Kinetics of oxidation of some disaccharides in ammoniacal medium

Kinetics of oxidation of lactose, maltose, cellobiose and melibiose has been studied by hexacyanoferrate(III) in the presence of ammonia. A general mechanism involving the formation of intermediate enodiol anion has been suggested. The effects of dielectric constant and salts have been studied in detail. The oxidation products have been characterised by descending paper chromatography. Compensation effects have been observed.     

The N1s ESCA Spectrum of Protonated 1,8-Bis-(Dimethylamino) Naphthalene (“proton sponge”)

The ESCA spectrum of protonated 1,8-bis-(dimethylamino) naphthalene (“proton sponge”) (I) has been recorded in the region of N1s binding energies. The results indicate that IH⁺ possesses an unsymmetrical N? H…?N hydrogen bridge.     

Probing metabolic alterations in breast cancer in response to molecular inhibitors with Raman spectroscopy and validated with mass spectrometry

Rapid and accurate response to targeted therapies is critical to differentiate tumors that are resistant to treatment early in the regimen. In this work, we demonstrate a rapid, noninvasive, and label-free approach to evaluate treatment response to molecular inhibitors in breast cancer (BC) cells with Raman spectroscopy (RS). Metabolic reprogramming in BC was probed with RS and multivariate analysis was applied to classify the cells into responsive or nonresponsive groups as a function of drug dosage, drug type, and cell type. Metabolites identified with RS were then validated with mass spectrometry (MS). We treated triple-negative BC cells with Trametinib, an inhibitor of the extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway. Changes measured with both RS and MS corresponding to membrane phospholipids, amino acids, lipids and fatty acids indicated that these BC cells were responsive to treatment. Comparatively, minimal metabolic changes were observed post-treatment with Alpelisib, an inhibitor of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, indicating treatment resistance. These findings were corroborated with cell viability assay and immunoblotting. We also showed estrogen receptor-positive MCF-7 cells were nonresponsive to Trametinib with minimal metabolic and viability changes. Our findings support that oncometabolites identified with RS will ultimately enable rapid drug screening in patients ensuring patients receive the most effective treatment at the earliest time point.

Rapid and accurate response to targeted therapies is critical to differentiate tumors that are resistant to treatment early in the regimen.     

The thiazolium-catalyzed Sila-Stetter reaction: conjugate addition of acylsilanes to unsaturated esters and ketones

A new acyl anion addition reaction between acylsilanes and alpha,beta-unsaturated conjugate acceptors promoted by a nucleophilic organic catalyst has been disclosed. The 1,4-dicarbonyl products produced in this reaction are highly useful synthons. Neutral carbenes (or zwitterions) generated in situ from commercial thiazolium salts are used as effective catalysts for the reaction which is in contrast to established anionic catalysts typically employed to promote the required Brook rearrangement (1,2-silyl shift from carbon to oxygen) involved in the reported reaction. This process successfully utilizes acylsilanes as tunable acyl anion progenitors and is tolerant of a wide range of structural diversity on the acylsilane or the conjugate acceptor.     

ADRIAMYCIN RESISTANCE IN CHINESE HAMSTER FIBROBLASTS FOLLOWING OXIDATIVE STRESS INDUCED BY PHOTODYNAMIC THERAPY

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) generates reactive oxygen species that are responsible for the initial cytotoxic events produced by this treatment. An extended (16 h) porphyrin incubation prior to light irradiation increased expression of the 75, 78 and 94 kDa glucose-regulated stress proteins (GRP), as well as the cognate form of the 70 kDa heat shock protein. However, these stress proteins were not induced following isoeffective PDT doses using a short (1 h) porphyrin incubation protocol. In the current study, Chinese hamster fibroblasts were used to examine sensitivity to adjunctive PDT and adriamycin as previous reports indicate a correlation between stress protein synthesis and a decrease in adriamycin cytotoxicity. Treatments that either induced GRP ( i.e . PDT with an extended porphyrin incubation or exposure to the calcium ionophore A23187) or did not induce GRP ( i.e . PDT with a short porphyrin incubation or UV irradiation) were followed at increasing time intervals with a 1 h adriamycin incubation. A time-dependent decrease in adriamycin cytotoxicity was observed when cells were first exposed to either of the PDT protocols or to A23187. Alterations in intracellular drug levels did not account for the change in adriamycin sensitivity. Likewise, intracellular glutathione concentrations and antioxidant enzyme activities were not significantly altered following PDT or A23187. Parameters associated with altered adriamycin sensitivity included a decrease in the percentage of S phase cells following PDT and A23187 as well as a depletion of intracellular ATP after PDT using the extended porphyrin incubation. These results demonstrate that PDT can be added to the growing list of diverse stresses producing transient resistance to adriamycin and that stress protein induction is not universally associated with all oxidative treatments inducing this resistance.     

