A supramolecular "ship in bottle" strategy for enantiomeric selectivity in geminate radical pair recombination

[reaction: see text] Reactions in which zeolites are modified with chiral inductors to serve as media for chiral induction are often limited by the propensity of both substrate and inductor to occupy the same supercage. Herein, we report a "ship in bottle" strategy utilizing the thermal decomposition of dioxetanes obtained from oxazolidinone-substituted enecarbamates for the enantioselective generation of methyl desoxybenzoin (MDB). Photoexcitation of the supramolecular geminate molecular pair results in enrichment of the opposite enantiomer of MDB.     

Generalized Gaussian reference curve measurement model for high‐performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector separation and its solution by multi‐target intermittent particle swarm optimization

In order to separate a high‐performance liquid chromatography with diode array detector (HPLC‐DAD) data set to chromatogram peaks and spectra for all compounds, a separation method based on the model of generalized Gaussian reference curve measurement (GGRCM) and the algorithm of multi‐target intermittent particle swarm optimization (MIPSO) is proposed in this paper. A parameter θ is constructed to generate a reference curve r(θ) for a chromatogram peak based on its physical principle. The GGRCM model is proposed to calculate the fitness ε(θ) for every θ, which indicates the possibility for the HPLC‐DAD data set to contain a chromatogram peak similar to the r(θ). The smaller the fitness is, the higher the possibility. The algorithm of MIPSO is then introduced to calculate the optimal parameters by minimizing the fitness mentioned earlier. Finally, chromatogram peaks are constructed based on these optimal parameters, and the spectra are calculated by an estimator. Through the simulations and experiments, the following conclusions are drawn: (i) the GGRCM‐MIPSO method can extract chromatogram peaks from simulation data set without knowing the number of the compounds in advance even when a severe overlap and white noise exist and (ii) the GGRCM‐MIPSO method can be applied to the real HPLC‐DAD data set. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Control of chirality by cations in confined spaces: Photooxidation of enecarbamates inside zeolite supercages

On photooxygenation of the optically active Z/E enecarbamates 1 (X = i-Pr) and 2 (X = Me) equipped with the oxazolidinone chiral auxiliary in methylene-blue (MB)-incorporated, alkali-metal (M = Li, Na, K, Cs, Rb), exchanged Y-type zeolites (MY-MB), oxidative cleavage of the alkenyl functionality releases the enantiomerically enriched methyldesoxybenzoin (MDB) product. The extent (%ee) and/or the sense (R or S) of the stereoselectivity in the formation of the MDB product depends on the choice of the alkyl substiuent (i-Pr or Me) at the C-4 position of the oxazolidinone chiral auxiliary, the Z/E configuration of the alkene functionality in the enecarbamates, and the type of alkali metal in the zeolite. Most significantly-the highlight of this study-is the reversed sense (R or S) in the stereoselection when the photooxygenation is run in CDCl3 solution versus inside the MY-MB zeolite. As a mechanistic rationale for this novel stereochemical behavior, we propose the combined action of spatial confinement and metal-ion coordination (assessed by density-functional calculations) of the substrate within the zeolite supercage, both of which greatly reduce the freedom of the substrate and entropically manipulate the stereochemical outcome.     

Unambiguous determination of the ionization state of a glycoside hydrolase active site lysine by 1H-15N heteronuclear correlation spectroscopy

