Voltammetric determination of azithromycin at the carbon paste electrode

Azithromycin (AZ) is the first member of a class of macrolide azalides antibiotics called azolides. A simple and selective square-wave voltammetric (SWV) method has been developed for the determination of azithromycin in pure form, in pharmaceutical preparation and in biological samples. Determination of azithromycin was accomplished with hand-make carbon paste electrode (CPE) in oxidative screen mode. The counter and reference electrodes were a Pt wire and a Ag/AgCl, respectively. Various parameters that can influence the peak signal (effect of buffer, ionic strength, accumulation time, pH and the composition of the paste) have been scrutinized. The best results were obtained in acetonitrile—aqueous 1 M sodium acetate-acetic acid buffer (pH 4.6) containing 0.1 M KCl (1:9; v/v) using a 15% paraffin oil CPE. The limits of detection and quantification of the pure drug are 0.463 and 1.544 ppb (with the correlation coefficient, r=0.9785and the standard deviation, S.D.=0.1 (n=5), for the accumulation time of 60 s), respectively. The method was successfully applied to the determination of the drug in urine and two forms of pharmaceutical formulations. Recoveries were 99.2—100.5% with S.D.=0.1—and 0.8% (n=5).     

The preparation and characterization of mono- and bis-chelated cadmium(II) complexes of the di-2-pyridylketone Schiff base of S-methyldithiocarbazate (Hdpksme) and the X-ray crystal structure of the [Cd(dpksme)2] · 0.5 MeOH complex

New cadmium(II) complexes of empirical formulae, [Cd(dpksme)X] (dpksme = anionic form of the Schiff base; X = NCS^–, Cl^–, I^–) and [Cd(dpksme)₂] · 0.5MeOH, respectively have been prepared and characterized. The mono-ligated cadmium(II) complexes, [Cd(dpksme)X] are four-coordinate and tetrahedral but the bis-ligand complex, [Cd(dpksme)₂] · 0.5MeOH is six-coordinate and octahedral. The crystal and molecular structure of [Cd(dpksme)₂] · 0.5MeOH has been determined by X-ray diffraction. The complex has a distorted mer-octahedral structure in which the ligands are coordinated as uninegatively charged tridentate chelating agents via the pyridine nitrogen atoms, the azomethine nitrogen atoms and the thiolate sulfur atoms. The distortion from regular octahedral geometry is ascribed to the restricted bite angles of the ligands. The Schiff base and its cadmium(II) complexes exhibit mild antibacterial activities against Shigella dysenteriae, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. They are also mildly fungitoxic against the phytopathogenic fungi, Alternaria alternata and Macrophomina phaseolina.     

A convenient synthesis of 3-aryl-1,2,4-triazolo[4,3-c]quinazolines

The synthesis and characterization of several 3-aryl-1,2,4-triazolo[4,3-c]quinazolines is described. The first step comprises the condensation of aromatic aldehydes with 2-(H or Cl)-4-hydrazinoquinazolines 2 to afford the corresponding hydrazones 3 . The second step involves the cyclization to the title compounds 4 in bromine/acetic acid. Reaction of 4 (X = Cl) with cyclic amines gave the corresponding 5-cyclicamino 5 or 5-alkoxy derivatives 6 .     

A facile and general route to 4-substituted-2 butenolides

Grignard reagents react with 7-oxabicyclo[2.2.1]hept-5-ene-2,3-dicarboxylic anhydride and produce in high yields the corresponding substituted bicyclo-γ-butanolides. These lactones produce the title compounds by retro Diels-Alder reaction during distillation.     