Regiospecific alkylation of tetronic acids : Formation of 4-alkoxy-5H-furan-2-ones and 2-alkoxy-5H-furan-4-ones

2-Alkoxy-5$\text{H}$-furan-4-ones (7,8) and 4-alkoxy-5$\text{H}$-furan-2-ones (4,5) were prepared regiospecifically and in high yields from tetronic acids (4-hydroxy-5$\text{H}$-furan-2-ones) (2) in the first case by acetylating the 4-OH group and then reacting with trialkyloxonium tetrafluoroborate, and in the second case by alkylating tetrabutylammonium tetronates with dialkyl sulfate, respectively. Direct alkylation of tetronic acids with trialkyloxonium tetrafluoroborate gave in four cases regiospecific 2-O-alkylation, in one case 4-O-alkylation and in two other cases mixtures of 2- and 4-alkoxy derivatives.     

Hardy spaces and Laguerre expansions on the dual of the Heisenberg group

Sia D il dominio di Siegel e H_n il gruppo di Heisenberg. Si considera il sistema ortogonale ottenuto dai monomi normalizzati delta palla unitaria di ⁿ⁺¹ tramite la trasformata di Cayley. La trasformata di Fourier di tali funzioni ristrette ad H_n viene esplicitamente calcolata. Rispetto alla base di Hermite di L²( ⁿ ), si ottengono operatori di rango uno espressi in termini di funzioni di Laguerre.     

Preprocessing of rotamers for protein design calculations

We have developed a process that significantly reduces the number of rotamers in computational protein design calculations. This process, which we call Vegas, results in dramatic computational performance increases when used with algorithms based on the dead-end elimination (DEE) theorem. Vegas estimates the energy of each rotamer at each position by fixing each rotamer in turn and utilizing various search algorithms to optimize the remaining positions. Algorithms used for this context specific optimization can include Monte Carlo, self-consistent mean field, and the evaluation of an expression that generates a lower bound energy for the fixed rotamer. Rotamers with energies above a user-defined cutoff value are eliminated. We found that using Vegas to preprocess rotamers significantly reduced the calculation time of subsequent DEE-based algorithms while retaining the global minimum energy conformation. For a full boundary design of a 51 amino acid fragment of engrailed homeodomain, the total calculation time was reduced by 12-fold.     

'Non-covalent synthesis' of a chiral host of calix[6]arene and enantiomeric discrimination

'Non-covalent synthesis' of novel chiral hosts (calix[6]arene-chiral amine complexes) and its application to enantiomeric discrimination was investigated by (1)H NMR spectroscopy. The topology of a ternary complex was proposed for the calix[6]arene-amine-sulfoxide to rationalize the chiral recognition.     

Synthesis of N-substituted piperazinyl carbamoyl and acetyl derivatives of tetrahydropapaverine: potent antispasmodic agents

The synthesis and structure-activity-relationship (SAR) for a series of N-substituted piperazinyl carbamoyl 7-15 and piperazinyl acetyl 18-26 derivatives of tetrahydropapaverine have been carried out. The general synthetic methods of carbamoyl tetrahydropapaverine analogues involve N-substituted piperazines and carbamoyl imidazole tetrahydropapaverine as starting materials. Another route for synthesizing these compounds, involving the formation of carbamoyl imidazole piperazine has also been explored. Acylation of tetrahydropapaverine followed by substitution with various piperazinyl moities afforded the acetyl tetrahydropapaverine derivatives. Variously substituted piperazines have been used to monitor the effect of electron releasing and electron withdrawing substituents upon the antispasmodic activity of the molecules. Effect of varying electron densities on the antispasmodic activity, by altering the position of these groups on the benzene ring has also been monitored. Pharmacological methods involve the in vitro antispasmodic activity studies on a freshly removed guinea pig ileum using a force displacement transducer amplifier connected to a physiograph. Among the analogues synthesized in the present study, a promising compound 7, a potent muscle relaxant as compared to papaverine has been obtained.