The study in the relationship between serum calcium and serum parathyroid hormone (PTH) by employing the various kits of PTH assay

In order to evaluate the influences of serum PTH assay in the various concentrations of serum calcium, we divided into three groups which serum calcium had below 8.0 mg/dl, 8.2 mg/dl to 9.8 mg/dl and above 10.0 mg/dl at random samples and assayed PTH in serum sample, using various kits of PTH assay obtained from commercial sources. Our results suggested that the measurement of serum PTH influenced by the concentration of serum calcium and therefore, should be taken an attention of serum calcium in each sample.     

Photochemical intramolecular nitrene insertion of 6-azidouridine derivatives

A highly efficient intramolecular nitrene insertion was observed upon irradiation of 6-azidouridine derivatives. The N⁶,2′-cyclo structure of the product was determined unequivocally by X-ray crystallography.     

Photoreaction Cycle of Phoborhodopsin (Sensory Rhodopsin II) from Halobacterium salinarum Expressed in Escherichia coli

Phoborhodopsin (pR; also called sensory rhodopsin II, SRII) is a photoreceptor of negative phototaxis of halobacteria. The studies of photochemical properties of this pigment are not many because the amount of the pigment is small and the stability is low. Recently an expression system of phoborhodopsin from Halobacterium salinarum (called salinarum phoborhodopsin, spR; also HsSRII) in Escherichia coli and purification method has been developed (Mironova et al. [2005] FEBS Lett., 579, 3147–3151), which enables detailed studies on the photochemical properties of spR. In the present work, the photoreaction cycle of E. coli-expressed spR was studied by low-temperature spectroscopy and flash photolysis. Formations of K-, M-, O-like intermediates and P480 were reconfirmed as reported previously. New findings are as follows. (1) The K-like intermediate (P500) was a mixture of two photoproducts. (2) Formation of L-like intermediate (P482) was observed by low-temperature spectroscopy and flash photolysis at room temperature. (3) On long irradiation of spR at 20°C, formation of a new photoproduct P370 was observed and it decayed to the original spR in the dark with a decay half time of 190 min. Based on these results the similarities and dissimilarities between spR and ppR are discussed.     

Enzymatic syntheses of unnatural head-to-tail pentacyclic triterpenes by tetraprenyl-β-curcumene cyclase

Little is known of the biosynthesis of sesquarterpenes and the synthesis of unnatural terpenoids by sesquarterpene biosynthetic enzymes has not yet been reported. In this study, the enzymatic cyclization of head-to-tail acyclic triterpene β-hexaprene—a natural product isolated from Bacillus clausii—using tetraprenyl-β-curcumene cyclase (TC) from Bacillus subtilis resulted in the formation of two unnatural pentacyclic triterpenes. It was revealed that B. subtilis TC, which forms tetracyclic terpenoid scaffold from tetraprenyl-β-curcumene in vivo, could be used to construct the 6/6/6/6/6-fused pentacyclic scaffold in vitro, suggesting that the active site cavity of TC has sufficient space to accommodate this unnatural pentacyclic scaffold. This is the first report demonstrating the utility of a sesquarterpene cyclase toward the synthesis of unnatural terpenoids.     

The effect of the steric hindrance on metallic cation conduction in polymer electrolytes

2,6-Di-t-butylphenol and oligo(ethylene oxide) bound covalently to polyisocyanate were synthesized and characterized. The ionic conductivities of their Li, Na, and K phenolates were studied at various temperatures. The conductivities were in the range of 10^?7?10^?5 S/cm at 30°C. The conductivity of Na and K salts was approximately 10² greater than that of the Li salts. The t-butyl groups serve to dissociate K and Na ions from the phenoxide. The cations, therefore, are more mobile as a result increasing the conductivity. The temperature dependence of ionic conductivity suggests that the migration of ions is controlled by segmental motion of the polymer, shown by linear curves obtained in Vogel–Tammann–Fulchere plots. The polyisocyanate backbone is a rather stiff structure, however, a flexible oligo(ethylene oxide) side chain forms complexes with metal ion. Since the ion transport is associated with the local movement of polymer segments, the rigidity of the polymer backbone does not have much influence on the ion mobility.     

Capillary electrophoretic determination of Ga(III) based on the formation of a heteropolyoxomolybdate complex

A novel capillary electrophoretic (CE) method was developed for the determination of Ga(III). The so-called Anderson-type [GaMo6O24H6]3- complex was readily formed by the reaction of Mo(VI) with Ga(III) in 0.050 M monochloroacetate buffer (pH 2.0) and the precolumn complex-formation reaction was applied to the CE determination of Ga(III) with direct UV detection at 240 nm. The peak area was linearly dependent on the concentration of Ga(III) in the range of 5.0 x 10(-7)-5.0 x 10(-5) M. Owing to the high molar absorptivity of the Anderson anion, a detection limit of 2.0 x 10(-7) M (signal-to-noise ratio=3) was achieved. The advantage of the present method is that the presence of large excesses of Al(III) and In(III) does not cause interference.     

Signal denoising and baseline correction by discrete wavelet transform for microchip capillary electrophoresis

Signal denoising and baseline correction using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) are described for microchip capillary electrophoresis (MCE). DWT was performed on an electropherogram describing a separation of nine tetramethylrohodamine-5-isothiocyanate labeled amino acids, following MCE with laser-induced fluorescence detection, using Daubechies 5 wavelet at a decomposition level of 6. The denoising efficiency was compared with, and proved to be superior to, other commonly used denoising techniques such as Fourier transform, Savitzky-Golay smoothing and moving average, in terms of noise removal and peak preservation by directly visual inspection. Novel strategies for baseline correction were proposed, with a special interest in baseline drift that frequently occurred in chromatographic and electrophoretic separations.     

A new strategy for construction of eight-membered carbocycles by Brook rearrangement mediated [6 + 2] annulation

[reaction: see text] A newly developed strategy for construction of eight-membered carbocycles via [6 + 2] annulation that involves the combination of beta-alkenoyl acylsilanes and a vinyllithium derivative is described. A unique feature of this annulative approach is that it enables in one operation and a stereoselective manner construction of eight-membered ring systems containing useful functionalities for further synthetic elaboration from readily available six- and two-carbon components.