Improving Gene Delivery Efficiency of Bioreducible Poly(amidoamine)s via Grafting with Dendritic Poly(amidoamine)s

Dendritic poly(amidoamine)s (PAMAM)s were introduced into the side chains of disulfide‐containing poly(amidoamine)s via repetitive Michael addition and amidation. The bioreducible poly(amidoamine)s grafted with dendritic polyamidoamines showed high buffer capacity, low cytotoxicity and strong DNA binding ability at low N/P ratio. They were able to condense DNA into small sized polycation/DNA complexes, which degraded and released the incorporated DNA under reductive conditions. In comparison to the original disulfide‐containing poly(amidoamine) with aminoethyl side chain, the grafting of the bioreducible poly(amidoamine) with dendrimer greatly improved the transfection efficiencies of 293T and HeLa cells with foreign DNA at various N/P ratios. The structure–gene delivery property relations of dendrimer‐grafted polycations will provide valuable insight into the design of highly efficient and less toxic polycationic gene carriers.

     

Hydrogen‐Bonding Induced Cooperative Effect on the Energy Transfer in Helical Polynorbornenes Appended with Porphyrin‐Containing Amidic Alanine Linkers

Polynorbornenes appended with porphyrins containing a range of different linkers are synthesized. The use of bisamidic chiral alanine linkers between the pending porphyrins and the polymeric backbone has been shown to bring the adjacent porphyrin chromophores to more suitable orientation for exciton coupling owing to hydrogen bonding between the adjacent linkers. The hydrogen bonding between the adjacent pendants in these polymers may induce a cooperative effect and therefore render single‐handed helical structures for these polymers. Such a cooperative effect is reflected in the enhancement of FRET efficiencies between zinc–porphyrin and free base porphyrin in random copolymers.     

4,4′‐Bis(2,2,2‐trifluoroethoxymethyl)‐2,2′‐bipyridine

As part of a homologous series of novel polyfluorinated bipyridyl (bpy) ligands, the title compound, C₁₆H₁₄F₆N₂O₂, contains the smallest fluorinated group, viz. CF₃. The molecule resides on a crystallographic inversion centre at the mid‐point of the pyridine C_ipso—C_ipso bond. Therefore, the bpy skeleton lies in an anti conformation to avoid repulsion between the two pyridyl N atoms. Weak intramolecular C—H...N and C—H...O interactions are observed, similar to those in related polyfluorinated bpy–metal complexes. A π–π interaction is observed between the bpy rings of adjacent molecules and this is probably a primary driving force in crystallization. Weak intermolecular C—H...N hydrogen bonding is present between one of the CF₃CH₂– methylene H atoms and a pyridyl N atom related by translation along the [010] direction, in addition to weak benzyl‐type C—H...F interactions to atoms of the terminal CF₃ group. It is of note that the O—CH₂CF₃ bond is almost perpendicular to the bpy plane.     

Insight into herbicide resistance of W574L mutant Arabidopsis thaliana acetohydroxyacid synthase: molecular dynamics simulations and binding free energy calculations

Acetohydroxyacid synthase (AHAS) is the target enzyme of several classes of herbicides, such as sulfonylureas and imidazolinones. Now many mutant AHASs with herbicide resistance have emerged along with extensive use of herbicides, therefore it is imperative to understand the detailed interaction mechanism and resistance mechanism so as to develop new potent inhibitors for wild-type or resistant AHAS. With the aid of available crystal structures of the Arabidopsis thaliana (At) AHAS-inhibitor complex, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were used to investigate the interaction and resistance mechanism directly and dynamically at the atomic level. Nanosecond-level MD simulations were performed on six systems consisting of wild-type or W574L mutant AtAHAS in the complex with three sulfonylurea inhibitors, separately, and binding free energy was calculated for each system using the MM-GBSA method. Comprehensive analyses from structural and energetic aspects confirmed the importance of residue W574, and also indicated that W574L mutation might alert the structural charactersistic of the substrate access channel and decrease the binding affinity of inhibitors, which cooperatively weaken the effective channel-blocked effect and finally result in weaker inhibitory effect of inhibitor and corresponding herbicide resistance of W574L mutant. To our knowledge, it is the first report about MD simulations study on the AHAS-related system, which will pave the way to study the interactions between herbicides and wild-type or mutant AHAS dynamically, and decipher the resistance mechanism at the atomic level for better designing new potent anti-resistance herbicides.     

