Redox electrodeposition polymers: adaptation of the redox potential of polymer-bound Os complexes for bioanalytical applications

The design of polymers carrying suitable ligands for coordinating Os complexes in ligand exchange reactions against labile chloro ligands is a strategy for the synthesis of redox polymers with bound Os centers which exhibit a wide variation in their redox potential. This strategy is applied to polymers with an additional variation of the properties of the polymer backbone with respect to pH-dependent solubility, monomer composition, hydrophilicity etc. A library of Os-complex-modified electrodeposition polymers was synthesized and initially tested with respect to their electron-transfer ability in combination with enzymes such as glucose oxidase, cellobiose dehydrogenase, and PQQ-dependent glucose dehydrogenase entrapped during the pH-induced deposition process. The different polymer-bound Os complexes in a library containing 50 different redox polymers allowed the statistical evaluation of the impact of an individual ligand to the overall redox potential of an Os complex. Using a simple linear regression algorithm prediction of the redox potential of Os complexes becomes feasible. Thus, a redox polymer can now be designed to optimally interact in electron-transfer reactions with a selected enzyme.     

LC-MS/MS screening method for designer amphetamines, tryptamines, and piperazines in serum

Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, derivatives of well-known designer drugs as well as new psychoactive compounds have been sold on the illicit drug market and have led to intoxications and fatalities. The LC-MS/MS screening method presented covers 31 new designer drugs as well as cathinone, methcathinone, phencyclidine, and ketamine which were included to complete the screening spectrum. All but the last two are modified molecular structures of amphetamine, tryptamine, or piperazine. Among the amphetamine derivatives are cathinone, methcathinone, 3,4-DMA, 2,5-DMA, DOB, DOET, DOM, ethylamphetamine, MDDMA, 4-MTA, PMA, PMMA, 3,4,5-TMA, TMA-6 and members of the 2C group: 2C-B, 2C-D, 2C-H, 2C-I, 2C-P, 2C-T-2, 2C-T-4, and 2C-T-7. AMT, DPT, DiPT, MiPT, DMT, and 5MeO-DMT are contained in the tryptamine group, BZP, MDBP, TFMPP, mCPP, and MeOPP in the piperazine group. Using an Applied Biosystems LC-MS/MS API 365 TurboIonSpray it is possible to identify all 35 substances. After addition of internal standards and mixed-mode solid-phase extraction the analytes are separated using a Synergi Polar RP column and gradient elution with 1 mM ammonium formate and methanol/0.1% formic acid as mobile phases A and B. Data acquisition is performed in MRM mode with positive electro spray ionization. The assay is selective for all tested substances. Limits of detection were determined by analyzing S/N-ratios and are between 1.0 and 5.0 ng/mL. Matrix effects lie between 65% and 118%, extraction efficiencies range from 72% to 90%.     

Alignment of retention time obtained from multicapillary column gas chromatography used for VOC analysis with ion mobility spectrometry

Multicapillary column (MCC) ion mobility spectrometers (IMS) are increasingly in demand for medical diagnosis, biological applications and process control. In a MCC-IMS, volatile compounds are differentiated by specific retention time and ion mobility when rapid preseparation techniques are applied, e.g. for the analysis of complex and humid samples. Therefore, high accuracy in the determination of both parameters is required for reliable identification of the signals. The retention time in the MCC is the subject of the present investigation because, for such columns, small deviations in temperature and flow velocity may cause significant changes in retention time. Therefore, a universal correction procedure would be a helpful tool to increase the accuracy of the data obtained from a gas-chromatographic preseparation. Although the effect of the carrier gas flow velocity and temperature on retention time is not linear, it could be demonstrated that a linear alignment can compensate for the changes in retention time due to common minor deviations of both the carrier gas flow velocity and the column temperature around the MCC-IMS standard operation conditions. Therefore, an effective linear alignment procedure for the correction of those deviations has been developed from the analyses of defined gas mixtures under various experimental conditions. This procedure was then applied to data sets generated from real breath analyses obtained in clinical studies using different instruments at different measuring sites for validation. The variation in the retention time of known signals, especially for compounds with higher retention times, was significantly improved. The alignment of the retention time—an indispensable procedure to achieve a more precise identification of analytes—using the proposed method reduces the random error caused by small accidental deviations in column temperature and flow velocity significantly.     

