Unraveling virus identity by detection of depleted probes with capillary electrophoresis

With the emergence of new viral infections and pandemics, there is a need to develop faster methods to unravel the virus identities in a large number of clinical samples. This report describes a virus identification method featuring high throughput, high resolution, and high sensitivity detection of viruses. Identification of virus is based on liquid hybridization of different lengths of virus-specific probes to their corresponding viruses. The probes bound to target sequences are removed by a biotin–streptavidin pull-down mechanism and the supernatant is analyzed by capillary electrophoresis. The probes depleted from the sample appear as diminished peaks in the electropherograms and the remaining probes serve as calibrators to align peaks in different capillaries. The virus identities are unraveled by a signal processing and peak detection algorithm developed in-house. Nine viruses were used in the study to demonstrate how the system works to unravel the virus identity in single and double virus infections. With properly designed probes, the system is able to distinguish closely related viruses. The system takes advantage of the high resolution feature of capillary electrophoresis to resolve probes that differ by length. The method may facilitate virus identity screen from more candidate viruses with an automated 4-color DNA sequencer.     

Novel aromatic polyhydrazides and poly(amide-hydrazide)s based on “multiring” flexible dicarboxylic acids

Two flexible dicarboxylic acid monomers, 4,4′-[isopropylidenebis(1,4-phenylene)dioxy]dibenzoic acid ( 1 ) and 4,4′-[hexafluoroisopropylidenebis(1,4-phenylene)-dioxy]dibenzoic acid ( 3 ), were synthesized from readily available compounds in two steps in high yields. High molecular-weight polyhydrazides and poly(amide-hydra-zide)s were directly prepared from dicarboxylic acids 1 and 3 with terephthalic dihydrazide ( 5 ), isophthalic dihydrazide ( 6 ), and p-aminobenzhydrazide ( 7 ) by the phosphorylation reaction by means of diphenyl phosphite (DPP) and pyridine in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP)/LiCl, or prepared from the diacyl chlorides of 1 and 3 with the hydrazide monomers 5–7 by the low-temperature solution polycondensation in NMP/LiCl. Less favorable results were obtained when using triphenyl phosphite (TPP) instead of DPP in the direct polycondensation reactions. Except for those derived from terephthalic dihydrazide, the resulting polyhydrazides and poly(amide-hydrazide)s could be cast into colorless, flexible, and tough films with good tensile strengths. All the hydrazide polymers and copolymers are amorphous in nature and are readily soluble in various polar solvents such as NMP and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Their T_gs were recorded in the range of 162–198°C and could be thermally cyclodehydrated into the corresponding polyoxadiazoles and poly(amide-oxadiazole)s approximately in the region of 300–380°C, as evidenced by the DSC thermograms. The oxadiazole polymers and copolymers showed a dramatically decreased solubility and higher T_g when compared to their respective hydrazide prepolymers. They exhibited T_gs of 190–216°C and were stable up to 450°C in air or nitrogen. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 36: 1847–1854, 1998     

Synthesis and properties of aromatic poly(ester amide)s with pendant phosphorus groups

Two series of phosphorus‐containing aromatic poly(ester amide)s with inherent viscosities of 0.46–3.20 dL/g were prepared by low‐temperature solution polycondensation from 1,4‐bis(3‐aminobenzoyloxy)‐2‐(6‐oxido‐6H‐dibenz〈c,e〉〈1,2〉oxaphosphorin‐6‐yl)naphthalene and 1,4‐bis(4‐aminobenzoyloxy)‐2‐(6‐oxido‐6H‐dibenz〈c,e〉〈1,2〉oxaphosphorin‐6‐yl)naphthalene with various aromatic diacid chlorides. All the poly(ester amide)s were amorphous and readily soluble in many organic solvents, such as N,N‐dimethylformamide, N,N‐dimethylacetamide (DMAc), and N‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (NMP). Transparent, tough, and flexible films of these polymers were cast from DMAc and NMP solutions. Their casting films had tensile strengths of 71–214 MPa, elongations to break of 5–10%, and initial moduli of 2.3–6.0 GPa. These poly(ester amide)s had glass‐transition temperatures of 209–239 °C (m‐series) and 222–267 °C (p‐series). The degradation temperatures at 10% weight loss in nitrogen for these polymers ranged from 462 to 489 °C, and the char yields at 800 °C were 55–63%. Most of the poly(ester amide)s also showed a high char yield of 35–45%, even at 800 °C under a flow of air. The limited oxygen indices of these poly(ester amide)s were 35–46. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 40: 459–470, 2002; DOI 10.1002/pola.10129     

Polyterephthalamides with naphthoxy‐pendent groups

A series of new aromatic polyamides having pendent naphthoxy groups were synthesized by the triphenyl phosphite‐activated polycondensation of (2‐naphthoxy)terephthalic acid (NOTPA) with various aromatic diamines in a medium consisting of N‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (NMP), pyridine, and calcium chloride. The diacid monomer NOTPA was prepared from the nitro displacement of dimethyl 2‐nitroterephthalate with the potassium naphthoxide of β‐naphthol, followed by base‐induced ester hydrolysis. All the resulting polymers were noncrystalline and readily soluble in aprotic polar solvents such as NMP and N,N‐dimethylacetamide. Almost all the polymers could be solution‐cast to tough, creasable amorphous films with good mechanical properties, the values of tensile strengths ranging from 90 to 124 MPa with initial moduli ranging from 1.72 to 2.51 GPa. Except for two examples, all the other polyamides displayed discernible glass transitions between 189 and 248 °C in the differential scanning calorimetric traces. These polyamides showed insignificant decomposition below 400 °C in nitrogen or air. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 40: 1781–1789, 2002     

