New Chemotypes for the Inhibition of (p)ppGpp Synthesis in the Quest for New Antimicrobial Compounds

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a serious threat to our society from both the medical and economic point of view, while the antibiotic discovery pipeline has been dwindling over the last decades. Targeting non-essential bacterial pathways, such as those leading to antibiotic persistence, a bacterial bet-hedging strategy, will lead to new molecular entities displaying low selective pressure, thereby reducing the insurgence of AMR. Here, we describe a way to target (p)ppGpp (guanosine tetra- or penta-phosphate) signaling, a non-essential pathway involved in the formation of persisters, with a structure-based approach. A superfamily of enzymes called RSH (RelA/SpoT Homolog) regulates the intracellular levels of this alarmone. We virtually screened several fragment libraries against the (p)ppGpp synthetase domain of our RSH chosen model Rel_Seq, selected three main chemotypes, and measured their interaction with Rel_Seq by thermal shift assay and STD-NMR. Most of the tested fragments are selective for the synthetase domain, allowing us to select the aminobenzoic acid scaffold as a hit for lead development.     

Separation and Analysis of o.p'-DDD and its Lipophilic Metabolite,O.P'-DDE,in Tissue,Faeces and Plasma

Abstract

An analytical procedure based on electron capture gas chromatography for the determination of o,p′-DDD, a drug used for the treatment of Cushing′s syndrome, is presented. Detection of a metabolite, identified as o,p′-DDE, is also described.     

Application of Novel Glycosides Prepared with Odorless Benzenethiols in Glycosylation Reaction

p‐Dodecylbenzenethiol (1) and p‐octyloxybenzenethiol (2) were synthesized as new odorless benzenethiols. Moreover, preparation of novel 1‐thioglycosides using 1 and 2 as well as their application for glycosylation reactions was performed. As a result, it was found that these 1‐thio‐glycosides were excellent glycosyl donors, and especially 2‐thio‐sialoside prepared from 1 and 2 afforded the best result to date in terms of α‐ and β‐selectivity in the sialylation where only the single C‐3 hydroxyl group of acceptor D‐galactopyranoside was free. All procedures from the preparation of thioglycosides to glycosylation reaction were attainable under completely odorless conditions.     

A general modal frequency-domain vortex lattice method for aeroelastic analyses

The generalized aerodynamic force (GAF) matrix is derived for the Unsteady Vortex Lattice Method (UVLM) without the assumption of out-of-plane dynamics. As a result, the approach naturally includes in-plane motion and forces unlike the doublet lattice method (DLM). The derived UVLM GAF is therefore applicable to industry-standard techniques for aeroelastic stability analyses, such as the p–k method. In this work, the fluid–structure interpolation is performed with radial basis functions for surface interpolation. The generalized aerodynamic forces computed with the UVLM are verified against the DLM from NASTRAN on a simple flat plate configuration. The ability of the UVLM to include steady loads is verified with a T-tail flutter case and the results confirm the importance of including steady loads for T-tail flutter analysis. The modal frequency domain VLM therefore provides the same level of efficiency and accuracy than the DLM, but without the restrictions and with the ability to handle complex geometries. It is therefore a viable replacement to the DLM.     

Treatment of Human Glioblastoma U251 Cells with Sulforaphane and a Peptide Nucleic Acid (PNA) Targeting miR-15b-5p: Synergistic Effects on Induction of Apoptosis

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a lethal malignant tumor accounting for 42% of the tumors of the central nervous system, the median survival being 15 months. At present, no curative treatment is available for GBM and new drugs and therapeutic protocols are urgently needed. In this context, combined therapy appears to be a very interesting approach. The isothiocyanate sulforaphane (SFN) has been previously shown to induce apoptosis and inhibit the growth and invasion of GBM cells. On the other hand, the microRNA miR-15b is involved in invasiveness and proliferation in GBM and its inhibition is associated with the induction of apoptosis. On the basis of these observations, the objective of the present study was to determine whether a combined treatment using SFN and a peptide nucleic acid interfering with miR-15b-5p (PNA-a15b) might be proposed for increasing the pro-apoptotic effects of the single agents. To verify this hypothesis, we have treated GMB U251 cells with SFN alone, PNA-a15b alone or their combination. The cell viability, apoptosis and combination index were, respectively, analyzed by calcein staining, annexin-V and caspase-3/7 assays, and RT-qPCR for genes involved in apoptosis. The efficacy of the PNA-a15b determined the miR-15b-5p content analyzed by RT-qPCR. The results obtained indicate that SFN and PNA-a15b synergistically act in inducing the apoptosis of U251 cells. Therefore, the PNA-a15b might be proposed in a “combo-therapy” associated with SFN. Overall, this study suggests the feasibility of using combined treatments based on PNAs targeting miRNA involved in GBM and nutraceuticals able to stimulate apoptosis.     

