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Strong Weber posted an update 4 months, 2 weeks ago
Heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) are potential human mutagens and carcinogens mainly generated in heat-treated meat. In this work, a broad-spectrum HAAs antibody was prepared and used to develop an indirect competitive ELISA (ic-ELISA) for simultaneous determination of eight HAAs, including 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline (IQ), 2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f] quinoline (MeIQ), 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (IQx), 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (MeIQx), 2-amino-3,4,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (4,8-DiMeIQx), 2-amino-3,7,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (7,8-DiMeIQx), 2-amino-3,4,7,8-tetramethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (4,7,8-TriMeIQx), and 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP) in grilled and fried meat samples. The limit of detection (LOD, calculated as IC10) and 50% inhibition concentration (IC50) of ic-ELISA were 5.29 μg/L and 99.08 μg/L, respectively. The detection results of this ic-ELISA were in good agreement with the detection results of UPLC-MS/MS in real samples, which indicated that this ic-ELISA can be applied to detect the total content of eight HAAs in heat processed meat. Motolimod Use of a broad-spectrum antibody is an efficient strategy in developing immunoassay for simultaneous measuring food risk factors with similar structure.The chemical reactivity of 1-amino-1-hydrazino-2,2-dinitroethylene with a carboxylic acid for the construction of structurally interesting energetic triazoles and their energetic salts is reported. All new compounds were fully characterized by elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry. Crystal analysis, good detonation properties, and low sensitivities of these trifluoromethyl and dinitro- or trinitro-based triazoles suggest their role as potential candidates for insensitive high-energy-density materials.Three-dimensional cage-shaped molecules formed from chainlike structures hold potential as unique optoelectronic materials and host compounds. Their optical, structural, and dynamical features are tunable by changes in shape and size. We perform a comparison of these properties for three sizes of strained conjugated [n.n.n]carbon nanocages composed of three paraphenylene chains (bridges) of length n = 4, 5, or 6. The exciton intramolecular redistribution occurring during nonradiative relaxation has been explored using nonadiabatic excited-state molecular dynamics. Our results provide atomistic insight into the conformational features associated with the observed red- and blue-shift trends in the absorption and fluorescence spectra, respectively, with increasing nanocage size. Their internal conversion processes involve intramolecular energy transfer that leads to exciton self-trapping on a few phenylene units at the center of a single bridge. The dependence of these dynamical features on the size of the nanocage can be used to tune their host-guest chemical properties and their use for organic electronics and catenane-like applications.We present a supercomputer-driven pipeline for in silico drug discovery using enhanced sampling molecular dynamics (MD) and ensemble docking. Ensemble docking makes use of MD results by docking compound databases into representative protein binding-site conformations, thus taking into account the dynamic properties of the binding sites. We also describe preliminary results obtained for 24 systems involving eight proteins of the proteome of SARS-CoV-2. The MD involves temperature replica exchange enhanced sampling, making use of massively parallel supercomputing to quickly sample the configurational space of protein drug targets. Using the Summit supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, more than 1 ms of enhanced sampling MD can be generated per day. We have ensemble docked repurposing databases to 10 configurations of each of the 24 SARS-CoV-2 systems using AutoDock Vina. Comparison to experiment demonstrates remarkably high hit rates for the top scoring tranches of compounds identified by our ensemble approach. We also demonstrate that, using Autodock-GPU on Summit, it is possible to perform exhaustive docking of one billion compounds in under 24 h. Finally, we discuss preliminary results and planned improvements to the pipeline, including the use of quantum mechanical (QM), machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) methods to cluster MD trajectories and rescore docking poses.A straightforward and selective reduction of nitroarenes with various alcohols was efficiently developed using an iron catalyst via a hydrogen transfer methodology. This protocol led specifically to imines in 30-91% yields, with a good functional group tolerance. Noticeably, starting from o-nitroaniline derivatives, in the presence of alcohols, benzimidazoles can be obtained in 64-72% yields when the reaction was performed with an additional oxidant, DDQ, and quinoxalines were prepared from 1,2-diols in 28-96% yields. This methodology, unprecedented at iron for imines, also provides a sustainable alternative for the preparation of quinoxalines and benzimidazoles.The seeds of the akuamma tree (Picralima nitida) have been used as a traditional treatment for pain and fever. Previous studies have attributed these effects to a series of indole alkaloids found within the seed extracts; however, these pharmacological studies were significantly limited in scope. Herein, an isolation protocol employing pH-zone-refining countercurrent chromatography was developed to provide six of the akuamma alkaloids in high purity and quantities sufficient for more extensive biological evaluation. Five of these alkaloids, akuammine (1), pseudo-akuammigine (3), akuammicine (4), akuammiline (5), and picraline (6), were evaluated against a panel of >40 central nervous system receptors to identify that their primary targets are the opioid receptors. Detailed in vitro investigations revealed 4 to be a potent kappa opioid receptor agonist, and three alkaloids (1-3) were shown to have micromolar activity at the mu opioid receptor. The mu opioid receptor agonists were further evaluated for analgesic properties but demonstrated limited efficacy in assays of thermal nociception.