Sensitivity of Xanthoria parietina to UV-A: role of metabolic modulators

Effects of methyl jasmonate (MeJA), salicylic acid (SA) or 2-aminoindane-2-phosphonic acid (AIP) pre-treatments on the sensitivity of Xanthoria parietina exposed to UV-A were studied. UV decreased chlorophylls and stimulated increase in hydrogen peroxide and superoxide level. Accumulation of soluble phenols and flavonoids increased in response to UV treatment. Metabolic modulators had negligible impact on these UV-induced changes. Within free amino acids, AIP (-UV variant) and SA and MeJA (+UV variants) altered their accumulation. AIP had no effect on the amount of phenylalanine. Benzoic and cinnamic acids were elevated by UV and mainly MeJA influenced their accumulations. Among lichen specific metabolites, vulpinic acid and ergosterol increased while usnic acid and atranorin decreased after exposure to UV; accumulation of parietin was not affected. Applied modulators showed a different effect on these lichen metabolites but biosynthetic pathway-specific trend of alteration was visible. Overall, MeJA showed the most pronounced effect among studied parameters. Accumulation of selected phenolics in response to UV-A seems to be an important feature of Xanthoria tolerance. Present finding in the context of phenolic metabolism in non-vascular plants and with respect to limited data about effect of studied modulators on non-vascular plants are discussed.     

Traffic jam at the bacterial sec translocase: targeting the SecA nanomotor by small-molecule inhibitors

The rapid rise of drug-resistant bacteria is one of the most serious unmet medical needs facing the world. Despite this increasing problem of antibiotic resistance, the number of different antibiotics available for the treatment of serious infections is dwindling. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new antibacterial drugs, preferably with novel modes of action to potentially avoid cross-resistance with existing antibacterial agents. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to bacterial protein secretion as a potential antibacterial target. Among the different protein secretion pathways that are present in bacterial pathogens, the general protein secretory (Sec) pathway is widely considered as an attractive target for antibacterial therapy. One of the key components of the Sec pathway is the peripheral membrane ATPase SecA, which provides the energy for the translocation of preproteins across the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane. In this review, we will provide an overview of research efforts on the discovery and development of small-molecule SecA inhibitors. Furthermore, recent advances on the structure and function of SecA and their potential impact on antibacterial drug discovery will be discussed.     

A short stereoselective synthesis of the protected uracil 3′-epi-polyoxin C

A short synthetic approach to the protected uracil 3′-epi-polyoxin C 20 has been developed. The stereoselective [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement of the corresponding 7-thiocyanato-α-d-xylo-hept-5-enfuranose 6 was employed as the key step to construct the C-5 stereocentre in 5-isothiocyanato-α-d-gluco-hept-6-enfuranose 8 and the formal synthesis of uracil 3′-epi-polyoxin C has been accomplished for the first time. This synthesis provides a facile method for multigram scale preparation and thus is useful for the research into the polyoxins’ structure-activity relationship and to search for more potent and effective anticandidal agents.     

Preparative isotachophoresis with surface enhanced Raman scattering as a promising tool for clinical samples analysis

A surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectrometry is an interesting alternative for a rapid molecular recognition of analytes at very low concentration levels. The hyphenation of this technique with advanced separation methods enhances its potential as a detection technique. Until now, it has been hyphenated mainly with common chromatographic and electrophoretic techniques. This work demonstrates for a first time a power of preparative isotachophoresis-surface enhanced Raman scattering spectrometry (pITP-SERS) combination on the analysis of model analyte (buserelin) in a complex biological sample (urine). An off-line identification of target analyte was performed using a comparison of Raman spectra of buserelin standard with spectra obtained by the analyses of the fractions from preparative isotachophoretic runs. SERS determination of buserelin was based on the method of standard addition to minimize the matrix effects. The linearity of developed method was obtained in the concentration range from 0.2 to 1.5 nmol L(-1) with coefficient of determination 0.991. The calculated limit of detection is in tens of pico mols per liter.     

Looseness of Plane Graphs

A face of a vertex coloured plane graph is called loose if the number of colours used on its vertices is at least three. The looseness of a plane graph G is the minimum k such that any surjective k-colouring involves a loose face. In this paper we prove that the looseness of a connected plane graph G equals the maximum number of vertex disjoint cycles in the dual graph G* increased by 2. We also show upper bounds on the looseness of graphs based on the number of vertices, the edge connectivity, and the girth of the dual graphs. These bounds improve the result of Negami for the looseness of plane triangulations. We also present infinite classes of graphs where the equalities are attained.     

