pH‐Dependent Chloride Transport by Pseudopeptidic Cages for the Selective Killing of Cancer Cells in Acidic Microenvironments

Acidic microenvironments in solid tumors are a hallmark of cancer. Inspired by that, we designed a family of pseudopeptidic cage‐like anionophores displaying pH‐dependent activity. When protonated, they efficiently bind chloride anions. They also transport chloride through lipid bilayers, with their anionophoric properties improving at acidic pH, suggesting an H⁺/Cl^? symport mechanism. NMR studies in DPC micelles demonstrate that the cages bind chloride within the lipid phase. The chloride affinity and the chloride‐exchange rate with the aqueous bulk solution are improved when the pH is lowered. This increases cytotoxicity towards lung adenocarcinoma cells at the pH of the microenvironment of a solid tumor. These properties depend on the nature of the amino‐acid side chains of the cages, which modulate their lipophilicity and interactions with the cell membrane. This paves the way towards using pH as a parameter to control the selectivity of cytotoxic ionophores as anticancer drugs.     

The Coulomb Hole of the Ne Atom

We analyze the Coulomb hole of Ne from highly-accurate CISD wave functions obtained from optimized even-tempered basis sets. Using a two-fold extrapolation procedure we obtain highly accurate results that recover 97 % of the correlation energy. We confirm the existence of a shoulder in the short-range region of the Coulomb hole of the Ne atom, which is due to an internal reorganization of the K-shell caused by electron correlation of the core electrons. The feature is very sensitive to the quality of the basis set in the core region and it is not exclusive to Ne, being also present in most of second-row atoms, thus confirming that it is due to K-shell correlation effects.     

Stereochemical analysis of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine and its main metabolites by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) is consumed as the racemate but some metabolic steps are enantioselective. In addition, chiral properties are preserved during MDMA biotransformation. A quantitative analytical methodology using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) to determine enantioselective disposition in the body of MDMA and its main metabolites including 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), 4-hydroxy-3-methoxymethamphetamine (HMMA), and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxyamphetamine (HMA) was developed. Plasma and urine samples were collected from a male volunteer. The analysis of MDMA, MDA, and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxy metabolites by GC/MS required a two-step derivatization procedure. The first step consisted of derivatization of the amine with enantiomerically pure Mosher's reagent ((R)-MTPCl). Triethylamine was used as a base to neutralize hydrochloric acid formed during the reaction allowing quantitative derivatization, which resulted in a substantial improvement in the sensitivity of the method compared with other previously described techniques. Further treatment with ammonium hydroxide was required since both amine and hydroxyl groups underwent derivatization in the reaction. Ammonium hydroxide breaks bonds formed with hydroxyl groups without affecting amine derivatives. The second derivatization step using hexamethyldisilazane was needed for metabolites containing phenol residues. This derivatization method permitted the stereochemically specific study of MDMA and its main monohydroxylated metabolites by GC/MS. A detailed study of the chemical reactions involved in the derivatization steps was indispensable to develop a straightforward, sensitive, and reproducible method for the analysis of the parent drug compound and its metabolites.     

Effect of non-significant proportional bias in the final measurement uncertainty

The trueness of an analytical method can be assessed by calculating the proportional bias of the method in terms of apparent recovery. If the apparent recovery does not differ significantly from one, the analytical method has not a significant bias. If this is the case, the bias is neglected and the uncertainty associated with this bias is included in the uncertainty budget of results. However, when assessing trueness there is always a probability of incorrectly concluding that the proportional bias is not significant. Therefore, the uncertainty of results may be underestimated. In this paper, we study how non-significant bias affects the uncertainty of analytical results. Moreover, we study how to avoid the underestimation of uncertainty by including the non-significant bias calculated in the uncertainty budget. To answer these questions, we have used the Monte-Carlo method to simulate the process of estimating the apparent recovery of a biased analytical method and, subsequently, the future results this method provides. The results of the simulation show that non-significant bias may underestimate the uncertainty of analytical results when bias contributes in more than 20% to the overall uncertainty. Uncertainty is specially underestimated when bias contributes in more than 50% to the overall uncertainty.     

Scaffolds for Sustained Release of Ambroxol Hydrochloride,a Pharmacological Chaperone That Increases the Activity of Misfolded β‐Glucocerebrosidase

Ambroxol is a pharmacological chaperone (PC) for Gaucher disease that increases lysosomal activity of misfolded β‐glucocerebrosidase (GCase) while displaying a safe toxicological profile. In this work, different poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL)‐based systems are developed to regulate the sustained release of small polar drugs in physiological environments. For this purpose, ambroxol is selected as test case since the encapsulation and release of PCs using polymeric scaffolds have not been explored yet. More specifically, ambroxol is successfully loaded in electrospun PCL microfibers, which are subsequently coated with additional PCL layers using dip‐coating or spin‐coating. The time needed to achieve 80% release of loaded ambroxol increases from ≈15 min for uncoated fibrous scaffolds to 3 days and 1 week for dip‐coated and spin‐coated systems, respectively. Furthermore, it is proven that the released drug maintains its bioactivity, protecting GCase against induced thermal denaturation.     

Synthesis of Azabicyclic Building Blocks for Daphniphyllum Alkaloid Intermediates Featuring N‐Trichloroacetyl Enamide 5‐endo‐trig Radical Cyclizations

A general procedure is reported for the synthesis of cis ring fused azapolycyclic compounds bearing an all‐carbon quaternary stereocenter at the ring fusion and an adequate functionalization for the assembly of new rings leading to advanced synthetic intermediates for Daphniphyllum alkaloid synthesis. The key carbon?carbon bond‐forming step in this approach is a radical cyclization of an N‐cycloalkenyl trichloroacetamide derivative involving a tetrasubstituted enamide to achieve polyfunctionalized lactams.     

Toward the control of the magnetic anisotropy of Fe(II) cubes: a DFT study

We present the results of our all-electron density-functional calculations on the magnetic anisotropy of the [Fe4(sap)4(MeOH)4] and [Fe4(sae)4(MeOH)4] polynuclear complexes. Our calculations, which predict that only the second complex is a single-molecule magnet (with a magnetic anisotropy energy barrier of 5.6 K), are in qualitative agreement with the experimental data. The analysis of the projected anisotropies of each Fe(II) ion, together with a study of the variation of the D value as a function of several geometrical parameters, allows us to qualitatively understand the different magnetic behaviors of both complexes. In addition to this, we also present a simple rule based on the analysis of the molecular orbitals of the system that allows us to predict how to enhance (by a factor of 6, approximately) the magnetic anisotropy barrier of these systems. Specifically, we will show that, for high-spin Fe(II) ions, the local easy axis of magnetization is perpendicular to the plane defined by the Fe(II)-d orbital which is doubly occupied. If similar rules were found for other metal ions, rational synthetic strategies to control magnetic anisotropy could be established.