Synthesis of Halopyrazole Matrine Derivatives and Their Insecticidal and Fungicidal Activities

Matrine is a traditional botanical pesticide with a broad-spectrum biological activity that is widely applied in agriculture. Halopyrazole groups are successfully introduced to the C13 of matrine to synthesize eight new derivatives with a yield of 78–87%. The insecticidal activity results show that the introduction of halopyrazole groups can significantly improve the insecticidal activity of matrine on Plutella xylostella, Mythimna separata and Spodoptera frugiperda with a corrected mortality rate of 100%, which is 25–65% higher than matrine. The fungicidal activity results indicate that derivatives have a high inhibitory effect on Ceratobasidium cornigerum, Cibberella sanbinetti, Gibberrlla zeae and Collectot tichum gloeosporioides. Thereinto, 4-Cl-Pyr-Mat has the best result, with an inhibition rate of 23–33% higher than that of matrine. Therefore, the introduction of halogenated pyrazole groups can improve the agricultural activity of matrine.     

Long‐Term Colloidal and Chemical Stability in Aqueous Media of NaYF4‐Type Upconversion Nanoparticles Modified by Ligand‐Exchange

Surface capping is an essential component of nanoparticles as it provides access to their outstanding properties in the real world. Upconversion nanoparticles are predominantly interesting for use in biological environments, due to their excellent optical properties such as the conversion of near‐infrared excitation light into emissions in the visible or UV range of the spectrum, high photostability, and the absence of any intermittence. One of the most efficient upconversion nanoparticles, consisting of lanthanide doped NaYF₄, suffers from limited stability in aqueous media. This study investigates a set of five types of surface coatings, ranging from small ligands to polymers of different charge and different coordinating groups, on monodisperse 28 ± 0.9 nm sized NaYF₄(Yb,Er) nanoparticles modified by a two‐step ligand exchange mediated by NOBF₄. Information on the long‐term chemical and colloidal stability for highly diluted aqueous dispersions of these particles is acquired by transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, and luminescence spectroscopy. The findings are of importance for the development of probes and labels based on upconversion nanoparticles for biological applications.     

异硫氰酸荧光素后修饰的金属有机三元环光解水制氢

将具有N、O、P三齿配位点的直线型双臂席夫碱配体L1与钴离子配位自组装得到一例[3+3]金属-有机三元环Co-L1。在该配体的苯环侧链上引入易于修饰的NH₂基团，通过组装后修饰的方法把光活性的异硫氰酸荧光素（FITC）分子以共价键方式键合到金属-有机三元环上，并将其用于可见光下的光解水制氢。该体系属于无须引入额外光敏剂的双组分放氢体系。与传统的三组分体系相比，在同等金属催化剂和光敏剂浓度下，组装后修饰的金属配合物催化剂Co-L3具有更高的光催化活性，转换数（TON）可以达到80，大约是Co-L1光催化效率的30倍。     

Prediction of 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation sites by integrating multiple sequence features with ensemble support vector machine

Lysine 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation (K_hib) is a new type of histone mark, which has been found to affect the association between histone and DNA. To better understand the molecular mechanism of K_hib, it is important to identify 2-hydroxyisobutyrylated substrates and their corresponding K_hib sites accurately. In this study, a novel bioinformatics tool named KhibPred is proposed to predict K_hib sites in human HeLa cells. Three kinds of effective features, the composition of k-spaced amino acid pairs, binary encoding and amino acid factors, are incorporated to encode K_hib sites. Moreover, an ensemble support vector machine is employed to overcome the imbalanced problem in the prediction. As illustrated by 10-fold cross-validation, the performance of KhibPred achieves a satisfactory performance with an area under receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.7937. Therefore, KhibPred can be a useful tool for predicting protein K_hib sites. Feature analysis shows that the polarity factor features play significant roles in the prediction of K_hib sites. The conclusions derived from this study might provide useful insights for in-depth investigation into the molecular mechanisms of K_hib.     

