pH-sensitive polymer-assisted refolding of urea-denatured fibroblast growth factor

A pH-responsive polymer Eudragit S-100 has been found to assist in correct folding of FGF-2(fibroblast growth factor-2) denatured with 8 mol/L urea and 10 mmol/L dithiothreitol at pH 7.2.The refolding of FGF-2 was performed by directly diluting denatured FGF-2 into a refolding buffer containing Eudragit S-100.The ability of Eudragit S-100 to enhance protein refolding level was investigated using MTr method,fluorescence emission spectroscopy and reverse phase HPLC.On the other hand,the result shows the ab...     

Activation of Retinoid X Receptor increases dopamine cell survival in models for Parkinson's disease

Background  

Parkinson's disease (PD) is caused by degeneration of dopamine (DA) neurons in the ventral midbrain (vMB) and results in severely disturbed regulation of movement. The disease inflicts considerable suffering for the affected and their families. Today, the opportunities for pharmacological treatment are meager and new technologies are needed. Previous studies have indicated that activation of the nuclear receptor Retinoid X Receptor (RXR) provides trophic support for DA neurons. Detailed investigations of these neurotrophic effects have been hampered by the lack of readily available DA neurons in vitro. The aim of this study was to further describe the potential neurotrophic actions of RXR ligands and, for this and future purposes, develop a suitable in vitro-platform using mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs).     

Sounds and vibrations in the frozen Beaufort Sea during gravel island construction

Underwater and airborne sounds and ice-borne vibrations were recorded from sea-ice near an artificial gravel island during its initial construction in the Beaufort Sea near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Such measurements are needed for characterizing the properties of island construction sounds to assess their possible impacts on wildlife. Recordings were made in February-May 2000 when BP Exploration (Alaska) began constructing Northstar Island about 5 km offshore, at 12 m depth. Activities recorded included ice augering, pumping sea water to flood the ice and build an ice road, a bulldozer plowing snow, a Ditchwitch cutting ice, trucks hauling gravel over an ice road to the island site, a backhoe trenching the sea bottom for a pipeline, and both vibratory and impact sheet pile driving. For all but one sound source (underwater measurements of pumping) the strongest one-third octave band was under 300 Hz. Vibratory and impact pile driving created the strongest sounds. Received levels of sound and vibration, as measured in the strongest one-third octave band for different construction activities, reached median background levels <7.5 km away for underwater sounds, <3 km away for airborne sounds, and <10 km away for in-ice vibrations.     

Treatment of High-Polyphenol-Content Waters Using Biotechnological Approaches: The Latest Update

Polyphenols and their intermediate metabolites are natural compounds that are spread worldwide. Polyphenols are antioxidant agents beneficial for human health, but exposure to some of these compounds can be harmful to humans and the environment. A number of industries produce and discharge polyphenols in water effluents. These emissions pose serious environmental issues, causing the pollution of surface or groundwater (which are used to provide drinking water) or harming wildlife in the receiving ecosystems. The treatment of high-polyphenol-content waters is mandatory for many industries. Nowadays, biotechnological approaches are gaining relevance for their low footprint, high efficiency, low cost, and versatility in pollutant removal. Biotreatments exploit the diversity of microbial metabolisms in relation to the different characteristics of the polluted water, modifying the design and the operational conditions of the technologies. Microbial metabolic features have been used for full or partial polyphenol degradation since several decades ago. Nowadays, the comprehensive use of biotreatments combined with physical-chemical treatments has enhanced the removal rates to provide safe and high-quality effluents. In this review, the evolution of the biotechnological processes for treating high-polyphenol-content water is described. A particular emphasis is given to providing a general concept, indicating which bioprocess might be adopted considering the water composition and the economic/environmental requirements. The use of effective technologies for environmental phenol removal could help in reducing/avoiding the detrimental effects of these chemicals. In addition, some of them could be employed for the recovery of beneficial ones.     

Vague objects and phenomenal wholes

We consider the so-called problem of the many, formulated by Peter Unger. It arises because ordinary material things do not have precise boundaries: it is always possible to find borderline parts of which it is not true to say either that they are parts or that they are not. Unger’s conclusion is that there are no ordinary things at all. We describe the solutions of Peter van Inwagen and David Lewis, and make some critical comments upon them. After that we present our own suggestion which is based on ideas developed by Leibniz in connection with problems of unity and plurality. We suggest that what the problem of the many teaches us is that in order to understand what ordinary things are, we have to take seriously the Leibnizian-Kantian distinction between phenomena and things-in-themselves.     

