Fluorescence energy transfer-based multiplexed hybridization assay using gold nanoparticles and quantum dot conjugates on photonic crystal beads

A multiplexed assay strategy was developed for the detection of nucleic acid hybridization. It is based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and multi-sized quantum dots (QDs) deposited on the surface of silica photonic crystal beads (SPCBs). The SPCBs were first coated with a three-layer primer film formed by the alternating adsorption of poly(allylamine hydrochloride) and poly(sodium 4-styrensulfonate). Probe DNA sequences were then covalently attached to the carboxy groups at the surface of the QD-coated SPCBs. On addition of DNA-AuNPs and hybridization, the fluorescence of the donor QDs is quenched because of the close proximity of the AuNPs. However, the addition of target DNA causes a recovery of the fluorescence of the QD-coated SPCBs, thus enabling the quantitative assay of hybridized DNA. Compared to fluorescent dyes acting as acceptors, the use of AuNPs results in much higher quenching efficiency. The multiplexed assay displays a wide linear range, high sensitivity, and very little cross-reactivity. This work, where such SPCBs are used for the first time in a FRET assay, is deemed to present a new and viable approach towards high-throughput multiplexed gene assays.

Initial bacterial attachment in slow flowing systems: effects of cell and substrate surface properties

Bacterial biofilm can have significant effects on the behaviors and/or performance of natural and man-made systems. Understanding the factors governing initial bacterial attachment is critical to biofilm management. In this study, the initial attachment of three bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas putida, on two substrates, glass and octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) modified glass, was examined in flow chambers. The flow chambers were designed and operated to mimic slow moving water bodies and minimize the gravitational settlement of cells. The hydrophobicity of bacterial surface was evaluated by partitioning of cells to the water-hexadecane interface and the liquid contact angles on cell layers collected on filter papers. On the more hydrophilic glass surface, the attachment trend was found to be E. coli>P. putida>P. aeruginosa, while the opposite trend was observed on the hydrophobic, OTS modified surface. The attachment trend on glass could be explained by the magnitude of the negative interaction energy at secondary minima, as predicted by the extended Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (XDLVO) theory. The much higher attachments of P. aeruginosa and P. putida on the OTS-modified substrate, on the other hand, suggested that these cells could overcome the energy barrier between the primary and secondary minima of interaction energy to become attached to the primary minimum. The extent of primary-minimum attachment appeared to correlate with the scale of the energy barrier, with higher attachments in the bacteria-substrate combinations of lower energy barriers. The study generated important insights into the effects of cell and substrate surface properties on initial bacterial attachment.     

Synthesis,characterization and catalytic activities of bimetallic modified MCM-41 for epoxidation of styrene

Mesoporous molecular sieves MCM-41 modified by bimetal (Zr and Ti) ions with ordered hexagonal arrangement were prepared by direct synthesis under microwave–hydrothermal conditions at 403 K. FT-IR, N₂ adsorption–desorption, scanning electron microscope, high-resolution transmission electron microscope, element mapping, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, diffuse Reflectance UV–Visible Spectra etc. were used to characterize as-prepared materials. The results showed that Zr and Ti were introduced into MCM-41 and bonds of Zr–O–Si and Ti–O–Si were formed in framework of the MCM-41. Moreover, their structures with ordered arrangement were still retained. The microwave–hydrothermal method might shorten the synthesis time from days to hours and the as-prepared catalyst had a high catalytic activity and selectivity for the liquid-phase epoxidation of styrene.     

Hydrogen-bonding interaction of urea with DNA bases: A density functional theory study

This work deals with the interaction between urea and DNA bases (adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine). The optimized geometries, binding energies, and harmonic vibrational frequencies are calculated using the DFT/B3LYP functional combined with the 6–31+G(d,p) basis set. Their interactions are studied aiming to understand more about the nature of the intercalation binding forces between urea and DNA. Fourteen stable complexes are found on the potential energy surface. The structures are cyclic; they are stabilized by NH...O/N and CH...O interactions. The binding energies range from −19.9 kJ·mol⁻¹ to −74.0 kJ·mol⁻¹. The obtained formation energies indicate that Urea:G and Urea:C are more favorable than Urea:T and Urea:A. In addition, the Atoms in Molecules theory is performed to study the hydrogen bonds in the complexes.     

