Production,purification, and characterization of a low-molecular-mass xylanase from Aspergillus sp. and its application in baking

An extracellular xylanase produced by a Mexican Aspergillus strain was purified and characterized. Aspergillus sp. FP-470 was able to grow and produce extracellular xylanases on birchwood xylan, oat spelt xylan, wheat straw, and corncob, with higher production observed on corncob. The strain also produced enzymes with cellulase, amylase, and pectinase activities on this substrate. A 22-kDa endoxylanase was purified 30-fold. Optimum temperature and pH were 60 degrees C and 5.5, respectively, and isoelectric point was 9.0. The enzyme has good stability from pH 5.0 to 10.0, retaining >80% of its original activity within this range. Half-lives of 150 min at 50 degrees C and 6.5 min at 60 degrees C were found. K(m) and activation energy values were 3.8 mg/mL and 26 kJ/mol, respectively, using birchwood xylan as substrate. The enzyme showed a higher affinity for 4-O-methyl-D-glucuronoxylan with a K(m) of 1.9 mg/mL. The enzyme displayed no activity toward other polysaccharides, including cellulose. Baking trials were conducted using the crude filtrate and purified enzyme. Addition of both preparations improved bread volume. However, addition of purified endoxylanase caused a 30% increase in volume over the crude extract.     

Three dissimilarity measures to contrast dendrograms

We discussed three dissimilarity measures between dendrograms defined over the same set, they are triples, partition, and cluster indices. All of them decompose the dendrograms into subsets. In the case of triples and partition indices, these subsets correspond to binary partitions containing some clusters, while in the cluster index, a novel dissimilarity method introduced in this paper, the subsets are exclusively clusters. In chemical applications, the dendrograms gather clusters that contain similarity information of the data set under study. Thereby, the cluster index is the most suitable dissimilarity measure between dendrograms resulting from chemical investigation. An application example of the three measures is shown to remark upon the advantages of the cluster index over the other two methods in similarity studies. Finally, the cluster index is used to measure the differences between five dendrograms obtained when applying five common hierarchical clustering algorithms on a database of 1000 molecules.     

Palladium catalyzed Suzuki C-C couplings in an ionic liquid: nanoparticles responsible for the catalytic activity

A new family of functionalized ligands derived from norborn-5-ene-2,3-dicarboxylic anhydride has been used in Suzuki C-C cross-couplings between aryl boronic acids and aryl bromide derivatives in [BMI][PF(6)] (BMI=1-n-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium), using palladium acetate as catalytic precursor. High conversions and yields are obtained when amine ligands containing hydroxy groups are involved. TEM analyses after catalysis show the formation of small nanoparticles, in contrast to the agglomerates observed when nanoparticles are intentionally preformed, with a consequent decrease in the catalytic activity in the latter case. Some tests, including the correlation effect between solvent and ligand, are carried out to try to identify the true nature of the catalyst. All the results obtained suggest that formation of nanoparticles is required to lead to a catalytically active system.     

Metal-catalysed oxidation processes in thiosemicarbazones: new complexes with the ligand N-{2-([4-N-ethylthiosemicarbazone]methyl)phenyl}-p-toluenesulfonamide

The coordination behaviour of a new thiosemicarbazone Schiff-base building block, N-{2-([4-N-ethylthiosemicarbazone]methyl)phenyl}-p-toluenesulfonamide, H2L1 (1), incorporating a bulky tosyl group, towards Mn II, Fe II, Co II, Ni II, Cu II, Zn II, Cd II, Ag I, Sn II, and Pb II has been investigated by means of an electrochemical preparative procedure. Most metal complexes of L1 have the general formula [M(L1)]2.nX (M=Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Cd, Pb; n=0-4, X=H2O or CH3CN), as confirmed by the structure of [Pb(L1)]2 (15), in which the lone pair on lead is stereochemically active. This lead(II) complex shows an intense fluorescence emission with a quantum yield of 0.13. In the case of silver, the complex formed was found to possess a stoichiometry of [Ag2(L1)]2.3H2O. During reactions with manganese and copper metals, interesting catalysed processes have been found to take place, with remarkable consequences regarding the ligand skeleton structure. In synthesising the manganese complex, we obtained an unexpected dithiolate thiosemicarbazone tosyl ligand, H2L2, as a side-product, which has been fully characterised, including by X-ray diffraction analysis. In the case of copper, the solid complex has the formula [CuL1]2, but the crystallised product shows the copper atoms coordinated to a new cyclised thiosemicarbazone ligand, H2L3, as in the structures of the complexes [Cu(L3)]2.CH3CN (8) and [Cu(L3)(H2O)]2.CH3CN.H2O (9). The zinc complex [Zn(L1)]4 (12) displays a particular tetranuclear zeolite-type structure capable of hosting small molecules or ions, presumably through hydrogen bonding.     

