Synthesis of 3,4-alkoxythieno[2,3-b]thiophene derivatives. The first block copolymer associating the 3,4-ethylenedioxythieno[2,3-b]thiophene (EDOThT) unit with 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) moieties

The synthesis of 3,4-alkoxythieno[2,3-b]thiophene derivatives has been developed from the readily accessible dimethyl or diethyl 3,4-dihydroxythieno[2,3-b]thiophenedicarboxylates. The yields for the dialkoxy derivatives were strongly dependent both on the base and the alkylating agent used for the nucleophilic substitutions. A trimer associating the new 3,4-ethylenedioxy-thieno[2,3-b]thiophene unit with 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene moieties has been synthesized and electropolymerized.     

Emulsion stabilization and inversion using a pH- and temperature-sensitive amphiphilic copolymer

We describe how a versatile amphiphilic diblock copolymer can form oil-in-water (o/w) or water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions depending on pH and temperature. At high pH and temperature, this copolymer is mostly hydrophobic and forms w/o emulsions. Its spontaneous curvature is greatly increased upon pH and/or temperature lowering (due to protonation and/or hydration, respectively), which allows the formation of o/w emulsions. Conductivity measurements and confocal fluorescence micrographs evidence the two kinds of structures obtained over a wide range of pH and temperature. We also show how the emulsion type can be reversibly switched along a temperature scan under stirring. The lower stability of the w/o emulsions as compared to the o/w ones is attributed to a lack of electrostatic repulsion. The importance of the copolymer architecture and conformation with regards to droplet stability is discussed.     

Conformational indeterminism in protein misfolding: chiral amplification on amyloidogenic pathway of insulin

Unlike folding, protein aggregation is a multipathway, kinetically controlled process yielding different conformations of fibrils. The dynamics and determinism/indeterminism boundaries of misfolded conformations remain obscure. Here we show that, upon vortexing, insulin forms two distinct types of fibrils with opposite local chiral preferences, which manifest in the opposite twists of bound dye, thioflavin T. Occurrence of either type of fibrils in a test tube is only stochastically determined. By acting through an autocatalytic, "chiral amplification"-like mechanism, a random conformational fluctuation triggers conversion of the macroscopic amount of insulin into aggregates with uniformly biased chiral moieties, which bind and twist likewise the achiral dye. Although a convection-driven chiral amplification in achiral systems, which results in randomly distributed excesses of optically active forms, is known, observation of such a phenomenon in misfolded protein built of l-amino acids is unprecedented. The two optical variants of insulin fibrils show distinct morphologies and can propagate their chiral biases upon seeding to nonagitated insulin solutions. Our findings point to a new aspect of topological complexity of protein fibrils: a chiral feature of hierarchically assembled polypeptides, which is partly emancipated from the innate left-handedness of amino acids. Because altering chirality of a molecule changes dramatically its biological activity, the finding may have important ramifications in the context of the structural basis of "amyloid strains".     

The Stokes operator in weighted Lq-spaces II: weighted resolvent estimates and maximal Lp-regularity

In this paper we establish a general weighted L ^q -theory of the Stokes operator in the whole space, the half space and a bounded domain for general Muckenhoupt weights . We show weighted L ^q -estimates for the Stokes resolvent system in bounded domains for general Muckenhoupt weights. These weighted resolvent estimates imply not only that the Stokes operator generates a bounded analytic semigroup but even yield the maximal L ^p -regularity of in the respective weighted L ^q -spaces for arbitrary Muckenhoupt weights . This conclusion is archived by combining a recent characterisation of maximal L ^p -regularity by -bounded families due to Weis [Operator-valued Fourier multiplier theorems and maximal L _p -regularity. Preprint (1999)] with the fact that for L ^q -spaces -boundedness is implied by weighted estimates.     

Extraction of radio-labelled xanthine derivatives by artificial receptors: deep insight into the association behaviour

Association constants for the interaction of almost insoluble substrates with triphenylene ketal-based receptors in toluene have been determined by means of an extraction method employing the corresponding radio-labelled substrates. Flexible and more polar receptors tend to aggregate and exhibit inferior extraction qualities. Binding constants in toluene were found to be in the range 10(5)-10(7) m(-1), which is significantly higher than in dichloromethane. X-ray analyses indicate the direct participation of a water molecule in the binding process, which may account for the surprisingly small effect of moisture in the solvent on the stability of the complexes.