Development of a flow injection method for monitoring cell membrane damage of wine lactic acid bacteria

A flow injection analysis (FIA) system was developed for the determination of phosphate efflux from wine lactic acid bacteria (Oenococus oeni and Lactobacillus hilgardii) as an indication of cell membrane damage. The system allowed the direct injection of the cell suspension, avoiding the filtration step, with minimum sample treatment and minimized reagent consumption. The developed system is characterized by a linear concentration zone between 3.23 × 10⁻⁵ and 4.84 × 10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹ PO₄ ³⁻ and repeatability better than 2.9%. Bacterial suspensions were exposed to a chemical stress with phenolic acids and injected in the FIA system at regular intervals. The extracellular concentration of phosphate was measured spectrophotometrically. The experimental results obtained indicate that hydroxycinnamic acids (p-coumaric, ferulic and caffeic) induced faster phosphate leakage rates than hydroxybenzoic acids (vanillic and p-hydroxybenzoic) in both strains tested, which could be related to their higher lipophilic character.     

A DFT quantum mechanical study of 3-hydroxy-4-pyrone and 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone based oxidovanadium(IV) complexes

Oxidovanadium(IV) complexes have revealed interesting pharmacological properties which make them promising agents in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. A computational study of 17 complexes of oxidovanadium(IV) with 3-hydroxy-4-pyrone- and 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone-based ligands was carried out at the density functional theory level. The geometry, electronic structure, and vibration modes at the metallic center were predicted, and their dependence on the nature of the ligand was evaluated. Slight distinctions between both classes of compounds were observed, namely the higher value of dipole moments and the smaller HOMO–LUMO energy gap for the 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone-based complexes. The modes of vibration at the metallic coordination region do not vary significantly throughout the whole series, and a particular corrective scaling factor is proposed for the V=O stretching mode of this type of oxidovanadium(IV) complexes. The results presented here are of particular relevance since it was not yet possible to obtain X-ray diffraction data for the oxidovanadium(IV) complexes of 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinones, and also as the influence of the solvent, in particular the local interaction at the sixth coordination position, was considered.     

Current Status of the X + C2H6 [X ≡ H,F(2P), Cl(2P), O(3P), OH] Hydrogen Abstraction Reactions: A Theoretical Review

This paper is a detailed review of the chemistry of medium-size reactive systems using the following hydrogen abstraction reactions with ethane, X + C₂H₆ → HX + C₂H₅; X ≡ H, F(²P), Cl(²P), O(³P) and OH, and focusing attention mainly on the theoretical developments. These bimolecular reactions range from exothermic to endothermic systems and from barrierless to high classical barriers of activation. Thus, the topography of the reactive systems changes from reaction to reaction with the presence or not of stabilized intermediate complexes in the entrance and exit channels. The review begins with some reflections on the inherent problems in the theory/experiment comparison. When one compares kinetics or dynamics theoretical results with experimental measures, one is testing both the potential energy surface describing the nuclei motion and the kinetics or dynamics method used. Discrepancies in the comparison may be due to inaccuracies of the surface, limitations of the kinetics or dynamics methods, and experimental uncertainties that also cannot be ruled out. The paper continues with a detailed review of some bimolecular reactions with ethane, beginning with the reactions with hydrogen atoms. The reactions with halogens present a challenge owing to the presence of stabilized intermediate complexes in the entrance and exit channels and the influence of the spin-orbit states on reactivity. Reactions with O(³P) atoms lead to three surfaces, which is an additional difficulty in the theoretical study. Finally, the reactions with the hydroxyl radical correspond to a reactive system with ten atoms and twenty-four degrees of freedom. Throughout this review, different strategies in the development of analytical potential energy surfaces describing these bimolecular reactions have been critically analyzed, showing their advantages and limitations. These surfaces are fitted to a large number of ab initio calculations, and we found that a huge number of calculations leads to accurate surfaces, but this information does not guarantee that the kinetics and dynamics results match the experimental measurements.