Cholic acid derivatives containing both 2-naphthylcarbamate and 3,5-dinitrophenylcarbamate groups: a combined circular dichroism-molecular mechanics approach to the definition of their molecular conformation

CD spectra of the chiral auxiliaries for enantioselective HPLC N-allyl-N'-methyl-3,12-bis(2-naphthyl)carbamoyloxy-7-(3,5-dinitrophenyl)carbamoyloxycholan-24-amide (1), N-allyl-N'-methyl-3-(3,5-dinitrophenyl)carbamoyloxy-7,12-bis(2-naphthyl)carbamoyloxycholan-24-amide (2), N-allyl-N'-methyl-3,7-bis(2-naphthyl)carbamoyloxy-12-(3,5-dinitrophenyl)carbamoyloxycholan-24-amide (3), and N-allyl-N'-methyl-3,7,12-tris(2-naphthyl)carbamoyloxycholan-24-amide (4) are presented. To determine the preferred conformations of those chiral auxiliaries, a random search based on the aromatic side-chain conformational degrees of freedom was performed and the energy was minimized using two different molecular mechanics force fields. The low energy structures presenting common features were arranged in groups and selected exploiting appropriate filters. The calculation of theoretical CD spectra according to the De Voe model has allowed a further discrimination among the conformations, specifying which of them gave calculated CD spectra in acceptable agreement with the experimental ones. Finally, taking into account the additivity of the contributions of each 2-naphthylcarbamate chromophore to the CD spectrum of the cholic acid derivatives, and, hence, choosing, for derivatives 1-3, those conformations in which the 2-naphthylcarbamate groups take a similar disposition as in 4, the preferentially assumed conformation of each compound was obtained. A molecular dynamics simulation in the presence of acetonitrile allowed the fluctuations of one of the structures, used as a test case, depending on environmental effects, to be examined.     

Environmental effects on the spectroscopic properties of gallic acid: a combined classical and quantum mechanical study

The solvation of gallic acid (in water and acetonitrile) is studied by means of its spectroscopic properties. IR, UV, and NMR spectra are predicted by using various solvation models obtained in terms of both purely classical and density functional approaches. Comparison with experiments is used to validate solvation models. Hydrogen-bond and long-range (or bulk) effects are evaluated by comparing different solvation models. A continuum-only approach, a purely discrete, and a mixed continuum/discrete approach based on quantum-mechanical and classical molecular-dynamics solute-solvent clusters are tested.     

Highly efficient, nonpeptidic oligoguanidinium vectors that selectively internalize into mitochondria

Oligoguanidinium-based cell delivery systems have gained broad interest in the drug delivery field since one decade ago. Thus, arginine-containing peptides as Tat or Antp, oligoarginine peptides, and derived peptoids have been described as shuttles for delivering nonpermeant drugs inside cancer cells. Herein we report a new family of tetraguanidinium cell penetrating vectors efficiently internalized in human tumor cells. Their high internalization, studied by confocal microscopy and flow cytometry, as well as their specific accumulation in mitochondria makes these new vectors likely vehicles for the targeted delivery of anticancer drugs to mitochondria.     

Novel rearrangements of fused zwitterionic heterocyclic systems

(E)-2-Chlorodimethylstannyl-3-diethylboryl-2-pentene (1) reacts with the C-lithiated azoles 2 (derived from thiazole (2a), 4-methylthiazole (2b), 1,4-dimethylimidazole (2c), benzoxazole (2d) and benzthiazole (2e)) to eliminate LiCl, giving first mixtures containing compounds with either a coordinative N--- bond (3) or the zwitterionic isomer with an Sn---N bond (4), or both, and in some cases a rearranged product (5) with a 1,2,5-azastannaborole unit is also present. The zwitterionic compounds 4 tend to rearrange into the heterocycles 5 in which the heteroaromatic system is no longer present and two new C---C bonds, a new B---C and a new B---N bond are formed. The reactions were monitored by multinuclear NMR (¹H, ¹¹B, ¹³C, ¹⁴N and ¹¹⁹Sn NMR) which also served for the characterization of the final products. In the case of 5e, the molecular structure was determined by single-crystal X-ray analysis (monoclinic; space group P2₁/n; A=11.691(2), B=12.396(2), C=13.149(2) Å; β=93.41(2)°).     

Cell-penetrating cis-gamma-amino-l-proline-derived peptides

The synthesis of cis-gamma-amino-l-proline oligomers functionalized at the proline alpha-amine with several groups that mimic the side chains of natural amino acids, including alanine, leucine, and phenylalanine, is herein described. These gamma-peptides enter into different cell lines (COS-1 and HeLa) via an endocytic mechanism. The ability of these compounds to be taken up into cells was studied at 37 degrees C and 4 degrees C by plate fluorimetry, flow cytometry, and confocal microscopy. In addition to their capacity for cellular uptake, these unnatural short length oligomers offer advantages over the well-known penetrating TAT peptide, such as being less toxic than TAT and protease resistance.