Analysis of Chemical and Biological Features Yields Mechanistic Insights into Drug Side Effects

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Highlights? Biological and chemical traits are flagged in >1,000 drug side effects ? Mechanistic insights are gained for most of the phenotypes ? Chemical features can account for unspecific or intricate biological phenomena ? Blending chemistry and biology helps in anticipating adverse events     

Tribological evaluation of HVOF thermal‐spray coatings as a hard chrome replacement

Hard chrome plating has been used in several different applications in industries that require abrasive sliding wear resistance, such as hydraulic pistons, shafts or bearings. However, the increasing environmental and worker safety pressures on electrolytic hard chrome are leading companies to adopt alternatives. The improvements of the high‐velocity‐oxy‐fuel (HVOF) thermal spray process allow the chromium coating replacement with a comparable or superior surface treatment and are more environmentally friendly. This HVOF process, as a flexible dry‐coating technology, avoids high‐volume waste streams and enables a flexible choice of coating material for each application. The cobalt–chromium‐cemented tungsten carbides are some of the easiest materials to spray and the WC‐10Co‐4Cr coatings have demonstrated superior performance over hard chrome with regard to mechanical and tribological properties. In this work, this coating has been deposited with a Sulzer Metco WokaJet‐400 kerosene fuel spray gun, and the spray conditions have been optimized in order to ensure the best properties of the coatings. The mechanical and tribological properties have been evaluated in coatings sprayed with four deposition conditions that involve different gas flow rates. The most wear‐resistant coating is obtained with those HVOF parameters that prevent decarburization of WC particles and, at the same time, allow an adequate agglomerate melting giving a good intersplat adhesion. The results indicate that HVOF‐sprayed WC‐CoCr coatings are a reliable alternative to electrolytic hard chrome (EHC) in the aeronautical industry to coat landing gear components. In particular, in the dry wear tests, the WC‐CoCr coatings outperform hard chrome coatings in wear resistance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance of 3D‐space‐based atoms‐in‐molecules methods for electronic delocalization aromaticity indices

Several definitions of an atom in a molecule (AIM) in three‐dimensional (3D) space, including both fuzzy and disjoint domains, are used to calculate electron sharing indices (ESI) and related electronic aromaticity measures, namely, I_ring and multicenter indices (MCI), for a wide set of cyclic planar aromatic and nonaromatic molecules of different ring size. The results obtained using the recent iterative Hirshfeld scheme are compared with those derived from the classical Hirshfeld method and from Bader's quantum theory of atoms in molecules. For bonded atoms, all methods yield ESI values in very good agreement, especially for C–C interactions. In the case of nonbonded interactions, there are relevant deviations, particularly between fuzzy and QTAIM schemes. These discrepancies directly translate into significant differences in the values and the trends of the aromaticity indices. In particular, the chemically expected trends are more consistently found when using disjoint domains. Careful examination of the underlying effects reveals the different reasons why the aromaticity indices investigated give the expected results for binary divisions of 3D space. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2011.     

Routes of π-electron delocalization in 4-substituted-1,2-benzoquinones

The substituent effect in 4-substituted-1,2-benzoquinone is investigated by means of modeling using B3LYP hybrid functional in conjunction with the 6-311+G(d,p) basis set. The interrelation between different types of substituents, X = NO, NO(2), CN, CHO, H, Me, OMe, OH, NH(2), NHMe and N(Me)(2), and both CO groups has been characterized both qualitatively and then quantitatively by means of several measures of π-electron delocalization (HOMA, MCI, DI, FLU) based on structural and electronic properties of 4-substituted-1,2-benzoquinones chosen for analysis. Results of this analysis clearly show that only the meta-placed CO group is affected by substituents, whereas the para-placed CO group is rather insensitive to substitution. These observations may help to explain diversified chemical properties (including reactivity) of CO centers in o-benzoquinone derivatives. Among others, they may explain differences in proton-accepting properties of carbonyl O atoms, as it is shown for simple models in which carbonyl groups in o-benzoquinone act as proton acceptors in H-bonds of O···H-F type.     

