Composition of Organically Modified Silica for the Superhydrophobic Surface with Low Sliding Angle.

Extremely water-repellent surfaces with low sliding angle (SA) have been obtained with a facile single-step sol-gel strategy via co-condensation of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS) in basic media with an efficient self-cleaning property. We investigated the effect of the molar ratio of HDTMS and TEOS on the properties of the modified silica-coated poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) film. A high water contact angle (WCA) of 165° and a low SA of 1.35° were obtained at a molar ratio of 0.125. The dual roughness pattern for the low SA was developed by a one-step coating of the modified silica with a molar ratio of 0.125. The evolution of the surface to the dual roughness pattern by nonequilibrium dynamics depended on the size and shape factor of modified silica. The primitive size and the shape factor of the organosilica with a molar ratio of 0.125 were 70 nm and 0.65, respectively. We also presented a new method to determine the superficial surface friction (ζ) of the superhydrophobic surface. The ζ was a physical parameter that characterized the slip and rolling behavior of water droplets on the superhydrophobic surface along with the equilibrium property WCA and the static frictional property SA.

Palladium-catalyzed benzylation of arylboronic acids with N,N-ditosylbenzylamines.

The palladium-catalyzed coupling of N,N-ditosylbenzylamines with arylboronic acids has been investigated, and the resulting diarylmethanes were obtained in high yields. Conversion of the amine to a N,N-ditosylimide group provided an efficient leaving group for the Pd-catalyzed benzylation of arylboronic acids.

Synthesis and evaluation of stilbene derivatives as a potential imaging agent of amyloid plaques.

Fluorescence probes that can detect Aß (ß-amyloid peptide) plaque are important tools for diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and 4-N-methylamino-4'-hydroxystilbene (SB-13) is one of the promising candidate molecules. We report here the synthesis of SB-13 derivatives that consist of various electron donating/withdrawing moieties and distinct size of N-substituents. The synthesized compounds were screened for detection of Aß40 fibrils in vitro. Four compounds exhibited more than sixfold intensity increase, and they were further analyzed for detail bindings and Aß plaque imaging. Among these molecules, compound 42 meets two critical requirements for imaging agent; high fluorescence responsiveness and strong binding affinity. This compound showed more than 25-fold increase with the dissociation constant of 1.13±0.37µM. In AD mouse brain tissue, 42 selectively stained Aß plaque, more specifically peripheral regions of Aß plaque. This finding demonstrated its potential use as brain-imaging agents for AD studies.

Synthesis of constrained ceramide analogs and their potent antileukemic activities.

Constrained ceramide analogs were designed and synthesized by binding terminal alcohol and amine of ceramide with additional carbonyl functional group as 3-acetyl (3), 3-propionyl (4), 3-benzoyl (5), and 3-hexadecanoyl-4-(1-hydroxyhexadec-2-enyl)-oxazolidin-2-ones (6). Compounds 4 and 5 showed potent antileukemic activities against human leukemia HL-60 cells with good correlation between cell death and DNA fragmentation.