Quantitative determination of duloxetine and its metabolite in rat plasma by HPLC‐MS/MS

The major metabolite of duloxetine is a glucuronide conjugate of 4‐hydroxy duloxetine (4‐HD). However, interestingly, there have been no reports determining concentrations of 4‐HD and no fully validated method has been established for measuring duloxetine and 4‐HD in rat plasma. We developed a method for the simultaneous quantification of duloxetine and its metabolite in rat plasma using high‐performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Duloxetine and 4‐HD were analyzed on a reverse‐phase C₁₈ analytical column after protein precipitation of the plasma sample with methanol, using carbamazepine as an internal standard. The isocratic mobile phase of 5 mm ammonium acetate–methanol (4:6, v/v) was eluted at 0.4 mL/min. Quantification was performed on a triple‐quadrupole mass spectrometer using electrospray ionization, and the ion transition monitored in selective reaction monitoring mode. The coefficient of variation for assay precision was <18.0%, and the accuracy was 84.0–118.0%. This method was successfully used to measure the concentrations of duloxetine and its metabolite in plasma following the oral administration of a single 40 mg/kg dose in rats. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis and photovoltaic properties of main chain polymeric metal complexes containing 1,10‐phenanthroline metal complexes conjugating alkyl fluorene or alkoxy benzene by C═C bridge for dye‐sensitized solar cells

Four main chain polymeric metal complexes (P1–P4) based on 1,10‐phenanthroline metal complexes via the Heck coupling have been synthesized and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, ¹H NMR, UV–Vis absorption, photoluminescence spectroscopy, gel permeation chromatography, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, elemental analysis, and cyclic voltammetry. To investigate their photovoltaic properties, the dye‐sensitized solar cells based on these polymers dyes are studied, under the illumination of AM 1.5G, 100 mW/cm². The study results show the four polymers exhibit good thermally stable and the solar cells based on them have good device performance, and the maximum power conversion efficiency is up to 0.735% for the solar cells based on P3 with a short‐circuit current (J_sc) of 1.68 mA/cm² and an open‐circuit voltage (V_oc) of 0.62 V. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structural and functional stabilities of artificially designed DNA ultra-thin films grown by silica Assistance

We report the structural and functional stabilities of artificially synthesized DNA ultra-thin films. Fully covered DNA ultra-thin films on a silica substrate were fabricated by the silica-assisted growth method and those samples were then incubated in various chemicals and physical conditions. The DNA ultra-thin films showed high maintainability under those harsh conditions and these results would aid to facilitate the use of artificial DNA ultra-thin films in advanced research areas such as biophotonics and bioelectronics.     

Amino-Acid-Induced Circular Polarized Luminescence in One-Dimensional Manganese(II) Halide Hybrid

Circular polarized luminescence (CPL)-active materials attract great attentions owing to their widely applications in 3D optical displays and encrypted transmission. Inspired by the strategies adopted in perovskite based CPL materials, herein, CPL-active hybrids (D)- and (L)-(tert-butyl prolinate)MnCl₃ were successfully prepared by assembling chiral D/L tert-butyl prolinate with manganese (II) chloride. Single crystal structures show the as-formed hybrids possess one-dimensional (1D) structure containing linear chains of face-sharing MnCl₆ octahedral surrounded by prolinate cations. The 1D Mn(II) hybrids display strong red emission peaked at 646 nm with PLQY of 67.1 % and 57.2 % for d -type and l -type, respectively, representing the highest PLQY for 1D Mn^II hybrids. Interestingly, the 1D Mn(II) hybrids exhibit prominent circular dichroism (CD) signals and remarkable CPL activity with the dissymmetry factor g of 6.1*10⁻³ and −6.3*10⁻³ from 550 to 800 nm for (D)- and (L)-(tert-butyl prolinate)MnCl₃, respectively, owing to the existence of chiral cations. It is worthy noted the obtained g represents the highest value for non-lead organic–inorganic hybrids.