Characterisation of Taxlllaids A–G; Natural Products from Xenorhabdus indica

Six new lipodepsipeptides and an additional linear derivative named taxlllaids A–G ( 1 – 7 ) have been identified in the entomopathogenic bacterium Xenorhabdus indica. The structures of the main compounds have been solved by detailed NMR spectroscopic analysis and the structures of minor derivatives were elucidated by a combination of labelling experiments and detailed MS experiments. The absolute configuration of the taxlllaids was deduced by using the advanced Marfey method and analysis of the biosynthesis gene cluster showing the presence of epimerisation domains, which was subsequently proved to be correct by solid‐phase peptide synthesis of all taxlllaids. The exchange of a single amino acid in the adenylation domain was shown to be responsible for substrate promiscuity of the third A domain, resulting in the incorporation of leucine, phenylalanine or tyrosine. Bioactivity testing revealed the taxlllaids to be weakly active against Plasmodium falciparum and against a number of eukaryotic cell lines.     

Tranexamic Acid Cream Protects Ultraviolet B-induced Photoaging in Balb/c Mice Skin by Increasing Mitochondrial Markers: Changes Lead to Improvement of Histological Appearance

Tranexamic acid (TSA) is widely used as an antiaging treatment for reducing melasma and wrinkles. There are various mechanisms for wrinkle formation, and one of them is due to damage of the mitochondria. Research on mitochondria in the skin is very limited, so we are interested to see the changes that occur after application of TSA cream. We explored the effect of TSA on mitochondrial protein levels (PGC1α, Tom20, COX IV), which had affected to skin histological structure. Thirty male, 6-week-old, Balb/C mice were divided into five groups (negative control, positive control, TSA 3%, TSA 4% and TSA 5%). After 10 days of acclimatization, four groups of mice were exposed to UVB light, of which three groups were given TSA cream for 10 weeks. The skin tissue was excised for protein and histological studies. H&E staining was performed for evaluating histological changes in epidermal thickness and dermal elastosis. TSA treatment on the mice skin increased mitochondrial marker levels and epidermal thickness while decreasing dermal elastosis for all the treatment groups. Topical application of TSA significantly increased mitochondrial biogenesis which may cause alteration in epidermal thickness and reduced dermal elastosis in the histology of mice skin.     

Structure and reactivity of the polarised liquid–liquid interface: what we know and what we do not

Charge transfer phenomena at the interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (ITIES) are electrochemical reactions taking place in soft media. Owing to their liquid nature, the ITIES shows a large panel of electrochemical reactions including electron transfer reactions, ion transfer reactions, coupled electron–ion transfer reactions or biomimetic redox reactions. Nevertheless, the mechanisms by which these reactions proceed are yet to be fully understood. The goal of this short review is to summarise the work accomplished over the past decades towards the elucidation of the structure and reactivity at the ITIES, highlighting the main questions still to be answered.     

Structure and properties of Na-magadiite dependent on temperature

The mechanism of the thermal behaviour of Na-magadiite at a temperature range from 293–573 K was developed based on X-ray diffraction, DTA, DTL, Q-TG, and gravimetric measurements. A structure model (BRANDT et al.) previously proposed was additionally used. It is possible to show that there probably is a connection between the typical modifications of basal spacing and significant shiftings of silicate sheets. Different steps of dehydration, decrystallization and structure variations can be ascribed to the several thermal transitions. The results depend on sample treatment such as the existent or not existent solid-water vapour interaction and the establishment of equilibrium. It seems that there is a predominance of the first mentioned influence.     

Microbial adhesion to poly(ethylene oxide) brushes: influence of polymer chain length and temperature

Glass surfaces were modified by end-grafting poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) chains having molecular weights of 526, 2000, or 9800 Da. Characterization using water contact angles, ellipsometry, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed the presence of the PEO brushes on the surface with estimated lengths in water of 2.8-, 7.5-, and 23.7-nm, respectively. Adhesion of two bacterial (Staphylococcus epidermidis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and two yeast (Candida albicans and Candida tropicalis) strains to these brushes was studied and compared to their adhesion to bare glass. For the bacterium P. aeruginosa and the yeast C. tropicalis, adhesion to the 2.8-nm brush was comparable to their adhesion on bare glass, whereas adhesion to the 7.5- and 23.7-nm brushes was greatly reduced. For S. epidermidis, adhesion was only slightly higher to the 2.8-nm brush than that to the longer brushes. Adhesion of the yeast C. albicans to the PEO brushes was lower than that to glass, but no differences in adhesion were found between the three brush lengths. After passage of an air bubble, nearly all microorganisms adhering to a brush were removed, irrespective of brush length, whereas retention of the adhering organisms on glass was much higher. No significant differences were found in adhesion nor retention between experiments conducted at 20 and those conducted at 37 degrees C.     

Pitch of amplitude-modulated irregular-rate stimuli in acoustic and electric hearing

The pitch of stimuli was studied under conditions where place-of-excitation was held constant, and where pitch was therefore derived from "purely temporal" cues. In experiment 1, the acoustical and electrical pulse trains consisted of pulses whose amplitudes alternated between a high and a low value, and whose interpulse intervals alternated between 4 and 6 ms. The attenuated pulses occurred after the 4-ms intervals in condition A, and after the 6-ms intervals in condition B. For both normal-hearing subjects and cochlear implantees, the period of an isochronous pulse train equal in pitch to this "4-6" stimulus increased from near 6 ms at the smallest modulation depth to nearly 10 ms at the largest depth. Additionally, the modulated pulse trains in condition A were perceived as being lower in pitch than those in condition B. Data are interpreted in terms of increased refractoriness in condition A, where the larger pulses are more closely followed by the smaller ones than in condition B. Consistent with this conclusion, the A-B difference was reduced at longer interpulse intervals. These findings provide a measure of supra-threshold effects of refractoriness on pitch perception, and increase our understanding of coding of temporal information in cochlear implant speech processing schemes.     

An equivariant Brauer semigroup and the symmetric imprimitivity theorem

Suppose that is a second countable locally compact transformation group. We let denote the set of Morita equivalence classes of separable dynamical systems where is a -algebra and is compatible with the given -action on . We prove that is a commutative semigroup with identity with respect to the binary operation for an appropriately defined balanced tensor product on -algebras. If and act freely and properly on the left and right of a space , then we prove that and are isomorphic as semigroups. If the isomorphism maps the class of to the class of , then is Morita equivalent to .