Molecular design of glycoprotein mimetics: glycoblotting by engineered proteins with an oxylamino-functionalized amino acid residue

The general and efficient method for the site-directed glycosylation of proteins is a key step in order to understand the biological importance of the carbohydrate chains of proteins and to control functional roles of the engineered glycoproteins in terms of the development of improved glycoprotein therapeutics. We have developed a novel method for site-directed glycosylation of proteins based on chemoselective blotting of common reducing sugars by genetically encoded proteins. The oxylamino-functionalized L-homoserine residues, 2-amino-4-O-(N-methylaminooxy) butanoic acid and 2-amino-4-aminooxy butanoic acid, were efficiently incorporated into proteins by using the four-base codon/anticodon pair strategy in Escherichia coli in vitro translation. Direct and chemoselective coupling between unmodified simple sugars and N-methylaminooxy group displayed on the engineered streptavidin allowed for the combinatorial synthesis of novel glycoprotein mimetics.     

Electrostatic Probes for Studying Transport Properties in Tokamak Plasmas

Electrostatic probes for measuring the boundary plasma in tokamaks are reviewed and presented. Transport properties in JFT‐2, the ion temperature and the magnetic surface in JFT‐2M and floating potential fluctuations during the strong additional heating in JT‐60 are measured by several types of electrostatic probe the above‐mentioned purposes. The Langmuir probe including the double probe is applied to measure the spatial profile of boundary plasma in JFT‐2. The ion sensitive probe, the rotating cylindrical double probe, the asymmetric double probe and the differential double probe are applied to measure the ion temperature and magnetic surface in JFT‐2M. The reciprocating Langmuir probe applied to JFT‐2M observes the potential and density fluctuations and a new type probe is proposed for the quick diagnostic of core hot plasmas as a development of this probe. The fluctuation observed in JT‐60 is identified to be the ion cyclotron instability of the hot plasma caused by the strong anisotropy of the ion distribution function (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Energy gap of spin nanotube

Recently some quantum spin systems on tube lattices, so-called spin nanotubes, have been synthesized. They are expected to be interesting low-dimensional systems like the carbon nanotubes. As a first step of theoretical study on the spin nanotube, we investigate the three-leg spin tube, which is the simplest one, using numerical analyses of finite clusters and a finite-size scaling technique. The spin gap, which is one of the most interesting quantities reflecting the macroscopic quantum effect, was revealed to be open for any finite rung exchange couplings, in contrast to the three-leg spin ladder system which is gapless. We also found a quantum phase transition caused by an asymmetric rung interaction. When one of the three rung coupling constants is changed, the spin gap vanishes very rapidly.     

An acid-catalyzed ring-switch reaction of lactams to lactones: concise synthesis of 2,4-dialkyl-3-hydroxybutanolides

A novel approach for the synthesis of 2,4-dialkyl-3-hydroxybutanolides, having three successive stereogenic centers, by an acid-catalyzed ring-switch reaction of 2-(2-hydroxyalkyl)lactams is described. This transformation was applied to the synthesis of the key intermediates of teromerase inhibitor UCS1025A.     

Hierarchical distributed stabilization of power networks

Large fluctuation of electric power due to high penetration of renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic and wind power generation increases the risk to make the whole power network system unstable. The conventional frequency control called load frequency control is based on PID (proportional-integral-derivative) control or more advanced centralized and decentralized/distributed control. If we could more effectively use information on the state of the other neighbor generators, we can expect to make the whole system more robust against the large frequency fluctuation. This paper proposes a fundamental framework towards the design of hierarchical distributed stabilizing controllers for a network of power generators and loads. This novel type of distributed controller, composed of a global controller and a set of local controllers, takes into account the effect of the interaction among the generators and loads to improve robustness for the variation of locally stabilizing controllers.     

Polymer-Supported Bases. XI. Esterification and Alkylation in the Presence of Polymer-Supported Bicyclic Amidine or Guanidine Moieties

Polymer-supported 1,5,7-triazabicyclo[4.4.0]deca-5-ene (TBD) was prepared by the reaction of chloromethylated polystyrene resins, cross-linked with 2 mol% of divinylbenzene, with TBD. The reaction of benzoic acid with bromobutane was carried out in toluene or acetonitrile in the presence of polymer-supported TBD or polymer-supported 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene (DBU). The rate of esterification was dependent on the ring substitution of the supported bases and the solvent. The reduced ring substitution resulted in the increased swellability of the polymeric beads containing benzoate or bromide ions for toluene and thereby in the increased reaction rate. The rate with the high ring-substituted bases increased in acetonitrile, because of the high swellability of the immobilized salts and the high nucleophilicity of benzoate anion in the solvent. The supported bases were also effective for alkylation of an active methylene compound with bromoalkane.     

Zinc- and indium-promoted conjugate addition-cyclization reactions of ethenetricarboxylates with propargylamines and alcohol: novel methylenepyrrolidine and methylenetetrahydrofuran syntheses

A new zinc- and indium-promoted conjugate addition-cyclization reaction to afford nitrogen- and oxygen-containing five-membered heterocycles has been developed. Reaction of ethenetricarboxylates with propargylamines (1 equiv) in the presence of ZnBr2 or InBr3 afforded methylenepyrrolidines in high yields. The stoichiometric use of ZnBr2 or InBr3 at room temperature and the catalytic use of InBr3-Et3N at 80 degrees C were effective. Reaction of ethenetricarboxylates with propargyl alcohol in the presence of ZnBr2 or InBr3 afforded methylenetetrahydrofurans.     

Hydrophilic polymer supported nanoparticles prepared from samarium trichloride and lanthanum trichloride in liquid-phase

Nanoparticles were obtained by the reaction of SmCl₃·6H₂O with sodium borohydride (NaBH₄) in the presence of sodium polyacrylate (PAA) with average molecular weight of 5,100 as a capping polymer. The resulting colloidal solution was placed on a Cu grid and characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM) measurement, which clearly indicated the generation of nanoparticles. The reaction of LaCl₃ with NaBH₄ in the presence of PAA led to preparation of lanthanum nanoparticles, similarly as samarium nanoparticles.     

Measurement of the K(L) charge asymmetry

We present a measurement of the charge asymmetry delta(L) in the mode K(L)-->pi(+/-)e(-/+)nu based on 298 x 10(6) analyzed decays. We measure a value of delta(L) = [3322+/-58(stat)+/-47(syst)]x10(-6), in good agreement with previous measurements and 2.4 times more precise than the current best published result. The result is used to place more stringent limits on CPT and DeltaS = DeltaQ violation in the neutral kaon system.     

Frustration-induced eta inversion in the S=1/2 bond-alternating spin chain

We study the frustration-induced enhancement of the incommensurate correlation for a bond-alternating quantum spin chain in a magnetic field, which is associated with a quasi-one-dimensional organic compound F5PNN. We investigate the temperature dependence of the staggered susceptibilities by using the density matrix renormalization group, and then find that the incommensurate correlation becomes dominant in a certain range of the magnetic field. We also discuss the mechanism of this enhancement on the basis of the mapping to the effective S=1/2 XXZ chain and a possibility of the field-induced incommensurate long-range order.