Convertible and Constrained Nucleotides: The 2’-Deoxyribose 5’-C-Functionalization Approach,a French Touch

Many strategies have been developed to modulate the biological or biotechnical properties of oligonucleotides by introducing new chemical functionalities or by enhancing their affinity and specificity while restricting their conformational space. Among them, we review our approach consisting of modifications of the 5’-C-position of the nucleoside sugar. This allows the introduction of an additional chemical handle at any position on the nucleotide chain without disturbing the Watson–Crick base-pairing. We show that 5’-C bromo or propargyl convertible nucleotides (CvN) are accessible in pure diastereoisomeric form, either for nucleophilic displacement or for CuAAC conjugation. Alternatively, the 5’-carbon can be connected in a stereo-controlled manner to the phosphate moiety of the nucleotide chain to generate conformationally constrained nucleotides (CNA). These allow the precise control of the sugar/phosphate backbone torsional angles. The consequent modulation of the nucleic acid shape induces outstanding stabilization properties of duplex or hairpin structures in accordance with the preorganization concept. Some biological applications of these distorted oligonucleotides are also described. Effectively, the convertible and the constrained approaches have been merged to create constrained and convertible nucleotides (C₂NA) providing unique tools to functionalize and stabilize nucleic acids.     

About the Stability of the Dodecatoplet

A new investigation is done of the possibility of binding the “dodecatoplet”, a system of six top quarks and six top antiquarks, (t ⁶ t̄ ⁶), using the Yukawa potential mediated by Higgs exchange. A simple variational method gives a upper bound close to that recently estimated in a mean-field calculation. It is supplemented by a lower bound provided by identities among the Hamiltonians describing the system and its subsystems.     

[H3tren] templated iron fluorides; synthesis, crystal structures and Mössbauer studies

The hydrothermal synthesis, using tris-(2-ethylamino)amine (tren) as a template, and the crystal structures of three new hybrid iron fluorides, (H₃O)₂·[H₃tren]₂·(FeF₆)₂·(FeF₅(H₂O))·2H₂O (I), [H₃tren]₂·(FeF₆)₂·(FeF₂(H₂O)₄)·8H₂O (II) and [H₃tren]₂·(FeF₆)·(F)₃·H₂O (III), are reported. I, II, and III are triclinic (P-1), monoclinic (P2₁/c) and orthorhombic (I222), respectively. The structure of I is built up from isolated FeF₆ and FeF₅(H₂O) distorted octahedra separated by triprotonated [H₃tren]³⁺ cations, disordered H₃O⁺ cations and H₂O molecules. In II, Fe^IIIF₆ and neutral [Fe^IIF₂(H₂O)₄] octahedra form, together with [H₃tren]³⁺ cations, infinite (100) layers separated by extra water molecules. The structure of III consists of isolated and disordered FeF₆ octahedra, fluoride anions F⁻ connected to [H₃tren]³⁺ cations and extra fluoride anions F⁻ disordered with H₂O molecules. All [H₃tren]³⁺ cations have a “spider” type conformation. ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer characterization shows that +III valence state can only be considered for iron cations in I and III and preliminary Mössbauer results are consistent with the presence of both +II and +III valences for iron cations in II, in agreement with the crystallographic results.     

Ads Manifolds With Particles and Earthquakes on Singular Surfaces

We prove two related results. The first is an “earthquake theorem” for closed hyperbolic surfaces with cone singularities where the total angle is less than π: any two such metrics in are connected by a unique left earthquake. The second result is that the space of “globally hyperbolic” AdS manifolds with “particles” – cone singularities (of given angle) along time-like lines – is parametrized by the product of two copies of the Teichmüller space with some marked points (corresponding to the cone singularities). The two statements are proved together. F.B. was partially supported by the A.N.R. project GEODYCOS. J.-M.S. was partially supported by the A.N.R. programs RepSurf, 2006-09, ANR-06-BLAN-0311, GeomEinstein, 2006-09, 06-BLAN-0154, and FOG, 2007-10, ANR-07-BLAN-0251-01.     

