A 3D QSAR study on a set of dopamine D4 receptor antagonists

The molecular alignments obtained from a previously reported pharmacophore model have been employed in a three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D QSAR) study, to obtain a more detailed insight into the structure-activity relationships for D(2) and D(4) receptor antagonists. The frequently applied CoMFA method and the related CoMSIA method were used. Statistically significant models have been derived with these two methods, based on a set of 32 structurally diverse D(2) and D(4) receptor antagonists. The CoMSIA and the CoMFA methods produced equally good models expressed in terms of q(2) values. The predictive power of the derived models were demonstrated to be high. Graphical interpretation of the results, provided by the CoMSIA method, brings to light important structural features of the compounds related to either low- or high-affinity D(2) or D(4) antagonism. The results of the 3D QSAR studies indicate that bulky N-substituents decrease D(2) binding, whereas D(4) binding is enhanced. Electrostatically favorable and unfavorable regions exclusive to D(2) receptor binding were identified. Likewise, certain hydrogen-bond acceptors can be used to lower D(2) affinity. These observations may be exploited for the design of novel dopamine D(4) selective antagonists.     

Some properties of a thermostable β-xylosidase fromRhodothermus marinus

The extracellular β-xylosidase (EC 3.2.1.37) excreted by the thermophilic eubacteriumRhodothermus marinus when grown on xylan has been investigated. The enzyme has been partially purified by ultrafiltration and gel filtration, and some of its characteristics are presented.Rhodothermus marinus grew on xylan with μmax= 0.4 h^? and the α-xylosidase activity was 50 nkat/mL after 24 h in a batch fermentation. The α-xylosidase activity had a half-life of more than 1 h at 90°C and of 14 h at 85 °C. At 80°C, 80% of the initial activity remained after 24 h. The initial activity increased with increasing temperature, showing maximal activity at 90°C. The β-xylosidase had a pH-optimum of 6 and was stable in the range between pH 5 and 9. At pH 10 and 11, 82 and 66%, respectively, of the initial activity remained after 24 h when incubated at 65°C. The molecular weight was estimated to be 169,000 dalton by gelfiltration.     

Charged particle evaporation from compound nuclei formed by bombardment of58Ni with 70 MeV16O ions II

The experimental data have been compared with the result of extensive compound nucleus calculations based on the statistical theory. The shapes and the absolute cross sections for the high energy parts of the proton- and -spectra are reproduced with a level density parametera 0·11 A MeV^–1 and a moment of inertiaJ1·3J _rig. The same parameters fairly well reproduce the angular distributions corresponding to the high energy parts of the spectra whereas deviations between theory and experiment are observed for the lower energies where particles emitted by higher order processes contribute. The observed total cross section for emission of an -particle is 500 mb or 1·7 times calculated value. For protons the corresponding numbers are 2313 mb and 3·0. The increase in cross section is ascribed to the process in which several particles are evaporated. Various methods are discussed for determination of the average orbital angular momentum of the emitted particle or the average spin of the daughter nucleus.On leave fromFaculty of Matematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia.     

First order magnetic transition,magnetic structure,and vacancy distribution in Fe2P

The para- to ferromagnetic transition in Fe₂P has been studied using Mössbauer spectroscopy. The magnetic hyperfine fields drop abruptly from about half of their saturation values to zero at 214.5 K indicating a first order transition. The isomer shifts show a discontinuous change at the transition point. For some samples the transition takes place over a wide temperature range, probably due to impurities and other imperfections in the samples. From the magnetic hyperfine fields at 15 K the magnetic moments can be deduced to be 1.14 μ_B and 1.78 μ_B for Fe(1) and Fe(2), respectively. An assignment of the components in the Mössbauer spectra to the two crystallographically nonequivalent iron positions has been made from the temperature variation of the spectra.The ordering of metal vacancies has been investigated by a Mössbauer study of a nonstoichiometric Fe₂P sample and by an X-ray diffraction study of a nonstoichiometric Mn₂P crystal.     

The stability of the perovskite-type zirconium tungsten bronze ZrxWO3

It has been found that a perovskite-related zirconium tungsten bronze Zr_xWO₃ (with 0 < x ? 0.08) forms readily at temperatures between 973 and 1573° K. Prolonged heating causes the bronze to decompose to other oxide products at all the temperatures investigated. These results are summarized in phase diagrams. Possible reasons for the decomposition of the bronze are discussed.     

Intramolecular homolytic substitution at selenium: synthesis of novel selenium-containing vitamin E analogues

Treatment of 1-(benzylselenenyl)-5-butyl-5-nonanol (10) with oxalyl chloride followed by the sodium salt of N-hydroxypyridine-2-thione afforded the corresponding pyridine-2-thione-N-oxycarbonyl (PTOC) oxalate ester which was not isolated but immediately heated to provide 2,2-dibutylselenane (7). This transformation presumably involves a tertiary alkyl radical that undergoes intramolecular homolytic substitution at selenium with loss of the benzyl radical to provide the selenium-containing ring system (7). A similar protocol, when applied to 1-(2-benzylselenenyl-5-methoxyphenyl)-3-methyl-3-heptanol (18) and 1-(2-benzylselenenyl-5-methoxyphenyl)-3,7,11,15-tetramethyl-3-hexadecanol (19), followed by deprotection, afforded the selenium-containing alpha-tocopherol analogues 4 and 1f, respectively, in moderate yields. To the best of our knowledge, these transformations represent the first examples of tertiary radicals involved in homolytic substitution chemistry at selenium.     

Hydrophobicity and counterion effects on the binding of ionic surfactants to uncharged polymeric hydrogels

Gel swelling experiments have been used to study the binding of ionic surfactants to a series of nonionic alkylacrylamide hydrogels of increasing hydrophobicity. The binding of hexadecyl trimethylammonium (C16TA+) to uncharged gels is sensitive to both the hydrophobicity of the gel and the counterion to the surfactant. There is a minimum hydrophobicity threshold below which binding of the surfactant does not occur, and this is influenced by the counterion to the surfactant. The surfactant concentration at the onset of binding, the critical association concentration (cac), decreases with increasing gel hydrophobicity. The maximum swelling of the gel (at intermediate network hydrophobicity) increases in the order of the Hofmeister series of anions, bromide (Br-) < chloride (Cl-) < acetate (Ac-). At higher gel hydrophobicity, differences in swelling are no longer observed on changing the counterion. A minimum hydrophobicity threshold was also found for the binding of the anionic surfactants sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and sodium dodecyl-di(ethylene oxide)-sulfate (SD-(EO)2-S). Differences in the swelling behavior with network hydrophobicity are explained in terms of the degree of saturation of the gel with surfactant at the cmc.     

Homomorphisms on some function algebras

In this note we prove, for some classes of real locally convex spacesE including all complete Schwartz spaces, that every non-zero homomorphism on the algebraC (E) ofC -functions onE is given by a point evaluation at some point ofE.