Inducing new secondary metabolites through co-cultivation of the fungus Pestalotiopsis sp. with the bacterium Bacillus subtilis

Two new lactones, pestalotiolactones A (1) and B (2), together with three known compounds (3–5) were isolated from the axenic culture of the endophytic fungus Pestalotiopsis sp., obtained from fruits of Drepanocarpus lunatus (Fabaceae). Co-culture of this fungus with Bacillus subtilis afforded two new sesquiterpenoids pestabacillins A (6) and B (7) as well as eight known compounds (8–15). Their structures were elucidated by extensive analysis of the NMR and MS data as well as by comparison with literature data. All isolated compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxic and antimicrobial activities but proved to be inactive.     

影视节目中酸碱指示剂的应用与评价

将影视节目中酸碱指示剂的应用引入到化学教学中，让学生在娱乐中学习化学知识，创造一个有趣的学习情境，提高学生的学习兴趣。     

On the moments of the time to ruin in dependent Sparre Andersen models with emphasis on Coxian interclaim times

The structural properties of the moments of the time to ruin are studied in dependent Sparre Andersen models. The moments of the time to ruin may be viewed as generalized versions of the Gerber–Shiu function. It is shown that structural properties of the Gerber–Shiu function hold also for the moments of the time to ruin. In particular, the moments continue to satisfy defective renewal equations. These properties are discussed in detail in the model of Willmot and Woo (2012), which has Coxian interclaim times and arbitrary time-dependent claim sizes. Structural quantities needed to determine the moments of the time to ruin are specified under this model. Numerical examples illustrating the methodology are presented.     

Activity Essential Residue Analysis of Taxoid 10β-O-Acetyl Transferase for Enzymatic Synthesis of Baccatin

Taxoid 10β-O-acetyl transferase (DBAT) is a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of the famous anticancer drug paclitaxel, which catalyses the formation of baccatin III from 10-deacetylbaccatin III (10-DAB). However, the activity essential residues of the enzyme are still unknown, and the acylation mechanism from its natural substrate 10-deacetylbaccatin III and acetyl CoA to baccatin III remains unclear. In this study, the homology modelling, molecular docking, site-directed mutagenesis, and kinetic parameter determination of the enzyme were carried out. The results showed that the enzyme mutant DBAT^H162A resulted in complete loss of enzymatic activity, suggesting that the residue histidine at 162 was essential to DBAT activity. Residues D166 and R363 which were located in the pocket of the enzyme by homology modelling and molecular docking were also important for DBAT activity through the site-directed mutations. Furthermore, four amino acid residues including S31 and D34 from motif SXXD, D372 and G376 from motif DFGWG also played important roles on acylation. This was the first report of the elucidation of the activity essential residues of DBAT, making it possible for the further structural-based re-design of the enzyme for efficient biotransformation of baccatin III and paclitaxel.     

Synthesis,characterization and energetic properties of novel 1-methyl-1,2,4-triazolium N-aryl/N-pyridinyl ylids

Synthesis, characterization and energetic properties of novel, nitrogen-rich 1-methyl-1,2,4-triazolium N-aryl/N-pyridinyl ylids 3a–m are reported.     

Iron(III)-catalyzed synthesis of selenoesters from α-amino carbonyl derivatives at room temperature

An Fe(III)-catalyzed efficient method has been developed for the synthesis of selenoester derivatives in high yields through the coupling of α-amino carbonyl/glycine derivatives and diselenides under ambient air. A library of benzoselenoate derivatives having a variety of substituents has been synthesized. A plausible reaction pathway has been predicted. Experimental results suggest that the reaction proceeds through a radical pathway. Operational simplicity, compatibility with various α-amino carbonyls and diselenides, high yields, fast reaction and mild reaction conditions are the notable advantages of this procedure. We have also shown the practical application of the synthesized selenoesters which is useful to generate peptide bonds in biological sciences.     

Recent progress in nanomaterial-enhanced fluorescence polarization/anisotropy sensors

As a promising signaling transduction approach, fluorescence polarization (FP)/fluorescence anisotropy (FA), provides a powerful quantitative tool for the rotational motion of fluorescently labeled molecules in chemical or biological homogeneous systems. Unlike fluorescence intensity, FP/FA is almost independent the concentration or quantum of fluorophores, but they are highly dependent on the size or molecular weight of the molecules or materials attached to fluorophores. Recently, significant progress in FP/FA was made, due to the introduction of some nanomaterials as FP/FA enhancers. The detection sensitivity is thus greatly improved by using nanomaterials as FP/FA enhancers, and nanomaterial-based FP/FA is currently used successfully in immunoassay, and analysis of protein, nucleic acid, small molecule and metal ion. Nanomaterial-based FP/FA provides a new kind of strategy to design fluorescent sensors and establishes innovative analytical methods. In this review, we summarize the scientific publications in the field of FP/FA sensor in recent five years, and first introduce the recent progress of FP/FA sensor based on nanomaterial. Subsequently, the various analytical applications of FP/FA based on nanomaterial are discussed. Finally, we provide perspectives on the current challenges and future prospects in this promising field.     

Automatic hierarchy classification in venation networks using directional morphological filtering for hierarchical structure traits extraction

The extraction of vein traits from venation networks is of great significance to the development of a variety of research fields, such as evolutionary biology. However, traditional studies normally target to the extraction of reticulate structure traits (ReSTs), which is not sufficient enough to distinguish the difference between vein orders. For hierarchical structure traits (HiSTs), only a few tools have made attempts with human assistance, and obviously are not practical for large-scale traits extraction. Thus, there is a necessity to develop the method of automated vein hierarchy classification, raising a new challenge yet to be addressed. We propose a novel vein hierarchy classification method based on directional morphological filtering to automatically classify vein orders. Different from traditional methods, our method classify vein orders from highly dense venation networks for the extraction of traits with ecological significance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to automatically classify vein hierarchy. To evaluate the performance of our method, we prepare a soybean transmission image dataset (STID) composed of 1200 soybean leaf images and the vein orders of these leaves are manually coarsely annotated by experts as ground truth. We apply our method to classify vein orders of each leaf in the dataset. Compared with ground truth, the proposed method achieves great performance, while the average deviation on major vein is less than 5 pixels and the average completeness on second-order veins reaches 54.28%.     

A simple and efficient method for potential point-of-care diagnosis of human papillomavirus genotypes: combination of isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification with lateral flow dipstick and reverse dot blot

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in the world’s woman population with a high incidence in developing countries where diagnostic conditions for the cancer are poor. The main culprit causing the cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is divided into three major groups, i.e., high-risk (HR) group, probable high-risk (pHR) group, and low-risk (LR) group according to their potential of causing cervical cancer. Therefore, developing a sensitive, reliable, and cost-effective point-of-care diagnostic method for the virus genotypes in developing countries even worldwide is of high importance for the cancer prevention and control strategies. Here we present a combined method of isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA), lateral flow dipstick (LFD), and reverse dot blot (RDB), in quick point-of-care identification of HPV genotypes. The combined method is highly specific to HPV when the conserved L1 genes are used as targeted genes for amplification. The method can be used in identification of HPV genotypes at point-of-care within 1 h with a sensitivity of low to 100 fg of the virus genomic DNA. We have demonstrated that it is an excellent diagnostic point-of-care assay in monitoring the disease without time-consuming and expensive procedures and devices.