Unusual field-induced transitions in exactly solved mixed spin-(1/2, 1) Ising chain with axial and rhombic zero-field splitting parameters

The mixed spin-(1/2, 1) Ising chain with axial and rhombic zero-field splitting parameters in the presence of the longitudinal magnetic field is exactly solved within the framework of decoration-iteration transformation and transfer-matrix method. Our particular emphasis is laid on an investigation of the influence of the rhombic term, which is responsible for an onset of quantum entanglement between two magnetic states S_k^z=±1 of the spin-1 atoms. It is shown that the rhombic term gradually destroys a classical ferrimagnetic order in the ground state and simultaneously causes diversity in magnetization curves including intermediate plateau regions, regions with a continuous change in the magnetization as well as several unusual field-induced transitions accompanied with magnetization jumps. Another interesting findings concern with an appearance of the round minimum in the temperature dependence of susceptibility times temperature data, the double-peak zero-field specific heat curves and the enhanced magnetocaloric effect. The temperature dependence of the specific heat with three separate maxima may also be detected when driving the system through the axial and rhombic zero-field splitting parameters close enough to a phase boundary between the ferrimagnetic and disordered states and applying sufficiently small longitudinal magnetic field.     

Ultra high amorphous silicon passivation quality of crystalline silicon surface using in‐situ post‐deposition treatments

A parametric study of post‐deposition hydrogen plasma treatment of intrinsic a:Si:H films is performed. We demonstrate a significant improvement in passivation of c‐Si(100) promoting epitaxy after an in‐situ hydrogen plasma treatment depending mainly on the pressure and slightly on the power. Plasma diagnostic indicates an increase of H_α* signal with high power and low pressure. However, our analysis reveals a better hydrogen incorporation with high pressure and a slight increase in monohydride with high power. Longer H₂ plasma duration up to 50 s shows no detrimental effect on the passivation quality. Optimizing the in‐situ H₂ plasma treatment, high minority carrier lifetime over 15 ms was achieved after short thermal annealing. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Implementation of the diagonalization‐free algorithm in the self‐consistent field procedure within the four‐component relativistic scheme

A recently developed Thouless‐expansion‐based diagonalization‐free approach for improving the efficiency of self‐consistent field (SCF) methods (Noga and ?imunek, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2010, 6, 2706) has been adapted to the four‐component relativistic scheme and implemented within the program package ReSpect. In addition to the implementation, the method has been thoroughly analyzed, particularly with respect to cases for which it is difficult or computationally expensive to find a good initial guess. Based on this analysis, several modifications of the original algorithm, refining its stability and efficiency, are proposed. To demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of the improved algorithm, we present the results of four‐component diagonalization‐free SCF calculations on several heavy‐metal complexes, the largest of which contains more than 80 atoms (about 6000 4‐spinor basis functions). The diagonalization‐free procedure is about twice as fast as the corresponding diagonalization. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Application of positron emission tomography and 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose for visualization and quantification of solute transport in plant tissues

The aim of the presented work was to evaluate the uptake and distribution of 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose spiked with ¹⁸F (2-[¹⁸F]FDG) in tissues of tobacco plants (Nicotiana tabacum L.) by positron emission tomography and multivariate data analysis after the immersion of the petiole of excised leaf or root of a tobacco plant in a glucose solution. From individual experiments it was found that increasing glucose concentration (c _glu) in the applied solution resulted in significantly higher 2-[¹⁸F]FDG diffusion and translocation within the leaf parenchyma. More than a four times increase of the 2-[¹⁸F]FDG translocation into the aboveground parts of the tobacco plant in case of the root immersion in solution with 100-times higher c _glu in comparison with the control (c _glu = 0.00762 mg cm^?3) was determined. These facts were not confirmed only visually on basis of the obtained 3D images, but also by the increasing coincidence transfer factor (TF_c) values defined by the ratio of the number of analyzed coincidences in the non-immersed parts of leaf or plant to coincidences in leaf petiole or root immersed in the solution. Cluster and principal component analysis suggest that the 2-[¹⁸F]FDG uptake by the petiole of excised leaf and root system was realized by different mechanisms; also, the 3D image quality is influenced by the initial radioactivity of the applied solution.