High‐Level Incorporation of Silver in Gold Nanoclusters: Fluorescence Redshift upon Interaction with Hydrogen Peroxide and Fluorescence Enhancement with Herbicide

High‐level incorporation of Ag in Au nanoclusters (NCs) is conveniently achieved by controlling the concentration of Ag⁺ in the synthesis of bovine serum albumin (BSA)‐protected Au NCs, and the resulting structure is determined to be bimetallic Ag₂₈Au₁₀‐BSA NCs through a series of characterizations including energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, together with density functional theory simulations. Interestingly, the Ag₂₈Au₁₀ NCs exhibit a significant fluorescence redshift rather than quenching upon interaction with hydrogen peroxide, providing a new approach to the detection of hydrogen peroxide through direct comparison of their fluorescence peaks. Furthermore, the Ag₂₈Au₁₀ NCs are also used for the sensitive and selective detection of herbicide through fluorescence enhancement. The detection limit for herbicide (0.1 nm ) is far below the health value established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; such sensitive detection was not achieved by using AuAg NCs with low‐level incorporation of Ag or by using the individual metal NCs.     

The importance of protonation and tautomerization in relative binding affinity prediction: a comparison of AMBER TI and Schrödinger FEP

In drug discovery, protonation states and tautomerization are easily overlooked. Through a Merck–Rutgers collaboration, this paper re-examined the initial settings and preparations for the Thermodynamic Integration (TI) calculation in AMBER Free-Energy Workflows, demonstrating the value of careful consideration of ligand protonation and tautomer state. Finally, promising results comparing AMBER TI and Schrödinger FEP+ are shown that should encourage others to explore the value of TI in routine Structure-based Drug Design.     

Structural Manipulation of Ruthenium(II) Polypyridine Nitrone Complexes to Generate Phosphorogenic Bioorthogonal Reagents for Selective Cellular Labeling

We report a new class of ruthenium(II) polypyridine complexes functionalized with a nitrone group as phosphorogenic bioorthogonal probes. These complexes were very weakly emissive owing to rapid C=N isomerization of the nitrone moiety, but exhibited significant emission enhancement upon strain‐promoted alkyne–nitrone cycloaddition (SPANC) reaction with bicyclo[6.1.0]nonyne (BCN)‐modified substrates. The modification of nitrone with a dicationic ruthenium(II) polypyridine unit at the α‐C‐position and a phenyl ring at the N‐position led to remarkably accelerated reaction kinetics, which are substantially greater (up to ≈278 fold) than those of other acyclic nitrone–BCN systems. Interestingly, the complexes achieved specific cell membrane/cytosol staining upon specific labeling of an exogenous substrate, BCN‐modified decane (BCN‐C10), in live cells. Importantly, the in situ generation of the more lipophilic isoxazoline adduct in the cytoplasm resulted in increased cytotoxicity, highlighting a novel approach to apply the SPANC labeling technique in drug activation.     

Asymmetric Michael Addition of Aldimino Esters with Chalcones Catalyzed by Silver/Xing‐Phos: Mechanism‐Oriented Divergent Synthesis of Chiral Pyrrolines

The mechanism‐oriented reaction design for the divergent synthesis of chiral molecules from simple starting materials is highly desirable. In this work, aromatic amide‐derived nonbiarylatropisomer/silver (silver/Xing‐Phos) complex was used to catalyze the Michael addition of glycine aldimino esters to chalcones and successfully applied to the subsequent cyclocondensation to afford substituted cis‐Δ(1)‐pyrroline derivatives with up to 98 % ee. Besides the inherent performance of the chiral Ag/Xing‐Phos catalyst system, it was found that the workup of such reactions played an important role for the stereoselective construction of stereodivergent Δ(1)‐pyrrolines, in which an epimerization of the cis‐Δ(1)‐pyrrolines to the trans‐isomers during was revealed.     

Metabolic profiles of dioscin in rats revealed by ultra‐performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry

Dioscin (DIS), one of the most abundant bioactive steroidal saponins in Dioscorea sp., is used as a complementary medicine to treat coronary disease and angina pectoris in China. Although the pharmacological activities and pharmacokinetics of DIS have been well demonstrated, information regarding the final metabolic fates is very limited. This study investigated the in vivo metabolic profiles of DIS after oral administration by ultra‐performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry method. The structures of the metabolites were identified and tentatively characterized by means of comparing the molecular mass, retention time and fragmentation pattern of the analytes with those of the parent compound. A total of eight metabolites, including seven phase I and one phase II metabolites, were detected and tentatively identified for the first time. Oxidation, deglycosylation and glucuronidation were found to be the major metabolic processes of the compound in rats. In addition, a possible metabolic pathway on the biotransformation of DIS in vivo was proposed. This study provides valuable and new information on the metabolism of DIS, which will be helpful for further understanding its mechanism of action. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of Intermolecular Interactions on Valence Tautomeric Behaviors in Two Polymorphic Dinuclear Cobalt Complexes

Two polymorphic structures have been well determined in a valence tautomeric (VT) dinuclear cobalt complex. These polymorphs showed distinct thermal‐ and photomagnetic behavior, and are thus ideal for studying the “pure” intermolecular factors to VT transitions. In polymorph 1A , the VT cations are arranged head‐to‐waist with their neighbors and exhibit weak π???π interactions, resulting in a gradual and incomplete thermal VT transition. In contrast, the cations in polymorph 1B are arranged head‐to‐tail and exhibit relatively strong π???π interactions, leading to an abrupt and complete thermal VT transition with adjustable hysteresis loop at around room temperature. The VT process for both polymorphs can be induced by light, but the light‐excited state of 1B? 2H₂O has a higher thermal relaxation temperature than that of 1A? 3H₂O.     

Molecular structure and properties of click hydrogels with controlled dangling end defect

In this study, controlled amount of dangling ends is introduced to the two series of poly(ethylene glycol)‐based hydrogel networks with three and four crosslinking functionality by using click chemistry. The structure of the gels with regulated defect percentage is confirmed by comparing the results of low‐field NMR characterization and Monte Carlo simulation. The mechanical properties of these gels were characterized by tensile stress–strain behaviors of the gels, and the results are analyzed by Gent model and Mooney–Rivlin model. The shear modulus of the swollen gels is found to be dependent on the functionality of the network, and decreases with the defect percentage. Furthermore, the value of shear modulus well obeys the Phantom model for all the gels with varied percentage of the defects. The maximum extension ratio, obtained from the fitting of Gent model, is also found to be dependent on the functionality of the network, and does not change with the defect percentage, except at very high defect percentage. The value of the maximum extension ratio is between that predicted from Phantom model and the Affine model. This indicates that at the large deformation, the fluctuation of the crosslinking points is suppressed for some extend but still exists. Polymer volume fractions at various defect percentages obtained from prediction of Flory–Rehner model are found to be in well agreement with the swelling experiment. All these results indicate that click chemistry is a powerful method to regulate the network structure and mechanical properties of the gels. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016 , 54, 1227–1236