Hydroxamic Acid‐Piperidine Conjugate is an Activated Catalyst for Lysine Acetylation under Physiological Conditions

Lysine acylation of proteins is an essential chemical reaction for posttranslational modification and as a means of protein modification in various applications. N,N‐Dimethyl‐4‐aminopyridine (DMAP) derivatives are widely‐used catalysts for lysine acylation of proteins; however, the DMAP moiety mostly exists in a protonated, and thus deactivated, form under physiological conditions due to its basicity. An alternative catalytic motif furnishing higher acylation activity would further broaden the possible applications of chemical lysine acylation. We herein report that the hydroxamic acid‐piperidine conjugate Ph‐HXA is a more active catalytic motif for lysine acetylation than DMAP under physiological conditions. In contrast to DMAP, the hydroxamic acid moiety is mostly deprotonated under aqueous neutral pH, resulting in a higher concentration of the activated form. The Ph‐HXA catalyst is also more tolerant of deactivation by a high concentration of glutathione than DMAP. Therefore, Ph‐HXA might be a suitable catalytic motif for target protein‐selective and site‐selective acetylation in cells.     

Pion Effect of Nuclear Matter in a Chiral Sigma Model

We develop a new framework for the study of the nuclear matter based on the linear sigma model.We introduce a completely new viewpoint on the treatment of the nuclear matter with the inclusion of the pion.We extend the relativistic chiral mean field model by using the similar method in the tensor optimized shell model.We also regulate the pion-nucleon interaction by considering the form-factor and short range repulsion effects.We obtain the equation of state of nuclear matter and study the importance of the pion effect.     

The antikaon–nucleus interaction and alternative views to deeply bound antikaonic nuclear systems

We present an overview of the latest theoretical studies on the antikaon properties in the nuclear medium, in connection with the recent experimental claims of very deeply bound antikaon nuclear states. We argue that proper many-body formulations using modern realistic antikaon–nucleon interactions are not able to generate such systems. Instead, a simple two-nucleon antikaon absorption mechanism where the remaining nucleus acts as spectator explains the enhancement observed in semi-inclusive proton momentum spectra, seen as a bump in the KEK PS-E549 experiment on a ⁴He target or as a peak in the FINUDA experiment on a ⁶Li target. This signal is clearly visible in another FINUDA experiment measuring the invariant mass of Λ-proton pairs after two-nucleon kaon absorption. We also show that another peak of this experiment, seen at lower invariant masses and interpreted as a bound K⁻pp state, is simply generated by the same two-nucleon absorption mechanism followed by final-state interactions of the produced particles with the residual nucleus. Our conclusion is that all the experimental claims for the formation of very deeply bound antikaonic nuclear systems receive an alternative explanation in terms of conventional nuclear processes.     

Control of tribological properties of diamond-like carbon films with femtosecond-laser-induced nanostructuring

This paper reports tribological properties of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films nanostructured by femtosecond (fs) laser ablation. The nanostructure was formed in an area of more than 15 mm × 15 mm on the DLC surface, using a precise target-scan system developed for the fs-laser processing. The frictional properties of the DLC film are greatly improved by coating a MoS₂ layer on the nanostructured surface, while the friction coefficient can be increased by surface texturing of the nanostructured zone in a net-like patterning. The results demonstrate that the tribological properties of a DLC surface can be controlled using fs-laser-induced nanostructuring.