Miniaturized surface engineered technologies for multiplex biosensing devices

The demand for quick, accurate, and affordable point-of-care (POC) devices increases with the advancement in the dimensions of nanotechnology and digital interfaces (Internet of Things). The future of diagnostic requires the platform which can provide us the following benefits i. e., on-site detection, qualitative as well as quantitative analysis, easy to use, portable, low sample requirement, cost-effective, and have multiplexing proficiency. Multiplex biosensing platforms (MBPs) have the above following advantages so are going to be mostly used in various healthcare applications in near future. MBPs have the potential to fulfill the ‘ASSURED’ criteria specified by the World Health Organization (WHO) for remote-limited settings. This review paper focuses on miniaturized platforms that have multiplexing benefits for the bioanalysis of different clinical samples related to various healthcare applications. In addition to this, screening of pesticides, antibiotics, and hazardous metal ions with these surface-engineered devices has also been accounted in food and environmental samples. Some of the advanced techniques including microfluidics (Lab-on-a-chip), wearable smart devices, and CRISPR/Cas system for multiplexing applications are briefly described here. Furthermore, various needs, challenges, and prospects in commercializing these multiplexed surface-engineered devices have been discussed in this review.     

Perturbing π-clouds with Substituents to Study the Effects on Reaction Dynamics of gauche-1,3-Butadiene to Bicyclobutane Electrocyclization

The conical intersection (CI) governs the ultra-fast relaxation of excited states in a radiationless manner and are observed mainly in photochemical processes. In the current work, we investigated the effects of substituents on the reaction dynamics for the conversion of gauche-1,3-butadiene to bicyclobutane via photochemical electrocyclization. We incorporated both electron withdrawing (−F) and donating (−CH₃) groups in the conjugated system. In our study, we optimized the minimum energy conical intersection (MECI) geometries using the multi-configurational state-averaged CASSCF approach, whereas, to study the ground state reaction pathways for the substituted derivatives, dispersion corrected, B3LYP-D3 functional was used. The non-adiabatic surface hopping molecular dynamics simulations were performed to observe the behaviour of electronic states involved throughout the photoconversion process. The results obtained from the multi-reference second-order perturbation correction of energy at the XMS-CASPT2 level of theory, topography analysis, and non-adiabatic dynamics suggest that the −CH₃ substituted derivatives can undergo faster thermal conversion to the product in the ground state with a smaller activation energy barrier compared to −F substituted derivative. Our study also reveals that the GBUT to BIBUT conversion follows both conrotatory and disrotatory pathways, whereas, on substitution with −F or −CH₃, the conversion proceeds via the conrotatory pathway.     

Hetero-Polar Sextuple Bond: A Relativistic Quantum Chemical Study**

Number of bonds formed by sharing an electron pair between two atoms is not restricted to one, it can go beyond four and six is the maximum. While homopolar sextuple bond in Mo₂ and W₂ has been reported, such a high bond order in heteropolar diatomics has remained elusive. In the pursuit of the sextuple bond in polar diatomics, the present study depicts the existence of such multiple bonds in Rhodium-Scandium hetero-diatom based on relativistic quantum chemical calculations. The bonding comprises of three normal electron sharing covalent bonds and three dative covalent bonds.     

DFT study of CO adsorption on neutral and charged Pd<Subscript>n</Subscript>(n = 1–7) clusters

Density functional calculations have been performed to investigate CO adsorption on neutral, cationic and anionic Pd_n (n=1–7) clusters. From the results, it is observed that the binding of CO molecule to neutral and cationic palladium clusters takes place via 1-, 2- and 3-fold coordination. On the other hand, only terminal adsorption of CO molecule is possible in anionic clusters barring bridging adsorption in Pd₇ ^- cluster.     

Nitric oxide reactivity of copper(II) complexes of bidentate amine ligands: effect of chelate ring size on the stability of a [Cu(II)-NO] intermediate

Three copper(II) complexes, 1, 2, and 3 with L(1), L(2) and L(3) [L(1) = 2-(2-aminoethyl)-pyridine; L(2) = 2-(N-ethyl-2-aminoethyl)-pyridine; L(3) = 3,3'-iminobis(N,N-dimethylpropylamine)], respectively, were synthesized and characterized. Addition of nitric oxide gas to the degassed acetonitrile solution of the complexes were found to result in the reduction of the copper(II) center to copper(I). In cases of complexes 1 and 2, the formation of the [Cu(II)-NO] intermediate prior to the reduction of Cu(II) was evidenced by UV-visible, solution FT-IR and X-band EPR spectroscopic studies. However, for complex 3, the formation of [Cu(II)-NO] has not been observed. DFT calculations on the [Cu(II)-NO] intermediate generated from complex 1 suggest a distorted square pyramidal geometry with the NO ligand coordinated to the Cu(II) center at an equatorial site in a bent geometry. In the case of complex 1, the reduction of the copper(II) center by nitric oxide afforded ligand transformation through diazotization at the primary amine site in acetonitrile solution; whereas, in an acetonitrile-water mixture, it resulted in 2-(pyridine-2-yl)ethanol. On the other hand, in cases of complexes 2 and 3, it was found to yield N-nitrosation at the secondary amine site in the ligand frameworks. The final organic products, in each case, were isolated and characterized by various spectroscopic studies.     

Copper(ii) complexes as turn on fluorescent sensors for nitric oxide

Two copper(ii) complexes, 1 and 2, of two tridentate N-donor ligands, L(1) and L(2) [L(1) = dansyl derivative of bis-[3-(dimethylamino)-propyl]amine; L(2) = dansyl derivative of dipropylenetriamine] were synthesized and characterized. The quenched fluorescence intensity of complexes 1 and 2, in degassed methanol or aqueous (buffered at pH 7.2) solution, was found to reappear on exposure to nitric oxide. This is attributed to the reduction of paramagnetic Cu(ii) center by nitric oxide to diamagnetic Cu(i).     

First example of a Cu(I)-(η2-O,O)nitrite complex derived from Cu(II)-nitrosyl

Copper(II) complex, 1, of the bidentate ligand, L [L = bis(2-ethyl-4-methyl-imidazol-5yl)methane] has been synthesized and structurally characterized. Addition of nitric oxide gas to a degassed acetonitrile solution of 1 yielded the corresponding copper(ii)-nitrosyl complex, 2. In acetonitrile, complex 2 on reaction with water afforded the corresponding copper(I)-nitrite complex, 3. Single crystal structure of complex 3 reveals the bidentate nitrite (η(2)-O,O) bonding. This is the first example of a structurally characterized Cu(I)-(η(2)-O,O)nitrite complex with N-donor ligand. The sequence of the formation of these complexes is just the reverse of the key steps of the postulated nitrite reduction cycle by CuNiRs.     

On weighted directed graphs

The study of a mixed graph and its Laplacian matrix have gained quite a bit of interest among the researchers. Mixed graphs are very important for the study of graph theory as they provide a setup where one can have directed and undirected edges in the graph. In this article we present a more general structure, namely the weighted directed graphs and supply appropriate generalizations of several existing results for mixed graphs related to singularity of the corresponding Laplacian matrix. We also prove many new combinatorial results relating the Laplacian matrix and the graph structure.