Amphiphilic dendronized homopolymers

A series of second generation of amphiphilic dendronized homopolymers are efficiently synthesized, and their thermoresponsiveness in aqueous solutions and secondary structures in methanol solutions are described. These polymers are constructed in each repeat unit with various generations of hydrophobic 4-aminoproline and hydrophilic oligoethylene glycol (OEG)-based dendrons, and their over-all hydrophilicity is tuned by varying these dendron generations. Polymers with or without the first generation of proline dendron show good water solubility at room temperature, but exhibit typical thermoresponsive behaviors at elevated temperatures as characterized by turbidity measurements using UV-vis spectroscopy, while the polymer with the secondary generation of proline dendron is not soluble in water. All polymers show ordered secondary structures as evidenced by the optical rotation and circular dichroism experiments. Finally, assembly of these amphiphilic homopolymers into porous films via breath figure (BF) technique is described, and polymer structures are found to show significant influence on the morphology of porous film.     

5‐Formylsalicylic acid and 5‐(benzimidazolium‐2‐yl)salicylate

Both title compounds are derivatives of salicylic acid. 5‐Formylsalicylic acid (systematic name: 5‐formyl‐2‐hydroxybenzoic acid), C₈H₆O₄, possesses three good hydrogen‐bond donors and/or acceptors coplanar with their attached benzene ring and abides very well by Etter's hydrogen‐bond rules. Intermolecular O—H...O and some weak C—H...O hydrogen bonds link the molecules into a planar sheet. Reaction of this acid and o‐phenylenediamine in refluxing ethanol produced in high yield the new zwitterionic compound 5‐(benzimidazolium‐2‐yl)salicylate [systematic name: 5‐(1H‐benzimidazol‐3‐ium‐2‐yl)‐2‐hydroxybenzoate], C₁₄H₁₀N₂O₃. Each imidazolium N—H group and its adjacent salicyl C—H group chelate one carboxylate O atom via hydrogen bonds, forming seven‐membered rings. As a result of steric hindrance, the planes of the molecules within these pairs of hydrogen‐bonded molecules are inclined to one another by ∼74°. There are also π–π stacking interactions between the parallel planes of the imidazole ring and the benzene ring of the salicyl component of the adjacent molecule on one side and the benzimidazolium component of the molecule on the other side.     

以戊二醛为间隔臂的万古霉素键合手性固定相制备

基于戊二醛具有双官能团、高反应活性的特征,以其为间隔臂将万古霉素键合到氨基二氧化硅填料表面,制备了万古霉素键合手性固定相,制备方法简单易行。采用元素分析及扫描电子显微镜对制备的万古霉素键合手性固定相进行了表征。在高效液相色谱分离模式下,分别对谷氨酸、天冬氨酸、苯丙氨酸和异亮氨酸等4种手性氨基酸和手性药物罗格列酮进行拆分,其中谷氨酸和罗格列酮的分离度分别达到了2.0和2.3。系统考察了流动相条件对对映体拆分的影响,证实有机改性剂、缓冲液种类和浓度、pH值及温度对所测样品的保留行为和手性选择性均有显著影响。     

高效液相色谱-电喷雾-离子阱质谱法推定硫酸依替米星中有关物质的结构

采用高效液相色谱-电喷雾-离子阱质谱法(HPLC-ESI-IT-MSn)对硫酸依替米星中有关物质结构进行推定.采用Phenomnex Gemini NX C18色谱柱,以水-氨水-冰醋酸(96∶ 3.6∶ 0.4, V/V)-甲醇(70∶ 30, V/V)为流动相,质谱条件:电喷雾离子源(ESI),正离子检测模式;离子源温度350 ℃;雾化氮气压力275.8 kPa;干燥氮气流速10 L/min;离子阱质谱检测器,Smart扫描模式,扫描质量范围m/z 100～900.硫酸依替米星样品中共检出18种有关物质,对其中的13种物质的结构进行了推定,其余5种有关物质的结构未进行解析,只提供了分子量和二级质谱信息.     

New implementations of MRCI in semiempirical frameworks

Multireference configuration interaction with single and double excitations (MRCISD) as well as its analytic CI gradients has been implemented in the semiempirical framework. The hole‐particle symmetry and a mixed driven model for computing coupling coefficients have been used in the new code that allows us to perform MRCI and gradient calculations with higher efficiency and less storage requirements. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010