无溶剂合成1,3,5-三芳基-2-芳酰基环己醇衍生物和晶体结构

在NaOH存在下室温研磨查尔酮与丙二腈,可以有效地得到1,3,5-三芳基-2-芳酰基环己醇衍生物,本合成方法反应时间短、操作简单、产率高,符合绿色化学特点.产物结构经过红外、核磁、元素分析和高分辨质谱确证,并对3b做了单晶衍射测定.     

Monitoring enzyme activity using a diamagnetic chemical exchange saturation transfer magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) is a new approach for generating magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast that allows monitoring of protein properties in vivo. In this method, a radiofrequency pulse is used to saturate the magnetization of specific protons on a target molecule, which is then transferred to water protons via chemical exchange and detected using MRI. One advantage of CEST imaging is that the magnetizations of different protons can be specifically saturated at different resonance frequencies. This enables the detection of multiple targets simultaneously in living tissue. We present here a CEST MRI approach for detecting the activity of cytosine deaminase (CDase), an enzyme that catalyzes the deamination of cytosine to uracil. Our findings suggest that metabolism of two substrates of the enzyme, cytosine and 5-fluorocytosine (5FC), can be detected using saturation pulses targeted specifically to protons at +2 ppm and +2.4 ppm (with respect to water), respectively. Indeed, after deamination by recombinant CDase, the CEST contrast disappears. In addition, expression of the enzyme in three different cell lines exhibiting different expression levels of CDase shows good agreement with the CDase activity measured with CEST MRI. Consequently, CDase activity was imaged with high-resolution CEST MRI. These data demonstrate the ability to detect enzyme activity based on proton exchange. Consequently, CEST MRI has the potential to follow the kinetics of multiple enzymes in real time in living tissue.     

Study on Conductivity Properties of PEDOT Prepared through a Modified LB Film Method

Adopting LB film method, an arachidic acid (AA)/PEDOT multilayer LB film was chosen, and polymerized EDOT monomers in hydrophilic group of LB to prepare arachidic acid (AA)/PEDOT multilayer LB film. UV‐Vis, FT‐IR and XPS analyses implied that EDOT was effectively polymerized in film, and thus PEDOT conducting polymer was produced. Analyses of XRR and SIMS indicated that film had a well‐arranged lamella structure, and further research showed that polymerization of EDOT in AA film destroyed the orderliness of the original LB film. This phenomenon could be related to the destructive effect of polymerization on layered structure. We used four‐point probe and semiconductor instrument to study the conductivity property of the film, and observed that the conductivity of AA/PEDOT film had sudden changes with the processing time of changes in effective conduction network. That was caused by "permeability" in conducting channel of multilayer film. The test results also indicated that the conductivity of AA/PEDOT film was obviously better than that of spin‐coating PEDOT/PSS film or that of ODA‐SA/PEDOT‐PSS film, which was due to the higher π structure of PEDOT structure and ordered film structure.     

Monofunctional platinum complexes containing a 4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole fluorophore: distribution in tumour cells

