Noether-Mei Symmetry of Mechanical System in Phase Space

In this paper, a new kind of symmetry and its conserved quantities of a mechanical system in phase space are studied. The definition of this new symmetry, i.e., a Noether-Mei symmetry, is presented, and the criterion of this symmetry is also given. The Noether conserved quantity and the Mei conserved quantity deduced from the Noether-Mei symmetry of the system are obtained. Finally, two examples are given to illustrate the application of the results.     

Nickel-catalyzed cross-electrophile allylation of vinyl bromides and the modification of anti-tumour natural medicine β-elemene

Herein, we present a facile and efficient allylation method via Ni-catalyzed cross-electrophile coupling of readily available allylic acetates with a variety of substituted alkenyl bromides using zinc as the terminal reductant. This Ni-catalyzed modular approach displays excellent functional group tolerance and a broad substrate scope, which the creation of a series of 1,4-dienes including several structurally complex natural products and pharmaceutical motifs. Moreover, the coupling strategy has the potential to realize enantiomeric control. The practicality of this transformation is demonstrated through the potent modification of the naturally antitumor active molecule β-elemene.

Herein, we present a facile and efficient allylation method via Ni-catalyzed cross-electrophile coupling of readily available allylic acetates with a variety of substituted alkenyl bromides using zinc as the terminal reductant.     

Applications of Titanium Dioxide Nanostructure in Stomatology

Breakthroughs in the field of nanotechnology, especially in nanochemistry and nanofabrication technologies, have been attracting much attention, and various nanomaterials have recently been developed for biomedical applications. Among these nanomaterials, nanoscale titanium dioxide (nano-TiO₂) has been widely valued in stomatology due to the fact of its excellent biocompatibility, antibacterial activity, and photocatalytic activity as well as its potential use for applications such as dental implant surface modification, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, drug delivery carrier, dental material additives, and oral tumor diagnosis and treatment. However, the biosafety of nano-TiO₂ is controversial and has become a key constraint in the development of nano-TiO₂ applications in stomatology. Therefore, in this review, we summarize recent research regarding the applications of nano-TiO₂ in stomatology, with an emphasis on its performance characteristics in different fields, and evaluations of the biological security of nano-TiO₂ applications. In addition, we discuss the challenges, prospects, and future research directions regarding applications of nano-TiO₂ in stomatology that are significant and worthy of further exploration.     

Design,Synthesis, and In Vitro and In Vivo Antifungal Activity of Novel Triazoles Containing Phenylethynyl Pyrazole Side Chains

A series of triazole derivatives containing phenylethynyl pyrazole moiety as side chain were designed, synthesized, and most of them exhibited good in vitro antifungal activities. Especially, compounds 5k and 6c showed excellent in vitro activities against C. albicans (MIC = 0.125, 0.0625 μg/mL), C. neoformans (MIC = 0.125, 0.0625 μg/mL), and A. fumigatus (MIC = 8.0, 4.0 μg/mL). Compound 6c also exerted superior activity to compound 5k and fluconazole in inhibiting hyphae growth of C. albicans and inhibiting drug-resistant strains of C. albicans, and it could reduce fungal burdens in mice kidney at a dosage of 1.0 mg/kg. An in vivo efficacy evaluation indicated that 6c could effectively protect mice models from C. albicans infection at doses of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mg/kg. These results suggested that compound 6c deserves further investigation.     

Syntheses,Structures and Photocurrent Response Properties of Two Crystals Based on Tetrathiafulvalene Derivatives

In this paper, two compounds [Zn_2~(2+)(2,6-bis(4'-pyridyl)-TTF)(TPA)_2~(2-)](1) and [Cd~(2+)(2,6(7)-bis(4'-pyridyl)-TTF)(TPA)~(2-)(H_2O)_2](TTF = tetrathiafulvalene, TPA = terephthalic acid)(2) were synthesized by using solvothermal method and characterized by single-crystal X-ray. The purity of the two compounds was confirmed by their PXRD data. We also tested the photocurrent responses of these two compounds, and found they could generate photocurrent signal when exposed to light, but the photocurrent intensity of compound 2 is significantly greater than that of 1. From the crystal structure analysis, the possible reason for this phenomenon is that 2 has a more compact ligand arrangement than 1, leading to a higher carrier density and easier excitation.     

Activation of Stimulation of Interferon Genes (STING) Signal and Cancer Immunotherapy

Stimulator of interferon gene (STING), an intracellular receptor in the endoplasmic reticulum, could induce the production of cytokines such as type I interferon (IFN) by activating the cGAS-STING signal pathway. In recent years, activation of STING has shown great potential to enhance anti-tumor immunity and reshape the tumor microenvironment, which is expected to be used in tumor immunotherapy. A number of STING agonists have demonstrated promising biological activity and showed excellent synergistic anti-tumor effects in combination with other cancer therapies in preclinical studies and some clinical trials. The combination of STING agonists and ICI also showed a potent effect in improving anti-tumor immunity. In this review, we introduce the cGAS-STING signaling pathway and its effect in tumor immunity and discuss the recent strategies of activation of the STING signaling pathway and its research progress in tumor immunotherapy.     

