Synthesis of N-benzyl-des-D-ring lamellarin K via an acyl-Claisen/Paal-Knorr approach

Lamellarin K is a complex pyrrole natural product and member of the lamellarin family – a group of natural products known for their potent biological activities, such as, antiproliferative activity and inhibition of P-gp mediated drug efflux pumps. We herein describe the synthesis of the N-benzyl-des-D ring analogue of lamellarin K using a route that centres on an acyl-Claisen reaction to eventually prepare a highly-functionalised 1-aryl-4-methyl-1,4-diketone. Paal-Knorr pyrrole formation using this diketone undergoes auto-oxidation to give a fully-substituted 5-formyl pyrrole which was converted into the natural lactone B ring. Antiproliferative testing of the N-benzyl-des-D ring analogue gave an IC₅₀ of 2.63 μM against the MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line.     

Dynamical properties of water in living cells

With the aim of studying the effect of water dynamics on the properties of biological systems, in this paper, we present a quasi-elastic neutron scattering study on three different types of living cells, differing both in their morphological and tumor properties. The measured scattering signal, which essentially originates from hydrogen atoms present in the investigated systems, has been analyzed using a global fitting strategy using an optimized theoretical model that considers various classes of hydrogen atoms and allows disentangling diffusive and rotational motions. The approach has been carefully validated by checking the reliability of the calculation of parameters and their 99% confidence intervals. We demonstrate that quasi-elastic neutron scattering is a suitable experimental technique to characterize the dynamics of intracellular water in the angstrom/picosecond space/time scale and to investigate the effect of water dynamics on cellular biodiversity.     

Studien über Schutzkolloide. Achte Reihe: Tubera Salep als Schutzkolloid

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Ruthenium-catalyzed oxidative synthesis of 2-pyridones through C-H/N-H bond functionalizations

An inexpensive ruthenium catalyst enabled oxidative annulations of alkynes by acrylamides with ample scope, which allowed for the preparation of 2-pyridones employing various electron-rich and electron-deficient acrylamides as well as (di)aryl- and (di)alkyl-substituted alkynes.     

Enzymatic amplification in a bioinspired, autonomous signal cascade

A two-step reaction cascade is applied to the sequence-specific detection of DNA by enzymatic amplification of the molecular into an optical signal.