Uptake of weathered p,p′-DDE by plant species effective at accumulating soil elements

Ten plant species previously shown to accumulate inorganic elements effectively from natural solids were grown under field conditions in p,p′-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane (p,p′-DDE) contaminated soil. The plant species, which included rye, mustard, canola, vetch, pigeonpea, clover, peanut, and 3 cultivars of white lupin, represented both monocots and dicots, as well as two major families within the dicots: the Brassicaceae and the Fabaceae. The plants varied widely in their ability to phytoextract and translocate weathered p,p′-DDE. The percentage of contaminant phytoextracted ranged from 0.06% (white lupin) to 0.22% (clover, vetch), and the translocation factors (TF; contaminant concentration ratio of stems to roots) ranged from 0.04 (clover, white lupin) to 0.37 (canola). An inverse relationship exists between the amount of contaminant in the roots as measured by the root BCF (bioconcentration factor; dry weight contaminant concentration ratio of root to soil) and the TF. Duplicate mounds of each species were periodically amended with nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), nitrogen and phosphorus together (N/P); a minus phosphorus treatment involved the addition of AlSO₄ to the soil prior to planting. The effect of nutrient regime on plant biomass, p,p′-DDE uptake and translocation, and inorganic element content varied greatly among the 10 plant species. For some species (rye, vetch, pigeonpea, clover, white lupin), reductions or non-significant changes in p,p′-DDE uptake were observed under the nutrient treatments and were not correlated with plant biomass effects. For mustard, canola, and peanut, the percentage of p,p′-DDE phytoextracted in the various treatments was more than doubled and was directly correlated with a two-fold increase in total plant biomass. Although it is generally assumed that fertilizer amendments will enhance the phytoremediation of organic and inorganic pollutants, the data here suggest that such effects are highly species specific and in some cases may actually decrease remediation potential.     

Intelligence Way from Eco-friendly Synthesis Strategy of New Heterocyclic Pyrazolic Carboxylic α-Amino Esters

The α-amino acid derivatives constitute a class of compounds of particular medicinal and synthetic attention and considerable interest has been devoted to their synthesis in recent years. In the present work, we develop the computational study of the synthesis reaction of new pyrazolyl α-amino esters derivatives using the Gaussian 09 based on the DFT/B3LYP density functional theory method, with the base 6-31G(d, p) to ensure the possibility of carrying out these reactions within the laboratory of synthesis. Indeed, this research has encouraged us to establish an economical synthesis strategy of these products in overall yields of 73.5% to 87% to have access to new active biomolecule through the O-alkylation reaction between methyl α-azidoglycinate N-benzoylated and primary pyrazole alcohols[(3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methanol, (1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methanol and (3-ethoxy-5-methyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)methanol] under different operating conditions. The structure of the prepared heterocyclic systems was characterized by conventional spectroscopic techniques, like ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, and MS. The results revealed that the experimental study is in good correlation with the computational one.     

A novel antimicrobial flavonoidic glycoside from the leaves of Alstonia macrophylla Wall ex A. DC (Apocynaceae)

<正>A new flavonoidic glycoside,tricin-4'-O-β-L-arabinoside(1) was isolated from the leaves of Alstonia macrophylla along with two known flavonoids,vitexin and myricetin-3′-rhamnoside-3-O-galactoside.Their structures were established by chemical and spectral evidences.The known compounds were reported for the first time from this plant.Moreover compound 1 was tested for antifungal and antibacterial activities.     

GC–MS characterisation and antibacterial activity evaluation of Nigella sativa oil against diverse strains of Salmonella

Salmonella resistance is becoming a worldwide serious health issue in these days; therefore, it is an urgent need to develop some alternative approaches to overcome this problem. Twenty bacterial strains were isolated and purified from different environmental sources and confirmed as Salmonella by morphological and biochemical analyses. Further confirmation was done by 16s rRNA sequencing. Antibiotic susceptibility test was performed by well diffusion assay against different concentrations of Ceftriaxone and Ciprofloxacin. The behaviour of both antibiotics was different against diverse strains of Salmonella. Salmonella strains resistant to both antibiotics were analysed for antibacterial activity of natural extracts of Nigella sativa (black seeds). N. sativa oil was found to be more effective against Salmonella species for which even Ceftriaxone and Ciprofloxacin were ineffective. Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis of N. sativa oil was also accomplished, exhibiting 10 compounds including thymoquinone, p-cymene, cis-carveol, thymol, α-phellandrene, α-pinene, β-pinene, trans-anethole, α-longipinene and longifolene.     

