Fast screening of anabolic steroids and other banned doping substances in human urine by gas chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

A fast and sensitive method for the comprehensive screening of anabolic agents and other banned doping substances using gas chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (GC/MS/MS) with an external ionization ion trap mass spectrometer is presented. The method takes advantage of the resolving power of MS/MS to eliminate background interferences, thus speeding up the chromatographic analysis. For each compound, different fragmentation reactions were studied and their collision energies optimized to obtain the best sensitivity in terms of their signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). A dramatic reduction in overall analysis time was achieved compared with other common approaches. More than 50 substances could finally be monitored in less than 7.4 min with detection limits (S/N >3) lower than 0.5 ng ml(-1) for most of the compounds with special sensitivity requirements according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). A validation procedure for qualitative analysis was performed. The selectivity of the method showed that no interfering peaks were observed at the retention time of the analytes. Good intermediate precision, below 25% for most of the compounds, and robustness were observed. The optimized method was successfully applied to analyse more than 100 real human urine samples with optimum sensitivity and specificity rates.     

High temperature corrosion behaviour of M(Co,Ni)CrAIY-coatings on high temperature materials-microanalytical investigations

In our former investigations, the phenomenon high temperature corrosion (HTC) was described exemplarily on selected materialcoating combinations for blades of stationary gas turbines, mainly in the temperature region of up to 750° C. To answer the question, in which manner higher gas inlet and/or higher material surface temperature would influence the HTC behaviour, a special analytical technique—the integral layer profile analysis—was introduced to ameliorate concentration profile methods. By examining IN 738 LC specimens with CoCrAlY plasma spray coating, stressed by hot gas at 900° C, the limits of this system are shown by explaining the corrosion mechanism; the method is also used for other systems, e.g. U 520 with NiCrAlY coating at 750° C.     

Integrated production of ethanol fuel and protein from Coastal Bermudagrass

The herbaceous crops that may provide fermentable carbohydrates for production of fuels and chemicals also contain 10–20% protein. Protein coproduction with biomass-derived fuels and chemicals has important advantages: (1) food and fuel production can be integrated, and (2) protein is a high-value product that may significantly improve overall process economics. We report the results of an integrated approach to producing protein and fermentable sugars from one herbaceous species, Coastal Bermudagrass (CBG). The ammonia fiber explosion (AFEX) process makes possible over 90% conversion of cellulose and hemicellulose to simple sugars (about 650 mg reducing sugars/g dry CBG) at 5 IU cellulase/g vs < 20% conversion for untreated CBG. The AFEX treatment also improves protein extraction from CBG; over 80% protein recovery is possible from AFEX-treated CBG vs about 30% recovery from untreated CBG.     

Nucleotide/Protein Interaction: Energetic and Structural Features of Na,K-ATPase

Microcalorimetric titrations allow to recognize and investigate high-affinity ligand binding to Na,K-ATPase. Titrations with the cardiac glycoside Ouabain, which acts as a specific inhibitor of the enzyme, have provided not only the thermodynamic parameters of high-affinity binding with a stoichiometric coefficient of about 0.6 but also evidence for low-affinity binding to the lipid. The marked enthalpic contribution of -95 kJ mol^-1 at 298.2 K is partially compensated by a large negative entropy change, attributed to an increased interaction between water and the protein. The calorimetric ADP and ATP titrations at 298.2 K are indicative of high-affinity nucleotide binding either in 3 mM NaCl, 3 mM MgCl₂ or at high ionic strength such as 120 mM choline chloride. However, no binding is detected in the buffer solution alone at low ionic strength. The affinities for ADP and ATP are similar, around 10⁶ M^-1 and the stoichiometric coefficients are close to that of Ouabain binding. The exothermic binding of ADP is characterized by a ΔH and ΔS value of -65 kJ mol^-1 and -100 J mol^-1 K^-1, respectively. TheΔH value for ATP binding is larger than for ADP and is compensated by a larger, unfavorable ΔS value. This leads to an enthalpy/entropy compensation, which could express that H-bond formation represents the major type of interaction. As for Ouabain, the negative ΔS values that are also characteristic of nucleotide binding can indicate an increase of solvate interaction with the protein due to a conformational transition occurring subsequent to the binding process. The resulting binding constants are discussed with regard to the results of other studies employing different techniques. A molecular interaction model for nucleotide binding is suggested. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Topographical properties of polymer films deposited in capillaries for electrophoretic separations of large organic molecules

