Sonodynamic therapy--a review of the synergistic effects of drugs and ultrasound

Sonodynamic therapy, the ultrasound dependent enhancement of cytotoxic activities of certain compounds (sonosensitizers) in studies with cells in vitro and in tumor bearing animals, is reviewed. The attractive features of this modality for cancer treatment emerges from the ability to focus the ultrasound energy on malignancy sites buried deep in tissues and to locally activate a preloaded sonosensitizer. Possible mechanisms of sonodynamic therapy include generation of sonosensitizer derived radicals which initiate chain peroxidation of membrane lipids via peroxyl and/or alkoxyl radicals, the physical destabilization of the cell membrane by the sonosensitizer thereby rendering the cell more susceptible to shear forces or ultrasound enhanced drug transport across the cell membrane (sonoporation). Evidence against the role of singlet oxygen in sonodynamic therapy is discussed. The mechanism of sonodynamic therapy is probably not governed by a universal mechanism, but may be influenced by multiple factors including the nature of the biological model, the sonosensitizer and the ultrasound parameters. The current review emphasizes the effect of ultrasound induced free radicals in sonodynamic therapy.     

Is the Trigonal Prismatic Distortion the Answer for the Geometry of InIII four Members Dithiochelate Compounds? The Crystal and Molecular Structure of In(S2AsR2)3 (R = Me,Ph)

The distortion from the octahedral geometry is discussed for Indium(III) 1,1‐dithio complexes (dithiophosph(in)ates, dithiocarbamates, dithioarsinates) and isostructural chromium(III) compounds in relation with the bite of the ligands, the S…S repulsion within the four members rings and S…S interligand distances. The crystal and molecular structures of In(S₂AsR₂)₃ (R = Me, Ph) have been determined by single crystal X‐ray diffraction. The dithioarsinate ligands are basically monomeric and isobidentate, with average values for arsenic‐sulphur bond distances of 2.135 Å for dimethyl and 2.137 Å for diphenyl complex. The average In–S distances are identical (2.634 Å) in both cases.     

Rhodamine B Photodegradation in Aqueous Solutions Containing Nitrogen Doped TiO2 and Carbon Nanotubes Composites

In this work, new results concerning the potential of mixtures based on nitrogen doped titanium dioxide (TiO₂:N) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as possible catalyst candidates for the rhodamine B (RhB) UV photodegradation are reported. The RhB photodegradation was evaluated by UV–VIS absorption spectroscopy using samples of TiO₂:N and CNTs of the type of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWNTs), multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), and single-walled carbon nanotubes functionalized with carboxyl groups (SWNT-COOH) having various concentrations of CNTs. The best photocatalytic performance was obtained for sample containing TiO₂:N and 2.5 wt.% SWNTs-COOH, when approx. 85% of dye removal was achieved after 300 min. of UV irradiation. The reaction kinetics of RhB aqueous solutions containing TiO₂:N/CNT mixtures followed a complex first-order kinetic model. The TiO₂:N/CNTs catalyst induced higher photodegradation efficiency of RhB than TiO₂:N due to the presence of CNTs, which act as adsorbent and dispersing agent and capture the photogenerated electrons of TiO₂:N hindering the electron–hole recombination.     

A Simple Synthesis Route for Selectively Methylated β-Cyclodextrin Using a Copper Complex Sandwich Protecting Strategy

This communication reports a novel synthesis route for the preparation of monofunctionalized β-cyclodextrin in a single stage. The approach involves only the in-situ protection of secondary hydroxyl groups as an excellent alternative to the classical procedure involving a series of five steps of protection and deprotection of hydroxyl groups (both primary and secondary ones) belonging to β-cyclodextrin.     

An efficient and selective route to hybrid trifluoromethyl-substituted γ-lactones or fused nitrogen derivatives via cascade reactions

A straightforward, efficient and selective route for obtaining hybrid trifluoromethyl-substituted γ-lactones and fused nitrogen heterocycles is presented. The reaction could be guided either to γ-lactones with a nitrogen-containing heterocyclic skeleton (for monocyclic systems) or to fused nitrogen heterocycles (for fused bicyclic systems). A new class of γ-lactone with a nitrogen heterocyclic skeleton was obtained. Feasible reaction mechanisms involving cascade reactions are presented.     

Electronic transport of a T-shaped double-quantum-dot system in the Coulomb blockade regime

We studied the electronic transport properties of a T-shaped double-quantum-dot system in the Coulomb blockade regime when the onsite Coulomb interaction parameters U ₁ and U ₂ have finite values in both component dots. Our analysis is done in the so-called beyond Hartree-Fock approximation that includes contributions related to both normal and mixed averages of various number-like operators in the system. We provide an analytic formula for the main’s dot Green function in the case of large onsite Coulomb interaction parameters (U ₁ = U ₂ → ∞), and find that with a good approximation, this limit is realized when the ratio U ₁/t = U ₂/t ≥ 30, t being the interdot electron tunneling between the two component dots of the structures. In the most general situation of the Coulomb blockade regime (U ₁ ≠ U ₂) the system conductivity presents two dips corresponding to the Fano-Kondo effect and the system’s shot noise and electronic current present a series of plateaus that should be visible in experimental setups.     

