Mass Spectral Analyses of Trimethylsilyl Glucuronic Acids

Mass spectral analysis of carbohydrates has become an important tool for the biological chemist^1–3 and the use of mass spectrometers interfaced with gas-liquid chromatographs has provided a convenient method of study for volatile derivatives of carbohydrates. Several groups^4–7 have accomplished separations of the various isomeric trimethylsilyl (TMSi) esters and ethers of the glucuronic acids. The present work utilizes a gas-liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer to examine the previously unreported mass spectra of pertrimethylsilylated glucuronic acids and these spectra are compared to the previously reported⁸ spectra of the pemethylated glucuronic acids.     

Geographical influences of an emerging network of gang rivalries

We propose an agent-based model to simulate the creation of street gang rivalries. The movement dynamics of agents are coupled to an evolving network of gang rivalries, which is determined by previous interactions among agents in the system. Basic gang data, geographic information, and behavioral dynamics suggested by the criminology literature are integrated into the model. The major highways, rivers, and the locations of gangs’ centers of activity influence the agents’ motion. We use a policing division of the Los Angeles Police Department as a case study to test our model. We apply common metrics from graph theory to analyze our model, comparing networks produced by our simulations and an instance of a Geographical Threshold Graph to the existing network from the criminology literature.     

Halogenation of 2-Hydroxynicotinic Acid

A convenient method to prepare 5-halo-2-hydroxy-nicotinic acid is described.     

Stereoselective Remote Functionalization via Palladium-Catalyzed Redox-Relay Heck Methodologies

Exploration of novel, three-dimensional chemical space is of growing interest in the drug discovery community and with this comes the challenge for synthetic chemists to devise new stereoselective methods to introduce chirality in a rapid and efficient manner. This Minireview provides a timely summary of the development of palladium-catalyzed asymmetric redox-relay Heck-type processes. These reactions represent an important class of transformation for the selective introduction of remote stereocenters, and have risen to prominence over the past decade. Within this Minireview, the vast scope of these transformations will be showcased, alongside applications to pharmaceutically relevant chiral building blocks and drug substances. To complement this overview, a mechanistic summary and discussion of the current limitations of the transformation are presented, followed by an outlook on future areas of investigation.     

Reactions of fused dihydro-1,2,4-thiadiazoles with isoselenocyanates giving 6aλ4-thia-1,3,4,6-tetraazapentalene derivatives and 5,10-dihydro-1,2,4-thiaselenazolo[4,5-b][2,4]benzodiazepines

3-Methyl-6,7-dihydro-5H-1,2,4-thiadiazolo[4,5-a]pyrimidine (1) reacted with isoselenocyanates with elimination of acetonitrile and concomitant addition of two molecules of the isoselenocyanate to give 2,3-di-substituted-6,7-dihydro-5H-2aλ⁴-thia-2,3,4a,7a-tetraazacyclopent[cd]indene-1(2H),4(3H)-diselones (6a)–(6j). 3-Methyl-5,10-dihydrobenzo[e]-1,2,4-thiadiazolo[4,5-a][1,3]diazepine (3) likewise reacted with alkyl isoselenocyanates to give the 2,3-dialkyl-5-10-dihydro-2aλ⁴-thia-2,3,4a,10a-tetraazapentaleno[3,3a,4-gh]benzocycloheptene-1,4-diselones (9a)–(9h), but reaction of (3) with aryl isoselenocyanates took place with elimination of acetonitrile and incorporation of one molecule of the aryl isoselenocyanate in the product to give 3-arylimino-5,10-dihydro-1,2,4-thiaselenazolo[4,5-b][2,4]benzodiazepines (10a)–(10h). Structure (10) is a new heterocyclic system. The pyrimidine (1) and the diazepine (3) reacted with aryl isoselenocyanates at room temperature in solvents of low polarity to give zwitterion 1:1 addition compounds (7) and (12), respectively. NMR studies reveal that the thiaselenazoles (10) react in solution with aryl isoselenocyanates to give diaryl diselones (11) in a reversible process involving a Dimroth rearrangement. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

How well does molecular simulation reproduce environment-specific conformations of the intrinsically disordered peptides PLP,TP2 and ONEG?

Understanding the conformational ensembles of intrinsically disordered proteins and peptides (IDPs) in their various biological environments is essential for understanding their mechanisms and functional roles in the proteome, leading to a greater knowledge of, and potential treatments for, a broad range of diseases. To determine whether molecular simulation is able to generate accurate conformational ensembles of IDPs, we explore the structural landscape of the PLP peptide (an intrinsically disordered region of the proteolipid membrane protein) in aqueous and membrane-mimicking solvents, using replica exchange with solute scaling (REST2), and examine the ability of four force fields (ff14SB, ff14IDPSFF, CHARMM36 and CHARMM36m) to reproduce literature circular dichroism (CD) data. Results from variable temperature (VT) ¹H and Rotating frame Overhauser Effect SpectroscopY (ROESY) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments are also presented and are consistent with the structural observations obtained from the simulations and CD. We also apply the optimum simulation protocol to TP2 and ONEG (a cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) and a negative control peptide, respectively) to gain insight into the structural differences that may account for the observed difference in their membrane-penetrating abilities. Of the tested force fields, we find that CHARMM36 and CHARMM36m are best suited to the study of IDPs, and accurately predict a disordered to helical conformational transition of the PLP peptide accompanying the change from aqueous to membrane-mimicking solvents. We also identify an α-helical structure of TP2 in the membrane-mimicking solvents and provide a discussion of the mechanistic implications of this observation with reference to the previous literature on the peptide. From these results, we recommend the use of CHARMM36m with the REST2 protocol for the study of environment-specific IDP conformations. We believe that the simulation protocol will allow the study of a broad range of IDPs that undergo conformational transitions in different biological environments.

A protocol for simulating intrinsically disordered peptides in aqueous and hydrophobic solvents is proposed. Results from four force fields are compared with experiment. CHARMM36m performs the best for the simulated IDPs in all environments.     

Permutation groups generated by cycles of fixed length

Combinatorial conditions on a set of cycles of fixed degree inS _n are studied, so that they generateA _n orS _n . It is shown thatA _n orS _n is so generated if and only if a graph associated with the set of cycles is connected, provided two of the cycles satisfy certain, not too restrictive, criteria. As a corollary, the minimum number of cycles of degreem ≧ 2 that generateA _n or S_n is determined.     

Ermakov systems,Noether's theorem and the Sarlet-Bahar method

We derive invariants for a nonlinear equation of motion containing arbitrary functions. The method employed is the recently discussed direct method of Sarlet and Bahar. The resulting invariants are a special case of Ermakov invariants. We compare these results to the results obtained by applying Noether's theorem to the same equation of motion.     

高能核碰撞中带电多重数快度与能量和中心度的关系

用强子–弦级联模型JPCIAE及相应的Monte Carlo事例产生器研究相对论性核–核碰撞中带电粒子多重数的赝快度密度对能量和中心度的依赖关系.无需另调任何模型参数的条件下,此模型可以同时较好地描述相对论性pp实验数据及PHOBOS和PHENIX实验组的Au+Au实验数据.本文指出:因〈N_part〉并非严格定义的物理量,致使实验上和理论上确定〈N_part〉有一定任意性,从而使得每参加者核子对的带电粒子赝快度密度随着〈N_part〉的增加可能逐渐增大,也可能逐渐减小,因此用它来区分粒子产生机制是欠妥的.