PTV-LV-GC/MS/MS as screening and complementary method to HRMS for the monitoring of dioxin levels in food and feed

Recent developments in trapping efficiency inside ion trap mass spectrometer permitted to lower instrument detection limit (IDL). An IDL of 200 fg μl⁻¹ injected with a signal-to-noise ratio of 5:1 for tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) was obtained by gas chromatography coupled to a quadrupole ion storage mass spectrometer in tandem mode (GC/MS/MS). Coupling large volume programmable temperature vaporizer (PTV-LV) injection to GC/MS/MS provides an alternative and complementary method to classical splitless-GC injection connected to high-resolution mass spectrometry (splitless-GC/HRMS) method for dioxin monitoring in food and feed.

An injection volume of 10 μl was found to be the best compromise between the sensitivity requirements and the robustness required for a high throughput method. PTV-LV-GC/MS/MS and Splitless-GC/HRMS were compared by performing analysis on five different matrices such as beef fat, yolk eggs, milk powder, animal feed and serum samples covering a concentration range of two orders of magnitude (i.e. 0.2–25 ng WHO-TEQ kg⁻¹). An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out. Fisher tests pointed out that the method effect for all the 2,3,7,8 congeners was not significant, indicating that the null hypothesis (H₀: μ₁=μ₂=…=μ_n) was not rejected. Moreover, the interaction effects between methods and matrices were not significant for most of the 2,3,7,8 congeners. However, three congeners (2,3,7,8-TCDF; 1,2,3,4,7,8-HxCDD and 1,2,3,4,6,7,8-HpCDD) were characterized by P-values lower than the significance level (=0.05). In toxic equivalence (TEQ), the study showed that no significant bias was observed between the two methods. Consequently, PTV-LV-GC/MS/MS is an attractive technique and can be used as a cost effective complementary method to HRMS for dioxin levels monitoring in food and feed.     

A pipecolic acid (Pip)‐containing dipeptide,Boc‐d‐Ala‐l‐Pip‐NHiPr

The title dipeptide, 1‐(tert‐butoxy­carbonyl‐d ‐alanyl)‐N‐iso­propyl‐l ‐pipecol­amide or Boc‐d ‐Ala‐l ‐Pip‐NHⁱPr (H‐Pip‐OH is pipecolic acid or piperidine‐2‐carboxylic acid), C₁₇H₃₁N₃­O₄, with a d –l heterochiral sequence, adopts a type II′β‐­turn conformation, with all‐trans amide functions, where the C‐terminal amide NH group interacts with the Boc carbonyl O atom to form a classical i+3 i intramolecular hydrogen bond. The C^α substituent takes an axial position [H^α (Pip) equatorial] and the trans pipecolamide function is nearly planar.     

Microwave spectroscopy of molecular ions

In this paper a brief overview of the research in microwave spectroscopy of molecular ions done at the University of Wisconsin will be given, with major emphasis on work done in the past year. Five molecular ions (CO⁺, HCO⁺, HNN⁺, HCS⁺, and HOC⁺) have been studied in this work, and all of them have also been detected by radioastronomy. Molecular structures (r_s for HCO⁺, HOC⁺, and HNN⁺ and r_e for HCO⁺) have been determined and important dynamical information has been obtained from pressure broadened linewidths (Δν/P), Doppler shifts, and relative intensity data. In particular the Δν/P values have been shown to correspond to the Langevin cross-section, indicating the monopole-induced dipole interaction is the pertinent intermolecular force.     

Triplex and quadruplex DNA structures studied by electrospray mass spectrometry

DNA triplex and quadruplex structures have been successfully detected by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Circular dichroism and UV-melting experiments show that these structures are stable in 150 mM ammonium acetate at pH 7 for the quadruplexes and pH 5.5 for the triplexes. The studied quadruplexes were the tetramer [d(TGGGGT)](4), the dimer [d(GGGGTTTTGGGG)](2), and the intramolecular folded strand dGGG(TTAGGG)(3), which is an analog of the human telomeric sequence. The absence of sodium contamination allowed demonstration of the specific inclusion of n - 1 ammonium cations in the quadruplex structures, where n is the number of consecutive G-tetrads. We also detected the complexes between the quadruplexes and the quadruplex-specific drug mesoporphyrin IX. MS/MS spectra of [d(TGGGGT)](4) and the complex with the drug are also reported. As the drug does not displace the ammonium cations, one can conclude that the drug binds at the exterior of the tetrads, and not between them. For the triplex structure the ESI-MS spectra show the detection of the specific triplex, at m/z values typically higher than those typically observed for duplex species. Upon MS/MS the antigene strand, which is bound into the major groove of the duplex, separates from the triplex. This is the same dissociation pathway as in solution. To our knowledge this is the first report of a triplex DNA structure by electrospray mass spectrometry.     

