Enhancement of the solubilities of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by weak hydrogen bonds with water

Summary The thermodynamics of mobile order is applied to predict the aqueous solubility of liquid and solid aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The solubility values are mainly determined by the magnitude of the hydrophobic effect. However, contrary to the solubilities of the alkanes, the solubilities of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in water predicted in absence of solute-solvent hydrogen (H) bonds are systematically too low. This shows the contribution of weak specific interactions between the OH groups and the electrons of the aromatic substances. According to the theory, these interactions are characterized by a stability bility constant K_o which can be derived from solubility data. At 25°C, this constant amounts to 80 cm³/mol, the order of magnitude of which can be explained by the competition of these intermolecular bonds with the rather weak self-association bonds in the secondary chains of water.     

Sound propagation in metallic glasses—a new look at the tunneling model

A variety of amorphous metals exhibit a characteristic behavior in their acoustic properties at low frequencies which differs from the predictions of the standard tunneling model. We point out that a lower cut-off _min for the tunnel matrix element, which is needed for consistency of the tunneling model, leads to an upper bound on relaxation times induced by the conduction electrons. We derive explicit expressions for the velocity shift and internal friction for the normalconducting and superconducting case. It is shown that a maximum relaxation time plays an essential role at audio frequencies. The corresponding change of the acoustic properties is in qualitative agreement with vibrating reed experiments.     

Phase diagram and scattering intensity of binary amphiphilic systems

A Ginzburg-Landau model with a scalar and a vector order parameter, which describe the concentration and orientation of the amphiphile, respectively, is used to study the phase diagram and the scattering intensity of binary amphiphilic systems. With increasing amphiphile concentration, the calculated phase diagram shows the typical sequence of ordered phases observed experimentally, that is micellar liquid cubic micellar hexagonal lamellar cubic bicontinuous invers hexagonal. The scattering intensity in the homogeneous phase is calculated in the oneloop approximation. In the vicinity of a phase transition to an ordered phase, the intensity is found to show a 1/q behavior for not too small wave vectorsq, followed by a small peak, and a 1/q ² decay for large wave vectors, in agreement with experimental observations in theL ₃-(or sponge-)phase.Dedicated to Prof. H. Wagner on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

Säurekatalysierte Dienon-Phenol-Umlagerungen von 6-Propargyl-6-methyl-cyclohexa-2,4-dien-1-onen; ladungskontrollierte,aromatische [1s, 2s]- und [3s, 4s]-sigmatropische Reaktionen

The acid catalysed dienone-phenol rearrangement of methyl substituted o-propargyl-cyclohexadienones (scheme 3) was investigated. The rearrangements were carried out in acetic anhydride containing about 1⁰/₀₀ sulfuric acid. Under these conditions acetoxy benzenium ions are formed as intermediates. These then undergo charge-controlled [3s, 4s]- and [1s, 2s]-sigmatropic rearrangements. Thus, the [3s, 4s]-process leads to the formation of the corresponding allenyl-phenol acetates ( 19 , 21 , 23 , 25 , 28 , 30 ) whereas the [1s, 2s]-process yields propargyl-phenol acetates ( 20 , 22 , 24 , 26 , 29 ), respectively (cf. scheme 4).     

Optimized and far-red-emitting variants of fluorescent protein eqFP611

Fluorescent proteins (FPs) emitting in the far-red region of the spectrum are highly advantageous for whole-body imaging applications because scattering and absorption of long-wavelength light is markedly reduced in tissue. We characterized variants of the red fluorescent protein eqFP611 with bright fluorescence emission shifted up to 639 nm. The additional red shift is caused by a trans-cis isomerization of the chromophore. The equilibrium between the trans and cis conformations is strongly influenced by amino acid residues 143 and 158. Pseudo monomeric tags were obtained by further genetic engineering. For the red chromophores of eqFP611 variants, molar extinction coefficients of up to approximately 150,000 were determined by an approach that is not affected by the presence of molecules with nonfunctional red chromophores. The bright fluorescence makes the red-shifted eqFP611 variants promising lead structures for the development of near-infrared fluorescent markers. The red fluorescent proteins performed well in cell biological applications, including two-photon imaging.     

Hydrogen bond directed synthesis of pyridazine and naphthyridine containing macrocycles

This work describes a high-yielding, one-step synthesis of pyrizadine and naphthyridine containing macrocycles directed by intramolecular H-bonding.     

Supported ionic liquid phase catalysis with supercritical flow

Rapid hydroformylation of 1-octene (rates up to 800 h(-1)) with the catalyst remaining stable for at least 40 h and with very low rhodium leaching levels (0.5 ppm) is demonstrated when using a system involving flowing the substrate, reacting gases and products dissolved in supercritical CO(2) (scCO(2)) over a fixed bed supported ionic liquid phase catalyst.     

Optimized protocol for synthesis of cyclic gramicidin S: starting amino acid is key to high yield

[structures: see text] A simple and highly efficient Fmoc solid-phase protocol for synthesizing the antimicrobial decapeptide gramicidin S and various labeled analogues is presented. When preparing the linear precursor peptides (1a-e), a systematic permutation of the starting amino acid within the cyclic sequence gave different yields between 51% and 93%. Also the subsequent step of cyclization gave widely diverging yields between 26% and 74%, depending again on the starting amino acid. The ease of cyclization was found to correlate with the tendency of the respective linear precursor peptide to assume a preorganized conformation, as observed by circular dichroism. The overall yield is thus critically dependent on the starting amino acid and can be raised from 20% to 70% using (D)Phe. The choice of coupling agent and its counterion was found to play only a marginal role. Irrespective of being able to assume a preorganized conformation, none of the linear precursor peptides exhibited any antimicrobial or hemolytic activity. Using the optimized protocol, which involves only simple Fmoc-couplings and requires no intermittent purification steps, several gramicidin S analogues (3-8) containing 19F-labeled phenylglycine derivatives and/or 15N-labeled amino acids were synthesized for solid-state NMR structure analysis.