The Synthesis of Some Fused Pyrazolo‐1,4‐Naphthoquinones

New fused pyrazolo‐1,4‐naphthoquinones were prepared from the reaction of hydrazines with 6‐(4‐methyl‐3‐pentenyl)‐1,4‐naphthoquinone. The reaction was extended to hydroxylamine to afford the corresponding isoxazolo‐1,4‐napthoquinone compound.     

Spectroscopic and Kinetic Evidence for the Crucial Role of Compound 0 in the P450cam‐Catalyzed Hydroxylation of Camphor by Hydrogen Peroxide

The hydroperoxo iron(III) intermediate P450_camFe^III–OOH, being the true Compound 0 (Cpd 0) involved in the natural catalytic cycle of P450_cam, could be transiently observed in the peroxo‐shunt oxidation of the substrate‐free enzyme by hydrogen peroxide under mild basic conditions and low temperature. The prolonged lifetime of Cpd 0 enabled us to kinetically examine the formation and reactivity of P450_camFe^III–OOH species as a function of varying reaction conditions, such as pH, and concentration of H₂O₂, camphor, and potassium ions. The mechanism of hydrogen peroxide binding to the substrate‐free form of P450_cam differs completely from that observed for other heme proteins possessing the distal histidine as a general acid–base catalyst and is mainly governed by the ability of H₂O₂ to undergo deprotonation at the hydroxo ligand coordinated to the iron(III) center under conditions of pH≥p${K{{{\rm P450}\hfill \atop {\rm a}\hfill}}}$ . Notably, no spectroscopic evidence for the formation of either Cpd I or Cpd II as products of heterolytic or homolytic O?O bond cleavage, respectively, in Cpd 0 could be observed under the selected reaction conditions. The kinetic data obtained from the reactivity studies involving (1R)‐camphor, provide, for the first time, experimental evidence for the catalytic activity of the P450Fe^III–OOH intermediate in the oxidation of the natural substrate of P450_cam.     

Construction of a perturbatively correct light-front Hamiltonian for a (2+1)-dimensional gauge theory

We discuss a perturbation theory on the light front regularized by a method analogous to Pauli–Villars regularization for the (2+1)-dimensional SU(N)-symmetric gauge theory. This allows constructing a correct renormalized light-front Hamiltonian.     

Hydrodynamic lift of vesicles and red blood cells in flow — from Fåhræus & Lindqvist to microfluidic cell sorting

Hydrodynamic lift forces acting on cells and particles in fluid flow receive ongoing attention from medicine, mathematics, physics and engineering. The early findings of Fåhræus & Lindqvist on the viscosity change of blood with the diameter of capillaries motivated extensive studies both experimentally and theoretically to illuminate the underlying physics. We review this historical development that led to the discovery of the inertial and non-inertial lift forces and elucidate the origins of these forces that are still not entirely clear. Exploiting microfluidic techniques induced a tremendous amount of new insights especially into the more complex interactions between the flow field and deformable objects like vesicles or red blood cells. We trace the way from the investigation of single cell dynamics to the recent developments of microfluidic techniques for particle and cell sorting using hydrodynamic forces. Such continuous and label-free on-chip cell sorting devices promise to revolutionize medical analyses for personalized point-of-care diagnosis. We present the state-of-the-art of different hydrodynamic lift-based techniques and discuss their advantages and limitations.     

High-throughput and cost-effective global DNA methylation assay by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

An affordable and fast liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed for the accurate and precise determination of global DNA methylation levels in peripheral blood. Global DNA methylation extent was expressed as the ratio of methylated 2′-deoxycytidine (5MedC) to 2′-deoxyguanosine (dG), which were obtained after DNA extraction and hydrolysis and determined by positive electrospray LC–ESI-MS/MS. The cost-effective internal standards ¹⁵N₃-dC and ¹⁵N₅-dG were incorporated for the accurate quantification of 5MedC and dG, respectively. The desired nucleoside analytes were separated and eluted by LC within 2.5 min on a reverse phase column with a limit of detection of 1.4 femtomole on column for 5MedC. Sample preparation in 96-well format has significantly increased the assay throughput and filtration was found to be a necessary step to assure precision. Precision was performed with repeated analysis of four DNA QC sample over 12 days, with mean intra- and inter-day CVs of 6% and 11%, respectively. Accuracy was evaluated by comparison with a previously reported method showing a mean CV of 4% for 5 subjects analyzed. Furthermore, application of the assay using a benchtop orbitrap LCMS in exact mass full scan mode showed comparable sensitivity to tandem LCMS using multiple reaction monitoring.     

Synthesis, complexation behavior and application of a new diphosphite ligand in rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation

Oxidative coupling of 3-(3-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)propionic acid methyl ester (2) gave dimethyl 3,3′-(5,5′-di-tert-butyl-6,6′-dihydroxybiphenyl-3,3′-diyl)-dipropionate (1c), which upon phosphorylation/transesterification with a phosphochloridite derived from (R)-binaphthol, formed the new unsymmetrical binaphthol-bridged diphosphite 4. A rhodium catalyst based on 4 as ligand gave predominantly iso-selectivity in the hydroformylation of selected styrenes but opposite regioselectivity with 2,6-disubstituted derivatives. New chelate metal complexes (acac)RhL, PdCl₂L and PtCl₂L have been synthesized by reacting 4 with (acac)Rh(CO)₂, PdCl₂(MeCN)₂ and PtCl₂(COD), respectively. The structure of obtained compounds is determined based on ¹H, ¹³C, ³¹P and ¹⁹⁵Pt NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry data.     

On the influence of basis sets and quantum chemical methods on the prediction accuracy of COSMO-RS

This paper examines how the accuracy of activity coefficients at infinite dilution calculated from the conductor-like screening model for real solvents (COSMO-RS) depends on the basis set and the quantum chemical method used. Activity coefficients at various temperatures serve as experimental parameters for optimising the COSMO-RS parameters. A modification of the electrostatic misfit term of the energy function of COSMO-RS is presented that leads to a slightly higher accuracy. COSMO-RS parameter sets for nine different systematically varied basis sets using the density functional theory with the BP86 functional show that at least a valence double-zeta basis set is necessary for good accuracy. Larger basis sets show no advantages. Investigations of eight different quantum chemical calculation methods using a valence triple-zeta basis set are documented. Hartree-Fock and local density approximations give relatively poor results. The gradient-corrected density functionals investigated and the B3LYP hybrid functional show practically identical accuracy. The most accurate parameterisation was obtained with MP2.     

Limit theorems for a recursive maximum process with location-dependent periodic intensity-parameter

We investigate the recursive sequence Z _n : =  max {Z _n − 1,λ(Z _n − 1)X _n } where X _n is a sequence of iid random variables with exponential distributions and λ is a periodic positive bounded measurable function. We prove that the Césaro mean of the sequence λ(Z _n ) converges toward the essential minimum of λ. Subsequently we apply this result and obtain a limit theorem for the distributions of the sequence Z _n . The resulting limit is a Gumbel distribution.