Structure électronique du fluoroacétylène et du chloroacétylène

Résumé La structure et le spectre électronique du fluoroacétylène et du chloroacétylène ont été étudiés à l'aide d'une méthode matricielle du type LCAO SCF MO où les fonctions monoélectroniques sont des orbitales orthogonalisées de Löwdin. Le transfert de charge de l'halogène au système est d'environ 0,04 électron 2p pour le fluor et 0,08 électron 3p pour le chlore. L'étude des transitions électroniques indique pour la transition du type - située vers 1850 Å un effet bathochrome et une augmentation de la force oscillatrice lorsque l'électronégativité de l'halogène décroît. Ceci permet d'identifier la transition située vers de plus grandes longueurs d'onde avec une transition - dont la force oscillatrice varie en sens inverse de celle de la transition -.

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The electronic structure and spectra of fluoroacetylene and chloroacétylène have been studied by a matricial method of LCAO SCF MO type where the monoelectronic functions are Löwdin'S orthogonalized orbitals. The charge transfer from the halogen to the system is equal to about 0,04 2p electron for fluorine and to 0,08 3p electron for chlorine. A bathochromic effect and an increase of the oscillator strength with the halogen electronegativity decreasing have been found for the - transition at 1850 Å; from the theoretical results it is possible to identify the transition of lower energy as a - transition whose oscillator strength varies the other way than that of the - transition.

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Zusammenfassung Struktur und Elektronenspektren von Fluor- und Chloracetylen wurden mit Hilfe einer Matrizenmethode vom LCAO-SCF-MO-Typ untersucht, wobei die Einelektronenfunktionen nach Löwdin orthogonalisiert wurden. Der Ladungsübergang vom Halogen zum -System entspricht etwa 0,04 2p-Elektronen bei Fluor und 0,08 3p-Elektronen bei Chlor. Für den --Übergang um 1850 Å wird für abnehmende Elektronegativität des Halogens eine bathochrome Verschiebung und eine Zunahme der Oscillatorenstärke gefunden. Das erlaubt, die längerwellige Bande einem - -Übergang zuzuordnen, dessen Oscillatorenstärke sich in entgegengesetzter Richtung ändert.

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Nous tenons à remercier Monsieur Berthier pour de nombreuses discussions sur ce travail, Messieurs Romanet et Wojtkowiak pour avoir attiré notre attention sur les problèmes posés par les spectres ultraviolets des halogéno-acétyléniques et Monsieur H. v. Hirschhausen pour nous avoir signalé une erreur numérique dans la fin de cet article.     

Experiments in mixed-integer linear programming using pseudo-costs

This paper discusses heuristic branch and bound methods for solving mixed integer linear programming problems. The research presented on here is the follow on to that recorded in [3].After a resumé of the concept of pseudo-costs and estimations, new heuristic rules for generating a tree which make use of pseudo-costs and estimations are presented. Experiments have shown that models having a low percentage of integer variables behave in a radically different way from models with a high percentage of integer variables. The new heuristic rules seem to apply generally to the first type of model.Later, other heuristic rules are presented that are used with models having a high percentage of integer variables and with models having a special structure (models including special ordered sets.)The rules introduced here have been implemented in the IBM Mathematical Programming System Extended/370. They are used to solve large mixed integer linear programming models.Numerical results that permit comparisons to be made among the different rules are provided and discussed.     