Variance limite d'une marche aléatoire réversible en milieu aléatoire sur Z

The Central Limit Theorem for the random walk on a stationary random network of conductances has been studied by several authors. In one dimension, when conductances and resistances are integrable, and following a method of martingale introduced by S. Kozlov (1985), we can prove the Quenched Central Limit Theorem. In that case the variance of the limit law is not null. When resistances are not integrable, the Annealed Central Limit Theorem with null variance was established by Y. Derriennic and M. Lin (personal communication). The quenched version of this last theorem is proved here, by using a very simple method. The similar problem for the continuous diffusion is then considered. Finally our method allows us to prove an inequality for the quadratic mean of a diffusion. To cite this article: J. Depauw, J.-M. Derrien, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 347 (2009).     

Automatic identification of terpenoid skeletons by feed-forward neural networks

Feed-forward neural networks (FFNNs) were used to predict the skeletal type of molecules belonging to six classes of terpenoids. A database that contains the ¹³C NMR spectra of about 5000 compounds was used to train the FFNNs. An efficient representation of the spectra was designed and the constitution of the best FFNN input vector format resorted from an heuristic approach. The latter was derived from general considerations on terpenoid structures.     

De novo synthesis of sugar-aza-crown ethers via a domino Staudinger aza-Wittig reaction

A short and highly efficient route to sugar-aza-crown (SAC) ethers has been developed. The key step of the transformation is a one-pot cyclodimerization of C-glycosyl azido aldehydes via a domino Staudinger aza-Wittig reaction. This process allows the preparation of various orthogonally protected SAC ethers, from both alpha- and beta-C-glycosyl azido aldehydes.     

Damage induced in garnets by heavy ion irradiations: a study by optical spectroscopies

The damage induced by heavy-ion irradiation has been studied in yttrium iron garnet (Y₃Fe₅O₁₂ or YIG) films, doped with Ca, Tb and Tm, grown by liquid-phase epitaxy on gadolinium gallium garnet (Gd₃Ga₅O₁₂ or GGG) substrates. Irradiations of doped-YIG epitaxial films and GGG substrates with 36-MeV ¹⁸³W and 12-MeV ¹⁹⁷Au ions were applied for fluences between 1 × 10¹³ and 3 × 10¹⁵ cm^–2 near room temperature. The radiation damage was monitored by micro-Raman spectroscopy and UV–visible optical absorption spectroscopy. Raman spectra revealed that amorphisation was achieved in YIG for both ions, whereas a high lattice disorder was induced in GGG without reaching amorphisation for the Au ion irradiation. Raman spectra also showed that a major damage of the tetrahedral sites was induced in GGG, as previously found for YIG. It is concluded that with such ions reaching the stopping power threshold of track formation in YIG and GGG the observed rate of amorphisation may result from a combination of electronic and nuclear energy losses as calculated using the unified thermal spike model.     

钴掺杂Sr1.5La0.5MnO4的合成及高温电化学性能研究

采用EDTA-柠檬酸法合成了中温固体氧化物燃料电池阴极材料Sr_(1.5)La_(0.5)Mn_(1-x)Co_xO_4(SLMCOx),并利用粉末X射线衍射(XRD)、X射线光电子能谱(XPS)以及电化学交流阻抗谱(EIS)进行表征。结果表明,该材料与Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95(CGO)在1 200℃烧结12 h不发生化学反应。随着Co掺入量的增加,氧化物中Mn~(3+)和Co~(2+)含量增多,晶格氧含量降低,晶格畸变率增大。交流阻抗谱(EIS)测试结果显示,钴的掺杂明显降低电极的极化电阻,其中Sr_(1.5)La_(0.5)Mn_(0.7)Co_(0.3)O_4阴极在700℃空气中的极化电阻为0.62Ω·cm~2,明显小于Sr_(1.5)La_(0.5)MnO_4阴极在750℃的极化电阻(1.5Ω·cm~2),表明钴掺杂的Sr_(1.5)La_(0.5)Mn_(1-x)CoxO_4是一种潜在的IT-SOFC阴极材料。     

Collisions of Particles in Locally AdS Spacetimes II Moduli of Globally Hyperbolic Spaces

We investigate globally hyperbolic 3-dimensional AdS manifolds containing “particles”, i.e., cone singularities of angles less than 2π along a time-like graph Γ. To each such space (equipped with a time-like vector field satisfying some additional properties) we associate a graph and a finite family of pairs of hyperbolic surfaces with cone singularities. We show that this data is sufficient to recover the space locally (i.e., in the neighborhood of a fixed metric). This is a partial extension of a result of Mess for non-singular globally hyperbolic AdS manifolds.