Identification of metabolites of rupestonic acid in rat urine by liquid chromatography combined with electrospray ionization quadrupole time‐of‐flight tandem mass spectrometry

Rupestonic acid, a potential anti‐influenza agent, is an important and characteristic compound in Artemisia rupestris L., a well‐known traditional Uighur medicine for the treatment of colds. In the present study, high‐performance liquid chromatography combined with electrospray ionization quadrupole time‐of‐flight tandem mass spectrometry was used to detect and identify the metabolites in rat urine after oral administration of rupestonic acid. A total of 10 metabolites were identified or partially characterized. The structure elucidations of the metabolites were performed by comparing the changes in accurate molecular masses and fragment ions with those of the parent compound. The results showed that the main metabolites of rupestonic acid in rat urine were formed by oxidation, hydrogenation and glucuronidation. A metabolism pathway was proposed for the first time based on the characterized structures. This metabolism study can provide essential information for drug discovery, design and clinical application of rupestonic acid. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Independent generation of 5-(2'-deoxycytidinyl)methyl radical and the formation of a novel cross-link lesion between 5-methylcytosine and guanine

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) can damage DNA. Although a number of single nucleobase lesions induced by ROS have been structurally characterized, only a few intrastrand cross-link lesions have been identified and characterized, and all of them involve adjacent thymine and guanine or adenine. In mammalian cells, the cytosines at CpG sites are methylated. On the basis of the similar reactivity of 5-methylcytosine and thymine toward hydroxyl radical and the similar orientation of adjacent thymine guanine (TG) and 5-methylcytosine guanine (mCG) in B-DNA, we predict that the cross-link lesion, which was identified in TG and has a covalent bond formed between the 5-methyl carbon atom of T and the C8 carbon atom of G, should also form at mCG site. Here, we report for the first time the independent generation of 5-(2'-deoxycytidinyl)methyl radical, and our results demonstrate that this radical can give rise to the predicted novel intrastrand cross-link lesion in dinucleoside monophosphates d(mCG) and d(GmC). Furthermore, we show that the cross-link lesion can also form in d(mCG) from gamma irradiation under anaerobic conditions.     

气固吸附等温线的研究进展

综述了近些年来在气固吸附理论研究领域对吸附等温线的研究进展。论述了从早期的BDDT的5种类型吸附等温线，到IUPAC的6种类型吸附等温线，再到基于Ono-kondo晶格模型的Gibbs吸附分类的5种类型吸附等温线．讨论了与各种类型吸附等温线类型相对应的吸附机理，并对滞留回环现象进行了解释和分析。     

PREPARATION OF CUO/γ-Al2O3 CATALYSTS FOR CATALYTIC COMBUSTION VOCS VIA PLASMA

CuO/γ-Al2O3 catalysts were prepared by plasma treatment and conventional impregnation methods. The catalytic combustion of two kinds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), toluene and benzene, were carried out over these CuO/γ-Al2O3 catalysts. The surface properties of these catalysts were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The experimental results showed that in catalytic combustion the activity of the CuO/γ-Al2O3 catalyst prepared via plasma was much higher than that of the CuO/γ-Al2O3 catalyst prepared by conventional impregnation method. XRD results showed that an enhanced dispersion had been achieved with the plasma treatment. SEM results indicated that the size became much smaller and the surface became more uniform with the plasma treatment.     

Rheological Properties of Mixed Aqueous Solutions of Geminis (12‐3‐12,2Br−) and SDS

The rheological properties of surfactant solutions are the main parameter that affects the surfactant application. In this work, the rheology of the mixed system 12‐3‐12,2Br^?/SDS/H₂O was discussed particularly. The relationship between the microstructure of surfactant aggregates and rheology of mixed solutions was explored. It is shown that the rheological properties of solutions have different behaviors at different molar ratio of two surfactants under given total concentration. With the increase of molar ratio (12‐3‐12,2Br^?/SDS), the solution change from Newtonian liquid into positive thixotropy then to negative thixotropy, at last turn to positive thixotropy again, and ATPS becomes the dividing line. The difference of rheological properties is the embodiment of difference for surfactant aggregates' microstructures. The cryo‐TEM results shown that the solutions containing aggregates with big size, such as rodlike micelles, multilamellar micelles, show positive thixotropy. However, the solutions containing lamellar micelles or liquid crystal will show negative thixotropy. The positive thixotropy endows the mixied system a potential application in enhanced oil recovery.     