Synthesis and properties of new soluble aromatic polyamides and polyimides on the basis of N,N′‐bis(3‐aminobenzoyl)‐N,N′‐diphenyl‐1,4‐phenylenediamine

A new N‐phenylated amide (N‐phenylamide) unit containing aromatic diamine, N,N′‐bis(3‐aminobenzoyl)‐N,N′‐diphenyl‐1,4‐phenylenediamine, was prepared by the condensation of N,N′‐diphenyl‐1,4‐phenylenediamine with 3‐nitrobenzoyl chloride, followed by catalytic reduction. Two series of organosoluble aromatic poly(N‐phenylamide‐imide)s and poly(N‐phenylamide‐amide)s with inherent viscosities of 0.58–0.82 and 0.56–1.21 dL/g were prepared by a conventional two‐stage method and the direct phosphorylation polycondensation, respectively, from the diamine with various aromatic dianhydrides and aromatic dicarboxylic acids. All polyimides and polyamides are amorphous and readily soluble in many organic solvents such as N,N‐dimethylacetamide and N‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone. These polymers could be solution cast into transparent, tough, and flexible films with high tensile strengths. These polyimides and polyamides had glass‐transition temperatures in the ranges of 230–258 and 196–229 °C, respectively. Decomposition temperatures of the polyimides for 10% weight loss all occurred above 500 °C in both nitrogen and air atmospheres. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 40: 2564–2574, 2002     

Thermal stability of shear-induced precursor structures in isotactic polypropylene by rheo-X-ray techniques with couette flow geometry

Combined in situ rheo-SAXS (small-angle X-ray scattering) and -WAXD (wide-angle X-ray diffraction) studies using couette flow geometry were carried out to probe thermal stabilty of shear-induced oriented precursor structure in isotactic polypropylene (iPP) at around its normal melting point (162 °C). Although SAXS results corroborated the emerging consensus about the formation of “long-living” metastable mesomorphic precursor structures in sheared iPP melts, these are the first quantitative measures of the limiting temperature at which no oriented structures survive. At the applied shear, rate = 60 s⁻¹ and duration t_s = 5 s, the oriented iPP structures survived a temperature of 185 °C for 1 h after shear, while no stable structures were detected at and above 195 °C. Following Keller's concepts of chain orientation in flow, it is proposed that the chains with highly oriented high molecular weight fraction are primarily responsible for their stability at high temperatures. Furthermore, the effects of flow condition, specifically the shear temperature, on the distributions of oriented and unoriented crystals were determined from rheo-WAXD results. As expected, at a constant flow intensity (i.e., rate = 30 s⁻¹ and duration, t_s = 5 s), the oriented crystal fraction decreased with the increase in temperature above 155 °C, below which the oriented fraction decreased with the decrease in temperature. As a result, a crystallinty “phase” diagram, i.e., temperature versus crystal fraction ratio, exhibited a peculiar “hourglass” shape, similar to that found in many two-phase polymer–polymer blends. This can be explained by the competition between the oriented and unoriented crystals in the available crystallizable species. Below the shear temperature (155 °C), the unoriented crystals crystallized so rapidly that they overwhelmed the crystallization of the oriented crystals, thus depleting a major portion of the crystallizable species and increasing their contribution in the final total crystalline phase. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 3553–3570, 2006     

Stage-frit: A straightforward sub-2 μm nano-liquid chromatography column fabrication for proteomic analysis

In this work we demonstrated a facile method for the fabrication of C18 coordination polymer gel in a capillary, called stage-frit, which was efficiently applied to pack sub-2 μm C18 beads into the capillary by a high pressure bomb for the online separation of proteolytic peptides. The back pressure of the column with 10 cm × 75 μm i.d. is regularly lower than 170 bar at a flow rate of 300 nl/min, which could be operated on a common nanoLC system instead of nanoUPLC system due to the good permeability, low back pressure and high mechanical stress of the frit that will totally reduce the cost for the purchase of instrument. The stage-frit allows long-term continuous flow of the solvent and no significant beads loss or pressure instability was observed during the period. The repeatability of retention time for fifteen BSA tryptic peaks was found to be less than 1.08% (RSD) in six time nanoLC-ESI-MS/MS experiments. The average full width at half maximum (FWHM) of peptide peaks is 5.87 s. The sub-2 μm stage-frit nanoLC column showed better sensitivity than the commercial available for large scale proteomic analysis of total tissue proteins from human spleen. The number of identified peptides is approximately 0.4-fold and 0.2-fold higher than that obtained by utilizing commercial columns packed with 3 μm and 1.8 μm C18 materials, respectively. In the field of analytical chemistry, particularly the use of nanoLC systems, stage-frit nanoLC column offers a great potential for the separation of complex mixtures.     

Ortho‐Quinone Methides as Reactive Intermediates in Asymmetric Brønsted Acid Catalyzed Cycloadditions with Unactivated Alkenes by Exclusive Activation of the Electrophile

An efficient method for the highly enantioselective synthesis of chiral chromanes bearing multiple stereogenic centers was developed. A chiral BINOL‐based N‐triflylphosphoramide proved to be an effective catalyst for the in situ generation of ortho‐quinone methides (o‐QMs) and their subsequent cycloaddition reaction with unactivated alkenes provided chromanes with excellent diastereo‐ and enantioselectivity.