Two monofunctional platinum(II) complexes, cis-[PtL(NH(3))(2)Cl]NO(3) (1) and cis-[PtL'(NH(3))(2)Cl]NO(3) (2) {L = N-methyl-7-nitro-N-(2-(pyridin-2-yl)ethyl)benzo[c][1,2,5]-oxadiazol-4-amine, L' = 7-nitro-N-(2-(pyridin-2-yl)ethyl)benzo[c][1,2,5] oxadiazol-4-amine}, have been synthesized and characterized. The X-ray single crystal structure of complex 1 shows that platinum(II) is coordinated in a square-planar geometry with a [PtN(3)Cl] setting. Fluorescence profiles of the complexes show that complex 1 is more suitable for cellular imaging than complex 2. The cellular uptake and distribution of complex 1 in the human cervical cancer HeLa cells were studied using confocal microscopy. Complex 1 enters the cells slowly, induces cytoplasmic vacuolations, and accumulates in the nucleoli. These results suggest that monofunctional platinum(II) complexes can stimulate tumour cells to undergo a nonapoptotic death process, which is distinct from the apoptosis induced by cisplatin.     

On <Emphasis Type="Italic">s</Emphasis>-Elementary Super Frame Wavelets and Their Path-Connectedness

A super wavelet of length n is an n-tuple (ψ ₁,ψ ₂,…,ψ _n ) in the product space \(\prod_{j=1}^{n} L^{2}(\mathbb{R})\), such that the coordinated dilates of all its coordinated translates form an orthonormal basis for \(\prod_{j=1}^{n} L^{2} (\mathbb{R})\). This concept is generalized to the so-called super frame wavelets, super tight frame wavelets and super normalized tight frame wavelets (or super Parseval frame wavelets), namely an n-tuple (η ₁,η ₂,…,η _n ) in \(\prod_{j=1}^{n}L^{2} (\mathbb{R})\) such that the coordinated dilates of all its coordinated translates form a frame, a tight frame, or a normalized tight frame for \(\prod_{j=1}^{n} L^{2}(\mathbb{R})\). In this paper, we study the super frame wavelets and the super tight frame wavelets whose Fourier transforms are defined by set theoretical functions (called s-elementary frame wavelets). An m-tuple of sets (E ₁,E ₂,…,E _m ) is said to be τ-disjoint if the E _j ’s are pair-wise disjoint under the 2π-translations. We prove that a τ-disjoint m-tuple (E ₁,E ₂,…,E _m ) of frame sets (i.e., η _j defined by \(\widehat{\eta_{j}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\chi_{E_{j}}\) is a frame wavelet for L ²(?) for each j) lead to a super frame wavelet (η ₁,η ₂,…,η _m ) for \(\prod_{j=1}^{m} L^{2} (\mathbb{R})\) where \(\widehat{\eta_{j}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\chi_{E_{j}}\). In the case of super tight frame wavelets, we prove that (η ₁,η ₂,…,η _m ), defined by \(\widehat{\eta_{j}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}\chi_{E_{j}}\), is a super tight frame wavelet for ∏_1≤j≤m L ²(?) with frame bound k ₀ if and only if each η _j is a tight frame wavelet for L ²(?) with frame bound k ₀ and that (E ₁,E ₂,…,E _m ) is τ-disjoint. Denote the set of all τ-disjoint s-elementary super frame wavelets for ∏_1≤j≤m L ²(?) by \(\mathfrak{S}(m)\) and the set of all s-elementary super tight frame wavelets (with the same frame bound k ₀) for ∏_1≤j≤m L ²(?) by \(\mathfrak{S}^{k_{0}}(m)\). We further prove that \(\mathfrak{S}(m)\) and \(\mathfrak{S}^{k_{0}}(m)\) are both path-connected under the ∏_1≤j≤m L ²(?) norm, for any given positive integers m and k ₀.     

A tree search method for the container loading problem with shipment priority

This paper addresses a special kind of container loading problem with shipment priority. We present a tree search method, which is based on a greedy heuristic. In the greedy heuristic, blocks made up of identical items with the same orientation are selected for packing into a container. Five evaluation functions are proposed for block selection, and the different blocks selected by each evaluation function constitute the branches of the search tree. A method of space splitting and merging is also embedded in the algorithm to facilitate efficient use of the container space. In addition, the proposed algorithm covers an important constraint called shipment priority to solve practical problems. The validity of the proposed algorithm is examined by comparing the present results with those of published algorithms using the same data.