Palladium-catalyzed hydrosilylation of ynones to access silicon-stereogenic silylenones by stereospecific aromatic interaction-assisted Si–H activation

Hydrosilylation is one of the most important reactions in synthetic chemistry and ranks as a fundamental method to access organosilicon compounds in industrial and academic processes. However, the enantioselective construction of chiral-at-silicon compounds via catalytic asymmetric hydrosilylation remained limited and difficult. Here we report a highly enantioselective hydrosilylation of ynones, a type of carbonyl-activated alkynes, using a palladium catalyst with a chiral binaphthyl phosphoramidite ligand. The stereospecific hydrosilylation of ynones affords a series of silicon-stereogenic silylenones with up to 94% yield, 20:1 regioselectivity and 98:2 enantioselectivity. The density functional theory(DFT) calculations were conducted to elucidate the reaction mechanism and origin of high degree of stereoselectivity, in which the powerful potential of aromatic interaction in this reaction is highlighted by the multiple C–H-π interaction and aromatic cavity-oriented enantioselectivitydetermining step during desymmetric functionalization of Si–H bond.     

Cloning,Expression, Purification,and Characterization of β-Galactosidase from Bifidobacterium longum and Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum

Expression and purification of β-galactosidases derived from Bifidobacterium provide a new resource for efficient lactose hydrolysis and lactose intolerance alleviation. Here, we cloned and expressed two β-galactosidases derived from Bifidobacterium. The optimal pH for BLGLB1 was 5.5, and the optimal temperature was 45 °C, at which the enzyme activity of BLGLB1 was higher than that of commercial enzyme E (300 ± 3.6 U/mg) under its optimal conditions, reaching 2200 ± 15 U/mg. The optimal pH and temperature for BPGLB1 were 6.0 and 45 °C, respectively, and the enzyme activity (0.58 ± 0.03 U/mg) under optimum conditions was significantly lower than that of BLGLB1. The structures of the two β-galactosidase were similar, with all known key sites conserved. When o-nitrophenyl-β-D-galactoside (oNPG) was used as an enzyme reaction substrate, the maximum reaction velocity (V_max) for BLGLB1 and BPGLB1 was 3700 ± 100 U/mg and 1.1 ± 0.1 U/mg, respectively. The kinetic constant (K_m) of BLGLB1 and BPGLB1 was 1.9 ± 0.1 and 1.3 ± 0.3 mmol/L, respectively. The respective catalytic constant (k_cat) of BLGLB1 and BPGLB1 was 1700 ± 40 s⁻¹ and 0.5 ± 0.02 s⁻¹, respectively; the respective k_cat/K_m value of BLGLB1 and BPGLB1 was 870 L/(mmol∙s) and 0.36 L/(mmol∙s), respectively. The K_m, k_cat and V_max values of BLGLB1 were superior to those of earlier reported β-galactosidase derived from Bifidobacterium. Overall, BLGLB1 has potential application in the food industry.     

Responses of Issatchenkia terricola WJL-G4 upon Citric Acid Stress

This study aimed to elucidate the responses of a novel characterized Issatchenkia terricola WJL-G4 against citric acid stress by performing physiological analysis, morphology observation, and structural and membrane fatty acid composition analysis. The results showed that under citric acid stress, the cell vitality of I. terricola WJL-G4 was reduced. The cell morphology changed with the unclear, uncompleted and thinner cell wall, and degraded the cell structure. When the citric acid concentration was 20 g/L, I. terricola WJL-G4 could tolerate citric acid and maintain the cell structure by increasing the intracellular pH, superoxide dismutase activity, and contents of unsaturated fatty acids. As the citric acid concentration was ≥80 g/L, the stress has exceeded the cellular anti-stress ability, causing substantial cell damage. The cell membrane permeability, the content of membrane lipids, malondialdehyde and superoxide anion increased, but the intracellular pH and superoxide dismutase activities decreased, accompanying the increase of citric acid concentrations. The findings of this work provided a theoretical basis for the responsive mechanism of I. terricola WJL-G4 under high concentrations of citric acid, and can serve as a reference for biological acid reduction in fruit processing.     

Pogostone Enhances the Antibacterial Activity of Colistin against MCR-1-Positive Bacteria by Inhibiting the Biological Function of MCR-1

The emergence of the plasmid-mediated colistin resistance gene mcr-1 has resulted in the loss of available treatments for certain severe infections. Here we identified a potential inhibitor of MCR-1 for the treatment of infections caused by MCR-1-positive drug-resistant bacteria, especially MCR-1-positive carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). A checkerboard minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) test, a killing curve test, a growth curve test, bacterial live/dead assays, scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis, cytotoxicity tests, molecular dynamics simulation analysis, and animal studies were used to confirm the in vivo/in vitro synergistic effects of pogostone and colistin. The results showed that pogostone could restore the bactericidal activity of colistin against all tested MCR-1-positive bacterial strains or MCR-1 mutant–positive bacterial strains (FIC < 0.5). Pogostone does not inhibit the expression of MCR-1. Rather, it inhibits the binding of MCR-1 to substrates by binding to amino acids in the active region of MCR-1, thus inhibiting the biological activity of MCR-1 and its mutants (such as MCR-3). An in vivo mouse systemic infection model, pogostone in combination with colistin resulted in 80.0% (the survival rates after monotherapy with colistin or pogostone alone were 33.3% and 40.0%) survival at 72 h after infection of MCR-1-positve Escherichia coli (E. coli) ZJ487 (blaNDM-1-carrying), and pogostone in combination with colistin led to one or more order of magnitude decreases in the bacterial burdens in the liver, spleen and kidney compared with pogostone or colistin alone. Our results confirm that pogostone is a potential inhibitor of MCR-1 for use in combination with polymyxin for the treatment of severe infections caused by MCR-1-positive Enterobacteriaceae.