Comparative studies of the colony-promoting activity of porcine kidney extract with several interleukins and colony-stimulating factors.

Porcine kidney extracts (PKE) possess colony-promoting activity (CPA) which stimulates primitive hematopoietic cells in the presence of granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), but PKE itself does not stimulate colony formation on murine bone marrow cells. We have compared the CPA of PKE with that of recombinant cytokines or CSFs such as interleukin-1 alpha (IL-1 alpha), IL-3, IL-6, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), GM-CSF and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF-1). All of these factors were less potent than PKE. Furthermore, the combinations of IL-1 alpha or PKE with G-CSF, GM-CSF, IL-3 or IL-6 were examined in the presence of one of these factors such as CSF. It is found that PKE acts synergistically with G-CSF, GM-CSF, IL-3 and IL-6, showing enhancement ratios of 10, 2.5, 4.2 and 30, respectively. The combination of IL-1 alpha resulted in poor colony formation in contrast with those of PKE, except for CSF-1. These results suggest that the CPA of the factor(s) in PKE differ from the cytokines and CSFs tested in this study, and is significantly affected by various types of CSF.     

Tetrakis-acridinyl peptide: a novel fluorometric reagent for nucleic acid analysis based on the fluorescence dequenching upon DNA binding

Tetrakis-acridinyl peptide 1 assuming a right-handed helical stacked conformation of the acridinyl units can bind to DNA duplex with a very high affinity of 10(8) (M-bp)(-1) even at a high salt concentration of 0.2 M NaCl, irrespective of the base composition. Peptide 1 gave rise to 1600-times enhancement of its fluorescence upon binding to an AT polymer due to the collapse of this stacked structure, but the fluorescence is not enhanced with a GC polymer, though the binding constants of 1 for both polymers were the same.     

Rapid determination method of radiocesium in sea water by cesium-selective resin

A rapid and precise method of determining radiocesium corresponding to 5 mrem/y, the Japan AEC's guideline, was proposed. The development and practical performance of cesium-selective resin and the determination method was described in this paper. The resin was prepared by the formation of ammonium molybdophosphate in the structure of Amberlite XAD-7 resin. It took only 3 hours to carry out all the procedures the authors proposed. This value represents 1/10∼1/2 of the time of conventional method. The concentration of¹³⁷Cs and¹³⁴Cs in sea water was determined to be 0.13∼0.16 pCi/1 and less than 7.1·10⁻² pCi/1, respectively.     

Reaction of poly(vinyl alcohol) with tetravalent ceric ion

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVAI) was oxidized by ceric ion, Ce(IV), in aqueous HNO₃ medium at different temperatures and found to be degraded as a result of selective cleavage of the 1,2-glycol unit existing in PVAl. The rate of oxidation increased with increasing temperature. The aldehyde groups formed at the ends of the degraded polymer upon oxidation were relatively stable at 0°C. With rise of temperature, the aldehyde groups reacted either with excess of Ce(IV) to carboxylic acids or with hydroxyl groups of PVAl molecules to give acetal linkage. When the acetalization predominated over the oxidation to carboxyl group, gelation of the reaction mixture was observed. Based on these results, a plausible mechanism of oxidation of PVAl with Ce(IV) and the subsequent reactions is discussed.     

Aurilide, a cytotoxic depsipeptide from the sea hare Dolabella auricularia: isolation, structure determination, synthesis, and biological activity

The bioassay-guided fractionation of the cytotoxic constituents of the Japanese sea hare Dollabella auricularia led to the isolation of aurilide (1), a 26-membered cyclodepsipeptide. The gross structure of 1 was established by spectroscopic analysis including 2D NMR techniques. The absolute stereostructure was determined by chiral HPLC analysis of acid hydrolysates of 1 and by the enantioselective synthesis of a degradation product arising from a dihydroxylated fatty acid portion. The enantioselective synthesis of 1 was achieved in 12% overall yield (16 steps) and confirmed the absolute stereostructure of 1. The cytotoxicity of 1 was evaluated using a synthetic sample, which was found to exhibit potent cytotoxicity against HeLa S₃ cells with an IC₅₀ of 0.011 μg/mL. Further biological and pharmacological studies of 1 have been carried out by using synthetic 1.     

Motion of redox molecules in solution monitored by the highly-sensitive EQCM technique

The behavior of redox molecules in solution that was not detected by electrochemical techniques was measured by a highly-sensitive electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) technique that has been improved in this study to obtain a high sensitivity of EQCM measurement in solution. The improved EQCM technique allowed to monitor the motion of a redox molecule, that is an access of the molecule to an electrode surface and repulsion from the surface during redox. An EQCM technique currently in use has measured adsorption of redox molecules on an electrode surface or polymerization on the surface caused by a chemical reaction following redox, which exhibits an enough large mass change response to detect with an EQCM measurement. However, access and repulsion of redox molecule, which is a slight motion of the molecule near on electrode surface, has not been detected and investigated by an EQCM technique, because the mass change response seems to be very small. In this study, the redox behavior of methyl viologen on a bare gold surface, pyridinethiol surface and methylpyridinethiol surface was investigated. Although the three electrodes give the same cyclic voltammogram of methyl viologen, the three are different in QCM response recorded at the same time as the voltammetry. Access/repulsion of methyl viologen within an electrical double layer was monitored by the highly-sensitive EQCM technique.     

Partial purification and characterization of a factor for the enhancement of colony formation in vitro by myeloid progenitor cells.

We have purified a factor, hematopoietic promoting factor (HPF), from porcine kidney extract (PKE), which exhibits a promoting activity on granulocyte/macrophage (GM) colony and burst-forming-unit-erythroid (BFU-E)-derived colony formation by progenitors from murine bone marrow cells in vitro. The addition of HPF resulted in an enhancement of the GM colonies as well as BFU-E-derived colonies, but did not enhance the colony-forming-unit-erythroid (CFU-E)-derived colony formation. HPF was added to the BFU-E cultures together with cytokines, such as recombinant murine interleukin-3 (IL-3), recombinant murine GM colony-stimulating-factor (GM-CSF) and recombinant human G-CSF, which have all been shown to enhance BFU-E growth. The combination of HPF plus these cytokines resulted in an enhancement of benzidine negative colony formation in comparison to the case of each cytokine alone; however, no increase was found on BFU-E colony formation. HPF is able to enhance the granulopoiesis and erythropoiesis in vitro. And the synergistic activity of HPF is significantly affected by the presence of cytokines in the cultures.     

Palladium-catalyzed oxidation of alcohols via their allyl carbonates under neutral conditions

Treatment of alkyl allyl carbonates derived from various alcohols with a palladium catalyst in MeCN affords ketones and aldehydes in high yields. This new method of oxidation of alcohols can be applied to various alcohols except simple primary alcohols.