Biological evaluation of redox stable cisplatin/Cu(II)-DNA adducts as potential anticancer agents

A series of non-enolizable β-diketonate-based copper(II) complexes with LCuCl₂ [L = Knoevenagel condensates of curcumin (Salcimine) and methylacetoacetate (SalMaA)-based Schiff bases] chromospheres as functional models of chemotherapy drug cisplatin were investigated for their covalent interaction with herring sperm DNA. The synthesis and structural characterization of 1a and 1b have been reported in our previous article. However, their DNA interactions and cytotoxicity properties were not studied. These analyses have been carried out mainly through electrochemical techniques supplemented with spectral, relative viscosity, gel electrophoresis techniques, and AGS cancer cells using MTT assay. The cytotoxic activities of the ligand, curcumin-based copper complex, and cisplatin were tested against the AGS cancer cell line under similar experimental conditions showing that the complex exhibited cancer cell inhibitory rate closer to cisplatin even at low concentration. This was also seen in the docking of the Cu-complex onto a rich guanine B-DNA decamer, where a Cu–N3_(guanine) interaction instead of Pt-N7 as cisplatin is detected. The obtained results in this study prove that these complexes could be a promising substitute for cisplatin as a new family of non-platinum-based anticancer metallo-drugs after in vivo tests on animal models.     

Kinetics of the outer-sphere oxidation of thiourea by heteropoly-α<Subscript>2</Subscript>-17-tungsto-1-vanadodiphosphate anion

Kinetics of the oxidation of thiourea (tu) by heteropoly-α₂-17-tungsto-1-vanadodiphosphate anion, α₂-[P₂V^VW₁₇O₆₂]^7?, have been studied spectrophotometrically in aqueous acidic medium at 25 °C. At low pH (2.4–3.0), the neutral form of tu is the only reactive species. At higher pH (4.2–4.9), both neutral and deprotonated forms of tu participate in the reaction. The observed mixed-order kinetics suggest two parallel reactions: one in which the order in [tu] is unity, and a second in which it is two. In both cases, the order in [α₂-[P₂V^VW₁₇O₆₂]^7?] is unity. Based on the kinetic studies, a mechanism is proposed, in which a second-order proton-coupled electron transfer involving NH₂CSNH₂ and α₂-[P₂V^VW₁₇O₆₂]^7? proceeds through a sequential electron transfer, followed by proton transfer such that the reaction is an “activation-controlled” outer-sphere electron transfer process. By applying the Marcus equation, the self-exchange rate constants for the couples \({\text{NH}}_{2} {\text{CSNH}}_{2}^{ \cdot + }\)/NH₂CSNH₂ and α₂-[P₂V^VW₁₇O₆₂]^7?/α₂-[P₂V^IVW₁₇O₆₂]^8? were evaluated.     

Structural Stability Among Hybrid Antimicrobial Peptide Cecropin A(1–8)–Magainin 2(1–12) and Its Analogues: A Computational Approach

Cecropin A–Magainin 2 (CA–MA) hybrid antimicrobial peptide (AMP), a combination of two naturally occurring AMPs, cecropin A and magainin 2 is preferred widely in biotechnological, nano and pharmaceutical applications. It exhibits a strong antibacterial activity with a characteristic reduced cytotoxic effect towards mammalian cells. In this study, three AMP structures native CA–MA hybrid and its tryptophan substitutes CA–MA L2 and CA–MA A2 was computationally studied to analyze their structural stability and functionality. Computational analysis like, intra-molecular interactions (25), relative stability (3.22) and instability index (?14.28) showed an increase in structural stability of native CA–MA hybrid. Additionally, the generated peptide ensembles showed a RMSD (3.98 Å), RMSF (0.202 Å), radius of gyration (11.98 Å), ovality (3.33) and hydrophobicity (69.7%) supporting native CA–MA along with hydrogen bond strength (?4.212 kcal/mol) and distribution comparatively. The distribution of secondary structure in native CA–MA hybrid showed the sequential maintenance of stable helical content along with helical stability (52.25%) and computed free energy (?1.74 kcal/mol) in membrane mimicking environment proving its functional activity comparatively. This study aids in designing stable AMP biodrugs with low cytotoxicity in future, the result can be potentially extended to other AMPs to assist in their exploitation as peptide and nano drugs.     

Design,synthesis and exploration of in silico α-amylase and α-glucosidase binding studies of pyrrolidine-appended quinoline-constrained compounds

Research on Chemical Intermediates - A series of new pyrrolidine-appended phenoxy-substituted quinoline derivatives were synthesized using 2-chloro-3-formyl quinoline. Initially, the second...     

Influence of niobium doping on the electrical properties of 0.58Pb(Sc1/2Nb1/2)O3-0.42PbTiO3 single crystal

Piezoelectric single crystals of 0.58Pb(Sc_1/2Nb_1/2)-0.42PbTiO₃ and Nb⁵⁺-doped PSN-PT have been grown using flux technique. It is believed that the addition of Nb⁵⁺ creates lead vacancy in order to compensate charge neutrality. The structural distortion that occured in the doped crystals has been revealed through broadening of some peaks in X-ray diffraction studies. Niobium content that increased from 0.50 to 1.00 mol% might have induced more defect dipoles associated with . This plays a significant role in improving the ferroelectric, dielectric and piezoelectric properties. Our observations clearly show an increase in the spontaneous polarization (P_r), dielectric constant at room temperature, degree of diffuseness and transition temperature (T_c) and also a decrease in coercive field. The reasons behind these enhanced electrical properties are discussed in detail.     

