Molecular Shape Analysis of a Maillard Reaction Intermediate

Abstract

The Maillard (browning) reaction involving the polycondensation of sugars and amino acids is believed to be an important abiotic pathway for humic substance formation in nature. However, a major drawback is that the Maillard reaction is extremely slow at temperatures encountered under normal environmental conditions. In order to elucidate some details of this process molecular shape analysis was applied to investigate the initial reaction between D-glucose and glycine to form the Amadori compound fructosylglycine which is an intermediate product in the Maillard reaction. The structure of the Amadori compound was optimized at a quantum mechanical level and its ground state electron energy calculated. Molecular Iso-Density Contours (MIDCO's), electron density contour surfaces of constant electron density, were constructed for D-glucose, glycine and fructosylglycine in order to study the steric conditions for the reaction. The calculations indicate that the Amadori compound and water on one hand and the separate entities D-glucose and glycine on the other hand are very similiar to each other in terms of their ground state energy. This agrees with the experimental observation that the reaction between D-glucose and glycine to form the Amadori compound is slow.     

Development of an information-intensive structure–activity relationship model and its application to human respiratory chemical sensitizers

Structure–activity relationship (SAR) models are recognized as powerful tools to predict the toxicologic potential of new or untested chemicals and also provide insight into possible mechanisms of toxicity. Models have been based on physicochemical attributes and structural features of chemicals. We describe herein the development of a new SAR modeling algorithm called cat-SAR that is capable of analyzing and predicting chemical activity from divergent biological response data. The cat-SAR program develops chemical fragment-based SAR models from categorical biological response data (e.g. toxicologically active and inactive compounds). The database selected for model development was a published set of chemicals documented to cause respiratory hypersensitivity in humans. Two models were generated that differed only in that one model included explicate hydrogen containing fragments. The predictive abilities of the models were tested using leave-one-out cross-validation tests. One model had a sensitivity of 0.94 and specificity of 0.87 yielding an overall correct prediction of 91%. The second model had a sensitivity of 0.89, specificity of 0.95 and overall correct prediction of 92%. The demonstrated predictive capabilities of the cat-SAR approach, together with its modeling flexibility and design transparency, suggest the potential for its widespread applicability to toxicity prediction and for deriving mechanistic insight into toxicologic effects.     

烷氧基菲咯啉设计合成及其氮磷杂配铜光敏剂的光解水制氢性能

以功能化氮配体为导向,以4,7-二苯基-1,10-菲咯啉为原料,经季铵化、氧化、卤化和醚化合成了一类新型的2,9-二烷氧基-4,7-二苯基-1,10-菲咯啉配体5a~5e。再以Xantphos为膦配体,通过原位配位方法合成一系列氮磷杂配铜光敏剂（CuPS A~H）,在均相光解水制氢体系中研究其光敏活性。制氢结果表明,以2,9-二乙氧基为较佳取代基,CuPS D的催化产氢总转换数（TON）可达270。在光电物理性能分析中,发现这类杂配铜配合物都有一个相似的氧化还原电位（E^oxd=-0.8 V,E^red=-1.2 V）。具有乙氧取代基的铜配合物CuPS D相对于其他取代基的铜基配合物,荧光最弱,表明乙氧基有助于提高荧光淬灭效率,增强铜光敏剂的光化学转换能力。