Chromatographic fingerprint analysis for evaluation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Ginkgo biloba</Emphasis> products

The flavonoids and the terpene lactones are regarded as the two main active components of Ginkgo biloba that affect human health. In the work discussed in this paper, two analytical methods for the characterization of G. biloba authentic materials and commercial products, an LC–UV chromatographic fingerprinting method and a traditional flavonol quantification method, were compared. The traditional method was used to determine the total flavonol content (as glycosides) after acid hydrolysis. The fingerprinting method examined the chromatographic profiles of methanol–water extracts using chemometric methods. The traditional method showed that all the commercial products met the current voluntary standard of 24% flavonols by weight. The chromatographic fingerprinting method revealed significant variations in the commercial products with regard to the relative concentration of individual flavonols.     

Macromolecular Surface Design: Photopatterning of Functional Stable Nitrile Oxides

The efficient trapping of photogenerated thioaldehydes with functional shelf‐stable nitrile oxides in a 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition is a novel and versatile photochemical strategy for polymer end‐group functionalization and surface modification under mild and equimolar conditions. The modular ligation in solution was followed in detail by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI‐MS). X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was employed to analyze the functionalized surfaces, whereas time‐of‐flight secondary‐ion mass spectrometry (ToF‐SIMS) confirmed the spatial control of the surface functionalization using a micropatterned shadow mask. Polymer brushes were grown from the surface in a spatially confined regime by surface‐initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI‐ATRP) as confirmed by TOF‐SIMS, XPS as well as ellipsometry.     

Nitrone-mediated radical coupling reactions: a new synthetic tool exemplified on dendrimer synthesis

A synthetic strategy employing nitrones as radical spin traps is presented on the example of the efficient generation of novel dendrimers via a combination of radical and classical 'click' chemistry.     

Cost-effective and compact wide-field fluorescent imaging on a cell-phone

We demonstrate wide-field fluorescent and darkfield imaging on a cell-phone with compact, light-weight and cost-effective optical components that are mechanically attached to the existing camera unit of the cell-phone. For this purpose, we used battery powered light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to pump the sample of interest from the side using butt-coupling, where the pump light was guided within the sample cuvette to uniformly excite the specimen. The fluorescent emission from the sample was then imaged using an additional lens that was positioned right in front of the existing lens of the cell-phone camera. Because the excitation occurs through guided waves that propagate perpendicular to our detection path, an inexpensive plastic colour filter was sufficient to create the dark-field background required for fluorescent imaging, without the need for a thin-film interference filter. We validate the performance of this platform by imaging various fluorescent micro-objects in 2 colours (i.e., red and green) over a large field-of-view (FOV) of ～81 mm(2) with a raw spatial resolution of ～20 μm. With additional digital processing of the captured cell-phone images, through the use of compressive sampling theory, we demonstrate ～2 fold improvement in our resolving power, achieving ～10 μm resolution without a trade-off in our FOV. Further, we also demonstrate darkfield imaging of non-fluorescent specimen using the same interface, where this time the scattered light from the objects is detected without the use of any filters. The capability of imaging a wide FOV would be exceedingly important to probe large sample volumes (e.g., >0.1 mL) of e.g., blood, urine, sputum or water, and for this end we also demonstrate fluorescent imaging of labeled white-blood cells from whole blood samples, as well as water-borne pathogenic protozoan parasites such as Giardia Lamblia cysts. Weighing only ～28 g (～1 ounce), this compact and cost-effective fluorescent imaging platform attached to a cell-phone could be quite useful especially for resource-limited settings, and might provide an important tool for wide-field imaging and quantification of various lab-on-a-chip assays developed for global health applications, such as monitoring of HIV+ patients for CD4 counts or viral load measurements.     

Glucocorticoid-loaded core-cross-linked polymeric micelles with tailorable release kinetics for targeted therapy of rheumatoid arthritis

Polymerizable and hydrolytically cleavable dexamethasone (DEX, red dot in picture) derivatives were covalently entrapped in core-cross-linked polymeric micelles that were prepared from a thermosensitive block copolymer (yellow and gray building block). By varying the oxidation degree of the thioether in the drug linker, the release rate of DEX could be controlled. The DEX-loaded micelles were used for efficient treatment of inflammatory arthritis in two animal models.     

Development of surface chemistry for surface plasmon resonance based sensors for the detection of proteins and DNA molecules

The immobilisation of biological recognition elements onto a sensor chip surface is a crucial step for the construction of biosensors. While some of the optical biosensors utilise silicon dioxide as the sensor surface, most of the biosensor surfaces are coated with metals for transduction of the signal. Biological recognition elements such as proteins can be adsorbed spontaneously on metal or silicon dioxide substrates but this may denature the molecule and can result in either activity reduction or loss. Self assembled monolayers (SAMs) provide an effective method to protect the biological recognition elements from the sensor surface, thereby providing ligand immobilisation that enables the repeated binding and regeneration cycles to be performed without losing the immobilised ligand, as well as additionally helping to minimise non-specific adsorption. Therefore, in this study different surface chemistries were constructed on SPR sensor chips to investigate protein and DNA immobilisation on Au surfaces. A cysteamine surface and 1%, 10% and 100% mercaptoundecanoic acid (MUDA) coatings with or without dendrimer modification were utilised to construct the various sensor surfaces used in this investigation. A higher response was obtained for NeutrAvidin immobilisation on dendrimer modified surfaces compared to MUDA and cysteamine layers, however, protein or DNA capture responses on the immobilised NeutrAvidin did not show a similar higher response when dendrimer modified surfaces were used.     

Synthesis of a glutaraldehyde derivative of calix[4]arene as a cross-linker reagent for lipase immobilization

This article describes the synthesis of a new calix[4]arene 1,3-distal glutaraldehyde derivative 4 as a cross-linker-reagent for immobilization of Candida rugosa lipase (CRL). p-tert-Butylcalix[4]arene 1,3-distal diaminoalkyl derivative (3) synthesized via aminolysis reaction of 5,11,17,23-tert-butyl-25,27-ethoxycarbonylmethoxy-26,28-hydroxycalix[4]arene (2) with 1,8-diaminooctane. Compound 3 was converted to its aldehyde derivative (4) by the treatment with glutaraldehyde solution. 4 was used in lipase immobilization in order to see the role of calix[4]arene binding site on the lipase activity and stability. It was observed that the immobilized lipase activity was maintained at levels exceeding 95% of its original activity after 40 min.