Simultaneous determination of thymidylate and thymidine diphosphate by capillary electrophoresis as a rapid monitoring tool for thymidine kinase and thymidylate kinase activities

A simple and rapid capillary electrophoretic method was developed for the simultaneous determination of thymidylate (TMP) and thymidine 5'-diphosphate (TDP) in enzyme assays without using radioactive-labeled substrates. Prior to electrophoretic separation, addition of acetonitrile and sodium chloride to the assay solution and brief centrifugation are recommended for the purpose of sample cleanup and sample stacking. The separation of micromolar TMP and TDP from millimolar adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) was performed at 25 degrees C using sodium tetraborate as the background electrolyte. Under the optimal condition, a good separation with high efficiency was achieved in 6 min. Several parameters affecting the separation were studied, including the pH of electrolyte, the applied voltage, and acetonitrile-salt sample stacking. The fronting of the ATP peak resulting from the interference of magnesium ion in the enzyme assay buffer was suppressed by the addition of sodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate to the sample solution. Using deoxyadenylate as an internal standard, the linear range of the method was 5-200 microM, and the concentration limits of detection of TMP and TDP were 2.6 and 3.8 microM, respectively. Application of the proposed method for simultaneous determination of TMP and TDP in enzyme assays was demonstrated by the activity assays of thymidine kinase and thymidylate kinase from white spot syndrome virus. This is a sensitive, nonradioactive method for thymidine kinase and thymidylate kinase assays.     

Nonequilibrium solid phase formation studied by lattice dynamics calculation and ion beam mixing in an immiscible Co-Ag system

For the equilibrium immiscible Co-Ag system, a proven realistic ab initio derived n-body potential is applied to study the nonequilibrium solid phase formation at three chemical stoichiometries of Co/Ag = 1:3, 1:1, and 3:1. To predict the structural stability, the elastic constants and the phonon spectra are calculated at the chosen stoichiometries with a total of eight hypothetical crystalline structures. The calculated results suggest that four compounds, that is, D0(3) CoAg3, B1 CoAg, B2 CoAg, and D0(3) Co3Ag, are unstable, as they all feature negative elastic constants as well as imaginary phonons, and that another four compounds of both fcc-type L1(2) and hcp-type D0(19) structures at chemical stoichiometries of Co/Ag = 1:3 and 3:1, respectively, may elastically be favored and therefore obtainable under some specific conditions. It is also found that all the calculated elastic constants and phonon spectra are coincident within the framework of the elastic theory. Moreover, the calculated elastic constants are in good agreement with those acquired directly from ab initio calculations, lending support to the validity of the ab initio derived n-body Co-Ag potential as well as its resultant elastic constants and the phonon spectra. Interestingly, some of the predicted nonequilibrium solid phases, that is, two hcp-type compounds at chemical stoichiometries of Co/Ag = 1:3 and 3:1, respectively, are indeed obtained in ion beam mixing experiments and their lattice constants determined by diffraction analysis are in good agreement with those from calculations.     

New fluorescent probes for the detection of mixed sodium and potassium metal ions

A new fluorescent probe 2 is developed that is capable of measuring the concentration of a mixture of sodium and potassium ions in the solution. This probe contains a fluorophore that is utilized in two ways depending on the pH of the solution.     

Preparation and electrochemistry of azobenzene self-assembled monolayers on gold--long range tunneling and end-group hydrogen bonding effect

A series of thiol-functionalied azobenzene derivatives (RAzoCnSH: R=H for n=3-6, abbreviated as AzoCnSH; R=CH(3)CONH for n=4, abbreviated as aaAzoC4SH) on gold electrodes were prepared and their self-assembly and electrochemical properties were studied by cyclic voltammetry. They all formed uniform and reproducible self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold and showed well-behaved voltammetric responses in aqueous solution. Both the length of the alkyl chain spacer and the H-bonding of the end acetamino group had effects on the stability and the electrochemical kinetics of the SAMs, and the effect of the H-bonding was dominant. The surface coverage of the SAMs (AzoCnSH) is gradually increased with an increase of the alkyl chain spacer length, whereas the presence of the terminal acetamino group leads to a greater increase of the surface coverage. At a low scan rate, voltammetric responses corresponding to an irreversible two-electron, two-proton reduction/oxidation of the trans-azobenzene redox center were obtained in the range of +300 mV and -800 mV, which exhibited very large peak-to-peak splitting. At a high scan rate of 500 mV/s, two steps of reversible one-electron, one-proton reduction/oxidation corresponding to the cis-isomer in azobenzene-thiol SAMs (n is odd) was clearly observed between +300 and -200 mV. The apparent electron-transfer rate is decreased with increasing distance between the azobenzene redox center and the gold electrode. The existence of the end acetamino group which restricted the conformational change during the redox process also led to a decrease of the standard rate constant, and this restriction effect is more predominant than the distance effect.     

Capillary isoelectric focusing-mass spectrometry for shotgun approach in proteomics

We report on capillary isoelectric focusing-mass spectrometry (CIEF-MS) of complex peptide mixtures in the absence of carrier ampholytes. Furthermore, the use of low concentrations of carrier ampholytes as mere spacers is investigated. Carrier ampholytes are complex mixtures of amphoteric compounds with high buffering capacity. Since all peptides are amphoteric compounds by themselves, the use of carrier ampholytes may be superfluous to establish a stable pH gradient in CIEF analysis of protein digests. Our research showed that when carrier ampholytes are omitted, the analyte ions are not focused at their isoelectric point. The analytes are charged, leading to electrophoretic mobility uncharacteristic for CIEF. The method was tested for a five-protein-mixture at 0.02 mg/mL per protein and 0.05 mg/mL per protein. At the lower concentration, the analytes were stacked during the focusing process in only a limited length of the capillary. Therefore, the higher concentration led to better separation efficiency. It was found that at low concentration (0.20%) the carrier ampholytes could work as spacers. Though it led to sensitivity losses of 15-45%, this was compensated by the higher separation efficiencies seen. The method was evaluated with an eight-protein-mixture, of which all could be identified after performing MS/MS.