GC/MS detection of central nervous tissue as specified BSE risk material in meat products and meat and bone meals: thermal stability of markers in comparison with immunochemistry and RT-PCR

Methods for the detection of central nervous tissue (CNT) are urgently needed in food control as a means for controlling strict adherence to both food labeling and banning of specified BSE risk material. Here, we report data on heat stability of the CNT markers neuron-specific enolase (NSE) in western blotting, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in an enzyme linked immunoassay, mRNA_GFAP in a real-time PCR assay, and several fatty acids (C22:6, C24:0-OH, C24:1ω9/ω7, C24:1ω9-OH/ω7-OH, and C24:0) in gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The sample matrix, a standard material of emulsion-type sausage with varied contents of CNT (brain), was heat-treated in three studies: (1) routine meat technological heat treatment with low (85 °C, 30 min), medium (115 °C, 30 min), and high (133 °C, 30 min, 3 bar) heating of 72 anonymous samples from a blind trial; (2) heat treatment under experimental conditions (100, 110, …, 200 °C, 45 min); and (3) fractionized heating of central nervous system (up to three times) under moderate routine technological conditions (85, 100, and 115 °C, 30 min). The markers of the immunochemical methods showed a low GFAP or very low NSE temperature stability at medium and high temperature conditions. The real-time PCR assay gave inconsistent, non-quantitative results, which indicated an uncontrollable matrix effect. The relevant GC/MS markers (C24:0-OH, C24:1ω9/ω7, and C24:1ω9-OH/ω7-OH) proved to be extremely stable. Neither meat and bone meal conditions (133 °C) nor experimental heating (up to and above 140 °C) showed any reduction of GC/MS CNT quantification. On the contrary, a slight but significant increase was noted over a certain temperature range (120–140 °C) for most fatty acids, possibly due to an improved extractability of the fatty acids. We conclude that a quantitative approach is highly unreliable when using immunochemical methods; moreover, these methods might be basically prone to false-negative results depending on heat treatment and matrix composition. Therefore, antibodies with higher affinity to heat-treated CNT marker epitopes are needed. Relevant amounts of CNT (≥0.5%) in low- and medium-heated products would still be reliably detectable by the GFAP ELISA, which justifies its use as a screening method in official food control. The results obtained by the real-time PCR assay were contradictory to recently published data, indicating a need for further protocol optimization and collaborative trials. Up to date, the analytical approach using GC/MS is the only valid procedure as pertaining to heat stability and quantitative analysis; consequently, it should be recommended as the reference procedure in official food control for CNT detection in heat-treated meat products.     

New opportunities in multiplexed optical bioanalyses using quantum dots and donor–acceptor interactions

In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using a novel volatile organic compound (VOC)-based metabolic profiling approach with a newly devised chemometrics methodology which combined rapid multivariate analysis on total ion currents with in-depth peak deconvolution on selected regions to characterise the spoilage progress of pork. We also tested if such approach possessed enough discriminatory information to differentiate natural spoiled pork from pork contaminated with Salmonella typhimurium, a food poisoning pathogen commonly recovered from pork products. Spoilage was monitored in this study over a 72-h period at 0-, 24-, 48- and 72-h time points after the artificial contamination with the salmonellae. At each time point, the VOCs from six individual pork chops were collected for spoiled vs. contaminated meat. Analysis of the VOCs was performed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The data generated by GC/MS analysis were initially subjected to multivariate analysis using principal component analysis (PCA) and multi-block PCA. The loading plots were then used to identify regions in the chromatograms which appeared important to the separation shown in the PCA/multi-block PCA scores plot. Peak deconvolution was then performed only on those regions using a modified hierarchical multivariate curve resolution procedure for curve resolution to generate a concentration profiles matrix C and the corresponding pure spectra matrix S. Following this, the pure mass spectra (S) of the peaks in those region were exported to NIST 02 mass library for chemical identification. A clear separation between the two types of samples was observed from the PCA models, and after deconvolution and univariate analysis using N-way ANOVA, a total of 16 significant metabolites were identified which showed difference between natural spoiled pork and those contaminated with S. typhimurium.     

