Palladium-coated nickel nanoclusters: new Hiyama cross-coupling catalysts

The advantages of bimetallic nanoparticles as C-C coupling catalysts are discussed, and a simple, bottom-up synthesis method of core-shell Ni-Pd clusters is presented. This method combines electrochemical and 'wet chemical' techniques, and enables the preparation of highly monodispersed structured bimetallic nanoclusters. The double-anode electrochemical cell is described in detail. The core-shell Ni-Pd clusters were then applied as catalysts in the Hiyama cross-coupling reaction between phenyltrimethoxysilane and various haloaryls. Good product yields were obtained with a variety of iodo- and bromoaryls. We found that, for a fixed amount of Pd atoms, the core-shell clusters outperform both the monometallic Pd clusters and the alloy bimetallic Ni-Pd ones. THF is an excellent solvent for this process, with less than 2% homocoupling by-product. The roles of the stabiliser and the solvent are discussed.     

One-pot Pd/C catalysed 'domino' HALEX and Sonogashira reactions: a ligand- and Cu-free alternative

The advantages of combining heterogeneous catalysis and aryl chloride substrates for cross-coupling are introduced. A heterogeneous Pd/C catalyst is used for activating aryl bromides and electron withdrawing aryl chlorides via a one-pot 'domino' HALEX-Sonogashira reaction. No ligand or co-catalyst is required, and the cross-coupling products are obtained in moderate to good yields. The influence of the solvent, base, iodide source and catalyst is evaluated. The catalyst is reusable for at least six consecutive reaction cycles. A variation on this reaction using catalytic amounts of KI is also proposed.     

Influence of atmospheric turbulence on states of light carrying orbital angular momentum

We have experimentally studied the degradation of mode purity for light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) propagating through simulated atmospheric turbulence. The turbulence is modeled as a randomly varying phase aberration, which obeys statistics postulated by Kolmogorov turbulence theory. We introduce this simulated turbulence through the use of a phase-only spatial light modulator. Once the turbulence is introduced, the degradation in mode quality results in crosstalk between OAM modes. We study this crosstalk in OAM for 11 modes, showing that turbulence uniformly degrades the purity of all the modes within this range, irrespective of mode number.     

Chemistry of the phenoxathiins and isosterically related heterocycles. XXXIII . The influence of intramolecular sulfur-nitro group interactions on the reactivity at sulfur

Nitro-groups positioned ortho to thio-esters have been shown to engage in strong, non-bonded intramolecular interactions between the sulfur atom and one of the nitro-group oxygens. The effect of the sulfur-nitro group oxygen interaction on the chemical reactivity at the sulfur atom of 9-nitro-1-azaphenoxathiin is reported. Conditions which normally produce the sulfone exclusively have been shown to yield the sulfoxide with only a minimal quantity of the sulfone produced. Protracted periods of reflux are required to produce the sulfone from the sulfoxide.     

Identification of Africanized honeybees

Gas chromatography and pattern recognition methods were used to develop a potential method for differentiating European honeybees from Africanized honeybees. The test data consisted of 237 gas chromatograms of hydrocarbon extracts obtained from the wax glands, cuticle, and exocrine glands of European and Africanized honeybees. Each gas chromatogram contained 65 peaks corresponding to a set of standardized retention time windows. A genetic algorithm (GA) for pattern recognition was used to identify features in the gas chromatograms characteristic of the genotype. The pattern recognition GA searched for features in the chromatograms that optimized the separation of the European and Africanized honeybees in a plot of the two or three largest principal components of the data. Because the largest principal components capture the bulk of the variance in the data, the peaks identified by the pattern recognition GA primarily contained information about differences between gas chromatograms of European and Africanized honeybees. The principal component analysis routine embedded in the fitness function of the pattern recognition GA acted as an information filter, significantly reducing the size of the search space since it restricted the search to feature sets whose principal component plots showed clustering on the basis of the bees' genotype. In addition, the algorithm focused on those classes and/or samples that were difficult to classify as it trained using a form of boosting. Samples that consistently classify correctly are not as heavily weighted as samples that are difficult to classify. Over time, the algorithm learns its optimal parameters in a manner similar to a neural network. The pattern recognition GA integrates aspects of artificial intelligence and evolutionary computations to yield a "smart" one-pass procedure for feature selection and classification.     

In silico targeting PAD4 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

Structural Chemistry - Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder that causes chronic inflammation with periodic bursts of activity in multiple synovial joints which lead to irreversible...     

P(450)/NADPH/O(2)- and P(450)/PhIO-catalyzed N-dealkylations are mechanistically distinct

A high-valent iron-oxo species analogous to the compound I of peroxidases has been thought to be the activated oxygen species in P450-catalyzed reactions. Spectroscopic characterization of the catalytically competent iron-oxo species in iodosobenzene (PhIO)-supported model reactions and parallels between these model reactions and PhIO- and NADPH/O2-supported P450 reactions have been taken as strong evidence for this proposal. To support this proposal, subtle differences observed in regio- and chemoselectivities, isotope effects, and source of oxygen, etc., between NADPH/O2- and PhIO-supported P450 reactions have been generally attributed to reasons other than the mechanistic differences between the two systems. In the present study, we have used a series of sensitive mechanistic probes, 4-chloro-N-cyclopropyl-N-alkylanilines, to compare and contrast the chemistries of the NADPH/O2- and PhIO-supported purified CYP2B1 N-dealkylation reactions. Herein we present the first experimental evidence to demonstrate that the NADPH/O2- and PhIO-supported P450 N-dealkylations are mechanistically distinct and, thus, the P450/PhIO system may not be a good mechanistic model for P450/NADPH/O2-catalyzed N-dealkylations.     

Copper-catalyzed Suzuki cross-coupling using mixed nanocluster catalysts

A small library of copper and noble metal nanoclusters is designed and synthesized. These clusters are tested as catalysts in the Suzuki cross-coupling of various aryl halides with phenylboronic acid. It is found that copper and copper/noble metal combination nanoclusters are active catalysts for this reaction, the most active being the combined copper/palladium clusters. Iodo-, bromo-, and chloroarenes can be used. In the case of p-nitrobromobenzene, a one-pot cross-coupling and selective hydrogenation is achieved.     

Microsomal P450-catalyzed N-dealkylation of N,N-dialkylanilines: evidence for a C(alpha)-H abstraction mechanism

The early proposal that P450-catalyzed N-dealkylation of N,N-dialkylamines proceeds through a single-electron-transfer (SET) mechanism was later challenged in favor of the C(alpha)-H abstraction mechanism. In the present study, a series of N-alkyl-N-cyclopropyl-p-chloroaniline probes have been used to examine whether the P450-catalyzed N-dealkylations proceed through a C(alpha)-H abstraction and/or a SET mechanism, using phenobarbital-induced rat liver microsomal P450 enzymes as a model system. While the findings are highly consistent with a C(alpha)-H abstraction mechanism, further experimental evidence may be necessary to completely rule out the SET mechanism.