Electrical Conductance Studies in Aqueous Solutions with Ascorbate Ions

Conductivity measurements in dilute aqueous solutions of L-ascorbic acid, sodium-L-ascorbate, magnesium-L-ascorbate, calcium-L-ascorbate and ferrous-L-ascorbate were performed in the (288.15 to 323.15) K temperature range. The limiting molar conductances of the ascorbic anion, λ^∘(HAsc⁻, T), and the dissociation constants of ascorbic acid, K(T), were derived by the use of the Debye-Hückel equation for the activity coefficients and the Onsager and Quint and Viallard conductivity equations.     

Study of Autoxidation of Ascorbic Acid in Acetonitrile by Electronic Absorption Spectra

The autoxidation of vitamin C has been studied in acetonitrile by electronic spectroscopy. Some interesting data on the role of acetonitrile in autoxidation have been obtained, perhaps for the first time. A parallelism between hydroxyl ions and CH₂CN⁻, the ions from the self-ionization of acetonitrile, has been established. The CH₂CN⁻ anion is similar to hydroxyl anions in initiating and propagating the decomposition of ascorbic acid, at least in this system. The intermediates involved in the overall reaction in nonaqueous media have been identified by simple means.__________Published in Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 72, No. 2, pp. 274–276, March–April, 2005.     

Probing the Conformational Stability of Two Different Copper Proteins: A Dynamic Fluorescence Study on Azurin and Ascorbate Oxidase

Tryptophan fluorescence is extremely useful to monitor structural conformational transitions in proteins. Denaturant-induced unfolding of azurin and ascorbate oxidase has been studied by dynamic fluorescence measurements in the frequency domain and the results have been interpreted in terms of continuous distribution of lifetimes. The data add new information on the unfolding mechanism that was previously analyzed by steady-state emission spectroscopy. In particular, the existence of multiple, parallel unfolding pathways may be envisaged and correlated, in both cases, to the two protein structures. The effect of metal depletion has been also characterized by fluorescence lifetime measurements. In the case of azurin, a monomeric protein, the data demonstrate that copper removal yields a totally different unfolding pathways with respect to the holo protein, indicating that metal ion plays a fundamental structural role in the wild type, native protein. In the case of ascorbate oxidase a dimer of 140 kDa, only minor effects have been detected by copper removal. However, the analysis of the fluorescence decay in presence of different amounts of guanidinium hydrochloride gives new important insights on the unfolding intermediates. In particular the data support the hypothesis of a partial exposure of an outer layer of dimer at intermediate denaturant concentration. This ability of dynamic fluorescence to pinpoint the presence of structural micro-heterogeneity in the unfolding pathways of proteins demonstrates the greater power of this technique compared to the most commonly used steady-state measurements.     

Measurement of Total Antioxidant Capacity by Electrogenerated Iodine at Disposable Screen Printed Electrodes

Total antioxidant capacity is an important parameter for the evaluation of the oxidative status in different kinds of biological samples such as plant extracts, or in food industry. We report a fast, easy, portable, cost‐effective electroanalytical method to measure total antioxidant capacity, based on the reaction of natural antioxidants with electrogenerated iodine using disposable platinum screen‐printed electrodes. This reaction can be measured by the increment of the electrochemical current signal of iodide oxidation to iodine during a voltammetric cycle. Iodine reacts with reducing compounds such as glutathione, ascorbate, gallic acid and NADH without interference of the corresponding oxidized counter‐parts. The addition of ascorbate oxidase also allows the concentration of ascorbate to be determined. The method was tested with real samples of plant extracts and the results correlated well with those obtained with a standard spectrophotometric method.     

Investigation of L(+)-Ascorbic acid with Raman spectroscopy in visible and UV light

Abstract: Raman spectroscopy investigations of l(+)-ascorbic acid and its mono- and di-deprotonated anions (AH^? and A^2?) are reviewed and new measurements reported with several wavelengths, 229, 244, 266, 488, and 532 nm. Results are interpreted, assisted by new DFT/B3LYP quantum chemical calculations with 6-311++G(d,p) basis sets for several conformations of ascorbic acid and the anions. Raman spectra were measured during titration with NaOH base in an oxygen-poor environment to avoid fluorescence when solutions were alkaline. The ultraviolet (UV) absorption band for ascorbic acid in aqueous solution at ～247 nm was found to cause strong resonance enhancement for the ring C?C stretching mode (called B) at ～1692 cm^?1. The ascorbate mono-anion absorbs at ～264.8 nm giving Raman resonance enhancement for the same ring C–C bond stretching, downshifted to ～1591 cm^?1. Finally, for the ascorbate di-anion, absorption was found at ～298.4 nm with molar absorptivity of ～7,000 L mol^?1 cm^?1 and below ～220 nm. With UV light (244 and 266 nm), strongly basic solutions gave pronounced Raman resonance enhancement at ～1556 cm^?1. Relatively weak preresonance enhancement was seen for A^2? when excitation was done with 229 nm UV light, allowing water bands to become observable as for normal visible light Raman spectra.     

抗坏血酸钛对鱼类、贝类及无尾两栖类的毒性研究

抗坏血酸钛对鲢鱼、草鱼、金鱼及泥鳅的毒性都很低,其96h TLm值为1736～10930mg/l。（敏感性顺序:鲢鱼>草鱼>金鱼>泥鳅）抗坏血酸钛对湖螺的48h TLm值与对蟾蜍蝌蚪的96hTLm值分别为12847.2与1886.5mg/l。经皮下注射,抗坏血酸钛对中华大蟾蜍的LD50为2.87g/kg。微核试验表明,钛试     

抗坏血酸稀土对鱼类的急性毒性试验

本试验对抗坏血酸稀土对鱼类的急性毒性进行了研究。结果表明:抗坏血酸稀土对鲢鱼、草鱼、金鱼和泥鳅的96hrTLm值为50.14～495.27mg/l。根据鱼类急性毒性毒物的分级暂定标准,抗坏血酸稀土对鱼类属低毒物质。     

Activity-Based Sensing of Ascorbate by Using Copper-Mediated Oxidative Bond Cleavage

Ascorbate is an important biological reductant and enzyme cofactor. Although direct detection through ascorbate-mediated reduction is possible, this approach suffers from poor selectivity due to the wide range of cellular reducing agents. To overcome this limitation, we leverage reduction potential of ascorbate to mediate a copper-mediated oxidative bond cleavage of ether-caged fluorophores. The copper(II) complexes supported by a {bis(2-pyridylmethyl)}benzylamine or a {bis(2-pyridylmethyl)}(2-methoxybenzyl)amine ligand were identified as an ascorbate responsive unit and their reaction with ascorbate yields a copper-based oxidant that enables rapid benzylic oxidation and the release of an ether-caged dye (coumarin or fluorescein). The copper-mediated bond cleavage is specific to ascorbate and the trigger can be readily derivatized for tuning photophysical properties of the probes. The probes were successfully applied for the fluorometric detection of ascorbate in commercial food samples, human plasma, and serum, and within live cells by using confocal microscopy and flow cytometry.