Diverse antidepressants increase CDP-diacylglycerol production and phosphatidylinositide resynthesis in depression-relevant regions of the rat brain

Background  

Major depression is a serious mood disorder affecting millions of adults and children worldwide. While the etiopathology of depression remains obscure, antidepressant medications increase synaptic levels of monoamine neurotransmitters in brain regions associated with the disease. Monoamine transmitters activate multiple signaling cascades some of which have been investigated as potential mediators of depression or antidepressant drug action. However, the diacylglycerol arm of phosphoinositide signaling cascades has not been systematically investigated, even though downstream targets of this cascade have been implicated in depression. With the ultimate goal of uncovering the primary postsynaptic actions that may initiate cellular antidepressive signaling, we have examined the antidepressant-induced production of CDP-diacylglycerol which is both a product of diacylglycerol phosphorylation and a precursor for the synthesis of physiologically critical glycerophospholipids such as the phosphatidylinositides. For this, drug effects on [³H]cytidine-labeled CDP-diacylglycerol and [³H]inositol-labeled phosphatidylinositides were measured in response to the tricyclics desipramine and imipramine, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors fluoxetine and paroxetine, the atypical antidepressants maprotiline and nomifensine, and several monoamine oxidase inhibitors.     

Scatter Search and Genetic Algorithms for MAX-SAT Problems

In this paper, both scatter search (SS) and genetic algorithms (GAs) are studied for the NP-Hard optimization variant of the satisfiability problem, namely MAX-SAT. First, we investigate a new selection strategy based on both fitness and diversity to choose individuals to participate in the reproduction phase of a genetic algorithm. The resulting algorithm is enhanced in two ways leading to two genetic algorithm variants: the first one uses a uniform crossover. The second one uses a specific crossover operator (to MAX-SAT). The crossover operator is combined with an improved stochastic local search (SLS). The crossover operator is used to identify promising regions while the stochastic local search performs an intensified search of solutions around these regions. Secondly, we propose a scatter search variant for MAX-SAT. Both the SS and the GAs implementations share the solution selection strategy, the improved SLS method and the combination operator. Experiments on several instances from MAX-SAT libraries are performed to show and compare the effectiveness of our approaches. The computational experiments show that both (SS) and (GAs) with a stochastic local search (SLS) improvement technique outperform a classical genetic algorithm (without SLS). The two metaheuristics are able of balancing search diversification and intensification which leads to good results. In general, the specific genetic algorithm with a (SLS) improvement technique and a specific combination method provides competitive results and finds solutions of a higher quality than a scatter search.     

GC/MS analysis and antimicrobial activity of the essential oil of fresh leaves of Eucalytus globulus, and leaves and stems of Smyrnium olusatrum from Constantine (Algeria)

The essential oils of fresh leaves of Eucalyptus globulus L. (Myrtaceae), and leaves and stems of Smyrnium olusatrum L. (Apiaceae), obtained by hydrodistillation in a Clevenger-type apparatus, were analyzed by GC/MS. Twenty compounds were characterized, representing 98.3% of the essential oil of E. globulus, with 1,8-cineole (48.6%), globulol (10.9%), trans-pinocarveol (10.7%), and alpha-terpineol (6.6%) as main components, while thirty-three compounds were characterized, representing 94.3% of the essential oil of S. olusatrum, with sabinene (27.1%), curzerene (13.7%), methyl-1-benzyl-2-oxocyclooctane carboxylate (12.3%), alpha-pinene (7.2%), cryptone (7.1%) and beta-pinene (5.7%) as the major components. The essential oils of E. globulus and S. olusatrum were tested against a wide range of fungal and bacterial strains. Both oils showed significant antimicrobial activity.     

Study of the critical current density and the thermodynamic critical field in deuterated κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu[N(CN)2]Br organic superconductor

ABSTRACT

We have studied the reversible and irreversible part of the hysteresis loops as a function of slow cooling rate through the order–disorder transformation near 80?K for the deuterated (κ-D₈-Br) κ-(BEDT-TTF)₂Cu[N(CN)₂]Br organic superconductor. We estimated the critical current density J_C and the thermodynamic critical field H_C from the magnetic hysteresis loops. Temperature dependence of the critical current density derived from the irreversible part using Bean’s model. The thermodynamic critical field H_C has been obtained from the reversible part of the hysteresis loops.     

