Doped (Nd,Ba)FeO3 oxides as potential electrodes for symmetrically designed protonic ceramic electrochemical cells

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - The design of new electrode materials with high redox stability has great potential for the fabrication of solid oxide fuel and electrolysis cells having a...     

Discovery,Synthesis and Evaluation of a Ketol-Acid Reductoisomerase Inhibitor

Ketol-acid reductoisomerase (KARI), the second enzyme in the branched-chain amino acid biosynthesis pathway, is a potential drug target for bacterial infections including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Here, we have screened the Medicines for Malaria Venture Pathogen Box against purified M. tuberculosis (Mt) KARI and identified two compounds that have K_i values below 200 nm . In Mt cell susceptibility assays one of these compounds exhibited an IC₅₀ value of 0.8 μm . Co-crystallization of this compound, 3-((methylsulfonyl)methyl)-2H-benzo[b][1,4]oxazin-2-one (MMV553002), in complex with Staphylococcus aureus KARI, which has 56 % identity with Mt KARI, NADPH and Mg²⁺ yielded a structure to 1.72 Å resolution. However, only a hydrolyzed product of the inhibitor (i.e. 3-(methylsulfonyl)-2-oxopropanic acid, missing the 2-aminophenol attachment) is observed in the active site. Surprisingly, Mt cell susceptibility assays showed that the 2-aminophenol product is largely responsible for the anti-TB activity of the parent compound. Thus, 3-(methylsulfonyl)-2-oxopropanic acid was identified as a potent KARI inhibitor that could be further explored as a potential biocidal agent and we have shown 2-aminophenol, as an anti-TB drug lead, especially given it has low toxicity against human cells. The study highlights that careful analysis of broad screening assays is required to correctly interpret cell-based activity data.     

Helical γ-Peptide Foldamers as Dual Inhibitors of Amyloid-β Peptide and Islet Amyloid Polypeptide Oligomerization and Fibrillization

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) belong to the 10 deadliest diseases and are sorely lacking in effective treatments. Both pathologies are part of the degenerative disorders named amyloidoses, which involve the misfolding and the aggregation of amyloid peptides, hIAPP for T2D and Aβ_1-42 for AD. While hIAPP and Aβ_1-42 inhibitors have been essentially designed to target β-sheet-rich structures composing the toxic amyloid oligomers and fibrils of these peptides, the strategy aiming at trapping the non-toxic monomers in their helical native conformation has been rarely explored. We report herein the first example of helical foldamers as dual inhibitors of hIAPP and Aβ_1-42 aggregation and able to preserve the monomeric species of both amyloid peptides. A foldamer composed of 4-amino(methyl)-1,3-thiazole-5-carboxylic acid (ATC) units, adopting a 9-helix structure reminiscent of 3₁₀ helix, was remarkable as demonstrated by biophysical assays combining thioflavin-T fluorescence, transmission electronic microscopy, capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry.     

Unusual Nitrene Oxidation Product Formation by Metathesis Involving the Dioxygen O−O and Borylnitrene B−N Bonds

The reaction of dioxygen with nitrenes can have significant energy barriers, although both reactants are triplet diradicals and the formation of nitroso-O-oxides is spin-allowed. By means of matrix-isolation infrared spectroscopy in solid argon, nitrogen, and neon, and through high-level computational quantum chemistry, it is shown herein that a 3-nitreno-1,3,2-benzodioxaborole CatBN (Cat=catecholato) reacts with dioxygen under cryogenic conditions thermally at temperatures as low as 7 K to produce two distinct products, an anti-nitroso-O-oxide and a nitritoborane CatBONO. The computed barriers for the formation of nitroso-O-oxide isomers are very low. Whereas anti-nitroso-O-oxide is kinetically trapped, its bisected isomer has a very low barrier for metathesis, yielding the CatBO+NO radicals in a strongly exothermic reaction; these radicals can combine under matrix-isolation conditions to give nitritoborane CatBONO. The trapped isomer, anti-nitroso-O-oxide, can form the nitritoborane CatBONO only after photoexcitation, possibly involving isomerization to the bisected isomer of anti-nitroso-O-oxide.     