Inner membrane lipids of Escherichia coli form domains

In prokaryotic cells, the hypothesis of the existence of lipid domains was considered. In order to test this hypothesis and study the organization of lipids in the inner membrane of Escherichia coli, we elaborated Langmuir films mimicking the inner leaflet of this membrane by considering lipids extracted from the inner membrane of E coli by Folch protocol.

Lipid monolayers were elaborated by using these extracts (Langmuir technique); the organization of the resulting films was studied at the air–water interface by Brewster angle microscopy and after transfer onto muscovite by atomic force microscopy. The existence of domains was demonstrated for different interfacial pressures of biological interest, and their stability was studied.     

Multilevel Deep Feature Generation Framework for Automated Detection of Retinal Abnormalities Using OCT Images

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images coupled with many learning techniques have been developed to diagnose retinal disorders. This work aims to develop a novel framework for extracting deep features from 18 pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNN) and to attain high performance using OCT images. In this work, we have developed a new framework for automated detection of retinal disorders using transfer learning. This model consists of three phases: deep fused and multilevel feature extraction, using 18 pre-trained networks and tent maximal pooling, feature selection with ReliefF, and classification using the optimized classifier. The novelty of this proposed framework is the feature generation using widely used CNNs and to select the most suitable features for classification. The extracted features using our proposed intelligent feature extractor are fed to iterative ReliefF (IRF) to automatically select the best feature vector. The quadratic support vector machine (QSVM) is utilized as a classifier in this work. We have developed our model using two public OCT image datasets, and they are named database 1 (DB1) and database 2 (DB2). The proposed framework can attain 97.40% and 100% classification accuracies using the two OCT datasets, DB1 and DB2, respectively. These results illustrate the success of our model.     

PYRIDINATION OF POLY（VINYL CHLORIDE） via A HOMOLYTIC PATHWAY

PVC was subjected to a chemical modification aiming at replacing the chlorine atoms by pyridine groups via a homolytic route. Pyridine groups were peculiarly affixed to the PVC matrix via a carbon-carbon bond rather than a carbon-nitrogen one. PVC was first iodinated using the Conant-Finkelstein reaction, followed by the application of the homolytic conditions of Minisci to generate pyridinated PVC with a varying degree of substitution. The extent of substitution was not high; the reaction on 30% iodinated PVC afforded a degree of modification no greater than 3%.     

Identification of alpha-galactosyl epitope mimetics through rapid generation and screening of C-linked glycopeptide library

A general methodology has been established for rapid generation and screening of combinatorial glycopeptide library and subsequent mass spectrometric sequencing to identify the mimetics of Galalpha(1,3)Gal epitopes. Using this approach, several active glycopeptide sequences were recognized and found to inhibit the binding of human natural anti-Gal antibodies with comparable IC(50)s to synthetic Galalpha(1,3)Gal oligosaccharides. The most active glycopeptides detected from the library included Gal-Tyr-Trp-Arg-Tyr, Gal-Thr-Trp-Arg-Tyr, and Gal-Arg-Trp-Arg-Tyr. These glycopeptides showed higher affinities to anti-Gal antibodies than known Galalpha(1,3)Gal peptide mimetics, such as DAHWESWL and SSLRGF. Our results suggest that, by combining a peptide sequence (the "functional" mimic part) with a terminal alpha-linked galactose moiety (the "structural" mimic part), the resulting glycopeptide could be a very good Galalpha(1,3)Gal mimetic. Analysis of these active glycopeptides provided first-hand information regarding the binding site of anti-Gal antibodies to facilitate the structurally based design of more potent and stable inhibitors.     

Iron salts catalyzed synthesis of β-N-substituted aminoacrylates

The direct condensation of amines with β-ketoesters to produce functional enamine derivatives has been investigated with iron Lewis acid catalysts. FeCl₃·6H₂O shows good catalytic activity and makes possible the chemo- and stereoselective formations of (Z)-enamine derivatives from aliphatic and aromatic primary amines under mild conditions.