Solvothermal synthesis, cubic structure and multicolor upconversion emission of ultrasmall monodisperse lanthanide-doped BaYF5 nanocrystals

Lanthanide (Ln³⁺) doped BaYF₅ (Ln=Yb³⁺, Er³⁺, Tm³⁺) nanocrystals (NCs) with a mean size of approximately 10 nm are synthesized by a solvothermal method using oleic acid as a stabilizing agent at 210 °C. The size of BaYF₅ NCs can be controlled by simply tuning the reaction parameters such as reaction temperature, reaction time and the molar ratio of F⁻/Y³⁺. The detailed structure investigation reveals that the as-synthesized BaYF₅ NCs are in the cubic structure with space group Fm3¯m instead of the reported tetragonal structure. Ln³⁺ cations occupy crystal lattice positions with lower point symmetry, which may lead to high upconversion efficiency under the excitation of a 980 nm diode laser. By adjusting the dopant concentrations of Yb³⁺, Er³⁺ and Tm³⁺, intense near-infrared, blue, yellow and white upconversion emissions are readily realized, respectively. The desirable property of the ultrasmall monodisperse NCs makes it the promising material for the applications in miniaturized solid-state light sources, multicolor three-dimensional display devices and fluorescent labels for biomedicine imaging.     

A NEW MODEL FOR ESTIMATION OF DIFFUSION COEFFICIENT OF PHENOL DESORPTION WITHIN POLYMERIC RESIN UNDER ULTRASOUND

4 new model, phase equilibrium-kinetics model (PEKM), for estimation of diffusioncoefficient was proposed in this paper. Kinetic experiments of phenol desorption on NKAII resin inthe presence and the absence of ultrasound were separately conducted, and diffusion coefficients ofphenol within an adsorbent particle were estimated by means of proposed PEKM and classicsimplified model. Results show that the use of ultrasound not only changes the phase equilibriumstate of NKAll resin/phenol/water system which had been equilibrium at normal condition, but alsoenhances diffusion of phenol within the resin. The diffusion coefficient of phenol in the resin in thefield of ultrasound increases in an order of magnitude in comparison with the diffusion coefficientdetermined under no ultrasound Experimental results also indicated that the diffusion coefficientsestimated by PEKM were more accurate than that estimated by the classic simplified model.     

Three-dimensional roselike α-Ni(OH)2 assembled from nanosheet building blocks for non-enzymatic glucose detection

Glucose detection plays very important roles in diagnostics and management of diabetes. The search for novel catalytic materials with appropriate architectures is the key step in the fabrication of highly sensitive glucose sensors. In this work, α-Ni(OH)₂ roselike structures (Ni(OH)₂-RS) assembled from nanosheet building blocks were successfully synthesized by a hydrothermal method through the hydrolysis of nickel chloride in the mixed solvents of water and ethanol with the assistance of polyethylene glycol (PEG). The structure and morphology of the roselike α-Ni(OH)₂ were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and N₂ adsorption–desorption isotherm measurement. TEM and FE-SEM images showed that the synthesized Ni(OH)₂ was roselike and the size of the leaf-shaped nanosheet was about 5 nm in thickness, which leads to larger active surface areas and faster electron transfer for the detection of glucose. Compared with the bare GCE and bulk Ni(OH)₂/GCE, the Ni(OH)₂-RS/GCE had higher catalytic activity toward the oxidation of glucose. Under the optimal conditions, the Ni(OH)₂-RS/GCE offers a variety of merits, such as a wide linear response window for glucose concentrations ranging from 0.87 μM to 10.53 mM, short response time (3 s), a lower detection limit of 0.08 μM (S/N = 3), as well as long term stability and repeatability.     

Structural Analysis of Unsaturated Glycosphingolipids Using Shotgun Ozone-Induced Dissociation Mass Spectrometry

Glycosphingolipids are essential biomolecules widely distributed across biological kingdoms yet remain relatively underexplored owing to both compositional and structural complexity. While the glycan head group has been the subject of most studies, there is paucity of reports on the lipid moiety, particularly the location of unsaturation. In this paper, ozone-induced dissociation mass spectrometry (OzID-MS) implemented in a traveling wave-based quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-ToF) mass spectrometer was applied to study unsaturated glycosphingolipids using shotgun approach. Resulting high resolution mass spectra facilitated the unambiguous identification of diagnostic OzID product ions. Using [M+Na]⁺ adducts of authentic standards, we observed that the long chain base and fatty acyl unsaturation had distinct reactivity with ozone. The reactivity of unsaturation in the fatty acyl chain was about 8-fold higher than that in the long chain base, which enables their straightforward differentiation. Influence of the head group, fatty acyl hydroxylation, and length of fatty acyl chain on the oxidative cleavage of double bonds was also observed. Application of this technique to bovine brain galactocerebrosides revealed co-isolated isobaric and regioisomeric species, which otherwise would be incompletely identified using contemporary collision-induced dissociation (CID) alone. These results highlight the potential of OzID-MS in glycosphingolipids research, which not only provides complementary structural information to existing CID technique but also facilitates de novo structural determination of these complex biomolecules.

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Complexity analysis of spatial–temporal precipitation system by PCA and SDLE

In this paper, an ensemble technique combining the principal component analysis (PCA) with scale-dependent Lyapunov exponent (SDLE) is used to characterize complexity of precipitation dynamical system. The spatial–temporal precipitation data is decomposed by employing PCA method and then the SDLE for the first few principal components (PCs) time series are computed. The first few PCs time series are found to exhibit the different scaling laws on different time scales. The study illustrate that the spatial–temporal precipitation data is chaotic and the precipitation system is truly multiscaled and complex.