Evaluation of an Economical Sunlamp that Emits a Near Solar UV Power Spectrum for Conducting Photoimmunological and Sunscreen Immune Protection Studies

Expense and inconvenience have restricted the use of the filtered xenon are lamp (solar simulator) as a UV source for conducting large-scale animal studies. Because sunscreen immunoprotective levels are significantly affected by the UV power spectrum of the source it is imperative that a solar simulating source be used for accurate measurements of sunscreen protection levels that are relevant to human UV exposures from sunlight. However, relatively inexpensive sunlamps, e. g. the UVA-340, that emit a UV power spectrum similar to that of a solar simulator are available. Unlike FS-type UVB sunlamps, which have a significant amount of effective immunosuppressive nonsolar UV energy at wavelengths below 295 nm, the immunosuppression effectiveness spectrum of UVA-340 sunlamps was nearly identical to that of a solar simulator. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this sunlamp for conducting photoimmunological and sunscreen immune protection studies. Groups of C3H mice were exposed to a range of UVA-340 sunlamp doses (0.25 KJ/m² to 20.0 KJ/m²) to establish a dose-response curve and determine the minimum immune suppression dose (MISD) for induction of local-type suppression of contact hypersensitivity (CH). The MISD, defined as the lowest UV dose given to produce ～50% suppression of the CH response in mice, was determined to be 1.0 kJ/m² for UVA-340 sunlamps. Immune protection tests on four marketed sunscreen lotions (sun protection factors [SPF] 4, 8, 15 and 30) were then conducted with UVA-340 sunlamps using MISD as the endpoint. The immune protection factors for these sunscreens were equivalent to the level of protection predicated by their labeled SPF. These results are similar to those we have previously obtained using a solar simulator. We conclude from these data that the immunosuppressive effects of UVA-340 sunlamps are similar to those of a solar simulator; however, further studies are needed to determine if UVA-340, or similar, sunlamps are a viable alternative to the solar simulator for conducting large-scale animal experiments that require a relevant UV solar spectrum.     

The Michael Addition of Sulfur Anions to β,β-Substituted Nα-Formyl-α, β-Dehydroamino Acid Esters

The addition of lithium benzylthiolates to N^α,-formyl-α,β-dehydro-α-amino acid esters gave protected N^α-formyl-β-S-benzyl-β,β-dialkylcysteine esters. Hydrolysis and N^α-protection produced β,β-dialkyl-cysteines which can be used for peptide synthesis.     

Correction to: Interlaboratory Reproducibility of Contour Method Data Analysis and Residual Stress Calculation

Experimental Mechanics - The original version of this article has been corrected to include authors middle initials in the author list. The details given in this correction are correct.     

Positive Hermitian curvature flow on nilpotent and almost-abelian complex Lie groups

We study the positive Hermitian curvature flow on the space of left-invariant metrics on complex Lie groups. We show that in the nilpotent case, the flow exists for all positive times and subconverges in the Cheeger–Gromov sense to a soliton. We also show convergence to a soliton when the complex Lie group is almost abelian. That is, when its Lie algebra admits a (complex) co-dimension one abelian ideal. Finally, we study solitons in the almost-abelian setting. We prove uniqueness and completely classify all left-invariant, almost-abelian solitons, giving a method to construct examples in arbitrary dimensions, many of which admit co-compact lattices.

     

Whole‐Cell Biotransformation of Benzene to Phenol Catalysed by Intracellular Cytochrome P450BM3 Activated by External Additives

An Escherichia coli whole‐cell biocatalyst for the direct hydroxylation of benzene to phenol has been developed. By adding amino acid derivatives as decoy molecules to the culture medium, wild‐type cytochrome P450BM3 (P450BM3) expressed in E.coli can be activated and non‐native substrates hydroxylated, without supplementing with NADPH. The yield of phenol reached 59 % when N‐heptyl‐l ‐prolyl‐l ‐phenylalanine (C7‐Pro‐Phe) was employed as the decoy molecule. It was shown that decoy molecules, especially those lacking fluorination, reached the cytosol of E. coli, thus imparting in vivo catalytic activity for the oxyfunctionalisation of non‐native substrates to intracellular P450BM3.