Preparation of Tetraethylenepentamine-Functionalized 4A Zeolite for effective removal of phosphate in water

Recently, the high-concentration phosphorus-containing wastewater has been caused lots of negative influences on aquatic environment and thus driven people to develop some effective methods to remove excess of phosphate in water. In order to solve these environmental problem, in this work, a tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) modified 4A zeolite has been prepared and used for removing phosphate. Removal of phosphate by precipitation of 4A zeolite and electrostatic action of TEPA with phosphate were determined by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction and Fourier infrared spectrum, and morphology and characteristic peak of TEPA-4A zeolite before and after adsorption changed significantly. In addition, the results of batch adsorption studies showed that the pH of the solution have a significant influence on the adsorption of TEPA-4A and the biggest adsorption capacity was 23 mg/g at pH = 2.3 ± 0.2. Adsorption isotherms results showed that the process was consistent with Langmuir model and the maximum adsorption capacity could reach to 28 mg/g at 25 °C. TEPA-4A adsorption processes were spontaneous endothermic reaction, and elevated temperatures were conducive to the adsorption process through kinetics and thermodynamics results. The research of TEPA modified 4A zeolite and raw 4A zeolite provides technical support for the development of 4A zeolite instead of sodium tripolyphosphate as a new type of detergent ingredient.     

锂硫电池隔膜功能化设计

锂硫电池具有较高的理论比容量(以硫计1675 mAh·g^-1和2600 Wh·kg^-1),以及低成本和绿色环保等优势,成为最有前景的下一代可充电储能器件之一。然而,锂硫电池内部严重的多硫化锂穿梭现象导致了电池容量的下降和使用寿命的快速降低。为实现锂硫电池的商业化,其严重的“穿梭效应”亟需改善。普通的商业隔膜有很大的孔径(500 nm),且不具有阻碍多硫化锂迁移的功能。因此,对隔膜进行表面修饰,引入功能化修饰层就成为了一种很有效的策略。本文综述了近年来隔膜表面修饰所遵循的方法以及在此基础上开发的新型隔膜,并对功能化的隔膜在提升锂硫电池性能上的前景进行了展望。     

Improved Safety and Anti-Glioblastoma Efficacy of CAT3-Encapsulated SMEDDS through Metabolism Modification

13a-(S)-3-pivaloyloxyl-6,7-dimethoxyphenanthro(9,10-b)-indolizidine (CAT3) is a novel oral anti-glioma pro-drug with a potent anti-tumor effect against temozolomide-resistant glioma. 13a(S)-3-hydroxyl-6,7-dimethoxyphenanthro(9,10-b)-indolizidine (PF403) is the active in vivo lipase degradation metabolite of CAT3. Both CAT3 and PF403 can penetrate the blood–brain barrier to cause an anti-glioma effect. However, PF403, which is produced in the gastrointestinal tract and plasma, causes significant gastrointestinal side effects, limiting the clinical application of CAT3. The objective of this paper was to propose a metabolism modification for CAT3 using a self-microemulsifying drug delivery system (SMEDDS), in order to reduce the generation of PF403 in the gastrointestinal tract and plasma, as well as increase the bioavailability of CAT3 in vivo and the amount of anti-tumor substances in the brain. Thus, a CAT3-loaded self-microemulsifying drug delivery system (CAT3-SMEDDS) was prepared, and its physicochemical characterization was systematically carried out. Next, the pharmacokinetic parameters of CAT3 and its metabolite in the rats’ plasma and brain were measured. Furthermore, the in vivo anti-glioma effects and safety of CAT3-SMEDDS were evaluated. Finally, Caco-2 cell uptake, MDCK monolayer cellular transfer, and the intestinal lymphatic transport mechanisms of SMEDDS were investigated in vitro and in vivo. Results show that CAT3-SMEDDS was able to form nanoemulsion droplets in artificial gastrointestinal fluid within 1 min, displaying an ideal particle size (15–30 nm), positive charge (5–9 mV), and controlled release behavior. CAT3-SMEDDS increased the membrane permeability of CAT3 by 3.9-fold and promoted intestinal lymphatic transport. Hence, the bioavailability of CAT3 was increased 79% and the level of its metabolite, PF403, was decreased to 49%. Moreover, the concentrations of CAT3 and PF403 were increased 2–6-fold and 1.3–7.2-fold, respectively, in the brain. Therefore, the anti-glioma effect in the orthotopic models was improved with CAT3-SMEDDS compared with CAT3 in 21 days. Additionally, CAT3-SMEDDS reduced the gastrointestinal side effects of CAT3, such as severe diarrhea, necrosis, and edema, and observed less inflammatory cell infiltration in the gastrointestinal tract, compared with the bare CAT3. Our work reveals that, through the metabolism modification effect, SMEDDS can improve the bioavailability of CAT3 and reduce the generation of PF403 in the gastrointestinal tract and plasma. Therefore, it has the potential to increase the anti-glioma effect and reduce the gastrointestinal side effects of CAT3 simultaneously.     

