Shear-flow-based chromatographic separations as an alternative to pressure-driven liquid chromatography

It is only by developing specially designed injection and detection systems that shear-driven chromatography can become a viable alternative to HPLC. In the present paper, a dedicated zero dead-volume injection procedure is presented with which sample volumes can be injected reproducibly in the required picoliter range. In addition, a transversal detection groove system is designed which should allow to perform on-line UV-VIS absorption measurements with path lengths in the millimeter range, with an acceptable theoretical plate loss (only 20% in a 5 cm long channel) and acting as a nearly perfect wave guide.     

Development and validation of a glass-silicon microdroplet-based system to measure sulfite concentrations in beverages

Sulfite is often added to beverages as an antioxidant and antimicrobial agent. In fermented beverages, sulfite is also naturally produced by yeast cells. However, sulfite causes adverse health effects in asthmatic patients and accurate measurement of the sulfite concentration is therefore very important. Current sulfite analysis methods are time- and reagent-consuming and often require costly equipment. Here, we present a system allowing sensitive, ultralow-volume sulfite measurements based on a reusable glass-silicon microdroplet platform on which microdroplet generation, addition of enzymes through chemical-induced emulsion destabilization and pillar-induced droplet merging, emulsion restabilization, droplet incubation, and fluorescence measurements are integrated. In a first step, we developed and verified a fluorescence-based enzymatic assay for sulfite by measuring its analytical performance (LOD, LOQ, the dynamic working range, and the influence of salts, colorant, and sugars) and comparing fluorescent microplate readouts of fermentation samples with standard colorimetric measurements using the 5,5′-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) assay of the standard Gallery Plus Beermaster analysis platform. Next, samples were analyzed on the microdroplet platform, which also showed good correlation with the standard colorimetric analysis. Although the presented platform does not allow stable reinjection of droplets due to the presence of a tight array of micropillars at the fluidics entrances to prevent channel clogging by dust, removing the pillars, and integrating miniaturized pumps and optics in a future design would allow to use this platform for high-throughput, automated, and portable screening of microbes, plant, or mammalian cells.

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IDENTIFICATION OF A LUMAZINE PROTEIN FROM PHOTOBACTERIUM LEIOGNATHI BY COHERENT ANTI-STOKES RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY

The vibrational fingerprint in the frequency region 1700-1100 cm^-1 has been obtained for a fluorescent protein purified from the bioluminescent bacterium Photobacterium leiognathi. using the technique of resonance coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering. The frequencies of the 4 prominent modes are the same as for lumazine protein purified from Photobacterium phosphoreum , and for an authentic sample of 6,7-dimethyl-8-ribityllumazine. The fluorophore in the new protein, therefore, must have the same chemical structure. The absence of frequency shifts between the free and bound ligand, in contrast to observations of fiavoproteins, implies that the lumazine ring undergoes no changes in hydrogen bonding between the free and protein-bound ligand in its ground electronic state. However, changes in relative intensities of two modes are seen, arising from differences in interactions in the excited state, and this is also reflected by differences in fluorescence properties.     

The Oxidation of Thiols by Flavoprotein Oxidases: a Biocatalytic Route to Reactive Thiocarbonyls

Flavoprotein oxidases are a diverse class of biocatalysts, most of which catalyze the oxidation of C? O, C? N, or C? C bonds. Flavoprotein oxidases that are known to catalyze the oxidation of C? S bonds are rare, being limited to enzymes that catalyze the oxidative cleavage of thioethers. Herein, we report that various flavoprotein oxidases, previously thought to solely act on alcohols, also catalyze the oxidation of thiols to thiocarbonyls. These results highlight the versatility of enzymatic catalysis and provide a potential biocatalytic route to reactive thiocarbonyl compounds, which have a variety of applications in synthetic organic chemistry.     

Histone deacetylase inhibitors as a tool to up-regulate new fungal biosynthetic products: isolation of EGM-556, a cyclodepsipeptide, from Microascus sp

The histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) was used to turn on the biosynthesis of EGM-556, a new cyclodepsipeptide of hybrid biosynthetic origin, isolated from the Floridian marine sediment-derived fungus Microascus sp. The absolute configurations of three chiral centers were determined by Marfey's derivatization. EGM-556 represents one of the few examples in which silent biosynthetic genes, encoding a new secondary metabolite, were activated by means of epigenetic manipulation of the fungal metabolome.