Topography and thickness of hydrophilic polymer coatings of fused-silica capillaries for capillary electrophoresis (CE) were investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and profilometry. Three hydrogels, poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) [poly(HEMA)], poly(diethylene glycol monomethacrylate) [poly(DEGMA)], and poly(triethylene glycol monomethacrylate) [poly(TEGMA)], were deposited using two procedures, either by simple physical sorption of the polymers, or by derivatization of the capillary wall surface with glycidyl methacrylate (EPMA) followed by polymerization of the appropriate monomers. The performance of the modified capillaries was tested under CE conditions (decrease in the electroosmotic flow, EOF dependence on pH, separation of milk and standard proteins). It has been found that the most important property of the polymer coating is its thickness, whereas its topography and the degree of its hydrophobicity are less significant. Film deposition by physical adsorption is preferable to polymerization on the derivatized surface.     

Ligand-protein docking using a quantum stochastic tunneling optimization method

A novel hybrid optimization method called quantum stochastic tunneling has been recently introduced. Here, we report its implementation within a new docking program called EasyDock and a validation with the CCDC/Astex data set of ligand-protein complexes using the PLP score to represent the ligand-protein potential energy surface and ScreenScore to score the ligand-protein binding energies. When taking the top energy-ranked ligand binding mode pose, we were able to predict the correct crystallographic ligand binding mode in up to 75% of the cases. By using this novel optimization method run times for typical docking simulations are significantly shortened.     

高效液相色谱蛋白质手性固定相

本文综述了近年文献中已报道的各种高效液相色谱蛋白质（酶）手性固定相及其在手性拆分中的应用，并阐述了蛋白质作为手性选择剂拆分机理的研究进展。     

高效毛细管电泳前沿分析法研究酸性药物那格列奈与人血浆白蛋白的结合

用高效毛细管电泳前沿分析法研究了酸性药物那格列奈与人血浆白蛋白的结合常数、结合位点和结合率。使用未涂层的毛细管柱 (4 0cm× 5 0 μmi.d .;有效柱长 32cm) ,磷酸盐缓冲溶液 (pH 7.4 ,离子强度0 .17)为背景溶液 ,在紫外检测波长 2 14nm、运行电压 18kV和重力进样 10 0s的条件下 ,利用那格列奈谱峰的平台高度和游离药物浓度的良好线性关系 (r>0 .999,n =6 ) ,测定了那格列奈的游离药物浓度。固定药物浓度 (2 0 0 μmol L ,2 5 0 μmol L) ,考察不同的蛋白质浓度对结合的影响 ;固定蛋白质浓度 (10 0 μmol L) ,考察不同的药物浓度对结合的影响。实验数据采用非线性拟和程序进行处理 ,得到了那格列奈的蛋白质结合参数。高效毛细管电泳前沿分析法测定的数据重现性良好 (RSD <2 .5 % ,n =3) ,在药代动力学和药效学研究方面具有简便、准确的优点。     

高效前沿分析的发展及在药物-蛋白结合研究中的应用

介绍了高效前沿分析方法的原理、特点、种类，综述了它在药物与蛋白结合研究中的应用及国内外研究概况；通过与高效液相色谱／前沿分析比较，阐明了毛细管电泳／前沿分析在药物蛋白结合研究中的优势；分析了在药物与蛋白结合研究中所采用的各种研究方法，通过与这些研究方法的比较，阐明了高效前沿分析的优越性及其广阔的应用前景，同时提出了在高效前沿分析方法中有待完善和注意的问题。     

富硒灵芝中一种新含硒蛋白的纯化、性质及其自由基清除活性研究

通过硫酸铵沉淀、离子交换层析和分子排阻层析等方法, 从富硒灵芝中获得了一种新的含硒蛋白, 命名为Se-GL-P, 并研究了此蛋白的性质、抗氧化活性与其硒含量间的关系. 结果表明, 此蛋白的分子量为36600, 分子中约含有19.8%的糖链, N端的氨基酸残基序列为DINGGGATLPQKLYLTPDVL, 属于DING蛋白家族. 硒含量为4.87 mg/g, 具有较高的羟自由基和超氧自由基清除活性. 研究发现, Se-GL-P的抗氧化活性的提高与其中硒含量的提高相关.