A sensitive, rapid and specific determination of midazolam in human plasma and saliva by liquid chromatography/electrospray mass spectrometry

A rapid, sensitive and selective liquid chromatography/electrospray mass spectrometry (LC/ES-MS) method was developed for the quantitative determination of the anaesthetic benzodiazepine midazolam (MID) in human saliva and plasma from patients undergoing anesthesia procedures. Biological samples spiked with diazepam-d5, the internal standard, were extracted into diethyl ether. Compounds were separated on a Xterra RP18 column using a mobile phase of acetonitrile/formic acid 0.1% at a flow rate of 0.25 mL/min under a linear gradient. Column effluents were analyzed using MS with an ES source in the positive ionization mode. Calibration curves were linear in the concentration ranges of 1-250 and 0.2-25 ng/mL in plasma and saliva, respectively. The limits of detection were 0.5 ng/mL in plasma and 0.1 ng/mL in saliva, using a 0.5-mL sample volume. The recoveries of the spiked samples were above 65%. The method was applied to ten real samples from patients undergoing midazolam treatment.     

Limited flexibility of lactose detected from residual dipolar couplings using molecular dynamics simulations and steric alignment methods

The conformational flexibility of lactose in solution has been investigated by residual dipolar couplings (RDCs). One-bond carbon-proton and proton-proton coupling constants have been measured in two oriented media and interpreted in combination with molecular dynamics simulations (MD). Two different approaches, known as PALES (Zweckstetter et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 3791-3792) and TRAMITE (Azurmendi et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 2426-2427), have been used to determine the alignment tensor from a shape-induced alignment model with the oriented medium. The steric alignment of the structures from several MD trajectories has provided ensemble averaged RDCs that have been compared with the experimental ones. The obtained results reveal the almost exclusive presence of a major low energy region defined as syn-phi/syn-psi (> 97%), for which sampling occurs in a dynamic manner. This result satisfactorily agrees with that determined by standard NOE-based methods.     

Application of correlation-gas chromatography to evaluate the vaporization enthalpy of a component in an equilibrium mixture

The vaporization enthalpies and vapor pressures of acetoin, ethyl 3-hydroxybutyrate and ethyl 3-hydroxyhexanoate, found in a variety of foods and flavors, are evaluated at T = 298.15 K using correlation-gas chromatography; values of (48.7 ± 0.4), (55.9 ± 0.6) and (61.9 ± 0.6) kJ mol⁻¹, respectively, were obtained. These values are in good agreement with estimated values. Vapor pressures of the standards as a function of temperature were also used to calculate vapor pressures of the target compounds and all resulting data were fit to second order polynomials. These polynomials were then used to predict boiling temperatures of both standards and target substances. Agreement with experimental boiling temperatures was generally within 10 K suggesting that vapor pressures are accurate to within a factor of two. Acetoin exists as an equilibrium mixture of monomer and dimer. This report provides an example of the utility of using correlation-gas chromatography to obtain thermochemical data on an impure material.     

Modeling solvent effects on electron-spin-resonance hyperfine couplings by frozen-density embedding

In this study, we investigate the performance of the frozen-density embedding scheme within density-functional theory [J. Phys. Chem. 97, 8050 (1993)] to model the solvent effects on the electron-spin-resonance hyperfine coupling constants (hfcc's) of the H2NO molecule. The hfcc's for this molecule depend critically on the out-of-plane bending angle of the NO bond from the molecular plane. Therefore, solvent effects can have an influence on both the electronic structure for a given configuration of solute and solvent molecules and on the probability for different solute (plus solvent) structures compared to the gas phase. For an accurate modeling of dynamic effects in solution, we employ the Car-Parrinello molecular-dynamics (CPMD) approach. A first-principles-based Monte Carlo scheme is used for the gas-phase simulation, in order to avoid problems in the thermal equilibration for this small molecule. Calculations of small H2NO-water clusters show that microsolvation effects of water molecules due to hydrogen bonding can be reproduced by frozen-density embedding calculations. Even simple sum-of-molecular-densities approaches for the frozen density lead to good results. This allows us to include also bulk solvent effects by performing frozen-density calculations with many explicit water molecules for snapshots from the CPMD simulation. The electronic effect of the solvent at a given structure is reproduced by the frozen-density embedding. Dynamic structural effects in solution are found to be similar to the gas phase. But the small differences in the average structures still induce significant changes in the computed shifts due to the strong dependence of the hyperfine coupling constants on the out-of-plane bending angle.     