Microscale modeling and homogenization of rope-like textiles

This contribution deals with rope-like textiles. On the macroscopic level rope-like textiles are characterized by a large length-to-thickness ratio, such that a discretization with beam elements is numerically efficient. To capture the contact behavior the representative volume element is explicitly modeled by means of a volumetric micro sample. A suitable, beam-specific FE₂ method is developed, which connects the homogeneous macro level to a fiber structured micro sample. This contribution investigates the determination of the nonlinear constitutive behavior of rope-like textiles. Selected examples for the macroscopic behavior of microscopic heterogeneous fiber structured materials are presented. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

On the Action of the Groups GL(n+1, q), PGL(n + 1, q), SL(n + 1, q) and PSL(n + 1, q) on PG(n, q t)

Let q be a prime power and let n ≥ 0, t ≥ 1 be integers. We determine the sizes of the point orbits of each of the groups GL(n + 1, q), PGL(n + 1, q), SL(n + 1, q) and PSL(n + 1, q) acting on PG(n, q ^t) and for each of these sizes (and groups) we determine the exact number of point orbits of this size.     

Dirhodium(II) Compounds with Bridging Thienylphosphines: Studies on Reversible P,C/P,S Coordination

Monocyclometalated compound [Rh₂{(C₈H₄S)P(C₈H₅S)₂}(CH₃CO₂H)₂(O₂CCH₃)₃] ( 1 a ) and bis‐cyclometalated compound [Rh₂{(C₈H₄S)P(C₈H₅S)₂}₂(CH₃CO₂H)₂(O₂CCH₃)₂] ( 2 a ) have been isolated from the reaction of dirhodium tetraacetate and tris(2‐benzo[b]thienyl)phosphine ( 2 BTP ) using low acidic solutions. By contrast, in pure acetic acid the reaction of Rh₂(O₂CCH₃)₄ with 2 BTP and tris(2‐thienyl)phosphine ( 2 TP ), followed by replacement of the axial acetate ligands by chlorides, led to [Rh₂{(2‐C₈H₅ S )P(2‐C₈H₅S)₂}₂Cl₂(O₂CCH₃)₂] ( 3 b ) and [Rh₂{(2‐C₄H₃ S )P(C₄H₃S)₂}₂Cl₂(O₂CCH₃)₂] ( 5 b ), respectively. These new dirhodium(II) compounds possess equatorial bridging ligands in a phosphorous–sulfur (P,S) coordination mode. The reversible switching between the P,C and P,S bonding mode of the phosphine has been studied in the monocyclometalated [Rh₂{(C₄H₂S)P(C₄H₃S)₂}(CH₃CO₂H)₂(O₂CCH₃)₃] ( 6 a ), which was selectively transformed into compound [Rh₂{(2‐C₄H₃ S )P(C₄H₃S)₂}(CF₃SO₃)(CH₃CO₂H)(O₂CCH₃)₃] ( 7 c ) in triflic acid media. Remarkably, compound 7 c reverts to the starting compound 6 a upon treatment with sodium acetate. Theoretical DFT calculations for both the P,C/P,S rearrangement and the base‐promoted reversion have been performed to explain the experimental findings. Data suggest the P,C/P,S rearrangement occurs by means of a “concerted protonation–demetalation mechanism” followed by η² coordination of the thienyl ring and subsequent isomerization to the S‐η¹‐coordination mode. In the reversion reaction, the base coordinated at the axial position would promote a concerted metalation–deprotonation mechanism.     

A characterization of fibrant Segal categories

In this note we prove that Reedy fibrant Segal categories are fibrant objects in the model category structure . Combining this result with a previous one, we thus have that the fibrant objects are precisely the Reedy fibrant Segal categories. We also show that the analogous result holds for Segal categories that are fibrant in the projective model structure on simplicial spaces, considered as objects in the model structure .