DKxanthene biosynthesis--understanding the basis for diversity-oriented synthesis in myxobacterial secondary metabolism

The DKxanthenes are a family of yellow pigments which play a critical role in myxobacterial development. Thirteen unique structures from Myxococcus xanthus DK1622 differ in the length of their characteristic polyene functionality, as well as the extent of methyl branching. We aimed to understand the mechanistic basis for this "molecular promiscuity" by analyzing the gene cluster in DK1622, and comparing it to the DKxanthene biosynthetic locus in a second myxobacterium, Stigmatella aurantiaca DW4/3-1, which produces a more limited range of compounds. While the core biosynthetic machinery is highly conserved, M. xanthus contains a putative asparagine hydroxylase function which is not present in S. aurantiaca. This observation accounts, in part, for the significantly larger metabolite family in M. xanthus. Detailed analysis of the encoded hybrid polyketide synthase (PKS)-nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) assembly line provides direct evidence for the mechanism underlying the variable polyene length and the observed pattern of methyl functionalities.     

Trifluoromethoxycarbonyl peroxynitrate, CF3OCOOONO2

The trioxide, CF(3)OC(O)OOOC(O)OCF(3), reacts with NO(2) at 0 degrees C to yield the new peroxynitrate, CF(3)OC(O)OONO(2), which is stable for hours at room temperature. It is spectroscopically characterized and some thermal properties are reported. From the vapor pressure, ln(p/p(0)) = 14.06 - 4565/T, of the liquid above the melting point of -89 degrees C, the extrapolated boiling point is 52 degrees C. CF(3)OC(O)OONO(2) dissociates at higher temperatures and low pressures into the radicals CF(3)OC(O)OO and NO(2) as demonstrated by matrix isolation experiments. The matrix-isolated peroxy radicals consist in a rotameric mixture of trans,trans,trans-CF(3)OC(O)OO and trans,trans,cis-CF(3)OC(O)OO, where trans and cis denote dihedral angles of ca. 180 degrees and 0 degree, respectively, around beta F-C-O-C, beta C-O-C-O, and beta O-C-O-O, with an equilibrium composition dependent on the thermolysis temperature. The radical trans,trans,cis-CF(3)OC(O)OO is found to be ca. 3 kJ mol(-1) higher in enthalpy than trans,trans,trans-CF(3)OC(O)OO. DFT calculations are performed to support the vibrational assignments and to provide structural information about CF(3)OC(O)OONO(2).     

Water-based Synthesis and Properties of a Scandium 1,4-Naphthalenedicarboxylate

A new scandium naphthalenedicarboxylate with the framework composition [Sc₂(1,4-NDC)₃] (H₂-1,4-NDC = 1,4-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid) was obtained under hydrothermal synthesis conditions. A structure model could be developed by a combination of 3D electron diffraction measurements and computationally assisted structure determination, which was further validated by a good agreement with the experimental powder X-ray diffraction pattern. The structure consists of isolated ScO₆ octahedra interconnected by the carboxylate groups of linker molecules to form chains. These chains are connected by the naphthalene-moieties to form a three-dimensional framework with square-shaped pores and the organic group pointing into the pores. Although very similar synthesis conditions were chosen, [Sc₂(1,4-NDC)₃] is not isostructural to aluminum naphthalenedicarboxylate [Al(OH)(1,4-NDC)], which crystallizes in a MIL-53 type structure. This can be traced back to the different inorganic building units that are observed. The compound was thoroughly characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy, sorption measurements, thermogravimetric analysis and luminescence measurements. [Sc₂(1,4-NDC)₃] exhibits a high thermal stability and a ligand-based blue luminescence in the solid state at room temperature.     

Azobenzene-linked porphyrin-fullerene dyads

A new group of porphyrin-fullerene dyads with an azobenzene linker was synthesized, and the photochemical and photophysical properties of these materials were investigated using steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic methods. The electrochemical properties of these compounds were also studied in detail. The synthesis involved oxidative heterocoupling of free base tris-aryl-p-aminophenyl porphyrins with a p-aminophenylacetal, followed by deprotection to give the aldehyde, and finally Prato 1,3-dipolar azomethineylide cycloaddition to C60. The corresponding Zn(II)-porphyrin (ZnP) dyads were made by treating the free base dyads with zinc acetate. The final dyads were characterized by their 1H NMR, mass, and UV-vis spectra. 3He NMR was used to determine if the products are a mixture of cis and trans stereoisomers, or a single isomer. The data are most consistent with the isolation of only a single configurational isomer, assigned to the trans (E) configuration. The ground-state UV-vis spectra are virtually a superimposition of the spectral features of the individual components, indicating there is no interaction of the fullerene (F) and porphyrin (H2P/ZnP) moieties in the ground state. This conclusion is supported by the electrochemical data. The steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectra indicate that the porphyrin fluorescence in the dyads is very strongly quenched at room temperature in the three solvents studied: toluene, tetrahydrofuran (THF), and benzonitrile (BzCN). The fluorescence lifetimes of the dyads in all solvents are sharply reduced compared to those of H2P and ZnP standards. In toluene, the lifetimes of the free base dyads are 600-790 ps compared to 10.1 ns for the standard, while in THF and BzCN the dyad lifetimes are less than 100 ps. For the ZnP dyads, the fluorescence lifetimes were 10-170 ps vs 2.1-2.2 ns for the ZnP references. The mechanism of the fluorescence quenching was established using time-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy. In toluene, the quenching process is singlet-singlet energy transfer (k approximately 10(11) s-1) to give C60 singlet excited states which decay with a lifetime of 1.2 ns to give very long-lived C60 triplet states. In THF and BzCN, quenching of porphyrin singlet states occurs at a similar rate, but now by electron transfer, to give charge-separated radical pair (CSRP) states, which show transient absorption spectra very similar to those reported for other H2P-C60 and ZnP-C60 dyad systems. The lifetimes of the CSRP states are in the range 145-435 ns in THF, much shorter than for related systems with amide, alkyne, silyl, and hydrogen-bonded linkers. Thus, both forward and back electron transfer is facilitated by the azobenzene linker. Nonetheless, the charge recombination is 3-4 orders of magnitude slower than charge separation, demonstrating that for these types of donor-acceptor systems back electron transfer is occurring in the Marcus inverted region.     

An instability of the Godunov scheme

We construct a solution to a 2 × 2 strictly hyperbolic system of conservation laws, showing that the Godunov scheme [13] can produce an arbitrarily large amount of oscillations. This happens when the speed of a shock is close to rational, inducing a resonance with the grid. Differently from the Glimm scheme or the vanishing‐viscosity method, for systems of conservation laws our counterexample indicates that no a priori BV bounds or L¹‐stability estimates can in general be valid for finite difference schemes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Implicit functions from topological vector spaces to Banach spaces

We prove implicit function theorems for mappings on topological vector spaces over valued fields. In the real and complex cases, we obtain implicit function theorems for mappings from arbitrary (not necessarily locally convex) topological vector spaces to Banach spaces.