Optimization of an Asymmetric Reaction in the Cavity of Chiral Aromatic Oligoamide Foldamers

An asymmetric reaction can be implemented and refined in the helical cavity of aromatic oligoamide sequences. These sequences, which bear a chiral inducer, can fold into helical structures with absolute control of the helical sense, whereby a ketone substrate covalently linked in the cavity can be asymmetrically reduced to diastereomers. The diastereoselectivity of the reduction is highly dependent on the shielding efficiency of the helical cavity. Iterative modifications of the sequence, such as addition and replacement of monomers, can fine-tune the cavity to realize the asymmetric reaction, thereby progressively increasing the diastereomeric excess up to 90 %.     

Reversible diselenide cross-links are formed between oligonucleotides containing 2′-deoxy-6-selenoinosine

We have synthesized and characterized a phosphoramidite derivative of 2′-deoxy-6-selenoinosine (d^6SeI) and incorporated this modification into an oligonucleotide by solid-phase synthesis. During cleavage from the solid-support and deprotection, spontaneous dimerization of this oligonucleotide occurs via formation of a diselenide cross-link between the modified nucleobases. This cross-link can be readily reduced to restore the single-stranded oligonucleotide. UV thermal denaturation and circular dichroism spectroscopy of duplexes with d^6SeI paired against all four native nucleobases revealed minor differences in stability and structure relative to 2′-deoxyinosine. This selenium containing nucleobase modification may be useful for applications in DNA nanomaterials and X-ray crystallography.     

Electrocatalytic Activities of 1,2-Naphthoquinone Modified Carbon Nanotube to the Electrochemical Oxidation of β-Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide

The carbon nanotube (CNT) was functionalized with the electroactive species of 1,2-naphthoquinone (Nq) by a method of adsorption to form Nq-CNT nanocomposite. The Nq-CNT was characterized by spectroscopic techniques, for example UV-Vis, FTIR, SEM, etc., and the results showed that Nq can rapidly and effectively be adsorbed on the surface of CNT with high stability. Moreover, it was shown that the dispersion ability of CNT in aqueous solution had a significant improvement after CNT functionalized with Nq. The Nq-CNT/GC electrode was fabricated by modifying Nq-CNT nanocomposite on the GC electrode surface and its electrochemical properties were investigated by voltammetry, which indicated that CNT could improve the electrochemical behavior of Nq and greatly enhance its redox peak currents. The Nq-CNT/GC electrode exhibited a pair of well-defined and nearly symmetrical redox peaks with the formal potential of –87.3 ± 4.5 mV (vs. SCE, 0.1 M PBS, pH 7.0), which was almost independent on the scan rates. The experimental results also demonstrated that Nq and CNT could synergistically catalyze the electrochemical oxidation of NADH, and Nq-CNT exhibited a high performance with lowering the overpotential by more than 510 mV. The presented method had some advantages, such as rapid and facile CNT functionalization, easy electrode fabrication, and high electrocatalytic activity, etc.