Injective hulls are not natural

In a category with injective hulls and a cogenerator, the embeddings into injective hulls can never form a natural transformation, unless all objects are injective. In particular, assigning to a field its algebraic closure, to a poset or Boolean algebra its Mac-Neille completion, and to an R-module its injective envelope is not functorial, if one wants the respective embeddings to form a natural transformation. Received January 21, 2000; accepted in final form August 10, 2001. RID="h1" RID="h2" RID="h3" ID="h1"The hospitality of York University is gratefully acknowledged by the first author. ID="h2"Third author partially supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic under Grant no. 201/99/0310, and the hospitality of York University is also acknowledged. ID="h3"Partial financial assistance by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Councel of Canada is acknowledged by the fourth author.     

Development of metallocomplex amino acids synthons for the asymmetric preparation of α-amino acids by stereoselective introduction of a side chain. Evaluation of the model asymmetric preparation of alanine and β-13C monolabelled α-aminoisobutyric acid

In this communication the evaluation of eleven new metallocomplex alanine synthons bearing C₂-symmetric benzyl groups with electron-donating and electron-withdrawing substituents is described. α-Methylated glycine synthons (alanine complexes) were evaluated alongside alanine synthons in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the relationship between their structures and stereochemistry of monoalkylated products and to choose several candidates for their further tests for stereospecific preparation of 6-[¹⁸F]FDOPA. Glycine-derived analogues of the complexes 3–5 are the best candidates for the development of a 6-[¹⁸F]FDOPA preparation procedure. In the model epimerisation reaction they demonstrated the best performance, much better compared to the previously described compound 2. Complexes 3, 5 and 8 are the best in asymmetric preparation of β-¹³C monolabelled α-aminoisobutyric acid. They have to be tested in the preparation of α-methyl amino acids like 6-[¹⁸F]-α-methylDOPA and 2-[¹⁸F]-α-methyltyrosine.     

Separation and identification of highly fluorescent compounds derived from trans-resveratrol in the leaves of Vitis vinifera infected by Plasmopara viticola

A method for identification of highly fluorescent compounds in vine leaves infected by Plasmopara viticola was developed using reversed phase liquid chromatography with simultaneous diode array and fluorometric detection. Fluorescent compounds were extracted from leaves with a methanol-water mixture (70:30). Separation by HPLC was performed using a C(18) column and gradient elution with water-acetonitrile mixtures (20-80% of acetonitrile). The main unknown fluorescent compound was identified by line spectral comparison with a standard obtained by UV photoisomerization of trans-resveratrol glucoside, and its structure was confirmed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Identification and structural elucidation of the fluorescent compound in the leaves of Vitis vinifera allows early detection of Plasmopara viticola invasion.     

Understanding the role of base stacking in nucleic acids. MD and QM analysis of tandem GA base pairs in RNA duplexes

Preceding NMR experiments show that the conformation of tandem GA base pairs, an important recurrent non-canonical building block in RNA duplexes, is context dependent. The GA base pairs adopt "sheared" N3(G)-N6(A), N2(G)-N7(A) geometry in the r(CGAG)(2) and r(iGGAiC)(2) contexts while switching to "imino" N1(G)-N1(A), O6(G)-N6(A) geometry in the r(GGAC)(2) and r(iCGAiG)(2) contexts (iC and iG stand for isocytosine and isoguanine, respectively). As base stacking is likely to be one of the key sources of the context dependence of the conformation of GA base pairs, we calculated base stacking energies in duplexes containing such base pairs, to see if this dependence can be predicted by stacking energy calculations. When investigating the context dependence of the GA geometry two different conformations of the same duplex were compared (imino vs. sheared). The geometries were generated via explicit solvent MD simulations of the respective RNA duplexes, while the subsequent QM energy calculations focused on base stacking interactions of the four internal base pairs. Geometrical relaxation of nucleobase atoms prior to the stacking energy computations has a non-negligible effect on the results. The stacking energies were derived at the DFT-D/6-311++G(3df,3pd) level. We show a rather good correspondence between the intrinsic gas-phase stacking energies and the NMR-determined GA geometries. The conformation with more favorable gas-phase stacking is in most cases the one observed in experiments. This correlation is not improved when including solvent effects via the COSMO method. On the other side, the stacking calculations do not predict the relative thermodynamic stability of duplex formation for different sequences.     

