Zur Kenntnis des Faktors F430 aus methanogenen Bakterien: Struktur des proteinfreien Faktors

Factor F430 from Methanogenic Bacteria: Structure of the Protein-free Factor Factor F430, the porphinoid nickel-containing coenzyme of the methylcoenzyme-M reductase of metanogenic bacteria is shown to be the 3³,8³,12²,13³,18²-pentaacid derivative of the pentamethylester F430M, the structure of which had been determined previously (see structural formulae 1 and 2 ). The structure assignment rests on chromatographic, UV/VIS-, CD-, IR-, and ¹³C-NMR-spectroscopic as well as FAB-mass spectral comparision of F430 with F430M and the pentaacid prepared by acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of F430M. In the cells of Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum, factor F430 is present in a ‘bound’ and also, depending on the growth conditions, in ‘free’ form, the latter being defined as the part of total F430 that can be extracted from the cells under extremely mild conditions (80% EtOH at 0–4°). From the (protein)-‘bound’ form, F430 is extracted by subsequently treating the cells at 0–4° with 80% EtOH containing (e.g.), 2m LiCi. From both sources, the extracted factor is the same pentaacid, and there is no indication for the existence of a protein-free F430 species that would contain additional (covalently bound) structural elements.     

Non-trivial behavior of palladium(II) acetate

Reaction of activated palladium metal with a HNO3/acetic acid mixture produces both orange Pd3(OAc)6, 1, and purple Pd3(OAc)5(NO2), 2. Compound has a trinuclear structure derived from that of the well-known triangular complex 1 in which one acetate group has been replaced by a nitrite group which is bonded to one palladium atom by the nitrogen atom and to another Pd atom using one of the oxygen atoms. Highly pure 1 can be made by continuous removal of the nitric oxides from the reaction mixture using a flow of N2. 1H NMR spectra of solutions of 1 in CDCl3 and C6D6 show several signals of various intensities when a small amount of water is present in the deuterated solvents but only one signal when the solvents are thoroughly dried. These results are consistent with the occurrence of one or more hydrolysis processes when the solvents contain water and suggest that hypotheses about various [Pd(OAc)2]n aggregates that have previously been brought forward in the literature to explain the complexity of the spectrum of 1 are unnecessary, especially for nonpolar solvents. Compound 2 does not hydrolyze, and in wet or dried solvents shows a 1H NMR spectrum that consists of five equal-intensity signals due to the five nonequivalent acetate groups.     

2,6-diaminopurine in TNA: effect on duplex stabilities and on the efficiency of template-controlled ligations

Replacement of adenine by 2,6-diaminopurine-two nucleobases to be considered equivalent from an etiological point of view-strongly enhances the stability of TNA/TNA, TNA/RNA, or TNA/DNA duplexes and efficiently accelerates template-directed ligation of TNA ligands. [reaction: see text]     

Monitoring of optical isomers of chiral alcohols and derivatives by chiral gas chromatography. Effect of derivatization on the enantio-differentiation

Summary Gas chromatographic chiral separation of several chiral 2-and 3-alkanols and diols was studied both in their free hydroxyl and in their trimethylsilyl ether forms. First, the derivatization procedure was verified through the identification of the trimethylsilyl ethers formed on the basis of their mass spectra and optimized to obtain quantitative reaction. The optimized procedure was applied to the trimethylsilylation of racemic mixtures of various hydroxyl compounds. The silylation was found to be highly effective in the improvement of the separation of the individual enantiomers. The major advantages of the derivatization process can be summarized as: (i) excellent baseline separation of the enantiomers of the silyl ethers was achieved in contrast to the parent OH-containing compounds, (ii) the sensitivity of detection highly increased, (iii) the separations do not show any significant concentration dependence and finally (iv) the analysis time needed decreased significantly. Presented at: Balaton Symposium on High-Performance Separation Methods, Siófok, Hungary, September 3–5, 1997     

Magnetic and Mössbauer Studies of Magnetite-Loaded Polyvinyl Alcohol Hydrogels

Materials producing strain in a magnetic field are known as magnetoelastic or magnetostrictive materials. A new type of material that is able to produce giant strain in a nonhomogeneous magnetic field has been developed. In these magnetic-field-sensitive gels (ferrogels) fine colloidal particles having superparamagnetic behavior are incorporated into a highly swollen elastic polymer network. Magnetic properties of ferrogels have been investigated using electron microscopy, static magnetization measurements, and M?ssbauer spectroscopy. Analysis of the data yielded information on the superparamagnetic behavior of ferrogels and made it possible to estimate the size distribution of the magnetic cores of magnetite particles made by chemical precipitation and built into a chemically cross-linked polyvinyl alcohol matrix. The results are interpreted on the basis of a core-shell model. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

Michael additions of benzoins versus Michael-Stetter additions of aldehydes

Triethylamine catalyzed Michael additions of benzoins to chalcone can prevail over the expected Michael-Stetter additions when certain thiazolium ion conjugate bases - prepared $\text{in situ}$ from the pertinent thiazolium salts and triethylamine- are used as catalysts.     