Highly Active Organocatalysts for Asymmetric anti-Mannich Reactions

Lighten the load! A family of enantiopure 4-oxy-substituted 3-aminopyrrolidines arising from the enantioselective ring-opening of meso-3-pyrroline oxide have been developed as catalysts for the asymmetric, anti-selective Mannich reaction (see scheme; PMP=p-methoxyphenyl; PG=protecting group). Very high catalytic activity (down to 0.01 mol?% loading) and stereoselectivity have been recorded.     

A computational study on the role of chiral N-oxides in enantioselective Pauson-Khand reactions

Density functional calculations were carried out to ascertain the origin of enantioselectivity in the brucine N‐oxide (BNO)‐assisted enantioselective Pauson–Khand reaction (PKR) of norbornene with 2‐methyl‐3‐butyn‐2‐ol. The computed ee value in acetone is 68 % (R), which compares well to the previously reported experimental value of 58 % (R). In DME the computed ee value of 76 % (R) is in excellent agreement with the experimentally determined value of 78 % (R). The mechanism of enantioselectivity consists of several steps. First, the dicobalt complex is activated by BNO with chirality transfer from enantiopure BNO to the dicobalt complex. Second, competition occurs between a racemization process and complexation with the olefin reagent, which leads to the products. The lower ee value in acetone is due to the lower energy barrier of the racemization process. Calculations show that replacement of BNO by a hypothetical more enantioselective chiral N‐oxide will hardly increase the ee value beyond 90 %.     

X-ray absorption spectroscopic studies of high-spin nonheme (alkylperoxo)iron(III) intermediates

The reactions of iron(II) complexes [Fe(T(pt-Bu,i-Pr))(OH)] (1a, Tp(t-Bu,i-Pr) = hydrotris(3-tert-butyl-5-isopropyl-1-pyrazolyl)borate), [Fe(6-Me2BPMCN)(OTf)2] (1b, 6-Me2BPMCN = N,N'-bis((2-methylpyridin-6-yl)methyl)-N,N'-dimethyl-trans-1,2-diaminocyclohexane), and [Fe(L8Py2)(OTf)](OTf) (1c, L8Py2 = 1,5-bis(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)-1,5-diazacyclooctane) with tert-BuOOH give rise to high-spin FeIII-OOR complexes. X-ray absorption spectra (XAS) of these high-spin species show characteristic features, distinct from those of low-spin Fe-OOR complexes (Rohde, J.-U.; et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 126, 16750-16761). These include (1) an intense 1s --> 3d preedge feature, with an area around 20 units, (2) an edge energy, ranging from 7122 to 7126 eV, that is affected by the coordination environment, and (3) a 1.86-1.96 A Fe-OOR bond, compared to the 1.78 A Fe-OOR bond in low-spin complexes. These unique features likely arise from a flexible first coordination sphere in those complexes. The difference in Fe-OOR bond length may rationalize differences in reactivity between low-spin and high-spin FeIII-OOR species.     

Fluorogenic Trp(redBODIPY) cyclopeptide targeting keratin 1 for imaging of aggressive carcinomas

Keratin 1 (KRT1) is overexpressed in squamous carcinomas and associated with aggressive pathologies in breast cancer. Herein we report the design and preparation of the first Trp-based red fluorogenic amino acid, which is synthetically accessible in a few steps and displays excellent photophysical properties, and its application in a minimally-disruptive labelling strategy to prepare a new fluorogenic cyclopeptide for imaging of KRT1+ cells in whole intact tumour tissues.

Trp(redBODIPY) is the first red-emitting Trp-based amino acid for the preparation of fluorogenic peptides with retention of target binding affinity.     

Local aromaticity of the lowest-lying singlet States of [N]acenes (N = 6-9)

The local aromaticities of the six-membered rings in the two lowest-lying singlet states of [n]acenes (n = 6-9) have been assessed by means of three probes of local aromaticity based on structural, magnetic, and electron delocalization properties. Important differences between the local aromaticities of the closed-shell and diradical singlet electronic states are found. Thus, while the inner rings have the largest aromatic character in the closed-shell singlet states, the outer rings become the most aromatic for the diradical singlet states.