Adatom mobility for the solid-on-solid model

The relaxation of a crystal surface through surface diffusion is studied within the solid-on-solid model. Two types of (conserved) dynamics are considered. ForArrhenius dynamics we show that the relevant transport coefficient, the adatom mobility, has a simple analytic form: It is independent of orientation, and depends exponentially on the inverse temperature, for any surface dimensionalityd. Together with the expression for the orientation-dependent stiffness this completely determines the macroscopic evolution equation for the surface. The predictions of the macroscopic theory are checked against simulations of profile evolution and roughening ind=1. For one-dimensionalMetropolis dynamics we provide an upper bound on the adatom mobility and obtain numerical estimates of its actual value, which indicate a nontrivial orientation dependence in this case. An alternative derivation of the macroscopic dynamics directly from the master equation is presented and discussed in relation to previous approximate work.Dedicated to Professor H. Wagner on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

ABCD rule for Gaussian beam propagation in the context of quantum optics derived by the IWOP technique

The development of technique of integration within an ordered product (IWOP) of operators extends the Newton-Leibniz integration rule, originally applying to permutable functions, to the non-commutative quantum mechanical operators composed of Dirac’s ket-bra, which enables us to obtain the images of directly mapping symplectic transformation in classical phase space parameterized by [A, B; C, D] into quantum mechanical operator through the coherent state representation, we call them the generalized Fresnel operators (GFO) since they correspond to Fresnel transforms in Fourier optics. Based on GFO we find the ABCD rule for Gaussian beam propagation in the context of quantum optics (both in one-mode and two-mode cases) whose classical correspondence is just the ABCD rule in matrix optics. The entangled state representation is used in discussing the two-mode case.     

Nanofoaming dynamics in biopolymers by femtosecond laser irradiation

We have recently shown that irradiation of self-standing films of the biopolymers collagen and gelatine with single femtosecond laser pulses produces a nanofoaming layer with regular bubble size which can be controlled by wavelength selection. Following these initial studies, here we report on the temporal evolution of the foaming effect by measurements in situ and in real time of the change in the transmittance of a cw probe HeNe laser through the irradiated films. Self standing films of the biopolymers were irradiated with 90 fs laser pulses at 800, 400, and 266 nm. For fluences below and above the modification threshold a permanent attenuation of the transmission occurs (increasing with fluence). The initial decay of the transmission is fast (around few tens of ns), and is followed by dynamics in the longer timescale (micro and milliseconds). The temporal evolution of the transmission measured upon fs laser irradiation is similar with that determined in the irradiation of the biopolymer films at 248 nm with 25 ns laser pulses. The method allows separating in time the different processes occurring after irradiation that lead to a permanent nanofoaming structure, while the results allow us to understand the mechanisms of femtosecond laser processing of the biopolymers and their interest in biomedical applications.     

Scheme for implementing perfect quantum dense coding with three-atom W-class state in cavity QED

We propose an experimentally feasible scheme of implementing perfect quantum dense coding with three-atom W-class state in cavity QED. In this scheme atoms interact simultaneously with a highly detuned cavity field and the cavity is only virtually excited, thus the scheme is insensitive to the cavity decay, which is very important in view of experiment. Moreover, we also propose a scheme of transmitting three bits of classical information by sending one qubit and one classical bit with 3-qubit W-class and GHZ states.     

Simultaneous determination of residues of metalaxyl,cyazofamid and a cyazofamid metabolite in tobacco leaves and soil by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry

A simple method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of metalaxyl, cyazofamid and the cyazofamid metabolite 4‐chloro‐5‐p‐tolylimidazole‐2‐carbonitrile (CCIM) by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. The three target compounds were extracted from tobacco and soil with acetonitrile containing 0.1% acetic acid, and the extracts were purified using octadecylsilane. The proposed method showed satisfactory linearity (R² ≥ 0.9985) for the target compounds. The limits of detection for metalaxyl, cyazofamid and CCIM were 0.006, 0.06 and 0.06 mg/kg in soil and green tobacco leaves and 0.03, 0.3 and 0.3 mg/kg in cured tobacco leaves, respectively. The limits of quantification for metalaxyl, cyazofamid and CCIM were 0.02, 0.2 and 0.2 mg/kg in soil and green tobacco leaves and 0.1, 1 and 1 mg/kg in cured tobacco leaves, respectively. The average recoveries from soil and tobacco were 72.91–98.40% for metalaxyl, 76.73–105.80% for cyazofamid and 74.48–106.45% for CCIM. The relative standard deviation range was 1.23–6.99%. The developed method was successfully applied to analysis of residues of metalaxyl, cyazofamid and CCIM in real soil and tobacco samples. The results indicated that the established method could meet the requirement for the analysis of trace amounts of all three analytes in soil and tobacco.