The concerted addition of HBr to aryl alkynes; orthogonal pi bond selectivity

In a weakly acidic solution, the addition of HBr to 1-phenylprop-1-yne produces predominantly the anti-Markovnikov product. In this paper, we consider five possible explanations for this behavior and conclude that the concerted addition is occurring on the acetylenic pi bond orthogonal to the extended aromatic pi system. The electronic effect of the distal methyl group and the steric hindrance of the coplanar phenyl ring combine to promote bromide attack at the beta carbon. Attack on this pi bond is insensitive to the electronic effect of meta and para substituents on the ring but is very (sterically) sensitive toward all ortho substituents.     

A comparison of the binding of metal complexes to duplex and quadruplex DNA

Electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy were used to compare the binding of mononuclear nickel, ruthenium and platinum complexes to double stranded DNA (dsDNA) and quadruplex DNA (qDNA). CD studies provided evidence for the binding of intact complexes of all three metal ions to qDNA. ESI mass spectra of solutions containing platinum or ruthenium complexes and qDNA showed evidence for the formation of non-covalent complexes consisting of intact metal molecules bound to DNA. However, the corresponding spectra of solutions containing nickel complexes principally contained ions consisting of fragments of the initial nickel molecule bound to qDNA. In contrast ESI mass spectra of solutions containing nickel, ruthenium or platinum complexes and dsDNA only showed the presence of ions attributable to intact metal molecules bound to DNA. The fragmentation observed in mass spectral studies of solutions containing nickel complexes and qDNA is attributable to the lower thermodynamic stability of the former metal complexes relative to those containing platinum or ruthenium, as well as the slightly harsher instrumental conditions required to obtain spectra of qDNA. This conclusion is supported by the results of tandem mass spectral studies, which showed that ions consisting of intact nickel complexes bound to qDNA readily undergo fragmentation by loss of one of the ligands initially bound to the metal. The ESI-MS results also demonstrate that the binding affinity of each of the platinum and ruthenium complexes towards qDNA is significantly less than that towards dsDNA.     

Probing gas adsorption in MOFs using an efficient ab initio widom insertion Monte Carlo method

We propose a novel biased Widom insertion method that can efficiently compute the Henry coefficient, K_H, of gas molecules inside porous materials exhibiting strong adsorption sites by employing purely DFT calculations. This is achieved by partitioning the simulation volume into strongly and weakly adsorbing regions and selectively biasing the Widom insertion moves into the former region. We show that only few thousands of single point energy calculations are necessary to achieve accurate statistics compared to many hundreds of thousands or millions of such calculations in conventional random insertions. The methodology is used to compute the Henry coefficient for CO₂, N₂, CH₄, and C₂H₂ in M‐MOF‐74(M = Zn and Mg), yielding good agreement with published experimental data. Our results demonstrate that the DFT binding energy and the heat of adsorption are not accurate enough indicators to rank the guest adsorption properties at the Henry regime. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cytotoxic,Apoptosis-Inducing Activities,and Molecular Docking of a New Sterol from Bamboo Shoot Skin Phyllostachys heterocycla var. pubescens

Phytochemical screening of nonpolar fractions from the methanol extract of the Bamboo shoot skin Phyllostachys heterocycla var. pubescens resulted in the isolation of a new sterol-glucoside-fatty acid derivative (6’-O-octadeca-8″,11″-dienoyl)-sitosterol-3-O-β-d-glucoside (1), together with six known compounds. The chemical structures of the pure isolated compounds were deduced based on different spectral data. The isolated compounds were assessed to determine their cytotoxic activity, and the results were confirmed by determining their apoptotic activity. Compound 1 was more cytotoxic against the MCF-7 cells (IC₅₀ = 25.8 µM) compared to Fluorouracil (5-FU) (26.98 µM), and it significantly stimulated apoptotic breast cancer cell death with 32.6-fold (16.63% compared to 0.51 for the control) at pre-G1 and G2/M-phase cell cycle arrest and blocked the progression of MCF-7 cells. Additionally, RT-PCR results further confirmed the apoptotic activity of compound 1 by the upregulation of proapoptotic genes (P53; Bax; and caspases 3, 8, and 9) and downregulation of the antiapoptotic genes (BCL2). Finally, the identified compounds, especially 1, were found to have high binding affinity towards both tyrosine-specific protein kinase (TPK) and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR-2) through the molecular docking studies that highlight its mode of action.     

Metabolic mapping of Schisandra chinensis lignans and their metabolites in rats using a metabolomic approach based on HPLC with quadrupole time‐of‐flight MS/MS spectrometry

Schisandra chinensis lignans are the main active components of the traditional Chinese medicine Schisandra chinensis in East Asia. At present, there are more and more medicines and health foods in which the total S. chinensis lignans extracts are considered as the main active components, but little research has been done on the active components of S. chinensis lignans in the blood and main target organs. In this study, the components of S. chinensis lignans in the blood, liver and brain tissues of rats at different time points after the intragastrical administration of S. chinensis lignans were determined by a metabolomic method based on high‐performance liquid chromatography with quadrupole time‐of‐flight tandem mass spectrometry spectrometry. Twelve Schisandra chinensis lignans and 15 metabolites in the blood, liver, and brain of rats were identified. The results showed that the main metabolic ways of S. chinensis lignans in rats were hydroxylation, demethylation, and demethylation‐hydroxylation, and some of them might undergo demethylation, dehydrogenation, epoxidation, and elimination reaction. The time‐dose characteristics of S. chinensis lignans and their metabolites in the blood and target organs were analyzed, which may be helpful to elucidate the active substances that really exert the pharmacodynamic effects of S. chinensis lignans in organisms.     

Determination of lawsone in henna powders by high performance thin layer chromatography

The lawsone content has been evaluated quantitatively in eight commercial henna powders and two collected henna leaves. The phenolic, chloroform-soluble fraction of the majority of the examined samples showed the presence of lawsone and two other pigments. Here we aimed to optimize high performance thin layer chromatography for the determination of lawsone. Upon using the optimized method the examined samples showed considerable variation in lawsone concentration ranging from 0.004 up to 0.608 wt%, indicating that some samples were almost devoid of lawsone. Some of these products were subjected to preliminary in vivo toxicity studies.     

Didemnaketals D and E,bioactive terpenoids from a Red Sea ascidian Didemnum species

Two new spiroketals, didemnaketals D (1) and E (2) were isolated from a marine ascidian species belonging to the genus Didemnum. The structures of the compounds were elucidated by extensive 1D (¹H, ¹³C, and DEPT) and 2D (COSY, TOCSY, HSQC, HMBC, NOESY, and ROESY) NMR studies and high-resolution mass spectroscopic data. The new didemnaketals differ from the reported ones in which that they lack the methyl functionality at C-6 and the hydroxy moiety at C-21. Instead, they possess an ester moiety at C-6 in addition to new oxygen functionality at C-20 of the didemnaketals. Compounds 1 and 2 were evaluated for their protein kinase inhibitory activity against different kinases (CDK5, CK1, DyrK1A, and GSK3) at 10 μg/mL. Compounds 1 and 2 showed moderate activity against these kinases. In addition, the compounds displayed moderate antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis, respectively.