Mixed-ligand copper(II)-phenolate complexes: effect of coligand on enhanced DNA and protein binding, DNA cleavage, and anticancer activity

The copper(II) complex [Cu(tdp)(ClO4)].0.5H2O (1), where H(tdp) is the tetradentate ligand 2-[(2-(2-hydroxyethylamino)ethylimino)methyl]phenol, and the mixed ligand complexes [Cu(tdp)(diimine)]+ (2-5), where diimine is 2,2'-bipyridine (bpy) (2), 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) (3), 3,4,7,8-tetramethyl-1,10-phenanthroline (tmp) (4), and dipyrido-[3,2-d:2',3'-f]-quinoxaline (dpq) (5), have been isolated and characterized by analytical and spectral methods. Complexes 1 and [Cu(tdp)(phen)]ClO4 (3) have been structurally characterized, and their coordination geometries around copper(II) are described as distorted octahedral. The equatorially coordinated ethanolic oxygen in 1 is displaced to an axial position upon incorporating the strongly chelating phen, as in 3. The solution structures of all the complexes have been assessed to be square-based using electronic absorption and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. The interaction of the complexes with calf thymus DNA (CT DNA) has been explored by using absorption, emission, and circular dichroic spectral and viscometric studies, and modes of DNA binding for the complexes have been proposed. Absorption spectral (Kb = 0.071 +/- 0.005 (2), 0.90 +/- 0.03 (3), 7.0 +/- 0.2 (4), 9.0 +/- 0.1 x 10(5) M(-1) (5)), emission spectral (Kapp = 4.6 (1), 7.8 (2), 10.0 (3), 12.5 (4), 25.0 x 10(5) M(-1) (5)), and viscosity measurements reveal that 5 interacts with DNA more strongly than the other complexes through partial intercalation of the extended planar ring of the coordinated dpq with the DNA base stack. Interestingly, only complex 4 causes a B to A conformational change upon binding DNA. All the complexes hydrolytically cleave pBR322 supercoiled DNA in 10% DMF/5 mM Tris-HCl/50 mM NaCl buffer at pH 7.1 in the absence of an activating agent, and the cleavage efficiency varies in the order 5 > 3 > 2 > 4 > 1 with 5 displaying the highest Kcat value (5.47 +/- 0.10 h(-1)). The same order of cleavage is observed for the oxidative cleavage of DNA in the presence of ascorbic acid as a reducing agent. Interestingly, of all the complexes, only 5 displays efficient photonuclease activity through double-strand DNA breaks upon irradiation with 365 nm light through a mechanistic pathway involving hydroxyl radicals. The protein binding ability of 1-5 has been also monitored by using the plasma protein bovine serum albumin (BSA), and 4 exhibits a protein binding higher than that of the other complexes. Further, the anticancer activity of the complexes on human cervical epidermoid carcinoma cell line (ME180) has been examined. Interestingly, the observed IC50 values reveal that complex 4, which effects conformational change on DNA and binds to BSA more strongly, exhibits a cytotoxicity higher than the other complexes. It also exhibits approximately 100 and 6 times more potency than cisplatin and mitomycin C for 24 and 48 h incubation times, respectively, suggesting that 4 can be explored further as a potential anticancer drug. Complexes 4 and 5 mediate the arrest of S and G2/M phases in the cell cycle progression at 24 h harvesting time, which progress into apoptosis.     

Free vibration analysis of axially functionally graded tapered Timoshenko beams using differential transformation element method and differential quadrature element method of lowest-order

The present paper investigates the free vibration characteristics of Timoshenko beams whose cross-sectional profile and material properties vary along the beam axis with any arbitrary functions. Free vibration analysis of these beams is carried out through solving the governing differential equations of motion. Since the application of differential transformation method (DTM) does not necessarily converge to satisfactory results, an element-based differential transformation method, namely differential transformation element method (DTEM), is introduced which significantly enhances the accuracy of the results. Furthermore, differential quadrature element of the lowest order (DQEL) is introduced which is based on differential quadrature element method (DQEM). DQEL formulates the problem on the basis of the interpolation of the first differential of the functions; therefore, in contrast with DQEM higher differentials of functions are not employed in DQEL. The competency of DQEL and DTEM in free vibration analysis is verified through several numerical examples. The effects of taper ratio and material non-homogeneity on natural frequencies are investigated.     

Contribution of gluons and coloured Higgs bosons to e+-e− annihilation into three jets

Three-jet thrust and angular distributions in e⁺e^? annihilation are calculated in the integer-charge quark model. The complete contributions of gluons and Higgs scalars are presented. Deviations from QCD results are in general less than or comparable to the experimental errors, except for m_g ? 2 GeV and m_H ? 30 GeV.     

Neutral currents in left-right symmetric gauge models

We analyse all the neutral-current phenomena following from the general class of gauge models based on the group SU(2) _L ⊗ SU(2) _R ⊗ U(1). It is found that the neutral-current couplings in these models bear a remarkable similarity to those in the standard Weinberg-Salam gauge model. The parameter which plays the role of sin²ϑ_w is found to lie between 0 and 1/2. Comparison with experimental data shows that even a model with the ratio of the masses of the twoZ bosons as small as 1.9 is not ruled out.     

Stability of theS matrix pole

We show how the position and residue of theS matrix pole can remain stable under changes in the form of the parametrization of theS matrix elements. We also derive a relation among the shifts in the Breit-Wigner resonance parameters under the same changes and verify the relation numerically for the case of Δ(1232). Despite its stability, the pole does not provide a unique definition of the resonance because of the existence of shadow poles.