Mineral content and botanical origin of Spanish honeys

Eleven elements (Zn, P, B, Mn, Mg, Cu, Ca, Ba, Sr, Na and K) were determined by inductively plasma coupled spectrometry in 40 honey samples from different places of Spain and four different botanical origins: Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus sp.), Heather (Erica sp.), Orange-blossom (Citrus sinensis) and Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis). K, Ca and P show the higher levels with average concentrations ranged between 434.1-1935 mg kg⁻¹ for K; 42.59-341.0 mg kg⁻¹ for Ca and 51.17-154.3 mg kg⁻¹ for P. Levels of Cu (0.531-2.117 mg kg⁻¹), Ba (0.106-1.264 mg kg⁻¹) and Sr (0.257-1.462 mg kg⁻¹) are the lowest in all honey samples. Zn (1.332-7.825 mg kg⁻¹), Mn (0.133-9.471 mg kg⁻¹), Mg (13.26-74.38 mg kg⁻¹) and Na (11.69-218.5 mg kg⁻¹) concentrations were found strongly dependent on the kind of botanical origin.Results were submitted to pattern recognition procedures, unsupervised methods such as cluster and principal components analysis and supervised learning methods like linear discriminant analysis in order to evaluate the existence of data patterns and the possibility of differentiation of Spanish honeys from different botanical origins according to their mineral content. Cluster analysis shows four clusters corresponding to the four botanical origins of honey and PCA explained 71% of the variance with the first two PC variables. The best-grouped honeys were those from heather; eucalyptus honeys formed a more dispersed group and finally orange-blossom and rosemary honeys formed a less distinguishable group.     

2,4,6‐Trimethylphenyl isocyanide

The title compound, C₁₀H₁₁N, displays a crystallographic mirror plane that incorporates all the non‐H atoms, as well as the H atoms attached to the aromatic ring. The iso­cyano group is almost linear and shows an N[triple‐bond]C bond distance of 1.158 (3) Å.     

On some multiplicative product of kth derivative of Dirac's delta in x0+|x| and x0−|x|

In this paper we give a sense to the products $${{\left| x \right|^{(n - 2)/2} }} \cdot \frac{{\delta ^{(k - 1)} (x_0 + \left| x \right|)}} {{\left| x \right|^{(n - 2)/2} }}$$ and $\delta ^{(k - 1)} (x_0 - \left| x \right|) \cdot \delta ^{(k - 1)} (x_0 + \left| x \right|)$ . The first of them is a generalization of the product $${{\left| x \right|^{(n - 2)/2} }} \cdot \frac{{\delta (x_0 + \left| x \right|)}} {{\left| x \right|^{(n - 2)/2} }}{\text{ }}$$ given in [1, p. 158].     

Synthesis of 4-aryl-2,3,6,7-tetrahydro-1H-pyrimido[4,5-b][1,4]-diazepin-6-ones from 4,5-diamino-1H-pyrimidin-6-ones and 1-aryl-3-(dimethylamino)-1-propanones

The reaction of 1-aryl-3-(dimethylamino)-1-propanones 1 with one equivalent of 4,5-diamino-1H-pyrimidin-6-ones 2 , in acidic medium, leads to the formation of 4-aryl-2,3,6,7-tetrahydro-1H-pyrimido[4,5-b]-[1,4]diazepin-6-ones 3 . The structure elucidation of the products is based on detail nmr analysis of experiments such as ¹³C, ¹H and DEPT including selective ¹³C{¹H} decoupling experiments.     

Preparation and properties of dinitrogen complexes of molybdenum and tungsten with trimethylphosphine as coligand : III. Synthesis and properties of cis-[W(N2)2(PMe3)4], trans-[W(C2H4)2(PMe3)4] and [M(N2)(PMe3)5] (M = Mo,W). The crystal and molecular structure of [Mo(N2)(PMe3)5]

The reduction of [WCl₄(PMe₃)₃] with dispersed sodium, under dinitrogen, gives cis-[W(N₂)₂(PMe₃)₄], while under ethylene trans-[W(C₂H₄)₂(PMe₃)₄] is obtained. The ethylene complex can also be prepared by displacement of the dinitrogen molecules in cis-[W(N₂)₂(PMe₃)₄] by ethylene at room temperature and pressure. Interaction of cis-[M(N₂)₂(PMe₃)₄] complexes (M = Mo, W), with PMe₃, under helium or argon, yields [M(N₂)(PMe₃)₅]. The molybdenum complex crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pnma, with a 22.063(6), b 12.106(4), c 9.745(4) Å. The Mo—P distance trans to the dinitrogen ligand (2.483(7) Å) is slightly longer than the average of the other four Mo—P bonds (2.460(5) Å).     

Simultaneous Determination of Ascorbic Acid and Uric Acid by Using a PVC/TTF‐TCNQ Composite Electrode as Detector in a FIA System

A PVC/TTF‐TCNQ composite electrode has been employed as detector in a flow injection system. The proposed method allows the simultaneous detection of ascorbic acid (AA) and uric acid (UA) in mixtures by using a FIA system in a simple manner, without pre‐treatment or modified electrode. This method is based on the amperometric determination of (a) ascorbic acid at 0.15 V and (b) both analytes at 0.35 V, being the response linear in the range 1×10^?2–4×10^?4 M for both analytes with detection limits (S/N=3) of 1.2×10^?4 M and 8.1×10^?5 M for AA and UA, respectively.