The Influence of Adnectin Binding on the Extracellular Domain of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor

The precise and unambiguous elucidation and characterization of interactions between a high affinity recognition entity and its cognate protein provides important insights for the design and development of drugs with optimized properties and efficacy. In oncology, one important target protein has been shown to be the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) through the development of therapeutic anticancer antibodies that are selective inhibitors of EGFR activity. More recently, smaller protein derived from the 10th type III domain of human fibronectin termed an adnectin has also been shown to inhibit EGFR in clinical studies. The mechanism of EGFR inhibition by either an adnectin or an antibody results from specific binding of the high affinity protein to the extracellular portion of EGFR (exEGFR) in a manner that prevents phosphorylation of the intracellular kinase domain of the receptor and thereby blocks intracellular signaling. Here, the structural changes induced upon binding were studied by probing the solution conformations of full length exEGFR alone and bound to a cognate adnectin through hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX MS). The effects of binding in solution were identified and compared with the structure of a bound complex determined by X-ray crystallography. ?      

The C30-Modulation of Betulinic Acid Using 1,2,4-Triazole: A Promising Strategy for Increasing Its Antimelanoma Cytotoxic Potential

Cancer, in all its types and manifestations, remains one of the most frequent causes of death worldwide; an important number of anticancer drugs have been developed from plants, fungi and animals, starting with natural compounds that were later derivatized in order to achieve an optimized pharmacokinetic/pharmacological profile. Betulinic acid is a pentacyclic triterpenic compound that was identified as an anticancer agent whose main advantage consists in its selective activity, which ensures the almost total lack of cytotoxic side effects. Conjugates of betulinic acid with substituted triazoles, scaffolds with significant pharmacological properties, were synthesized and tested as anticancer agents in order to achieve new therapeutic alternatives. The current paper aims to obtain a C30-1,2,4-triazole derivative of betulinic acid simultaneously acetylated at C3 whose biological activity was tested against RPMI melanoma cells. The compound revealed significant cytotoxic effects at the tested concentrations (2, 10 and 50 μΜ) by significantly decreasing the cell viability to 88.3%, 54.7% and 24.5%, respectively, as compared to the control. The compound’s testing in normal HaCaT cells showed a lack of toxicity, which indicates its selective dose-dependent anticancer activity. The investigation of its underlying molecular mechanism revealed an apoptotic effect induced at the mitochondrial level, which was validated through high-resolution respirometry studies.     

Ion mobility adds an additional dimension to mass spectrometric analysis of solution-phase hydrogen/deuterium exchange

The goal of this study was to determine the utility of adding ion mobility spectrometry to studies probing the solution-phase hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HX) of proteins. The HX profile of the Hck SH3 domain was measured at both the intact protein and the peptic peptide levels in the Waters Synapt HDMS system which uses a traveling wave to accomplish ion mobility separation prior to time-of-flight (Tof) m/z analysis. The results indicated a similar loss of deuterium with or without use of mobility in the Synapt and a level of deuterium loss comparable with a non-mobility Q-Tof instrument. The drift time of this small protein and its peptic peptides did not noticeably change due to solution-based deuterium incorporation. Importantly, ion mobility separations provided an orthogonal dimension of separation in addition to the reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). The additional dimension of separation allowed for the deconvolution of overlapping isotopic patterns for co-eluting peptides and extraction of valuable deuterium incorporation data for those peptides. Taken together, these results indicate that including ion mobility separation in HX MS analyses further improves the mass spectrometry portion of such experiments. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hypervalent organobismuth(iii) carbonate, chalcogenides and halides with the pendant arm ligands 2-(Me2NCH2)C6H4 and 2,6-(Me2NCH2)2C6H3

R2BiOH (1) [R = 2-(Me2NCH2)C6H4] and (R2Bi)2O (2) are formed by hydrolysis of R2BiCl with KOH. Single crystals of were obtained by air oxidation of (R2Bi)2. The reaction of R2BiCl and Na2CO3 leads to (R2Bi)2CO3 (3). 3 is also formed by the absorption of CO2 from the air in solutions of 1 or 2 in diethyl ether or toluene. (R2Bi)2S (4) is obtained from R2BiCl and Na2S or from (R2Bi)2 and S8. Exchange reactions between R2BiCl and KBr or NaI give R2BiX [X = Br (5), I (6)]. The reaction of RBiCl2 (7) with Na2S and [W(CO)5(THF)] gives cyclo-(RBiS)2[W(CO)5]2 (8). cyclo-(R'BiS)2 (9) [R' = 2,6-(Me2NCH2)2C6H3] is formed by reaction of R'BiCl2 and Na2S. The structures of were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction.     