Native polyacrylamide electrophoresis in the presence of Ponceau Red to study oligomeric states of protein complexes

Native polyacrylamide electrophoresis in the presence of two reversible protein anionic stains (Ponceau S and Ponceau 2R) was used to study the oligomeric states of soluble proteins. A mild binding of the used protein stains to nondissociated protein oligomers imposed a charge shift on the proteins resulting into separation of protein species according to their size under physiological conditions. Adsorbed stains could be easily removed after electrophoresis by washing of polyacrylamide gel with buffer and protein complexes could be visualized either by the detection of their enzyme activity or by using a nonspecific protein stain. The specific detection of enzyme activity of glycosidases, lactate dehydrogenase, or phosphatases was shown as an example.     

Role of reaction atmosphere in preparation of potassium tantalate through sol–gel method

Potassium tantalate (KT) thin films and powders of both K₂Ta₂O₆ (KT pyrochlore) and KTaO₃ (KT perovskite) structures were prepared by means of chemical solution deposition method using Si(111) with ZnO and MgO buffer layers as a substrate. The influence of reaction atmosphere on reaction pathway and phase composition for both KT powders, and KT thin films has been studied mainly by means of powder diffraction and infrared spectroscopy. When an oxygen flow instead of static air atmosphere has been used the process of pyrolysis in oxygen runs over much narrower temperature interval (200–300 °C), relatively to air atmosphere (200–600 °C) and almost no (in case of powders), or no (in case of thin films) pyrochlore intermediate phase has been detected in comparison with treatment in air, where the pyrochlore phase is stable at temperatures 500–600 °C (powders). KT perovskite phase starts to crystallize at temperatures 50° and 150 °C lower compared to air atmosphere in case of powders and thin films, respectively. Microstructure formed by near-columnar grains and small grains of equiaxed shape was observed in films treated in oxygen and air atmosphere, respectively.     

Effect of nitrogen adsorption on the mid-infrared spectrum of water clusters

Experimental Fourier-transform infrared spectra and DFT calculated infrared spectra are compared to investigate the effect of adsorbed nitrogen on the OH-stretch band complex of water clusters. Using a collisional cooling experiment, pure as well as partially and completely N(2)-covered water clusters consisting of 20-200 water molecules have been generated in thermal equilibrium in the aerosol phase within the temperature range of 5-80 K. Computational IR-spectra simulations have been performed for discrete pure and N(2)-covered water clusters including 10, 15, 20, and 30 water molecules. The adsorbed N(2) molecules especially affect the three-coordinated water molecules at the cluster surface which could be observed as a blue shift of the companion O-H band at 2900 cm(-1) and a red shift of the dangling O-H band at 3700 cm(-1) by about 20 cm(-1) in both cases. The most striking effect of the N(2) adsorbate is an intensity increase of the dangling O-H band by a factor of 3-5. Furthermore, the onset temperature of nitrogen adsorption at the water cluster surface was experimentally found to be roughly 30 K for cluster sizes of about 100 water molecules. Experimental and computational results are in good agreement. The presented results are based on and support the work of V. Buch, J. P. Devlin, and co-workers (e.g., J. Phys. Chem. B, 1997; J. Phys. Chem. A, 2003; Int. Rev. Phys. Chem., 2004).     

High Performance Liquid Chromatography‐Electrochemistry‐Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (HPLC/EC/ESI‐MS) for Detection and Characterization of Roscovitine Oxidation Products

On‐line LC‐EC/ESI‐MS has been established as a fast and simple method to mimic some types of oxidation reaction of various drugs and to study the formation and structure of the resulting products. This technique has been applied to a 2,6,9‐trisubstituted purine, R‐roscovitine, which is known to be an inhibitor of some cyclin‐dependent kinases (CDKs) and a potential anticancer drug. Oxidation of R‐roscovitine in an electrochemical cell (EC), operated under various conditions, resulted in appearance of 6 major products. These were further analyzed by high‐resolution mass spectrometry, their structures were elucidated by accurate mass measurement and compared to previously identified R‐roscovitine in vitro/in vivo metabolites. Although none of the observed products was structurally identical to those identified previously in vitro/in vivo, all of them, except for the methoxylated products, resembled similarity due to appearing through the same reaction type. R‐roscovitine in the EC cell underwent N‐dealkylation of the isopropyl moiety, hydroxylation of the aromatic side‐chain, dihydroxylation, methoxylation and dimer formation. The hydroxylation product was identified as Olomoucine II, a R‐roscovitine derivative, which displays 10‐times higher CDK‐inhibiting activity than R‐roscovitine and the occurrence of which, as R‐roscovitine product, has not yet been observed in vitro/in vivo.