally hydroxylated polyolefins and maleic anhydride grafted polyolefins. Terminally hydroxylated polypropylene (PP-OH) was coupled with maleic anhydride modified polyethylene (PE-g-MAH) and such ethylene-propylene random copolymer (EPR-g-MAH) to give polyolefinic graft block copolymers (PE-g-PP and EPR-g-PP, respectively). The formation of PE-g-PP was confirmed by enhancement on molecular weight and it brought about distinctive decrease in size of dispersed domain in its phase separation morphology. Occurrence of coupling reaction to give EPR-g-PP was indicated by extreme decrease in its solubility to n-decane and it led to unique morphology demonstrating lamella microstructure that had never been reported for a comparable polyolefin composite.     

Direct polycondensation of carbon dioxide with xylylene glycols: a new method for the synthesis of polycarbonates

This communication describes the direct polycondensation of carbon dioxide with p- and m-xylylene glycols using the system trisubstituted phosphine/carbon tetrahalide/base as a condensing agent. The polymerization reaction of carbon dioxide with p-xylylene glycol was carried out in the presence of the condensing agent in N,N-dimethylformamide. The yield was at most 81.0% obtained by using the condensing agent tributylphosphine/carbon tetrabromide/N-cyclohexyl-N′,N′,N″,N″-tetramethylguanidine (CyTMG). The structure of the product was determined by means of ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, and IR spectroscopy to be that of a polycarbonate. The molecular weight was estimated to be ca. 1 000–2 000 by ¹H NMR analyses.     

Nature and relative contribution of luminescent species in the photodegradation of polyolefins

Luminescent species observed in the polyolefins were mainly foreign impurities, i.e., polynuclear aromatics (PNA) adsorbed from an ambient atmosphere. The luminescent species adsorbed under normal atmospheric conditions and an equivalent amount of PNA did not affect the photodegradation of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). On the other hand, the extracted precipitates from HDPE accelerated the photodegradation of the polymer and, also, 3-octanone slightly accelerated it, but little effect was observed in 1-icosene. Therefore, the activity of impurities on the photodegradation of HDPE can be expressed in the following order: Extracted precipitates >> C=sO > PNA ∞ -CH=CH₂     

Swelling-induced Mechanochromism in Multinetwork Polymers

We report a novel and versatile approach to achieving swelling-induced mechanochemistry using a multinetwork (MN) strategy that enables polymer networks to repeatedly swell with monomers and solvents. The isotropic expansion of the first network (FN) provides sufficient force to drive the mechanochemical scission of a radical-based mechanophore, difluorenylsuccinonitrile (DFSN). Although prompt recombination generally occurs in such highly mobile environments, the resulting pink radicals are kinetically stabilized in the gels, probably due to limited diffusion in the extended polymer chains. Moreover, the DFSN embedded in the isotropically strained chain exhibits increased thermal reactivity, which can be reasonably explained by an entropic contribution of the FN to the dissociation. The utility of the MN polymers is demonstrated not only in terms of swelling-force-induced network modification, but also in the context of tunable reactivity of the dissociative unit through proper design of the hierarchical network architecture.