We have investigated the lysine side chain amines in the 34 kDa catalytic domain from Cellulomonas fimi beta-(1,4)-glycosidase Cex (or CfXyn10A) using 1H-detected 15N heteronuclear correlation NMR spectroscopy. Signals from the 1Hzeta ( approximately 8 ppm) and 15Nzeta ( approximately 35 ppm) of Lys302 in the unmodified enzyme and Lys47 in a trapped cellobiosyl-enzyme intermediate were detected in a 1H-15N HMQC spectrum (pH 6.5 and 30 degrees C). The amine of Lys302 forms a buried ion pair, and that of Lys47 is hydrogen bonded to the cellobioside. Both lysines are positively charged, as unambiguously demonstrated by the splitting of their 15Nzeta signals into quartets (|1JNH| approximately 75 Hz) in a 1H-15N HSQC spectrum recorded without 1H decoupling during 15N evolution. Qualitative insights into the dynamic properties of these lysines are also provided by the deviations of their quartet intensity ratios from that of approximately 3:1:1:3 expected for a highly mobile amine. On the basis of the observed ratios of approximately 1:1:1:1 for the quartet of Lys302 and approximately 0.5:1:1:0.5 for Lys47, the amine of the latter active site residue is most rigidly positioned. Signals from at least 8 and 10 additional positively charged, mobile amines in Cex were observed at 10 degrees C and pH 6.5 and 5.6, respectively. By using conditions of reduced temperature, slightly acidic pH, and low general base concentrations, as well as water flipback pulses to minimize the effects of hydrogen exchange, 1H-15N correlation experiments provide a sensitive route to directly investigate the charge states and dynamic properties of the N-terminal and side chain amines in proteins and protein complexes.     

Three-Dimensional Delaunay Mesh Generation

We propose an algorithm to compute a conforming Delaunay mesh of a bounded domain in specified by a piecewise linear complex. Arbitrarily small input angles are allowed, and the input complex is not required to be a manifold. Our algorithm encloses the input edges with a small buffer zone, a union of balls whose sizes are proportional to the local feature sizes at their centers. In the output mesh, the radius-edge ratio of the tetrahedra outside the buffer zone is bounded by a constant independent of the domain, while that of the tetrahedra inside the buffer zone is bounded by a constant depending on the smallest input angle. Furthermore, the output mesh is graded. Our work is the first that provides quality guarantees for Delaunay meshes in the presence of small input angles.     

A magnetic bead‐based serum proteomic fingerprinting method for parallel analytical analysis and micropreparative purification

ProteinChip surface‐enhanced laser desorption/ionization technology and magnetic beads‐based ClinProt system are commonly used for semi‐quantitative profiling of plasma proteome in biomarker discovery. Unfortunately, the proteins/peptides detected by MS are non‐recoverable. To obtain the protein identity of a MS peak, additional time‐consuming and material‐consuming purification steps have to be done. In this study, we developed a magnetic beads‐based proteomic fingerprinting method that allowed semi‐quantitative proteomic profiling and micropreparative purification of the profiled proteins in parallel. The use of different chromatographic magnetic beads allowed us to obtain different proteomic profiles, which were comparable to those obtained by the ProteinChip surface‐enhanced laser desorption/ionization technology. Our assays were semi‐quantitative. The normalized peak intensity was proportional to concentration measured by immunoassay. Both intra‐assay and inter‐assay coefficients of variation of the normalized peak intensities were in the range of 4–30%. Our method only required 2 μL of serum or plasma for generating enough proteins for semi‐quantitative profiling by MALDI‐TOF‐MS as well as for gel electrophoresis and subsequent protein identification. The protein peaks and corresponding gel spots could be easily matched by comparing their intensities and masses. Because of its high efficiency and reproducibility, our method has great potentials in clinical research, especially in biomarker discovery.     

An enhanced method for fast generation of hologram sub-lines

Sub-lines are one-dimensional diffraction patterns representing the light beams emerging from horizontal planes of an object image. Past research has demonstrated that the sub-lines can be encapsulated as a multi-bank filtering process, and implemented with a field programmable gate array （FPGA） device. As the complexity of the filters is high, their length and the number of input pins have to be reduced substantially, hence leading to degradation on the reconstructed images. We propose an enhanced method to overcome the problem by binarizing the filters＇ coefficients, and half-toning the pixel intensities of the object image. Experimental evaluation reveals that our method results in reconstructed images are superior to that obtained with the parent method.     

Spiral morphology-dependent resonances in an optical fiber: effects of fiber tilt and focused Gaussian beam illumination

Spiral morphology-dependent resonances have been observed in a tilted optical fiber. The polarization-preserving and the cross-polarized elastic-scattering spectra for plane-wave illumination show that the wavelengths of the resonances are blueshifted quadratically as the fiber tilt angle increases. When a focused Gaussian beam illuminates the fiber at its edge, the resonances are blueshifted and broadened as the detector is offset from the scattering plane with the maximum scattering intensity. The blueshift with focused beam illumination is also a consequence of the spiral resonances.