A survey of metabolic changes in potato leaves by NMR‐based metabolic profiling in relation to resistance to late blight disease under field conditions

Non‐targeted nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)‐based metabolic profiling was applied to potato leaves to survey metabolic changes associated with late blight resistance under field conditions. Potato plants were grown in an experimental field, and the compound leaves with no visible symptoms were collected from 20 cultivars/lines at two sampling time points: (i) the time of initial presentation of symptoms in susceptible cultivars and (ii) 12 days before this initiation. ¹H NMR spectra of the foliar metabolites soluble in deuterium oxide‐ or methanol‐d₄‐based buffers were measured and used for multivariate analysis. Principal component analysis for six cultivars at symptom initiation showed a class separation corresponding to their levels of late blight resistance. This separation was primarily explained by higher levels of malic acid, methanol, and rutin and a lower level of sucrose in the resistant cultivars than in the susceptible ones. Partial least squares regression revealed that the levels of these metabolites were strongly associated with the disease severity measured in this study under field conditions. These associations were observed only for the leaves harvested at the symptom initiation stage, but not for those collected 12 days beforehand. Subsequently, a simple, alternative enzymatic assay for l ‐malic acid was used to estimate late blight resistance, as a model for applying the potential metabolic marker obtained. This study demonstrated the potential of metabolomics for field‐grown plants in combination with targeted methods for quantifying marker levels, moving towards marker‐assisted screening of new cultivars with durable late blight resistance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis and metal-ion binding properties of monoazathiacrown ethers

Synthetic procedures for monoazathiacrown ethers were explored, and monoazatrithia-12-crown-4, monoazatetrathia-15-crown-5, and monoazapentathia-18-crown-6 were obtained in moderate yields by the reaction of bis(2-chloroethyl)amine with the appropriate dithiols in the presence of lithium hydroxide in THF. To evaluate metal-ion binding properties of the monoazathiacrown ethers by solvent extraction, lipophilic dodecyl and dodecanoyl groups were incorporated onto the monoazathiacrown ethers. The solvent extraction experiments suggested that monoazathiacrown ethers have Ag(+) and Hg(2+) selectivities and that the relative selectivity between Ag(+) and Hg(2+) depends on their nitrogen atom properties and numbers of sulfur atoms reflecting the respective affinities of nitrogen and sulfur atoms to Hg(2+) and Ag(+). An interesting ability to bind Mg(2+) was observed in the case of N-dodecyl monoazatrithia-12-crown-4.     

Normality of products of monotonically normal spaces with compact spaces

Let S be the class of all spaces, each of which is homeomorphic to a stationary subset of a regular uncountable cardinal (depending on the space). In this paper, we prove the following result: The product X×C of a monotonically normal space X and a compact space C is normal if and only if S×C is normal for each closed subspace S in X belonging to S. As a corollary, we obtain the following result: If the product of a monotonically normal space and a compact space is orthocompact, then it is normal.     

Local smoothing property and Strichartz inequality for Schrödinger equations with potentials superquadratic at infinity

We study smoothing properties for time-dependent Schrödinger equations , , with potentials which satisfy V(x)=O(|x|^m) at infinity, m?2. We show that the solution u(t,x) is 1/m times differentiable with respect to x at almost all , and explain that this is the result of the fact that the sojourn time of classical particles with energy λ in arbitrary compact set is less than CTλ^−1/m during [0,T] when λ is very large. We also show Strichartz's inequality with derivative loss for such potentials and give its application to nonlinear Schrödinger equations.     

Silicon-Based Integrated Optic Pressure Sensor Using Intermodal Interference between TM-Like and TE-Like Modes

In this paper, a silicon-based integrated optic pressure sensor using an intermodal interference between the fundamental TM-like and TE-like modes is described. The sensor consists of a micromachined rectangular diaphragm and a straight polystyrene optical waveguide passing over the diaphragm. Its sensitivity is theoretically known to be strongly dependent on the position of the waveguide over the diaphragm. To experimentally investigate such dependence, we fabricated a sensor with a 1.2 mm ×10 mm ×20 μm diaphragm, over which waveguides were placed at 50 μm intervals. The measured phase sensitivity was 98 mrad/kPa for the waveguide nearest to the diaphragm edge. The measurement was also carried out for the other waveguides. As theoretically expected, the largest sensitivity was obtained for the waveguide nearest to the edge.     

Substitution of both chloro and sulfinyl groups of aryl 1-chlorocyclopropyl sulfoxides in one-pot via cyclopropylmagnesium carbenoids: a synthesis of multi-substituted cyclopropanes

The rearrangement of cyclopropylmagnesium carbenoids, which were generated from aryl 1-chlorocyclopropyl sulfoxides with a Grignard reagent, to allenes was found to be suppressed by adding HMPA as an additive. Alkylation of the cyclopropylmagnesium carbenoids with the Grignard reagent gives mainly alkylated cyclopropylmagnesium chloride instead. The cyclopropylmagnesium chloride intermediate can be trapped with several electrophiles to afford multi-substituted cyclopropanes. This procedure provides a new method for a synthesis of multi-substituted cyclopropanes.