Topological Space of the Chemical Elements and its Properties

We carried out a mathematical study of 72 chemical elements taking advantage of the chemotopological method. We selected 128 properties to define the elements (physico-chemical, geochemical and chemical properties). Then, we looked for correlated properties and we reduced the number of them to 90. In this way we defined each element as a 90-tuple. Afterwards, we applied principal component analysis and cluster analysis (4 similarity functions and 5 grouping methodologies). Then, we calculated a consensus tree for the 20 dendrograms generated by the CA. Afterwards, we extracted the similarity relationships from the consensus tree and built up a basis for a topology on the set of chemical elements. Finally, we calculated some topological properties (closures, derived sets, boundaries, interiors and exteriors) of several subsets of chemical elements. We found that alkali metals, alkaline earth metals and noble gases appear not related to the rest of the elements. Also, we found that the boundary of non-metals are the semimetals with a stair-shape on the periodic table     

Conformation and luminescence of isolated molecular semiconductor molecules

In this article, we describe, for the first time, direct comparisons of the detailed structures of two small molecule organic semiconductors, oligo(phenylenvinylene) (OPV) molecules with chains of five and six phenyl rings (5R-OC(8)H(17) and 6R-OC(8)H(17)), respectively, and their luminescence properties on a single molecule level. Our data originate from a combination of two powerful diagnostic tools in physical chemistry: ion mobility and single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy. These techniques enable us to precisely determine the shapes of isolated molecules in the gas phase and to correlate these structures to the emission from single molecules supported on bare glass substrates. The principal structural uncertainty in OPVs is the (possible) presence and location of cis-vinylene linkages (cis-defects) in the oligomer. The results show that the structures observed in the gas phase are strongly correlated to the categories of molecules observed in the single molecule polarization anisotropy measurements with nearly identical distributions for the two OPV molecules studied. Each category is also characterized by the luminescence efficiency of the molecules in each class, providing a direct correlation between the luminescence efficiency and the shape of the molecule. This combination of techniques provides a level of information far beyond that obtained via any other analytical technique.     

Characterization and quantitation of mixtures of alkyl ether sulfates and carboxylic acids by capillary electrophoresis with indirect photometric detection

The separation, characterization, and determination of mixtures of alkyl ether sulfates (AES) and fatty acids (C10-C16) in background electrolytes (BGEs) containing acetonitrile (ACN)-water mixtures is addressed. Due to inhibition of the ionization of the carboxylate groups, the migration time and the resolution between the fatty acids decreased when the water content of the BGE was reduced, but efficiency and resolution between the AES oligomers improved. The migration times increased and resolution improved by substituting 5% ACN by an equivalent amount of dioxane. A complete separation of the two surfactant classes, up to the AES oligomers with 8 ethylene oxide units (EOs) with respect to C10, with excellent resolution between the AES oligomers, while preserving a satisfactory resolution between the fatty acids, was achieved with a BGE containing 5 mM trimethoxybenzoic acid, 7 mM dipentylamine, 85% ACN, 5% dioxane, and 10% water. The two surfactant classes were increasingly resolved by further reducing the water content of the BGE. Thus, C2 (acetate) was resolved from the AES oligomers up to 7 EOs using 90% ACN and 5% dioxane, but the resolution between the heavier fatty acids was poor with this BGE. Identification of the AES oligomers was eased by the excellent regularity of the successive migration times; thus, within each AES subclass or series of oligomers with the same number of carbon atoms in the alkyl chain, the migration times decreased following a mild curve as the number of EOs increased. The way how the data obtained by indirect photometry (corrected peak areas that are proportional to the molar concentrations) should be managed to avoid systematic error when the calibration curve is constructed using an AES standard with an oligomer distribution different from that of the samples is discussed and equations are given. Decyl sulfate was successfully used as internal standard. The detection limits (S/N = 3) were of ca. 2 microM for individual AES oligomers.