(18‐Crown‐6)‐μ‐oxo‐hexa­kis(tetra­hydro­borato)diuranium(IV): an unprecedented asymmetric dinuclear complex

In the title compound, (1,4,7,10,13,16‐hexa­oxacyclo­octa­decane‐1κ⁶O)‐μ‐oxo‐1:2κ²O:O‐hexa­kis(tetra­hydro­borato)‐1κ³H;2κ²H;2κ²H;2κ³H;2κ³H;2κ³H‐diuranium(IV), [U₂(BH₄)₆O(C₁₂H₂₄O₆)], one of the U atoms (U1), located at the centre of the crown ether moiety, is bound to the six ether O atoms, and also to a tridentate tetra­hydro­borate group and a μ‐oxo atom in axial positions. The other U atom (U2) is bound to the same oxo group and to five tetra­hydro­borate moieties, three of them tridentate and the other two bidentate. The two metal centres are bridged by the μ‐oxo atom in an asymmetric fashion, thus giving the species (18‐crown‐6)(κ³‐BH₄)U=(μ‐O)—U(κ³‐BH₄)₃(κ²‐BH₄)₂, in which the U1=O and U2—O bond lengths to the μ‐O atom [1.979 (5) and 2.187 (5) Å, respectively] are indicative of the presence of positive and negative partial charges on U1 and U2, respectively.     

Performance of an ultra-low elution-volume 96-well plate: drug discovery and development applications

Recently, sample preparation has been considered to be the major cause of bottlenecks during high-throughput analysis. With the assistance of robotic liquid handlers and the 96-well plate format, more samples can be prepared for subsequent liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) analysis. Protein precipitation is still widely used despite potential loss of sensitivity or variable results due to ion suppression. The use of solid-phase extraction (SPE) clearly gives superior results but may not be as cost effective as protein precipitation due to the labor and material costs associated with the process. Here, a novel 96-well SPE plate is described that was designed to minimize the elution volume required for quantitative elution of analytes. The plate is packed with 2 mg of a high-capacity SPE sorbent that allows loading of up to 750 microL of plasma, while the novel design permits elution with as little as 25 microL. Therefore, the plate offers up to a 15-fold increase in sample concentration. The evaporation and reconstitution step that is typically required in SPE is avoided due to the concentrating ability of the plate. Examples of applications in drug discovery/development are shown and results are compared to protein precipitation. Excellent sensitivity and linearity are demonstrated.     

Access to 2-fluoroacrylates and their 3-chloro derivatives by chemical hydrogenolysis of 3,3-dichloro-2-fluoroacrylates

The formation of 3-chloro-2-fluoroacrylates 2 and 2-fluoroacrylates 3 by hydrogenolysis of 3,3-dichloro-2-fluoroacrylates 1 was studied by using Bu₃SnH, zinc, the sodium sulphite/sodium formate mixture or iron pentacarbonyl in the presence of a hydrogen donor (Et₃SiH or CH₃OH). The two last couples can be used to prepare the 3-chloro derivatives 2, whereas for the preparation of the 3,3-dihydro derivatives 3, zinc is the most appropriate reducing agent. Keywords: 2-Fluoroacrylate; 3-Chloro-2-fluoroacrylate; 3,3-Dichloro-2-fluoroacrylate; Tributyltin hydride; Zinc; Sodium sulphite; Sodium formate; Iron pentacarbonyl; NMR spectroscopy; IR spectroscopy     

cis-trans Isomerization of bis(Dialkylsulfide)Dihaloplatinum(II) Complexes in Solution

The equilibrium energetics and the kinetics of cis-trans isomerization of some bis(dialkylsulfide)dihaloplatinum(II) complexes have been examined by ¹H-NMR. spectroscopy. The isomers are stable in chloroform but each form isomerizes to an equilibrium mixture when free dialkylsulfide is added. The cis to trans process is endothermic and the position of the equilibrium is markedly dependent on the nature of the donor atoms and of the solvent. The rate of isomerization of Pt(Me₂S)₂Cl₂ is first order in complex and in Me₂S. The isomerization proceeds by a double displacement mechanism as it is shown that the tris(dimethylsulfide)chloroplatinum(II) cation is an isolable intermediate of the reaction. When free Me₂S is added to trans-Pd(Me₂S)₂Cl₂, isomerization does not occur and one observes instead a fast ligand exchange. Its mechanism is the usual associative one for substitutions in square planar d⁸complexes.