Chalcogeno[bis(phosphaalkenyl)] germanium and tin compounds

The first diphosphaalkenylstannylene stabilized through complexation with a carbene NHC-Sn[C(Cl)═PMes*](2)1 (Mes* = 2,4,6-tri-tert-butylphenyl; NHC = :C{N(iPr)C(Me)}(2)) was isolated and fully characterized including single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Its reaction with elemental sulfur rapidly gives the cyclic Sn(2)S(2) (dithiadistannetanne) derivative 3, presumably formed by dimerization of a stannathione intermediate. By contrast, its germanium analogue NHC-Ge[C(Cl)═PMes*](2)7 leads to the corresponding monomeric germathione 4 and germaselenone 5. The germaselenone was more stable than the germathione and could be structurally characterized. An unusual thermal cyclization reaction of the last one occurs with an excess of selenium to give the Ge(2)Se(3) (triselenadigermolane) ring derivative 6.     

Solid phase microextraction assisted by droplets-based liquid-liquid microextraction for analysis of volatile aromatic hydrocarbons in water by gas chromatography

A new technique for the analysis of volatile aromatic hydrocarbons by combining liquid-liquid microextraction with solid phase microextraction has been developed. The analytes were extracted from aqueous samples by an immobilized polydimethylsiloxane fiber assisted by the droplets of an appropriate organic solvent. Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and o-xylene were used as target analytes. The main factors potentially affecting the microextraction such as the nature and the volume of organic solvent, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) swelling, extraction time, agitation, temperature, and salts were optimized. The method requires a very low consumption of organic solvent. The relative enrichment factor is in the range of 7.1-32.4 for extraction in the presence of dichloromethane at an optimum volume of 18 μL mL(-1) of aqueous sample. This enhancement over regular polydimethylsiloxane fiber is primarily the result of the fiber swelling and of a stable thin layer of organic solvent attached to the surface of the PDMS fiber. The limit of detection ranges from 0.02 to 0.65 ng mL(-1) for the target compounds using a 7-μm bonded polydimethylsiloxane coating and a flame ionization detector. The validity of this method is demonstrated by the analysis of a real waste water sample.     

Experimental approach of co-firing and anaerobic fermentation of biomass and coal, and their thermochemical properties

This article studied two sorts of biomass (corn and beech sawdust) and two varieties of coal (bituminous coal and lignite), which can produce energy using two different technologies: co-firing and anaerobic fermentation in pilot installations, in order to determine the future perspectives of those materials for large scale applications. By thermal analysis, the thermochemical characteristics of biomass (corn and beech sawdust) and of coal (bituminous coal from Jiu Valley and lignite from Oltenia basin) were determined. The co-firing tests have been achieved at a ratio of 15?% biomass, the rest being coal. At biomass?Ccoal co-firing, the SO₂, NO_x, CO, CO₂ and fly ash concentrations in the flue gases is lower than the burning of fossil fuels. In the anaerobic fermentation of biomass, the maximum concentration of methane inside the produced biogas was 50?C55?% by volume in the beech sawdust batch and 67?C68?% by volume in the corn batch.     

Sampling multiple scoring functions can improve protein loop structure prediction accuracy

Accurately predicting loop structures is important for understanding functions of many proteins. In order to obtain loop models with high accuracy, efficiently sampling the loop conformation space to discover reasonable structures is a critical step. In loop conformation sampling, coarse-grain energy (scoring) functions coupling with reduced protein representations are often used to reduce the number of degrees of freedom as well as sampling computational time. However, due to implicitly considering many factors by reduced representations, the coarse-grain scoring functions may have potential insensitivity and inaccuracy, which can mislead the sampling process and consequently ignore important loop conformations. In this paper, we present a new computational sampling approach to obtain reasonable loop backbone models, so-called the Pareto optimal sampling (POS) method. The rationale of the POS method is to sample the function space of multiple, carefully selected scoring functions to discover an ensemble of diversified structures yielding Pareto optimality to all sampled conformations. The POS method can efficiently tolerate insensitivity and inaccuracy in individual scoring functions and thereby lead to significant accuracy improvement in loop structure prediction. We apply the POS method to a set of 4-12-residue loop targets using a function space composed of backbone-only Rosetta and distance-scale finite ideal-gas reference (DFIRE) and a triplet backbone dihedral potential developed in our lab. Our computational results show that in 501 out of 502 targets, the model sets generated by POS contain structure models are within subangstrom resolution. Moreover, the top-ranked models have a root mean square deviation (rmsd) less than 1 A in 96.8, 84.1, and 72.2% of the short (4-6 residues), medium (7-9 residues), and long (10-12 residues) targets, respectively, when the all-atom models are generated by local optimization from the backbone models and are ranked by our recently developed Pareto optimal consensus (POC) method. Similar sampling effectiveness can also be found in a set of 13-residue loop targets.