Spectrophotometric assay of retinol via charge-transfer complexes

Simple and sensitive spectrophotometric methods for the assay of retinol have been presented. The first method was based on the reaction of retinol with iodine to give a molecular charge-transfer complex, the retinol acting as n-donor and iodine as -electron acceptor. The second method depends on the formation of a highly coloured stable radical anion between retinol and 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ as a -electron acceptor. The molecular ratios of the reactants in the complexes have been established and the experimental conditions leading to maximum charge-transfer bands were also studied. Beer's law is obeyed over the retinol concentration range 2.5–26 µg/ml. The proposed procedures have been applied successfully to the analysis of drug formulation. The average recovery and average standard deviation was 99.99 ±1.13% with retinol-iodine and 100.001 ± 1.31% with retinol-TCNQ. A kinetic study was performed by heating retinol at 50°C for different periods of time, the result obtained by plotting log c against time indicates that thermal decomposition of retinol is of first order. The results obtained by both methods were in good agreement with those obtained by the official method. The developed procedures were found to be simple, accurate and precise and can be used for the determination of retinol in presence of its degradation products.     

A modified steepest descent method with applications to maximizing likelihood functions

In maximizing a non-linear function G(), it is well known that the steepest descent method has a slow convergence rate. Here we propose a systematic procedure to obtain a 1–1 transformation on the variables , so that in the space of the transformed variables, the steepest descent method produces the solution faster. The final solution in the original space is obtained by taking the inverse transformation. We apply the procedure in maximizing the likelihood functions of some generalized distributions which are widely used in modeling count data. It was shown that for these distributions, the steepest descent method via transformations produced the solutions very fast. It is also observed that the proposed procedure can be used to expedite the convergence rate of the first derivative based algorithms, such as Polak-Ribiere, Fletcher and Reeves conjugate gradient methods as well.     

PHYTOCHROME MEDIATED CAROTENOID SYNTHESIS IN THE FUNGUS VERTICILLIUM AGARZCZNUM

Abstract— Ten minutes of red irradiation (R) increased carotenogenesis in Verticillium agoricinum and this effect was reversed by 10min of far-red (FR) irradiation indicating that phytochrome is involved. A far-red minus red difference spectrum of a crude extract shows a peak at 670 nm and a dip at 750 nm wavelength, values slightly larger than higher plant phytochrome. indicating the presence of phytochrome.     

The dangers of using KBr,KI and CaI2 as mulling agents during the preparation of infrared discs of complexes

Tribochemical reactions of KBr, KI and CaI₂ with [Cu(L)Cl₂(EtOH)_3/2(H₂O)]1/2H₂O (L = formylhydrazine) give novel Cu^I and Cu^II complexes, which have been characterized by elemental analyses, spectral (i.r., u.v.–vis., ¹H-n.m.r.) and magnetic measurements. The i.r. spectra indicate that (L) behaves in a monodentate manner, coordinating via the azomethine nitrogen (C-N) group in the Cu^II complexes, but behaving as a bidentate ligand, via the carbonyl oxygen and NH₂ groups in the Cu^I complexes. KI and CaI₂ react with [Cu(L)Cl₂(EtOH)_3/2(H₂O)]-1/2H₂O in the solid state, accompanied by a colour change, substitution of the chloride by iodide ions, and reduction of Cu^II to Cu^I to give complexes with formulae [Cu(L)I(EtOH)_1/2] and [Cu_1.7(L)I_1.7(EtOH)_1/2]. On the other hand, the tribochemical reaction of KBr with [Cu(L)Cl₂(EtOH)_3/2(H₂O)]1/2H₂O is accompanied by a colour change; substitution of the chloride by bromide ions, but without reduction of Cu^II and yields a complex of formula [Cu(L)₂Br₂(EtOH)(H₂O)]1/2EtOH. The spectral and magnetic results suggest a distorted octahedral geometry for the Cu^II complexes while a tetrahedral geometry around the Cu^I ion. The non-stoichiometric structure of [Cu_1.7(L)I_1.7(EtOH)_1/2] is discussed.     

New stereoselective preparation of (Z)-3-perfluoroalkyl-3-magnesiated enoates by an iodine-magnesium exchange reaction

(Z)-Ethyl-3-perfluoroalkyl-3-magnesiated crotonates were prepared from (Z)-ethyl-3-perfluoroalkyl-3-iodo enoates by iodine-magnesium exchange reaction with isopropylmagnesium bromide in THF at -78 degrees C. These new reagents reacted with a range of electrophiles, leading to polyfunctional products bearing a perfluoroalkyl group.