Demystification of the geometric Fourier transforms and resulting convolution theorems

T. Qian As it will turn out in this paper, the recent hype about most of the Clifford–Fourier transforms is not thoroughly worth the pain. Almost everyone that has a real application is separable, and these transforms can be decomposed into a sum of real valued transforms with constant multivecor factors. This fact makes their interpretation, their analysis, and their implementation almost trivial. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiferroicity Broken by Commensurate Magnetic Ordering in Terbium Orthomanganite

TbMnO₃ is an important multiferroic material with strong coupling between magnetic and ferroelectric orderings. Incommensurate magnetic ordering is suggested to be vital for this coupling in TbMnO₃, which can be modified by doping at the site of Tb and/or Mn. Our study shows that a self‐doped solid solution Tb_1?xMn_yMnO₃ (y≤x) can be formed with Mn doped into the site of Tb of TbMnO₃. When y is small Tb_1?xMn_yMnO₃ shows both ferroelectric and incommensurate magnetic orders at low temperature, which is similar to TbMnO₃. However, if y is large enough, a commensurate antiferromagnetic ordering appears along with the incommensurate magnetic ordering to prevent the appearance of multiferroicity in Tb_1?xMn_yMnO₃. That is to say, the magnetoeletric coupling can be broken by the co‐existence of a commensurate antiferromagnetic ordering. This finding may be useful to the study of TbMnO₃.     

Characterization of Aggregation Propensity of a Human Fc-Fusion Protein Therapeutic by Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry

Aggregation of protein therapeutics has long been a concern across different stages of manufacturing processes in the biopharmaceutical industry. It is often indicative of aberrant protein therapeutic higher-order structure. In this study, the aggregation propensity of a human Fc-fusion protein therapeutic was characterized. Hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) was applied to examine the conformational dynamics of dimers collected from a bioreactor. HDX-MS data combined with spatial aggregation propensity calculations revealed a potential aggregation interface in the Fc domain. This study provides a general strategy for the characterization of the aggregation propensity of Fc-fusion proteins at the molecular level.

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Nanotubes of piezoelectric BNT–BT0.08 obtained from sol–gel precursor

The results of investigations of porous glasses (PG) and porous glasses–ammonium hydrogen sulfate ferroelectric nanocomposites (AHS–PG) are presented. On the basis of dielectric and calorimetric measurements it was shown that in the AHS–PG nanocomposites with average pore size of 44, 68, 95, and 320 nm the anomalies of dielectric permittivity and specific heat similar to those in bulk crystals AHS are observed. An influence of the mean value of pores sizes on the ferroelectric phase transition temperatures of AHS nanocrystals embedded into the porous matrices was determined. It was shown that in AHS–PG dispersion of the dielectric permittivity is observed in both para- and ferro-electric phases and above room temperature AHS–PG nanocomposites exhibit the ionic conductivity.     

Chemical composition of Argentinean propolis collected in extreme regions and its relation with antimicrobial and antioxidant activities

This paper reveals, for the first time, the functional properties of propolis from an extreme region of Argentine (El Rincón, Province of Catamarca, Argentina), as well as the isolation and identification of bioactive compounds. The antioxidant activity was determined by the ABTS method and beta-carotene bleaching. The antibacterial activity was determined on methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) by the microdilution method and bioautographic assays. Twelve compounds were isolated and identified by NMR spectroscopy. The main bioactive compounds were 2',4'-dihydroxy-3'-methoxychalcone (3), 2',4'-dihydroxychalcone (9), 2',4',4-trihydroxy-6'- methoxychalcone (8), 5-hydroxy-4',7-dimethoxyflavone (4), 4',5-dihydroxy-3,7,8-trimethoxyflavone (10) and 7-hydroxy- 5,8-dimethoxyflavone (11). All compounds were active against clinical isolates (MIC50 10 microg/mL) and displayed antioxidant activity (SC50 values of 20 microg/mL). The MIC and SC50 values of the isolated compounds were lower than those obtained with crude propolis extracts, chloroform sub-extracts and isolated fractions.