A Dogma in Doubt: Hydrolysis of Equatorial Ligands of PtIV Complexes under Physiological Conditions

Due to their high kinetic inertness and consequently reduced side reactions with biomolecules, Pt^IV complexes are considered to define the future of anticancer platinum drugs. The aqueous stability of a series of biscarboxylato Pt^IV complexes was studied under physiologically relevant conditions. Unexpectedly and in contrast to the current chemical understanding, especially oxaliplatin and satraplatin complexes underwent fast hydrolysis in equatorial position (even in cell culture medium and serum). Notably, the resulting hydrolysis products strongly differ in their reduction kinetics, a crucial parameter for the activation of Pt^IV drugs, which also changes the anticancer potential of the compounds in cell culture. The discovery that intact Pt^IV complexes can hydrolyze at equatorial position contradicts the dogma on the general kinetic inertness of Pt^IV compounds and needs to be considered in the screening and design for novel platinum‐based anticancer drugs.     

Unique assemblies of alternating positively and negatively charged layers, directed by hydrogen bonds, ionic interactions, and π-stacking in the crystal structures of complexes between mellitic acid (benzenehexacarboxylic acid) and five planar aromatic bases

Benzenehexacarboxylic acid, mellitic acid (MA), has been used as a core motif to study possible radial self-assembly using complementary aromatic bases. By mixing water solutions of the components, crystals of the salts of MA with 4-aminopyridine (AP), 4-dimethylamino-pyridine (DM), 2,2-bipyridine (DP), o-phenanthroline (PL), and melamine (ML) have been obtained. The MA^–n ions have assembled in either extended sheets for MA^–2 or extended ribbons for MA^–4 by direct hydrogen bonding between MA and MA and additionally through mediation of hydrogen bonds to water molecules that distribute the negative charges throughout the MA sheet or ribbon. Most of the O atoms in carboxyl groups in the MA ions in the five complexes have been rotated significantly out of the plane of the central benzene ring. There are multiple base molecules, two or four, for each mellitic acid ion in the five complexes. Most of the NH⁺ moieties in all five bases make direct NH⁺ O–C hydrogen bonds with MA^–n . The planar base ions are generally arranged in stacks in which the components range from being parallel, with interplanar separations of 3.5 Å, to having a considerable tilt with respect to each other with nearest interplanar separation of atoms greater than 3.9 Å. These geometric characteristics are reflected in the color of the crystals. The three-dimensional networking makes some of the crystals very hard. Cell dimensions: 1, C₃₂H₃₀N₈O₁₂ 2H₂O, C2/c, a =13.764(2) Å, b =18.053(3) Å, c =14.876(4) Å, =105.99(2)° 2, C₂₆H₂₆N₄O₁₂ 3H₂O, P2₁/n, a =15.891(1) Å, b =10.444(1) Å, c =18.242(1) Å, =97.00(1); 3, C₆₄H₄₄N₈O₂₄ 7H2O, P2₁/c, a =23.016(4) Å, b =15.241(2) Å, c =19.124(2) Å, =100.60(1)° 4, C₃₆H₂₂N₄O₁₂, P2₁/n, a =14.581(1) Å, b =10.472(1) Å, c =20.607(2) Å, =106.43(1); 5, C₁₈H₁₈N₁₂O₁₂ 2H₂O, , a =8.257(2) Å, b =8.986(2) Å, c =9.383(1) Å, =98.60(1)°, =96.38(2)°, =117.07(1)°.     

Swollen and collapsed lyotropic lamellar rheology

We have investigated linear rheological properties and the structure-flow relationship of the swollen (Lam(1)) and collapsed (Lam(2)) lamellar phases, formed on didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (DDAB)/lecithin/water ternary system at 25 degrees C. Both lamellar phases behaved like Bingham fluids and showed remarkable yield stresses. At rest the Lam(1) phase, which is characterized by densely packed vesicles whose sizes increase as the water content decreases in accordance to evolution of (2)H NMR spectral profiles of D(2)O, resulted in a strong elastic gel-like response. On the other hand, the Lam(2) phase, formed at high surfactant concentrations, showed a weak-gel viscoelasticity and (2)H NMR spectral patterns which are typical of planar bilayered structures. The increase of the quadrupole splitting as the water content decreases was assumed as a strong evidence of size increasing of the lamellar domains. We have demonstrated that by using dynamic rheology and the derived relaxation time spectra, along with (2)H NMR spectra of D(2)O, it is possible to differentiate between equilibrium lamellar structures occurring in a broad interval of total surfactant concentration. In addition, a shear-thickening regime, observed at intermediate shear-rate values, highlighted the onset of out-equilibrium lamellar structures which were present both on Lam(1) and Lam(2) phases.     

