A Mild and Efficient Alumina-Promoted Synthesis of t-Butyl Esters

A wide variety of aliphatic acid chlorides including an optically active one has been efficiently converted to their t-butyl esters under very mild reaction conditions by employing activated alumina as a catalyst.     

Elucidation of Biosynthetic Pathways of Natural Products

During the last decade, we have revealed biosynthetic pathways responsible for the formation of important and chemically complex natural products isolated from various organisms through genetic manipulation. Detailed in vivo and in vitro characterizations enabled elucidation of unexpected mechanisms of secondary metabolite biosynthesis. This personal account focuses on our recent efforts in identifying the genes responsible for the biosynthesis of spirotryprostatin, aspoquinolone, Sch 210972, pyranonigrin, fumagillin and pseurotin. We exploit heterologous reconstitution of biosynthetic pathways of interest in our study. In particular, extensive involvement of oxidation reactions is discussed. Heterologous hosts employed here are Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Aspergillus nidulans and A. niger that can also be used to prepare biosynthetic intermediates and product analogs by engineering the biosynthetic pathways using the knowledge obtained by detailed characterizations of the enzymes. (998 char.)     

Analysis of chloramphenicol in honey by on-line pretreatment liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic and one of the potential contaminants in honey.Solid-phase extraction is the key pretreatment procedure for analysis of chloramphenicol in honey.In this work,an on-line pretreatment liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometer system for sensitive,reliable and higher throughput analysis was developed.With the methylcellulose-immobilized reversed-phase column,sugars in a honey sample were efficiently removed in 1 min.As a result,the limit of quantitation of chloramphenicol was 20 pg/mL(0.2 μg/kg honey).     

Multiplex agarose gel electrophoresis system for variable number of tandem repeats genotyping: Analysis example using Mycobacterium tuberculosis

As one genotyping method for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) is a promising tool to trace the undefined transmission of tuberculosis, but it often requires large equipment such as a genetic analyzer for DNA fragment analysis or CE system to conduct systematic analyses. For convenient genotyping at low cost in laboratories, we designed a multiplex PCR system that is applicable to agarose gel electrophoresis using fluorescent PCR primers. For tuberculosis genotyping by VNTR, the copy quantities of minisatellite DNA must be determined in more than 12 loci. The system can halve laborious electrophoresis processes by presenting an image of two VNTR amplicons on a single lane. No expensive equipment is necessary for this method. Therefore, it is useful even in developing countries.     

Synthesis of 1,5-Anhydro- 2-deoxy- 4-O-phosphono-3-O-tetradecanoyl-2-[(3R)- and (3S)-3-Tetradecanoyloxytetradecanamido]-D-glucitol (GLA-40) Related to Bacterial Lipid A

The diastereoisomeric pair of a biologically active, lipid A-subunit analogs named in the title have been synthesized, starting from 2-amino-l,5-anhydro-2-deoxy-4,6-0-isopropylidene-D-glucitol and optically active 3-hydroxytetradecanoic acid.     

A Facile One-Pot Synthesis of Vinpocetine

A one-pot synthesis of vinpocetine from vincamine was established. Lewis acids caused transesterification and/or dehydration of vincamine in EtOH. FeCl₃ catalyzed both transesterification and dehydration while Ti(OEt)₄ selectively catalyzed transesterification.     

Nanoscale heterogeneity in alkyl-methylimidazolium bromide ionic liquids

High-energy x-ray diffraction measurements and atomistic molecular dynamics (AMD) numerical simulations have been carried out on 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide ionic liquids, C(n)mimBr, with n = 2, 4, and 6. Excellent agreement between experiment and simulation is obtained, including the region of the low-Q peak that has proved problematic in previous work in the literature. In the partial structure analysis of the AMD results, a distinct peak develops at the leading edge of the ring-ring pair distribution function and shifts to lower r with increasing alkyl chain length, indicating that the preferential parallel and antiparallel alignment of neighboring cation rings plays a larger role with increasing chain length. The ring-ring, anion-anion, and ring-anion partial structure factors are dominated by strong charge-ordering peaks around 1.1 A?(-1), corresponding to a distance between neighboring polar entities of D(2) = 5.7 A?. In contrast, the tail-tail S(Q) is dominated by the low-Q peak that rises and moves to lower Q with increasing chain length; the length scale of this structural heterogeneity D(1) increases from about 10 A? in C(2)mimBr to 14.3 A? in C(4)mimBr and 18.8 A? in C(6)mimBr. Both the length scale of the structural heterogeneity and its anomalous temperature dependence in the C(n)mimBr liquids studied here show considerable similarity to results in the literature for C(n)mimPF(6) liquids, indicating a remarkable insensitivity to the form and size of the anion. Our results are consistent with the concept of nanoscale heterogeneity with small, crystal-like moieties.     

A novel method for analyzing energy relaxation in condensed phases using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations: application to the energy relaxation of intermolecular motions in liquid water

We present a novel method to investigate energy relaxation processes in condensed phases using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. This method can reveal details of the time evolution of energy relaxation like two-color third-order IR spectroscopy. Nonetheless, the computational cost of this method is significantly lower than that of third-order response functions. We apply this method to the energy relaxation of intermolecular motions in liquid water. We show that the intermolecular energy relaxation in water is characterized by four energy transfer processes. The structural changes of the liquid associated with the energy relaxation are also analyzed by the nonequilibrium molecular dynamics technique.