On the extraction with long-chain amines

The extraction of tracer mercury(II) from aqueous HCl-solutions by TLA (trilaurylamine) dissolved in benzene can simply be described by the reaction (1) $$TLAHCl \cdot H_2 O(org) + HgCl_2 (aq) \rightleftharpoons TLAHCl \cdot HgCl_2 (org) + H_2 O(aq)$$ Using the chloride ion activity coefficient function recently introduced by HÖGFELDT (2) $$\lg y_{Cl^ - } = - 0.5115 \sqrt I /(1 + 1.176 \sqrt I ) - \lg C_{corr} $$ together with the model for excess acid extraction developed by AGUILAR and HÖGFELDT, the only unknown quantity is the equilibrium constant for the reaction above since the stability constants for the formation of the Hg(II)-CT-complexes are also well known. Using distribution data for HgCl₂ (tracer) between HCl-solutions and benzene Eq. (2) gets further support as being a useful expression for the activity coefficient of Cl^? in solutions more concentrated than ≈0.6M. Some scouting experiments about the extraction of HgCl₂ from NaCl brines containing 270 g NaCl/l showed that in the pH-range 1–13 the best extraction was obtained at about pH 1–2 irrespective if the diluent was benzene, o-xylene or a mixture of kerosene and benzene.     

Reactions of Sulphate Radicals with Substituted Pyridines: A Structure–Reactivity Correlation Analysis

The kinetics of the oxidation of pyridine, 3‐chloropyridine, 3‐cyanopyridine, 3‐methoxypyridine and 3‐methylpyridine mediated by SO₄ ^{< M ‐>} radicals are studied by flash photolysis of peroxodisulphate, S₂O₈^2?, at pH 2.5 and 9. The absolute rate constants for the reactions of both, the basic and acid forms of the pyridines, are determined and discussed in terms of the Hammett correlation. The monosubstituted pyridines react about 10 times faster with sulphate radicals than their protonated forms, the pyridine ions. The organic intermediates are identified as the corresponding hydroxypyridine radical adducts and their absorption spectra compared with those estimated employing the time‐dependent density functional theory with explicit account for bulk solvent effects. A reaction mechanism which accounts for the observed intermediates and the pyridinols formed as products is proposed.     

High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Analysis of Amino Acids in Edible Seaweeds after Derivatization with Phenyl Isothiocyanate

Summary A reversed-phase high-performance liquid-chromatographic method has been used for analysis of the amino acids in edible seaweed. Sample proteins were hydrolysed with hydrochloric acid and the amino acids produced were derivatized with phenyl isothiocyanate. The resulting phenylthiocarbamyl amino acids were chromatographed on an ODS2 column with UV detection at 254 nm. The mobile phase was a mixture of 0.14 M ammonium acetate buffer, pH 6.4, containing 0.05% triethylamine (A) and 60:40 (v/v) acetonitrile–water (B), at a flow rate of 1.1 mL min^–1; the elution gradient (min:A%) was: 0:90, 8:90, 10:70, 12:70, 18:52, 20:0, 25:0, 28:90, 35:90. Method precision for the different amino acids was between 1.33 and 3.88% (relative standard deviation); detection limits were between 6.9 and 14.3 ng mL^–1. The amino acid content of the algae analysed ranged from 22.4 ± 1.9 to 138.0 ± 5.6 mg g^–1 d.w. The amino acids present at highest concentrations were glutamic acid, alanine, and phenylalanine.     

Flow injection spectrophotometric method for chloride determination in natural waters using Hg(SCN)(2) immobilized in epoxy resin

A flow injection (FI) spectrophotometric method was proposed for the determination of chloride ion in natural waters. The determination of chloride was carried out by reaction with Hg(SCN)₂ immobilized in an epoxy resin bead in a solid-phase reactor (SPR) and the thiocyanate ions released were determined spectrophotometrically at 480 nm after complexing reaction with Fe(III). The analytical curve for chloride was linear in the concentration range from 5.6 × 10⁻⁵ to 2.2 × 10⁻⁴ mol l⁻¹ with a detection limit of 1.4 × 10⁻⁵ mol l⁻¹. The relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) was 2.2% for a solution containing 2.2 × 10⁻⁴ mol l⁻¹ (n = 10). The simple manifold allows a routine analytical frequency of 100 determinations per hour. The main advantage of the developed method is the 400% reduction of the Hg waste solution generated when compared to conventional methods for chloride determination based on the same spectrophotometric reaction.