Formation of Supramolecular Nanostructures through in Situ Self-Assembly and Post-Assembly Modification of a Biocatalytically Constructed Dipeptide Hydrazide**

Aqueous self-assembly of short peptides has attracted growing attention for the construction of supramolecular materials for various bioapplications. Herein, we describe how the thermolysin-assisted biocatalytic construction of a dipeptide hydrazide from an N-protected amino acid and an amino acid hydrazide leads to the formation of thermally stable supramolecular hydrogels. In addition, we demonstrate the post-assembly modification of the supramolecular architectures constructed in situ tethering hydrazide groups as a chemical handle by means of fluorescence imaging.     

D3h‐Symmetric Porphyrin‐Based Rigid Macrocyclic Ligands for Multicofacial Multinuclear Complexes in a One‐Nanometer‐Sized Cavity

The one‐step synthesis of D_3h‐symmetric cyclic porphyrin trimers 1 composed of three 2,2′‐[4,4′‐bis(methoxycarbonyl)]bipyridyl moieties and three porphyrinatozinc moieties was achieved from a nickel‐mediated reductive coupling of meso‐5,15‐bis(6‐chloro‐4‐methoxycarbonylpyrid‐2‐yl)porphyrinatozinc. Although cyclic trimers 1 were obtained as a mixture that included other cyclic and acyclic porphyrin oligomers, an extremely specific separation was observed only for cyclic trimers 1 when using columns of silica gel modified with pyrenylethyl, cyanopropyl, and other groups. Structural analysis of cyclic trimers 1 was carried out by means of NMR spectroscopy and X‐ray crystallography. Treatment of an η³‐allylpalladium complex with a cyclic trimer gave a tris(palladium) complex containing three η³‐allylpalladium groups inside the space, which indicated that the bipyridyl moieties inside the ring could work as bidentate metalloligands.     

Computational Analysis Reveals a Critical Point Mutation in the N-Terminal Region of the Signaling Lymphocytic Activation Molecule Responsible for the Cross-Species Infection with Canine Distemper Virus

Infection of hosts by morbilliviruses is facilitated by the interaction between viral hemagglutinin (H-protein) and the signaling lymphocytic activation molecule (SLAM). Recently, the functional importance of the n-terminal region of human SLAM as a measles virus receptor was demonstrated. However, the functional roles of this region in the infection process by other morbilliviruses and host range determination remain unknown, partly because this region is highly flexible, which has hampered accurate structure determination of this region by X-ray crystallography. In this study, we analyzed the interaction between the H-protein from canine distemper virus (CDV-H) and SLAMs by a computational chemistry approach. Molecular dynamics simulations and fragment molecular orbital analysis demonstrated that the unique His28 in the N-terminal region of SLAM from Macaca is a key determinant that enables the formation of a stable interaction with CDV-H, providing a basis for CDV infection in Macaca. The computational chemistry approach presented should enable the determination of molecular interactions involving regions of proteins that are difficult to predict from crystal structures because of their high flexibility.     

Development of a Millimeter Wave Compact Equipment for NDT of Materials

We developed a compact equipment working at 94 GHz to replace the commonly used network analyzer for nondestructive testing of materials. The compact equipment was designed to measure the variations in the amplitude and phase of the reflected signal from the material relative to a reference signal. A good accuracy of the amplitude and phase measurement of the equipment was obtained in the confirmative experiments. The distribution of a drop of water in a wood plate is clearly visible in the millimeter wave images obtained by the amplitude and phase measurement.     

Coercivity analysis in R17Fe83−χBχ magnets

We studied the coercivity in magnets of composition R₁₇Fe_83−χB_χ (R = Nd, Pr and χ = 8, 30), using measurements of the coercive field H_c, its angular dependence, and the magnetic viscosity coefficient S_v, for temperatures between 4.2 and 500 K. The results are discussed in relation to a model which does not specifically consider the detailed mechanisms involved in magnetization reversal, but which provides information about the magnetic properties in the activation volume v where magnetization reversal is initiated. It is concluded that the ordering temperature in v tends to be slightly smaller than in the bulk and that the room temperature anisotropy in v is not strongly reduced with respect to the bulk value. Finally, a direct evaluation of the dipolar interactions is in good agreement with results obtained from H_c(T).     

A new synthesis of enantiomerically pure α- and β-amino acid derivatives using aziridinyl anions

Optically active sulfinylaziridines having a 4-methoxyphenyl group on their nitrogen atom were synthesized from optically active 1-chloroalkyl p-tolyl sulfoxide and an imine derived from benzaldehyde and p-anisidine stereoselectively in good overall yields. The sulfinylaziridines were treated with ethylmagnesium bromide or tert-butyllithium to afford aziridinylmagnesiums or aziridinyllithiums, respectively, in quantitative yields. Cross-coupling of the aziridinylmagnesiums with iodoalkanes in the presence of Cu(I) iodide gave tri-substituted aziridines in high yields from which enantiomerically pure β,β-disubstituted β-amino acid derivatives were synthesized. A β-amino acid derivative having deuterium at the stereogenic center was also realized by this method. On the other hand, from the aziridinyllithium, enantiomerically pure quaternary phenylalanine and quaternary aspartic acid derivatives were synthesized.     

Limit theorems for the pre-averaged Hayashi–Yoshida estimator with random sampling

We will focus on estimating the integrated covariance of two diffusion processes observed in a nonsynchronous manner. The observation data is contaminated by some noise, which possibly depends on the time and the latent diffusion processes, while the sampling times also possibly depend on the observed processes. In a high-frequency setting, we consider a modified version of the pre-averaged Hayashi–Yoshida estimator, and we show that such a kind of estimator has the consistency and the asymptotic mixed normality, and attains the optimal rate of convergence.