One post-transcriptional mechanism that regulates the progression of cancer and other diseases involves small 22-23 nucleotide sequences called microRNA (miR). Early detection of small changes in concentration of these biomarkers holds potential to diagnose diseases at their earliest stages. Use of current nucleic-acid based biosensors, like molecular beacons, for in...
An asymmetric approach to the synthesis of byssochlamic acid (1) is
described. Regioisomeric enzymatic differentiation is described in the selective
hydrolysis of dimethyl ester 30 by porcine liver esterase. Chiral dimethyl ester 42
was prepared by desymmetrization of cyclopentene 34 using porcine liver
esterase. A key intramolecular [2+2]cycloaddition-cycloreversion
photometathesis of...
Public attention and concern about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are increasing due to detection of PFASs in drinking water supplies, the environment, including remote locations, and wildlife and to the lowering of the federal health advisory levels of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) in drinking water. Aqueous film-forming...
Structure-property relationships have always underpinned the field of solid state chemistry; dependable structural descriptions are integral to understanding and controlling the physical properties of inorganic compounds old and new. While a handful of crystal structures are celebrated for their versatility, flexibility, and functionality, the existence of more exotic structures is...
This study identified new compounds with pest control activities. The two sources of candidates that were followed here were the main heartwood extract of Alaska Yellow Cedar (AYC) constituents and several semi-synthetic counterparts. Five compounds were isolated and identified for the first time in AYC heartwood in this research: two...
Fungi have long been a prolific source of clinically approved drugs. The antibiotic penicillin, the cholesterol lowering statins, and the immunosuppressant cyclosporine have changed the treatment of human diseases in the last century. Recently, genome analysis of filamentous fungi has revealed that the biosynthetic potential for natural product expression is...
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Sandra Loesgen
Fungi have long been a prolific source of clinically approved drugs. The
Oxo-hydroxo Group 5 metal clusters are an untapped resource to study and advance aqueous solution processing of metal oxide thin films. The tetramethylammonium (TMA) hexatantalate salt (TMA6[H2Ta6O19]) yields dense Ta2O5 films (~95% of the bulk ß-Ta2O5 density) with atomically smooth surfaces (<4 Å root mean square surface roughness). This same...
2,5-dihydroxyacetanilide epoxidase from Streptomyces LL-C10037 (DHAE I)
catalyzes the epoxidation of hydroquinone 4, to form epoxyquinone 7. DHAE I has been
purified to homogeneity, with an overall purification factor greater than 23,000. N-terminal
and internal amino acid sequences have been obtained from the purified enzyme so
that the epoxidase gene...
With the rise of resistant bacterial pathogens, currently prescribed antibiotics are rendered useless. In recent years, marine natural products (MNPs) have emerged as novel sources for drug leads. The ocean is a complex environment where marine animals cohabitate with many, and sometimes harmful microorganisms and viruses, but resist infections. Developed...
Previous investigations of the biosynthesis of sterols by the
arterial wall have shown that the intact aorta is capable of low level
incorporation of labeled precursor into a sterol digitonide. The biosynthesis
of sterols and related lipids by a cell-free preparation of
bovine aorta was investigated in the present study....
Complex organic transformations, such as the addition of pyrrole to ketene using planar chiral organocatalyst (*PPY), the four-component anhydride- Manniach reactions, and the site-selective desymmetrization of meso-1,2-diol, are remarkable synthetic reactions that provide high yield and high selectivity. However, the exact mechanism and origins of stereocontrol for theses synthetic organic...
The ethyl acetate extract of the culture filtrate of the marine Ascomycete,
Leptosphaeria oraemaris (Linder) yielded a novel metabolite
designated by the common name leptosphaerin. An x-ray crystallographic
structure analysis was disproved by the synthesis of 3-acetoxy-S-(1,2-dihydroxyethyl)-
3-pyrrolin-2-one 1, starting with N,N-dibenzylhydroxylamine
47 and D-mannitol 44. Oxidation of 47 followed...