Enantioselective capillary electrophoresis for identification and characterization of human cytochrome P450 enzymes which metabolize ketamine and norketamine in vitro

Ketamine, a phencyclidine derivative, is used for induction of anesthesia, as an anesthetic drug for short term surgical interventions and in subanesthetic doses for postoperative pain relief. Ketamine undergoes extensive hepatic first-pass metabolism. Enantioselective capillary electrophoresis with multiple isomer sulfated β-cyclodextrin as chiral selector was used to identify cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in hepatic ketamine and norketamine biotransformation in vitro. The N-demethylation of ketamine to norketamine and subsequently the biotransformation of norketamine to other metabolites were studied via analysis of alkaline extracts of in vitro incubations of racemic ketamine and racemic norketamine with nine recombinantly expressed human cytochrome P450 enzymes and human liver microsomes. Norketamine was formed by CYP3A4, CYP2C19, CYP2B6, CYP2A6, CYP2D6 and CYP2C9, whereas CYP2B6 and CYP2A6 were identified to be the only enzymes which enable the hydroxylation of norketamine. The latter two enzymes produced metabolic patterns similar to those found in incubations with human liver microsomes. The kinetic data of ketamine N-demethylation with CYP3A4 and CYP2B6 were best described with the Michaelis–Menten model and the Hill equation, respectively. This is the first study elucidating the individual enzymes responsible for hydroxylation of norketamine. The obtained data suggest that in vitro biotransformation of ketamine and norketamine is stereoselective.     

Novel fluoro-substituted benzo- and benzothieno fused pyrano[2,3-c]pyrazol-4(1H)-ones

A straightforward, two-step synthesis of fluoro substituted chromeno[2,3-c]pyrazol- and [1]benzothieno[2′,3′:5,6]pyrano[2,3-c]pyrazol-4(1H)-ones, respectively, is presented. Hence, treatment of 1-substituted or 1,3-disubstituted 2-pyrazolin-5-ones with fluoro substituted 2-fluorobenzoyl chlorides or 3-chloro-6-fluoro-1-benzothiophene-2-carbonyl chloride using calcium hydroxide in refluxing 1,4-dioxane gave the corresponding 4-aroylpyrazol-5-ols, which were cyclized into the fused ring systems. 5-Fluorochromeno[2,3-c]pyrazol-4(1H)-one was obtained upon treatment of the 1-(4-methoxybenzyl) protected congener with trifluoroacetic acid. Treatment of 5-fluorochromeno[2,3-c]pyrazol-4(1H)-ones with methylhydrazine afforded novel tetracyclic ring systems such as 2-methyl-7-phenyl-2,7-dihydropyrazolo[4′,3′:5,6]pyrano[4,3,2-cd]indazole. Detailed NMR spectroscopic investigations (¹H, ¹³C, ¹⁵N, ¹⁹F) with the obtained compounds were undertaken.     

Influence of Process Parameters on the Reaction Kinetics of the Chromium‐Catalyzed Trimerization of Ethylene

In this paper we report the results of an extensive experimental kinetic study carried out on the novel ethylene trimerization catalyst system, comprising the chromium source [CrCl₃(thf)₃] (thf=tetrahydrofuran), a Ph₂P‐N(iPr)‐P(Ph)‐N(iPr)H (PNPNH) ligand (Ph=phenyl, iPr=isopropyl), and triethylaluminum (AlEt₃) as activator. It could be shown that the initial activity shows a first‐order dependency on the ethylene concentration. Also, a first‐order dependency was found for the catalyst concentration. The initial activity follows a typical Arrhenius behavior with an experimentally determined activation energy of 52.6 kJ mol^?1. At elevated temperatures (ca. 80 °C), a significant deactivation was observed, which can be tentatively traced back to a ligand rearrangement in the presence of AlEt₃. After a fast initial phase, a pronounced ‘kink’ in the ethylene‐uptake curve is observed, followed by a slow, almost linear, further increase of the total ethylene consumption. The catalyst composition, in particular the ligand/chromium and the cocatalyst/chromium molar ratio, has a strong impact on the catalytic performance of the trimerization of ethylene.     

VIM3 Corrigendum available online

News and Announcements

VIM3 Corrigendum available online     

Speckle imaging of spin fluctuations in a strongly interacting Fermi gas

Spin fluctuations and density fluctuations are studied for a two-component gas of strongly interacting fermions along the Bose-Einstein condensate-BCS crossover. This is done by in?situ imaging of dispersive speckle patterns. Compressibility and magnetic susceptibility are determined from the measured fluctuations. This new sensitive method easily resolves a tenfold suppression of spin fluctuations below shot noise due to pairing, and can be applied to novel magnetic phases in optical lattices.