Extracellular matrix alterations in low‐grade lung adenocarcinoma compared with normal lung tissue by imaging mass spectrometry

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the second most common cancer, affecting both men and women. Fibrosis is a hallmark of LUAD occurring throughout progression with excess production of extracellular matrix (ECM) components that lead to metastatic cell processes. Understanding the ECM cues that drive LUAD progression has been limited due to a lack of tools that can access and report on ECM components within the complex tumor microenvironment. Here, we test whether low‐grade LUAD can be distinguished from normal lung tissue using a novel ECM imaging mass spectrometry (ECM IMS) approach. ECM IMS analysis of a tissue microarray with 20 low‐grade LUAD tissues and 20 normal lung samples from 10 patients revealed 25 peptides that could discriminate between normal and low‐grade LUAD using area under the receiver‐operating curve (AUC) ≥0.7, P value ≤.001. Principal component analysis demonstrated that 62.4% of the variance could be explained by sample origin from normal or low‐grade tumor tissue. Additional work performed on a wedge resection with moderately differentiated LUAD demonstrated that the ECM IMS analytical approach could distinguish LUAD spectral features from spectral features of normal adjacent lung tissue. Conventional liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS) proteomics demonstrated that specific sites of hydroxylation of proline (HYP) were a main collagen post translational modification that was readily detected in LUAD. A distinct peptide from collagen 3A1 modified by HYP was increased 3.5 fold in low‐grade LUAD compared with normal lung tissue (AUC 0.914, P value <.001). This suggests that regulation of collagen proline hydroxylation could be an important process during early LUAD fibrotic deposition. ECM IMS is a useful tool that may be used to define fibrotic deposition in low‐grade LUAD.     

Selective Hydrogenation of Carvone and o-Xylene (cis-trans) on Pd/Y Exchanged Zeolites

o-Xylene and carvone hydrogenation on supported Pd on exchanged Y-zeolites was done. A controlled selectivity of hydrogen stereoaddition (cis- and trans-) in o-xylene and a large control of the multiple hydrogen addition in carvone were obtained. These effects were achieved by controlling the exchanged Y zeolites acidity.     

Comparative Analysis of GPCR Crystal Structures†

The phototransduction cascade is perhaps the best understood model system for G protein‐coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling. Phototransduction links the absorption of a single photon of light to a decrease in cytosolic cGMP. Depletion of the cGMP pool induces closure of cGMP‐gated cation channels resulting in the hyperpolarization of photoreceptor cells and consequently a neuronal response. Many biochemical and both low‐ and high‐resolution structural approaches have been utilized to increase our understanding of rhodopsin, the key molecule of this signaling cascade. Rhodopsin, a member of the GPCR or seven‐transmembrane spanning receptor superfamily, is composed of a chromophore, 11‐cis‐retinal that is covalently bound by a protonated Schiff base linkage to the apo‐protein opsin at Lys²⁹⁶ (in bovine opsin). Upon absorption of a photon, isomerization of the chromophore to an all‐trans‐retinylidene conformation induces changes in the rhodopsin structure, ultimately converting it from an inactive to an activated state. This state allows it to activate the heterotrimeric G protein, transducin, by triggering nucleotide exchange. To fully understand the structural and functional aspects of rhodopsin it is necessary to critically examine crystal structures of its different photointermediates. In this review we summarize recent progress on the structure and activation of rhodopsin in the context of other GPCR structures.     

Effect of pendent oxyethylene moieties on the properties of aromatic polyisophthalamides

Twelve novel polyisophthalamides containing short sequences of oxyethylene as pendent substituents were synthesized by the reaction of three aromatic diamine monomers and four novel diacid monomers containing pendent oxyethylene units. Two of the diacid monomers were derived from 5‐hydroxyisophthalic acid and the other two diacid monomers were derived from 5‐aminoisophthalic acid. The polymers were prepared in high yield and high molecular weight by the phosphorylation method of polycondensation. All of the polymers were soluble in organic aprotic solvents at room temperature and gave creasable films by casting from solution. The mechanical properties of the films were reasonably good, with tensile strengths in the range of 70–100 MPa and moduli around 2.5 GPa. However, the presence of the oxyethylene side sequences greatly diminished the thermal resistance and the glass transition temperatures of the present polymers compared with wholly aromatic polyisophthalamides. A study was also made on the effect of the chemical composition on water uptake. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45:4671–4683, 2007     

Tin-Platinum catalysts interactions on titania and silica

Pt-Sn was supported on titania and silica, and the resulting interactions between the components in prepared samples and the resulting interactions between the components before and after treatment with hydrogen were characterized by Mössbauer spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Rietveld refinement, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and catalytic tests data. Results show the presence of Pt and SnO₂ after calcinations, and Pt₃Sn, PtSn and PtSn₃ after reduction. Rietveld analysis shows that some Ti⁴⁺ are replaced by Sn⁴⁺ atoms in the titania structure. Finally, HRTEM and the practically absence of activity observed confirms that metallic platinum is encapsulated.     

Every projective Schur algebra is Brauer equivalent to a radical abelian algebra

We prove that any projective Schur algebra over a field K isequivalent in Br(K) to a radical abelian algebra. This was conjecturedin 1995 by Sonn and the first author of this paper. As a consequence,we obtain a characterization of the projective Schur group bymeans of Galois cohomology. The conjecture was known for algebrasover fields of positive characteristic. In characteristic zerothe conjecture was known for algebras over fields with a Henselianvaluation over a local or global field of characteristic zero.