Solid-phase synthesis and biological evaluation of a teleocidin library--discovery of a selective PKCdelta down regulator

Protein kinaseC (PKC) is linked to the signal-induced modulation of a wide variety of cellular processes, such as growth, differentiation, secretion, apoptosis, and tumor development. The design and synthesis of small molecules that regulate these different cellular signaling systems is at the forefront of modern drug design. Herein we report a) an efficient method for the synthesis of indolactamV (6), a PKC activator, and its N13-des(methyl) analogues (19) using a regioselective organometallic transformation, a convenient aminomalonate derivative (10) to introduce the appropriate functionality and an enantiospecific enzymic hydrolysis as key steps; b) the use of this method in the first solid-phase synthesis of a teleocidin library modifying the N-13, C-12 and C-7 alkyl chains, and, therefore, producing a library of potential activators and/or inhibitors of PKC of the general structure (32); c) the activation of PKC by selected members of the library using a MARCKS translocation in vivo assay system; d) the observation that some of these analogues are nearly as effective as the natural PKC activators phorbol dibutyrate and (-)-indolactam V (6), and e) the observation that some of these analogues have different potential to induce down-regulation of members of the PKC gene family after chronic stimulation.     

Efficient synthesis of 3H-imidazo[4,5-b]pyridines from malononitrile and 5-amino-4-(cyanoformimidoyl)imidazoles

1-Aryl-5-amino-4-(cyanoformimidoyl)imidazoles 2 were reacted with malononitrile under mild experimental conditions and led to 3-aryl-5,7-diamino-6-cyano-3H-imidazo[4,5-b]pyridines 5, when the reaction was carried out in the presence of DBU, or to 3-aryl-5-amino-6,7-dicyano-3H-imidazo[4,5-b]pyridines 3, in its absence. Both reactions evolved from the adduct formed by nucleophilic attack of the malononitrile anion to the carbon of the cyanoformimidoyl substituent. A 5-amino-1-aryl-4-(1-amino-2,2-dicyanovinyl)imidazole 4 was isolated when this reaction was carried out in the presence of DBU. The structure of compound 4 was confirmed by spectroscopic methods and by reaction with triethyl orthoformate and with acetic anhydride, leading respectively to 9-aryl-6-(cyanomethylidene)purines 11 and 12. Imidazole 2b was also reacted with ethyl acetoacetate, a carbon acid with a pK(a) comparable to that of malononitrile. Similar reaction conditions were used and the product isolated was a 6-carbamoyl-1,2-dihydropurine 10, showing that a different mechanism was operating in this case.     

TOPS-MODE based QSARs derived from heterogeneous series of compounds. Applications to the design of new herbicides

A new application of TOPological Sub-structural MOlecular DEsign (TOPS-MODE) was carried out in herbicides using computer-aided molecular design. Two series of compounds, one containing herbicide and the other containing nonherbicide compounds, were processed by a k-Means Cluster Analysis in order to design the training and prediction sets. A linear classification function to discriminate the herbicides from the nonherbicide compounds was developed. The model correctly and clearly classified 88% of active and 94% of inactive compounds in the training set. More specifically, the model showed a good global classification of 91%, i.e., (168 cases out of 185). While in the prediction set, they showed an overall predictability of 91% and 92% for active and inactive compounds, being the global percentage of good classification of 92%. To assess the range of model applicability, a virtual screening of structurally heterogeneous series of herbicidal compounds was carried out. Two hundred eighty-four out of 332 were correctly classified (86%). Furthermore this paper describes a fragment analysis in order to determine the contribution of several fragments toward herbicidal property; also the present of halogens in the selected fragments were analyzed. It seems that the present TOPS-MODE based QSAR is the first alternate general "in silico" technique to experimentation in herbicides discovery.     

Structure and Electronic Properties of Fullerenes C52q+: Is C522+ an Exception to the Pentagon Adjacency Penalty Rule?

The structure, vibrational spectra and electronic properties of the neutral, singly and doubly charged C52 fullerenes were studied by means of the Hartree-Fock method and density functional theory. Different isomers were considered, in particular those with the lowest possible number (five or six) of adjacent pentagons, and an isomer with a four-atom ring. For neutral and singly charged species, the most stable isomer is that with the lowest number of adjacent pentagons, namely five. However, for C(52)2+, the most stable structure has six adjacent pentagons. This finding, which contradicts the pentagon adjacency penalty rule, is a consequence of complete filling of the HOMO pi shell and the near-perfect sphericity of the most stable isomer. The simulated vibrational spectra show important differences in the positions and intensities of the vibrations for the different isomers.     