Gas-phase vibrational spectroscopy and ab initio study of organophosphorus compounds: discrimination between species and conformers

Gas phase vibrational spectra of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP), trimethyl phosphate (TMP), and triethyl phosphate (TEP) have been measured using FTIR spectroscopy. For DMMP, TMP, and TEP, most of the infrared active vibrational modes have been observed in the 50-5000 cm (-1) spectral range, allowing an unambiguous discrimination between the three molecules. The vibrational analysis of the spectra was performed by comparing with MP2 and B3LYP harmonic and anharmonic force field ab initio calculations. The extension to anharmonic calculations provides the best agreement for the mid-infrared and the near-infrared spectra, but they do not improve the harmonic frequency predictions in the far-infrared domain. This part of the vibrational spectra associated with collective and nonlocalized vibrational modes presents the largest frequency differences between the two lowest energy conformers of DMMP and TMP. These two conformers were taken into account in the vibrational assignment of the spectra. Their experimental evidence was obtained by deconvoluting vibrational bands in the mid-infrared and in the far-infrared regions, respectively. For TEP, the conformational landscape appears very complicated at ambient temperature, and a further analysis at low temperature is required to explain the vibrational features of each conformer.     

Numerical analysis of steady turbulent triple jet flow with temperature difference

The numerical predictions confirm a new classification of flow patterns of triple jet interaction. The addition of side jets increase the rate of decrease of the centreline velocity for the flow of type A and decreases in the other cases. The effect of various types of flow on the rate of decrease of the velocity, the turbulent kinetic energy and the temperature in the combined region are detailed. Several correlations are proposed.     

Efficient multicomponent synthesis of 2-aminopyridines catalysed by basic mesoporous materials

Research on Chemical Intermediates - An efficient and green procedure for the synthesis of 2-aminopyridines derivatives via four-component reaction of acetophenone, malononitrile, triethoxymethane...     

Recognition of RNA by amide modified backbone nucleic acids: molecular dynamics simulations of DNA-RNA hybrids in aqueous solution

Thermodynamic and structural properties of a chemically modified DNA-RNA hybrid in which a phosphodiester linkage is replaced by a neutral amide-3 linkage (3'-CH(2)-CONH-5') were investigated using UV melting experiments, molecular dynamics simulations in explicit water, and continuum solvent models. van't Hoff analysis of the experimental UV melting curves suggests that the significant increase of the thermodynamic stability of a 15-mer DNA-RNA with seven alternated amide-3 modifications (+11 degrees C) is mainly due to an increased binding enthalpy. To further evaluate the origin in the observed affinities differences, the electrostatic contribution to the binding free energy was calculated by solving the Poisson-Boltzmann equation numerically. The nonelectrostatic contribution was estimated as the product of a hydrophobic surface tension coefficient and the surface area that is buried upon double strand formation. Structures were taken from 10 ns molecular dynamics simulations computed in a consistent fashion using explicit solvent, counterions, and the particle-mesh Ewald procedure. The present preliminary thermodynamic study suggests that the favorable binding free energy of the amide-3 DNA single strand to the complementary RNA is equally driven by electrostatic and nonpolar contributions to the binding compared to their natural analogues. In addition, molecular dynamics simulations in explicit water were performed on an amide-3 DNA single strand and the corresponding natural DNA. Results from the conformations cluster analysis of the simulated amide-3 DNA single strand ensembles suggest that the 25% of the population sampled within 10 ns has a pre-organized conformation where the sugar C3' endo pucker is favored at the 3'-flanking nucleotides. These structural and thermodynamic features contribute to the understanding of the observed increased affinities of the amide-3 DNA-RNA hybrids at the microscopic level.     

Synthesis of iron chalcogenides from single source precursors

In this review article the synthesis of iron chalcogenides using single source precursors is discussed. The effect on morphology and phase of iron chalcogenides formed is studied by varying single source precursors, reaction temperature, reaction time, surfactants and their concentration. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.