SciFinder-guided rational design of fluorescent carbon dots for ratiometric monitoring intracellular pH fluctuations under heat shock

Intracellular pH plays a significant role in various biological processes, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, metabolism, enzyme activity and homeostasis. In this work, a novel design strategy for the preparation of pH responsive carbon dots (CDs-pH) for ratiometric intracellular imaging was reported. By using SciFinder database, fluorescent CDs-pH with the required pK_a value of 6.84 were rationally designed, which is vital important for precise sensing of intracellular pH. As a result, the synthesized CDs-pH demonstrated robust ability to test pH fluctuations within the physiological range of 5.4-7.4. The CDs-pH was further utilized for fluorescent ratiometric imaging of pH in living HeLa cells, effectively avoided the influence of autofluorescence from native cellular species. Moreover, real-time monitoring of intracellular pH fluctuation under heat shock was successfully realized. This SciFinder-guided design strategy is simple and flexible, which has a great potential to be used for the development of other types of CDs for various applications.     

碳点增强的Ru纳米颗粒复合材料用于碱性条件下高效电解水析氢

In the 21st century, hydrogen energy is a novel energy source. Its use is expected to mitigate the problems of environmental pollution and global warming caused by the excessive use of conventional fossil fuels. The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) for water splitting has attracted considerable attention because of its environmental friendliness. To improve electrocatalyst performance and reduce operation cost, carbon-based metal hybrid materials exhibiting high efficiency and catalytic activity have been developed. Among them, carbon dots (CDs) have garnered significant research attention and have been widely applied in biosensing, bioimaging, and energy conversion/storage because of their facile synthesis, biocompatibility, tunable photoluminescence, excellent stability, and good electronic properties. CDs are widely used as carriers in the construction of electrocatalysts prepared from carbon-based metal hybrid materials. At present, it is believed that CDs exhibit excellent confinement effects, which can effectively inhibit the growth and agglomeration of metal nanoparticles, thereby preparing well-distributed carbon-based metal hybrid materials with a uniform and controllable size. However, the formation process of the small-molecule raw materials of CDs has not been elucidated. In this study, CDs and small-molecule raw materials from synthetic CDs were used as precursors to prepare nitrogen-doped CD-supported ruthenium nanoparticle (Ru@CDs) and small-molecule-supported ruthenium nanoparticle (Ru@Molecule) hybrid materials, respectively. The interaction between the small molecules and Ru in the process of CD formation and the effect on HER performance were explored. Moreover, we prepared different carriers such as metal organic frameworks(MOF), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and graphene (GO)-supported ruthenium nanoparticle hybrid materials. Among them, Ru@CDs exhibited controllable size and excellent dispersibility and exhibited outstanding HER activity and good stability. Ru@CDs were found to require a low overpotential of 22 mV to reach a current density of 10 mA·cm⁻². Moreover, we observed the presence of an intermediate state between the molecules and CDs and demonstrated that the intermediate state exhibits no confinement effect. Furthermore, we found that with increasing calcination temperature, the intermediate state gradually changes to CDs. The unique spatial confinement between CDs and metal ions is key to the formation of monodisperse Ru nanoparticles. Our results confirmed that Ru@CDs serve as excellent HER catalyst supports. This work not only reveals the effect of the unique spatial confinement of CDs on the supported metals and their promoting effect on electrocatalytic activity but also provides guides the future development of CD-based metal hybrid electrocatalysts.     

Dynamic light-scattering analysis of the electrostatic interaction of hexahistidine-tagged cytochrome P450 enzyme with semiconductor quantum dots.

Currently, there is great interest in the development of methods suitable for determining the stoichiometry of biomolecules attached to nanoparticles. We describe the use of the dynamic light-scattering technique (DLS) to determine the stoichiometry of the protein cytochrome P450(BSbeta) attached to CdS and CdSe quantum dots (QDs). The enzyme-conjugated QDs have different diffusion characteristics compared to the QD and enzyme precursors, expressed in their size, scattering intensity as well as zeta-potential values. The significant enhancement of the scattering intensity of QDs observed upon conjugation with the P450(BSbeta) due to the refractive-index increment and the systematic variation in zeta potential resulting from charge neutralization of the anionic QDs by the cationic histidine-tagged P450(BSbeta) have been used for stoichiometry determination.     