In vitro anticancer activity and biologically relevant metabolization of organometallic ruthenium complexes with carbohydrate-based ligands

The synthesis and in vitro anticancer activity of dihalogenido(eta6-p-cymene)(3,5,6-bicyclophosphite-alpha-D-glucofuranoside)ruthenium(II) complexes are described. The compounds were characterized by NMR spectroscopy and ESI mass spectrometry, and the molecular structures of dichlorido-, dibromido- and diiodido(eta6-p-cymene)(3,5,6-bicyclophosphite-1,2-O-isopropylidene-alpha-D-glucofuranoside)ruthenium(II) were determined by X-ray diffraction analysis. The complexes were shown to undergo aquation of the first halido ligand in aqueous solution, followed by hydrolysis of a P--O bond of the phosphite ligand, and finally formation of dinuclear species. The hydrolysis mechanism was confirmed by DFT calculations. The aquation of the complexes was markedly suppressed in 100 mM NaCl solution, and notably only very slow hydrolysis of the P--O bond was observed. The complexes showed affinity towards albumin and transferrin and monoadduct formation with 9-ethylguanine. In vitro studies revealed that the 3,5,6-bicyclophosphite-1,2-O-cyclohexylidene-alpha-D-glucofuranoside complex is the most cytotoxic compound in human cancer cell lines (IC50 values from 30 to 300 microM depending on the cell line).     

Biological and Catalytic Applications of Pd(II)-Indenyl Complexes Bearing Phosphine and N-Heterocyclic Carbene Ligands

A general synthetic entryway into novel cationic Pd(II) indenyl complexes bearing one alkyl/aryl phosphine and one N-heterocyclic carbene is reported. All metal complexes have been exhaustively characterized by spectroscopic and structural analyses, highlighting that the indenyl fragment has an hapticity intermediate between η³ and η⁵. Most of the target complexes are stable in solid state and in solution for a long time. Two different applications of these organopalladium compounds are proposed. Firstly, they have been tested as antiproliferative agents towards three different ovarian cancer cell lines, showing a cytotoxicity significantly higher than that of cisplatin, with a clear dependence on the nature of the coordinated phosphine. Moreover, the similar cytotoxicity towards cisplatin-sensitive and cisplatin-resistant cell lines suggests that these new palladium derivatives act with a different mechanism of action with respect to classical platinum-based drugs. Finally, the water-soluble palladium complexes bearing 1,3,5-triaza-7-phosphaadamantane (PTA) have demonstrated interesting catalytic performances in Suzuki–Miyaura coupling in aqueous media, being, inter alia, readily and efficiently recyclable.     

Weakening Additivity in Adjoining Closures

In this paper, we weaken the conditions for the existence of adjoint closure operators, going beyond the standard requirement of additivity/co-additivity. We consider the notion of join-uniform (lower) closure operators, introduced in computer science, in order to model perfect lossless compression in transformations acting on complete lattices. Starting from Janowitz’s characterization of residuated closure operators, we show that join-uniformity perfectly weakens additivity in the construction of adjoint closures, and this is indeed the weakest property for this to hold. We conclude by characterizing the set of all join-uniform lower closure operators as fix-points of a function defined on the set of all lower closures of a complete lattice.     

Simultaneous detection of molecular weight and activity of adenylate kinases after electrophoretic separation

Adenylate kinases (AKs) are ubiquitous monomeric phosphotransferases catalyzing the reversible reaction, AMP + MgATP = ADP + MgADP, which plays a pivotal role in the energetic metabolism. In vertebrates, six AK isoforms are known. In this work, we report the detection of many AK isoforms directly on gel or NC after separation by denaturing electrophoresis and electroblotting, by an optimized protocol for the enzyme detection. The method allows to clarify the apparent MW of most of those AK isozymes that follow the cited reaction, especially onto NC where bands are sharper due to the absence of protein diffusion. In contrast, GTP:AMP phosphotransferases are not detectable. AK activity from many sources can be detected in both its reaction courses; ATP production appears as dark-blue bands, while ADP formation appears as nonfluorescent bands over a fluorescent background, under long-wavelength UV light. We show that nondenaturing gel electrophoresis is not the first choice for AK activity detection. Our method is different from the preceding reports on AK activity detection in bacteria after native polyacrylamide gel separations, in the absence of SDS or methanol. The procedure is also quantitative, allowing to determine the amount of enzyme present in samples.     

Configurationally stable propeller-like triarylphosphine and triarylphosphine oxide

Configurationally stable, propeller-like triarylphosphine and triarylphosphine oxide can be synthesized; a chiral scaffold based on Lissoclinum-cyclopeptides linked via three peptide bonds with a triphenylphosphine and triphenylphosphine oxide moiety, respectively, prevents effectively epimerization at the chiral phosphorus atom.