Steric-control for the enantioselective hydrolysis of amino acid esters in hybrid membrane systems

The enantioselective hydrolysis of the amino acid esters, p-nitrophenyl-N-dodecanoyl-D(L)-phenylalaninates (C(12)-D(L)-Phe-PNP) catalyzed by active tripeptide, N-(benzyloxycarbonyl)-L-phenylalanyl-L-histidyl-L-leucine (Z-PheHisLeu) in the presence of coaggregates (hybrid membranes) composed of native phospholipid, L-alpha-dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) and nonionic surfactant, polyoxyethylene (8) lauryl ether (C(12)(EO)(8)) was easily controlled by regulating the reaction temperature and changing the composition of coaggregates. Furthermore, excellent correlations were observed between the enantioselectivity in the hydrolysis of C(12)-D(L)-Phe-PNP catalyzed by Z-PheHisLeu in the presence of coaggregates and physical properties of hybrid membranes. It is assumed that catalytic activities of tripeptide catalyst in hybrid membranes should be regulated by changing the microenvironments of reaction fields.     

Synthesis of isomeric coumarin-fluorene hybrids by photocyclization and the photophysical features

We prepared isomeric compounds 2a and 2b having fused skeletons of coumarin and fluorene by photochemical cyclization of olefin 1. They were successfully separated by chromatography, and characterized by NMR spectroscopic and X-ray crystallographic analyses. The molecular structure of 2a was nonplanar due to the repulsion between the carbonyl group of the coumarin moiety and the methylene group at 9-position on the fluorene skeleton whilst that of 2b was planar. They showed different absorption and fluorescence features in solution whereas their spectral profiles of triplet–triplet absorption and phosphorescence were similar to each other.     

MassBank: a public repository for sharing mass spectral data for life sciences

MassBank is the first public repository of mass spectra of small chemical compounds for life sciences (<3000 Da). The database contains 605 electron‐ionization mass spectrometry(EI‐MS), 137 fast atom bombardment MS and 9276 electrospray ionization (ESI)‐MSⁿ data of 2337 authentic compounds of metabolites, 11 545 EI‐MS and 834 other‐MS data of 10 286 volatile natural and synthetic compounds, and 3045 ESI‐MS² data of 679 synthetic drugs contributed by 16 research groups (January 2010). ESI‐MS² data were analyzed under nonstandardized, independent experimental conditions. MassBank is a distributed database. Each research group provides data from its own MassBank data servers distributed on the Internet. MassBank users can access either all of the MassBank data or a subset of the data by specifying one or more experimental conditions. In a spectral search to retrieve mass spectra similar to a query mass spectrum, the similarity score is calculated by a weighted cosine correlation in which weighting exponents on peak intensity and the mass‐to‐charge ratio are optimized to the ESI‐MS² data. MassBank also provides a merged spectrum for each compound prepared by merging the analyzed ESI‐MS² data on an identical compound under different collision‐induced dissociation conditions. Data merging has significantly improved the precision of the identification of a chemical compound by 21–23% at a similarity score of 0.6. Thus, MassBank is useful for the identification of chemical compounds and the publication of experimental data. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determination of catecholamines and indoleamines in human urine based on intramolecular excimer-forming derivatization and fluorescence detection.

A liquid chromatographic (LC) determination of catecholamines and indoleamines is described. This is based on intramolecular excimer-forming fluorescence derivatization with 4-(1-pyrene)butanoyl chloride, followed by reversed-phase LC. The analytes, containing an amino moiety and phenolic hydroxyl moieties in a molecule, were converted to the corresponding polypyrene-labeled derivatives by one-step derivatization. They afforded intramolecular excimer fluorescence, which can clearly be discriminated from the normal fluorescence emitted from reagent blanks. The detection limits (S/N = 3) for catecholamines and indoleamines were femto-mole levels per 20-microL injection. Furthermore, this method was applied to a urine assay.     

One-electron oxidized nickel(II)-(disalicylidene)diamine complex: temperature-dependent tautomerism between Ni(III)-phenolate and Ni(II)-phenoxyl radical states

The one-electron oxidized species of a Ni(II)-phenolate complex has been shown to be in the Ni(II)-phenoxyl radical state at room temperature and the Ni(III)-phenolate state at < -120 degrees C, indicating that the oxidation state is temperature dependent.     

Fairly marked enantioselectivity for the hydrolysis of amino acid esters by chemically modified enzymes

The hydrolysis (deacylation) of enantiomeric substrates by the chemically modified enzymes decanoyl-alpha-chymotrypsin and decanoyl-trypsin was studied. Reaction activity for decanoyl-alpha-chymotrypsin was lower than that for the native enzyme, although intriguingly the enantioselectivity was markedly enhanced as compared with the native enzyme. In particular, the apparently complete enantioselective catalysis was attained for the hydrolytic cleavage of p-nitrophenyl N-dodecanoyl-D(L)-phenylalaninates. The enhancement of enantioselectivity, however, was not observed for decanoyl-trypsin. These results suggest that the chemically modified alpha-chymotrypsin by addition of hydrophobic groups has promoted enantioselectivity for the hydrolysis of hydrophobic esters.     

740 Gbit/s (37 x 20 Gbit/s) DWDM Transmission Experiment Using Er3+-Doped Tellurite Fiber Amplifiers and Distributed Raman Amplification

We demonstrate 740 Gbit/s (37 × 20 Gbit/s) DWDM recirculating transmission experiment with 59 nm continuous bandwidth over 300 km by employing Er3+-doped tellurite fiber amplifiers. The use of Raman amplification is effective to increase the transmission bandwidth.