Cytotoxicity of guanine-based degradation products contributes to the antiproliferative activity of guanine-rich oligonucleotides

Guanine-rich oligonucleotides (GROs) have attracted considerable attention as anticancer agents, because they exhibit cancer-selective antiproliferative activity and can form G-quadruplex structures with higher nuclease resistance and cellular uptake. Recently, a GRO, AS1411 has reached phase II clinical trials for acute myeloid leukemia and renal cell carcinoma. The antiproliferative activity of GROs has been associated with various protein targets; however the real mechanisms of action remain unclear. In this study, we showed evidence that antiproliferative activity of GROs (including AS1411) is mainly contributed by the cytotoxicity of their guanine-based degradation products, such as monophosphate deoxyguanosine (dGMP), deoxyguanosine (dG) and guanine. The GROs with lower nuclease resistance exhibited higher antiproliferative activity. Among nucleotides, nucleosides and nucleobases, only guanine-based compounds showed highly concentration-dependent cytotoxicity. Our results suggest that it is necessary to reconsider the cancer-selective antiproliferative activity of GROs. Since guanine-based compounds are endogenous substances in living organisms, systematic studies of the cytotoxicity of these compounds will provide new information for the understanding of certain diseases and offer useful information for drug design.     

Hydrothermal synthesis and electrochemical performance of Fe-doped Co hydroxide electrode materials

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - In order to meet the growing energy demand, it is of great significance to develop high-performance electrochemical energy storage materials. In this...     

Comparison of Nitrogen Activation on Trinuclear Niobium and Tungsten Sulfide Clusters Nb3Sn and W3Sn (n=0–3): A DFT Study

The reaction of N₂ with trinuclear niobium and tungsten sulfide clusters Nb₃S_n and W₃S_n (n=0–3) was systematically studied by density functional theory calculations with TPSS functional and Def2-TZVP basis sets. Dissociations of N−N bonds on these clusters are all thermodynamically allowed but with different reactivity in kinetics. The reactivity of Nb₃S_n is generally higher than that of W₃S_n. In the favorite reaction pathways, the adsorbed N₂ changes the adsorption sites from one metal atom to the bridge site of two metal atoms, then on the hollow site of three metal atoms, and at that place, the N−N bond dissociates. As the number of ligand S atoms increases, the reactivity of Nb₃S_n decreases because of the hindering effect of S atoms, while W₃S and W₃S₂ have the highest reactivity among four W₃S_n clusters. The Mayer bond order, bond length, vibrational frequency, and electronic charges of the adsorbed N₂ are analyzed along the reaction pathways to show the activation process of the N−N bond in reactions. The charge transfer from the clusters to the N₂ antibonding orbitals plays an essential role in N−N bond activation, which is more significant in Nb₃S_n than in W₃S_n, leading to the higher reactivity of Nb₃S_n. The reaction mechanisms found in this work may provide important theoretical guidance for the further rational design of related catalytic systems for nitrogen reduction reactions (NRR).     

Responsive hyperbranched poly(formyl-1,2,3-triazole)s toward quadruple-modal information security protection

Science China Chemistry - Secrecy has received tremendous attention in modern information society. Innovative polymer-based fluorescent materials with multiple mode emission are quite desirable to...     

The development of hollow multishelled structure: from the innovation of synthetic method to the discovery of new characteristics

Hollow multishelled structure(HoMS)is one of the most promising multifunctional structures.The high complexity of its structure makes the general and controllable synthesis of HoMS rather challenging.By integration of multidisciplinary knowledge,a great achievement in HoMSs has been obtained in the past decade.Especially,the developed sequential templating approach has significantly boomed the progress of HoMS in composition and structure diversity and application area.The implementation of the temporal-spatial ordering in HoMS makes it indispensable in solving the key scientific problems in energy conversion,catalysis and drug delivery areas.Further development in HoMSs with novel intricate structures will bring new understandings.In this review,we systematically introduce the development history of HoMSs,summarize the inspiration inherited from the previous research on hollow structures,and discuss the milestones in the development of HoMSs,with a focus on the sequential templating approach for HoMS fabrication,attractive temporal-spatial ordering property and dynamic smart behavior for advanced applications.We hope to reveal the inherent relationship between the precise synthesis of HoMS and its highly tunable compositional and structural characteristics,and point out its future direction to boost HoMS area further.     

An Electrochemical Way to Generate Amphiphiles from Hydrazones for the Synthesis of 1,2,4-Triazole Scaffold Cyclic Compounds

An electro-oxidative cyclization pathway in which hydrazones are selected as starting materials to generate amphiphiles by reacting with benzylamines and benzamides was reported. This strategy successfully prepared a series of 1,2,4-triazoles in satisfactory yields. Moreover, the use of cheap stainless steel as the anode, the feasibility to conduct the transformation as a one-pot reaction and the proof that scaling-up these reactions is possible make this transformation attractive for potential application in industry.     

Adatom Defect Induced Spin Polarization of Asymmetric Structures

The spin polarization of carbon nanomaterials is crucial to design spintronic devices. In this paper, the first-principles is used to study the electronic properties of two defect asymmetric structures, Cap-(9, 0)-Def [6, 6] and Cap-(9, 0)-Def [5, 6]. We found that the ground state of Cap-(9, 0)-Def [6, 6] is sextet and the ground state of Cap-(9, 0)-Def [5, 6] is quartet, and the former has a lower energy. In addition, compared with Cap-(9, 0) CNTs, the C adatom on C₃₀ causes spin polarization phenomenon and Cap-(9, 0)-Def [6, 6] has more spin electrons than Cap-(9, 0)-Def [5, 6] structure. Moreover, different adsorb defects reveal different electron accumulation. This finding shows that spin polarization of the asymmetric structure can be adjusted by introducing adatom defects.     

Cucurbit[8]uril-induced diarylethene thermally activated delay fluorescence supramolecular switch for sequential energy transfer

Constructing molecular switches based on supramolecular assembly strategy is a research hotspot. In this work, we constructed an all visible-light-regulated supramolecular photo-switch based on pyridinium-modified diarylethene derivative (DTE-Me) and cucurbit[8]uril (CB[8]). CB[8] not only accelerated the photochromic process under 365 nm ultraviolet light but also shifted the absorption of open formed DTE-Me to the visible region, which led to efficient photocyclization under 450 nm visible light irradiation, while DTE-Me and DTE-Me/CB[7] remained unchanged under the same irradiating condition. Moreover, the complexation with CB[8] could induce the strong thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) of guest molecular at 550 nm, which further shifted to 670 nm through two-step sequential energy transfer with sulforhodamine B (SRB) and Cy5. This energy transfer process could also be regulated with visible light, and the application for information encryption was also demonstrated. This assembly provides a convenient approach to construct all visible light-regulated TADF photo-switch.     

Controlled electropolymerization based on self-dimerizations of monomers

Electropolymerization is one of the most important methodologies to synthesize and develop conducting polymers. The complexity of the polymerization mechanism, ion doping processes and structural defects are considered to be symbiotic and unavoidable, making the stagnant state and huge band gap with advanced interdisciplinary research fields and important applications in the last three decades. Herein, we provide a point of view into controlled electropolymerization by regioselective activation reactions of monomers, where self-dimerizations instead of self-electropolymerizations were utilized. The resulting dimers play a role in the connections between functional building blocks to form functional polymers on demand. This account highlights the typical findings in controlled electropolymerizations as a forum for discussing new opportunities in exploiting novel designs and applications.