Fluorescence has proven to be a robust and powerful method of analysis in numerous fields: forensics, pharmaceutics, geology, food science, and environmental sciences have all developed a large collection of fluorescence instruments and methods to overcome application-specific challenges. Biological applications saw the same development of a fluorescence toolkit with methods...
An improved procedure for the preparation of β-(3-cyclohexenyl) propionic acid from 4-vinylcyclohexene was developed. The
Friedel-Crafts cyclization of β-(3-(3-cyclohexenyl) propionyl chloride
with aluminum chloride was shown to give one bicyclic chlorine
containing ketone in 41% yield. This ketone was identified by a combination of spectral and chemical methods as a...
Part 1
The pyrolysis of cis-1-trimethylsiloxy-1-cyclopr opyl-3-cyclononene in the temperature range 285-350° is described. Instead
of siloxy-Cope rearrangement, undesired desiloxylation took place.
Part 2
Gas-phase pyrolytic rearrangement of 2-phenyl-1-trimethylsiloxy-1-vinylcyclononane was investigated in a static system
in the temperature range 213-330°. It was discovered that
three major products resulted: cis- and...
PART I. Asymmetric syntheses of both natural (+)- and nonnatural (-)-byssochlamic acid via a [2+2] photoaddition-cycloreversion strategy are described. X-ray crystallographic analysis of the cyclohexylamine salt 99 showed that the structure of the monomethyl ester 100 from esterase hydrolysis of 44 was originally misassigned as 56. The enantiomeric relationship of...
Solid-state amorphous materials show amazing promise in thin-film electronics. The interface-to-bulk ratio of thin films makes interfacial chemistries of these systems of utmost importance. Thin films of amorphous metals, dielectrics and semiconductors have novel chemistries that are not only based upon their elemental constituent makeup, but also based upon the...
A total synthesis of the fungal hormones, trisporic acids A and B, is described, starting from a -methyltetronic acid 34. A Robinson annelation of 34 with ethyl vinyl ketone affords the lactone 33. Treatment of 33 with N-bromosuccinimide gave 97, which was hydrolyzed to the lactol 103. The reaction of...
The relative rates of bridgehead hydrogen abstraction from a
series of 1-substituted adamantanes by the trichloromethyl radical
at 40.0°C. has been carried out. Utilizing the Hammett-Taft equation
a p* value of -0.40 was obtained for this reaction. Application
of the Kirkwood-Westheimer model for the transmission of substituent
effects gave an...
A facile route to bicyclo(2.1.1)hexanes was developed involving
the intramolecular photocyclization of 1, 5-hexadien-3-one to
bicyclo(2.1.1)hexan-2-one. A study of the chemistry of bicyclo-(2.1.1)hexan-2-one was undertaken. Deuterium exchange and borohydride
reduction demonstrated the strain present in the ketone.
Further evidence was obtained from the failure to introduce substituents
alpha to the...
Six polycyclic aliphatic hydrocarbons were reacted with the
trichloromethyl radical photolytically generated from bromotrichloromethane
at 40°. Relative rates of reaction were correlated
with a computer analysis of the change in strain energy in going
from the ground state to the intermediate. A good correlation between
the log of the relative...
Pseudomonas fluorescens NZI7 was first isolated from a New Zealand mushroom farm in 2001. This Gram-negative bacteria can cause brown blotch disease in the basidiomycete mushroom Agaricus bisporus. P. fluorescens NZI7 can also repel grazing by the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a natural predator of P. fluorescens NZI7. Potentially implicated in...
This thesis is separated into three distinct projects. First, synthetic studies towards the furanosteroid viridin shown in part I. Second, synthetic studies towards the diperene obtusanal shown in part II. Third, the analysis, characterization, and synthesis of coronene derivatives towards their application in organic batteries shown in part III. Significant...
Both oxy-Cope and siloxy-Cope rearrangements involve
(1, 3) and (3, 3) sigrnatropic shifts. Both the concerted mechanism,
and the stepwise mechanism via a diradical intermediate are possible.
In a cyclic system such as cis-l-vinylcyclooct-3-en-l-ol, the thermal
rearrangement takes place preferably through a diradical intermediate.
At high temperature, the reaction also...
