The effect of UV irradiation on the reduction of Au(III) ions adsorbed on manganese dioxide.

The effect of UV (ultraviolet) irradiation on the adsorption of Au(III) ions on manganese dioxide and their reduction to Au(0) (gold with 0 valence state) was investigated using XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) and 197Au M?ssbauer spectroscopy. The UV irradiation accelerated the adsorption and the reduction. From the fact that the proportion of Au(0) estimated from Au 4f XPS spectra for surface analysis was significantly smaller than that from 197Au M?ssbauer spectra for bulk analysis, we deduced that Au(0) was interpenetrated to the inside of manganese dioxide (into deeper places than about 30 A) where XPS is impossible to detect. The content of surface hydroxyl groups on manganese dioxide also increased due to the UV irradiation. The relationship between the charge in the content of hydroxyl groups and the interpenetration of Au(0) is discussed.     

The L resolvents of elliptic operators with uniformly continuous coefficients

We consider the strongly elliptic operator A of order 2m in the divergence form with bounded measurable coefficients and assume that the coefficients of top order are uniformly continuous. For 1<p<∞, A is a bounded linear operator from the L^p Sobolev space H^m,p into H^−m,p. We will prove that (A−λ)⁻¹ exists in H^−m,p for some λ and estimate its operator norm.     

Antitumor effect of pluronic F-127 gel containing mitomycin C on sarcoma-180 ascites tumor in mice.

Pluronic F-127 (PLF-127) gels were evaluated as a sustained-release vehicle for intraperitoneal administration of mitomycin C (MMC) in order to enhance the therapeutic effects of MMC against a Sarcoma-180 ascites tumor in mice. Tumor cell injections were made on day 0 and injections of MMC in 25% (w/w) PLF-127 on day 1, both intraperitoneally. A prolongation of the life span of tumor-bearing mice following injection of therapeutic PLF-127 was noted, and PLF-127 containing MMC was therapeutically more active than free drug. The high chemotherapeutic efficiency of MMC in PLF-127 was striking at high doses, which would be toxic in the case of the drug alone. PLF-127 gels exhibit reverse thermal behavior and are fluid at refrigerator temperature, but are soft gels at body temperature. The in vitro release experiments indicated that Pluronic gel might serve as a rate-controlling barrier and be useful as a vehicle for sustained-release preparations of MMC to be administered intraperitoneally. These results suggest that sustained-release occurs in the peritoneum and that effective drug concentrations can be maintained by the preparation.     

Binding of sulfonamides to erythrocytes and their components

Binding of zonisamide, a new antiepileptic sulfonamide derivative, was examined to human erythrocytes, their lysate and their carbonic anhydrase by centrifugation for cells or by ultrafiltration for the others. Scatchard plots revealed that the binding to intact and lysed cells was composed of high- and low-affinity components and that to carbonic anhydrase, of the high-affinity component alone. Parameters for high-affinity binding were similar in all three preparations and those for low-affinity binding were similar in the former two preparations. Dissociation constants for these bindings to erythrocytes were smaller than the dissociation constant for serum albumin. These results may explain the concentration of sulfonamides in red cells, and suggest the participation of cellular protein component(s) in addition to previously known carbonic anhydrase in the binding. Acetazolamide, sulthiame, zonisamide, hydrochlorothiazide and sulfanilamide inhibited carbonic anhydrase in a non-competitive manner to different extents. The Ki values of these sulfonamides were of the order of 0.1--0.2 of their respective Kd values determined by ultrafiltration, suggesting that under the present conditions, physicochemical interactions between sulfonamides and carbonic anhydrase primarily occur at common sites that affect the activity of the enzyme.     

Studies on the effects of imidazole on the peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence detection system for high performance liquid chromatography

The catalytic effect of bases (imidazole, pyridine, Tris and triethylamine) on the peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence (PO-CL) reaction for high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was investigated. Imidazole increased PO-CL intensity extraordinarily, whereas the other bases (pyridine, Tris and triethylamine) did not. The peak heights of dipyridamole (coronary vasodilator) obtained using the eluents containing buffers were largest at pH 7.0, a few times less at pH 6.0 and pH 5.0, 100 times less at pH 4.0 and a few hundred times less at pH 3.0. The eluents containing buffers at pH 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 each with imidazole increased the peak heights by a few to ten times as compared with those without imidazole, and those peak heights were within one order of magnitude. On the other hand, the eluent containing buffer at pH 2 did not affect the peak heights with or without imidazole. Bis(4-nitro-2-(3,6,9-trioxadecyloxycarbonyl)phenyl) oxalate (TDPO) alone and bis(2,4-dinitrophenyl)oxalate (DNPO) plus TDPO were recommended to be used against eluents containing buffers of pH 5-7 and pH 3-4, respectively. Dipyridamole and benzydamine hydrochloride (anti-inflammatory drug) were separated on the ODS column and detected by the present system. The detection limits of dipyridamole and benzydamine hydrochloride were 40 amol and 270 fmol, respectively.     

Strain-rate frequency superposition: a rheological probe of structural relaxation in soft materials

The rheological properties of soft materials often exhibit surprisingly universal linear and nonlinear features. Here we show that these properties can be unified by considering the effect of the strain-rate amplitude on the structural relaxation of the material. We present a new form of oscillatory rheology, strain-rate frequency superposition (SRFS), where the strain-rate amplitude is fixed as the frequency is varied. We show that SRFS can isolate the response due to structural relaxation, even when it occurs at frequencies too low to be accessible with standard techniques.     

Go-and-Back method: effective estimation of the hidden motion of proteins from single-molecule time series

We present an effective method for estimating the motion of proteins from the motion of attached probe particles in single-molecule experiments. The framework naturally incorporates Langevin dynamics to compute the most probable trajectory of the protein. By using a perturbation expansion technique, we achieve computational costs more than 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the conventional gradient descent method without loss of simplicity in the computation algorithm. We present illustrative applications of the method using simple models of single-molecule experiments and confirm that the proposed method yields reasonable and stable estimates of the hidden motion in a highly efficient manner.     

Alkynylation of benzotriazole with silylethynyliodonium triflates. Regioselective synthesis of 2-ethynyl-2H-benzotriazole derivatives

Phenyl(trimethylsilylethynyl)iodonium and tert-butyldimethylsilylethynyl(phenyl)iodonium triflates were applied to alkynylation of benzotriazole. Treatment of the silylethynyliodonium triflates with the potassium salt of benzotriazole ion in (t)BuOH and CH(2)Cl(2) gave 2-(trimethylsilylethynyl)-2H-1,2,3-benzotriazole and 2-(tert-butyldimethylsilylethynyl)-2H-1,2,3-benzotriazole in 74% and 76% yields, respectively. The regioisomers, 1-silylethynyl-1H-1,2,3-benzotriazole derivatives, were minor. In both cases of the silyl-substitued ethynyliodonium salts, novel regioselective alkynylation of benzotriazole at the 2 position was observed.