Total syntheses of four stereoisomers of 4alpha-hydroxy-1beta,7beta-peroxy- 10betaH-guaia-5-ene

[reaction: see text]. The first total syntheses of four stereoisomers of 4alpha-hydroxy-1beta,7beta-peroxy-10betaH-guaia-5-ene are reported starting from the readily available (+)-dihydrocarvone. These compounds have been synthesized from dienes (-)-isoguaiene and (-)-10-epi-isoguaiene by tandem ene hydroperoxylation-[4 + 2] cycloaddition with O(2) followed by selective reduction. The structure of the natural 4alpha-hydroxy-1beta,7beta-peroxy-10betaH-guaia-5-ene isolated from Liabum floribundum has been confirmed.     

Highest-weight representations ofsl(2, ℂ) andsl(3, ℂ) via canonical realizations

The infinite-dimensional representations of thesl(n+1, ) Lie algebras (maximal representations) constructed in our previous paper are studied on the two simplest examplesn = 1,2. The sufficient condition for irreducibility of the maximal representations is proved to be also necessary in these cases. It is further shown, that our method allows us to construct other set of infinite-dimensional highest-weight representations ofsl(3, ), so calledmixed representations which are irreducible in some cases when the maximal as well as the standard highest-weight representations (Verma modules) are reducible.Dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.The authors are grateful to Prof. A. A. Kirillov, Dr. A. U. Klimyk, Dr. W. Lassner and Prof. D. P. Zhelobenko for stimulating discussions.     

The infrared spectra of solid solutions of some iron and chromium oxides

Oxides Fe_2–x Cr _x O₃ (corundum-type) and Fe_3–y ,Cr _y O₄ (spinel-type) were studied by transmission IR spectroscopy. The wavenumbers corresponding to characteristic absorption maxima depend linearly on the composition of both types of solid solutions, i.e. onx andy. The results show that IR spectroscopy can contribute to the analysis of solid solutions of iron and chromium oxides and of the oxidation products of Fe-Cr alloys.The authors are indebted to Ing. P. Holba for the preparation of synthetic oxide samples. The cooperation of Yu. Borodkin and I. Zuika (Riga) who made the measurements in the far IR region is gratefully acknowledged.     

The role of β-cyclodextrin and hydroxypropyl β-cyclodextrin in the secondary chemical equilibria associated to the separation of β-carbolines by HPLC

The use of cyclodextrins (CDs) in HPLC as mobile phase additives provides a flexible alternative for the separation of chemically related compounds because these separations can be performed on conventional columns and are economically advantageous over the use of chiral stationary phases. The present paper describes the influence of the presence of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPβ-CD) on the separation of the β-carboline alkaloids norharmane, harmane and harmine. The nature of the stationary phase (reverse phases C₁ and C₁₈) affects the chromatographic separations and also the stability of the inclusion complexes that are developed. The changes in the proportion of the organic solvents at constant concentration of CDs (3 mM for β-CD and 15 mM for HPβ-CD) modify the retention factors (k′) for all alkaloids studied. The nature of the organic solvent in the mobile phase also changes the chromatographic parameters. The logarithm of the capacity factor (k′) is linearly increased with the proportion of water in the hydro-organic mobile phase (ethanolic or methanolic) but the slopes obtained vary depending on the CD added to the mobile phase. The role of competitive equilibria, i.e., chromatographic distribution and inclusion complexes formation is discussed. This paper was presented at XIIIth International Cyclodextrin Symposium. Torino, Italy, May, 14–17, 2006     

4(5)-D-Arabinotetrahydroxybutylimidazoline-2-thione (THBIT), a new reagent for the spectrophotometric determination of palladium

Summary 4(5)-D-Arabinotetrahydroxybutylimidazoline-2-thione, THBIT, is proposed as a new reagent for the spectrophotometric determination of Pd(II). Pd(II) forms 11, 12 and 14 complexes with THBIT. The system conforms to Beer's law up to 5g/ml palladium concentration in aqueous medium (molar absorptivity, 1.99×10⁴ l· mole^–1·cm^–1 at 338 nm). The most serious interference is from Hg(II), Os(VIII), Ru(IV), Cr(VI), V(V) and S₂O₃ ^2–. The method has been used successfully for the determination of palladium in catalysts and synthetic samples.     

Speciation of the new ligand di-isopropyliminodiacetoamide with Cu(II) using computational processing and graphical methods

The importance assigned to chelating agents in diverse areas has impelled studies concerning their development as related to metal ions representing a biological concern. The synthesis of di-isopropyliminodiacetoamide (D) is presented in this work. The acidity constant obtained for D was pKa = 5.79 +/- 0.04 with the aid of program SUPERQUAD. The equilibrium constants for D with Cu(II) were obtained with the aid of program SQUAD for CuD2+ and CuD2(2)+ species giving log beta1 = 4.795 +/- 0.002 and log beta2 = 8.374 +/- 0.004, respectively.