铝酸钠溶液的紫外吸收峰

分别用量子化学MNDO和DV-X_α方法计算了二聚铝酸离子[Al_2O(OH)_6]~(2-)和Al(OH)_4~-。结果表明前者旋转势垒很低, 只有10.08 kJ·mol~(-1), 最稳定平衡构型为C_s。用X_α过渡态理论计算获得这两个离子紫外吸收峰的理论值分别为266.6 nm和234.4 nm, 与实验值270.0 nm和230.0 nm相当接近。因此可以认为, 紫外吸收峰270.0 nm和230.0 nm分别为[Al_2O(OH)_6]~(2-)和Al(OH)_4~-离子的最高占有轨道电子向最低空轨道跃迁时产生的吸收峰。计算结果支持铝酸钠溶液中存在二聚铝酸离子的观点。     

Mechanism and control of molecular energy flow: a modeling perspective

 Vibrational energy flow in organic molecules occurs by a multiple-time-scale mechanism that can be modeled by a single exponential only in its initial stages. The mechanism is a consequence of the hierarchical structure of the vibrational Hamiltonian, which leads to diffusion of vibrational wavepackets on a manifold with far fewer than the 3N−6 dimensions of the full vibrational state space. The dynamics are controlled by a local density of states, which does not keep increasing with molecular size. In addition, the number of vibrational coordinates severely perturbed during chemical reaction is small, leading to preservation of the hierarchical structure at chemically interesting energies. This regularity opens up the possibility of controlling chemical reactions by controlling the vibrational energy flow. Computationally, laser control of intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution can be modeled by quantum-classical, or by purely quantum-mechanical models of the molecule and control field. Received: 26 July 2002 / Accepted: 30 September 2002 / Published online: 2 December 2002 Electronic Supplementary Material to this paper can be obtained by using the Springer Link server located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00214-002-0394-2. Acknowledgements. This work was supported by NSF grant CHE 9986670. Correspondence to: M. Gruebele e-mail: gruebele@scs.uiuc.edu     

New tetra-aryl and bi-aryl porphyrins bearing 5,15-related fluorenyl pendants: the influence of arylation on fluorescence

The new tetra-aryl trans-A₂B₂-porphyrin with two fluoren-2-yl and two phenyl groups at the meso-positions has been synthesized and characterized, together with the analogous bi-aryl trans-A₂-porphyrin incorporating only the fluorenyl groups. The photophysical properties of these new compounds in solution are reported. The two additional phenyl groups in the A₂B₂ porphyrin stabilize the first excited singlet state by approximately 500 cm⁻¹ compared to the A₂ system, as revealed by the red-shift of the absorption Q bands and of the fluorescence emission bands. Both compounds display enhanced emission quantum yields compared to tetraphenylporphyrin: the augmentation is higher for the tetra-aryl than for the bi-aryl system, although not as high as for tetrafluorenylporphyrin. Fluorescence lifetime measurements of the series of four compounds suggest that the trends can be interpreted in terms of the larger influence of fluorenyl over phenyl groups in increasing the fluorescence radiative rate constant of the porphyrin, k_f.     

四甲基对联苯二胺光敏化聚苯乙烯砜及其模型化合物二苄基砜分解机理的研究

N、N、 N’、N’-四平基对联苯二胺(NTMB)和 3、3’、5、5’-四甲基对联苯二胺(TMB)可以有效地光敏化二苄基砜(DBS)分解和聚苯乙烯砜(PSS)降解。敏化作用是按电子转移机理进行的,电子转移过程可以由NTMB的单重激发态,也可以由三重激发态发生。由三重态电子转移产生的三重态离子自由基对进一步反应生成产物的效率比单重态离子自由基对的效率高10倍。     

Uniqueness and clustering properties of Gibbs states for classical and quantum unbounded spin systems

We consider quantum unbounded spin systems (lattice boson systems) in -dimensional lattice space Z. Under appropriate conditions on the interactions we prove that in a region of high temperatures the Gibbs state is unique, is translationally invariant, and has clustering properties. The main methods we use are the Wiener integral representation, the cluster expansions for zero boundary conditions and for general Gibbs state, and explicitly -dependent probability estimates. For one-dimensional systems we show the uniqueness of Gibbs states for any value of temperature by using the method of perturbed states. We also consider classical unbounded spin systems. We derive necessary estimates so that all of the results for the quantum systems hold for the classical systems by straightforward applications of the methods used in the quantum case.     

Ground-state energy of a quantum chain with competing interactions

We show rigorously that the ground state of a quantum chain with competing ferromagnetic nearest and antiferromagnetic next nearest interactions undergoes a transition from ferromagnetic to helical type, in the isotropic case, for a certain value of the relevant ratio of coupling constants. Boundaries of the phase diagram are also determined in the anisotropic case. The stability of a special quantum state (corresponding to a classical modulated phase of =/3) is analyzed by an extension of Holstein-Primakoff arguments, along a line of constant ratio of couplings, showing in particular a sequence of (instability) gaps. Finally, a natural adaptation of a variational wave function due to Huse and Elser is used to study several portions of the phase diagram, with very good agreement with previous theoretical results.     

Coulomb pair density matrix I

The Coulomb pair density matrixG (r, r) for attractive and repulsive potentials is not only interesting for determining the two-particle effective potentials, but it is also essential in numerical studies of quantum systems. A high-temperature approximation is obtained for logG (r, r), in the form of simple integrals or series expansions; large-distance expansions are also given.