Synthesis of mimetic peptides containing glucosamine

Synthesis, characterization, thermokinetic analysis and biological application of novel allyl glucosamine based glycopolymers

The synthesis of glycopolymers by copolymerising an allyl glucosamine (AG) monomer with co-monomers methyl methacrylate (MMA), acrylonitrile (AN) and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) was investigated via free-radical polymerisation of 2,2-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) in dimethylformamide (DMF). Three new copolymers, poly(AG-co-MMA), poly(AG-co-AN) and poly(AG-co-HEMA), were obtained. The chemical structures of the glycopolymers were analysed using 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and FTIR. The thermal properties and degradation kinetics of the three glycopolymers were examined by thermogravimetric (TG) analysis at different heating rates. The effects of different co-monomers on the copolymerisation yield, thermal properties and biological activities of the resulting glycopolymers were investigated. The activation energies of the decomposition stages were calculated using the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO) and Kissinger methods. Furthermore, the biological activity of AG monomers and glycopolymers was studied and compared to chitosan. Poly(AG-co-HEMA) had the most significant effect on MCF-7 cell viability, and all glycopolymers have a low toxic effect profile on MCF-7 cell lines.

Biofluid Metabolomics of Mice Exposed to External Low-Dose Rate Radiation in a Novel Irradiation System, the Variable Dose-Rate External 137Cs Irradiator

An important component of ionizing radiation (IR) exposure after a radiological incident may include low-dose rate (LDR) exposures either externally or internally, such as from ¹³⁷Cs deposition. In this study, a novel irradiation system, VAriable Dose-rate External ¹³⁷Cs irradiatoR (VADER), was used to expose male and female mice to a variable LDR irradiation over a 30 d time span to simulate fall-out-type exposures in addition to biofluid collection from a reference dose rate (0.8 Gy/min). Radiation markers were identified by untargeted metabolomics and random forests. Mice exposed to LDR exposures were successfully identified from control groups based on their urine and serum metabolite profiles. In addition to metabolites commonly perturbed after IR exposure, we identified and validated a novel metabolite (hexosamine-valine-isoleucine-OH) that increased up to 150-fold after LDR and 80-fold after conventional exposures in urine. A multiplex panel consisting of hexosamine-valine-isoleucine-OH with other urinary metabolites (N6,N6,N6-trimethyllysine, carnitine, 1-methylnicotinamide, and α-ketoglutaric acid) achieved robust classification performance using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, irrespective of the dose rate or sex. These results show that in terms of biodosimetry, dysregulated energy metabolism is associated with IR exposure for both LDR and conventional IR exposures. These mass spectrometry data have been deposited to the NIH data repository via Metabolomics Workbench with study IDs ST001790, ST001791, ST001792, ST001793, and ST001806.

Glycoconjugations of Biomolecules by Chemical Methods

Bioconjugations under benign aqueous conditions have the most promise to covalently link carbohydrates onto chosen molecular and macromolecular scaffolds. Chemical methodologies relying on C-C and C-heteroatom bond formations are the methods of choice, coupled with the reaction conditions being under aqueous milieu. A number of methods, including metal-mediated, as well as metal-free azide-alkyne cyclo-addition, photocatalyzed thiol-ene reaction, amidation, reductive amination, disulfide bond formation, conjugate addition, nucleophilic addition to vinyl sulfones and vinyl sulfoxides, native chemical ligation, Staudinger ligation, olefin metathesis, and Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reactions have been developed, in efforts to conduct glycoconjugation of chosen molecular and biomolecular structures. Within these, many methods require pre-functionalization of the scaffolds, whereas methods that do not require such pre-functionalization continue to be few and far between. The compilation covers synthetic methodology development for carbohydrate conjugation onto biomolecular and biomacromolecular scaffolds. The importance of such glycoconjugations on the functional properties is also covered.

Synthesis of C-terminal glycopeptidesviaoxime resin aminolysis

We developed a general solid-phase approach to complex C-terminal glycopeptides.