Two improvements to the established procedures for synthesis and response detection of ion-selective optical sensors (optodes) were introduced.
The first improvement addresses the drawback of organic dye (optode-localized chromoionophore) photobleaching. This positively impacts fluorescence response and allows for (1) direct measurement of hydrogen ion activity upon binding with the dye,...
PART I. A chemical examination of the materials toxic to fish in
kraft pulp mill wastes has been made as part of a water pollution
study. Thirty gallons of "foul condensate" from a typical kraft mill
gave 14 g of organic material when extracted with methylene chloride,
and an additional...
Chalaniline A, an unusual xanthone-like aminofulvene with modest cytotoxicity, and chalaniline B [1-anilino-2,8-dihydroxy-3-(hydroxymethyl)xanthone], an antibacterial aminoxanthone, were previously isolated by Loesgen and coworkers from vorinostat-treated Chalara sp. 6661. Of note, the anilino moiety found within both chalaniline structures originates from biotransformation of the HDAC inhibitor vorinostat (SAHA, suberanilohydroxamic acid) by...
In proteomic studies, separate experimental protocols have been necessary to identify proteins, determine their function, and predict their three-dimensional structure. In this study, a function-based separation of proteins was conceived to fractionate proteins prior to enzymatic digestion. In the initial demonstration of this technique, a DNA substrate was used to...
Recently researchers have discovered that groups of small non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) play regulatory roles in gene expression and participate in various biological processes. For example, pathogenesis of many diseases, cell cycle regulation, and signaling pathways. Intracellular and live cell imaging of small ncRNA groups will reveal their relative expression levels...
The loss of all deuterium labels from previous feedings of [2-²H]-,
[3,3-²H₂]-, and [2,3,3-²H₃]arginines had indicated the possible intermediacy
of β-hydroxy- and β-ketoarginine (30 and 31, respectively) in the
biosynthesis of the streptolidine portion of streptothricin F (la).
In order to confirm or refute this evidence, D,L-[2,3,3,5,5-²H₅]-
arginine (32) was...
The extraction of tantalum fluoride complexes by large cationic
extractants (tetraphenylarsonium ion, TPA, and crystal violet) and
by methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) has been investigated as a function
of fluoride concentration using ¹⁸² Ta as tracer. Extractions by the
cationic extractants into chloroform were carried out in the absence
of...
My work on computing complex catalyzed organic transformations reveals that only a few subtle chemical factors, e.g. non-classical hydrogen bonding, (hyper)conjugation and steric effects, common across different catalyst manifolds are critical for catalysis and selectivity. Rational manipulation and exploitation of these factors has led to improved catalyst designs, which has...
In this dissertation, I present electronic spectroscopy of a few biologically relevant species and their complexes with solvent molecules in the gas phase using a variety of techniques, including resonantly enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI), laser induced fluorescence (LIF), and zero kinetic energy (ZEKE) photoelectron spectroscopy. My work on several methylated...
PART I. The preparation of (-)-ibogamine (1) in fourteen steps from benzoquinone and in 10% overall yield is a powerful illustration of the value of the asymmetric Diels-Alder reaction as a starting point in a multistep synthesis. All four cycloadducts, 70, 77, 84 and 96, obtained with the (S)-BINOL-TiCl₂ complex...
In this Dissertation, the mechanism and stereomechanics of complex organocatalysis and reaction processes are disclosed. The technologies and protocols currently being developed and utilized to efficiently investigate these systems using theory are highlighted.
A detailed computational study of peptide-catalyzed acylations is disclosed. In particular, the magnitude of all possible non-bonding...
Porous carbon is indispensable in modern technology applications. It is used for energy storage, gas separation, water purification, catalyst support, and chromatography. The diversity of its applications stems from its unique properties, including high specific surface area, tunable pore volume, and chemical stability. Specifically, the large surface area provides high...
Tethering fluorophores on metal nanoparticles for metal enhanced fluorescence (MEF) has attracted a lot of attention from scientists interested in fluorescence based approaches. MEF has many benefits in fluorescence related techniques, because the analytical signal increases and enables potentially lower detection limits or better sensitivity. Many types of nanoparticles have...