Synthesis of Furo[3,2-b]quinolines and Furo[2,3-b:4,5-b']diquinolines through [4 + 2] Cycloaddition of Aza-o-Quinone Methides and Furans.

An approach for the construction of furo[3,2-b]quinolines and furo[2,3-b:4,5-b']diquinolines is developed through a metal-free [4 + 2] cycloaddition of easily available in situ generated aza-o-quinone methides and furans. The reaction tolerates a wide range of aza-o-quinone methides and substituted furans to afford the corresponding dihydro- or tetrahydrofuroquinolines in good to excellent yields. Mechanistic studies reveal that the reaction involves a concerted [4 + 2] cycloaddition pathway and shows a high regioselectivity of cycloaddition for a furan ring. The present method features mild reaction conditions, dearomatization of furans, high regio- and diastereoselectivity, gram-scalable preparations, and diversity of furoquinolines.

Xanthones, A Promising Anti-Inflammatory Scaffold: Structure, Activity, and Drug Likeness Analysis.

Inflammation is the body's self-protective response to multiple stimulus, from external harmful substances to internal danger signals released after trauma or cell dysfunction. Many diseases are considered to be related to inflammation, such as cancer, metabolic disorders, aging, and neurodegenerative diseases. Current therapeutic approaches include mainly non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and glucocorticoids, which are generally of limited effectiveness and severe side-effects. Thus, it is urgent to develop novel effective anti-inflammatory therapeutic agents. Xanthones, a unique scaffold with a 9H-Xanthen-9-one core structure, widely exist in natural sources. Till now, over 250 xanthones were isolated and identified in plants from the families Gentianaceae and Hypericaceae. Many xanthones have been disclosed with anti-inflammatory properties on different models, either in vitro or in vivo. Herein, we provide a comprehensive and up-to-date review of xanthones with anti-inflammatory properties, and analyzed their drug likeness, which might be potential therapeutic agents to fight against inflammation-related diseases.

Low-temperature, bottom-up synthesis of graphene via a radical-coupling reaction.

In this article, we demonstrated a method to synthesize graphene films at low temperature via a mild radical-coupling reaction. During the deposition process, with the effectively breaking of the C-Br bonds of hexabromobenzene (HBB) precursors, the generated HBB radicals couple efficiently to form graphene films at the low temperature of 220-250 °C. In situ low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy was used to provide atomic scale investigation of the graphene growth mechanism using HBB as precursor. The chemical structure evolution during the graphene growth process was further corroborated by in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. The charge carrier mobility of the graphene film grown at low temperature is at 1000-4200 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), as evaluated in a field-effect transistor device configuration on SiO2 substrates, indicating the high quality of the films.

Synthesis of Sultams and Cyclic N-Sulfonyl Ketimines via Iron-Catalyzed Intramolecular Aliphatic C-H Amidation.

Cyclic sulfonamides (sultams) play a unique role in drug discovery and synthetic chemistry. A direct synthesis of sultams by an intramolecular C(sp3)-H amidation reaction using an iron complex in situ derived from Fe(ClO4)2 and aminopyridine ligand is reported. This strategy features a readily available catalyst and tolerates a broad variety of substrates as demonstrated by 22 examples (up to 89% yield). A one-pot iron-catalyzed amidation/oxidation procedure for the synthesis of cyclic N-sulfonyl ketimines is also realized with up to 92% yield (eight examples). The synthetic utility of the method is validated by a gram-scale reaction and derivatization of the products to ring-fused sultams.

α-Mangostin remodels visceral adipose tissue inflammation to ameliorate age-related metabolic disorders in mice.

Low-grade chronic adipose tissue inflammation contributes to the onset and development of aging-related insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. In the current study, α-mangostin, a xanthone isolated from mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), was identified to ameliorate lipopolysaccharides-induced acute adipose tissue inflammation in mice, by reducing the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. In a cohort of young (3 months) and old (18-20 months) mice, α-mangostin mitigated aging-associated adiposity, hyperlipidemia, and insulin resistance. Further study showed that α-mangostin alleviated aging-related adipose tissue inflammation by reducing macrophage content and shifting pro-inflammatory macrophage polarization. Moreover, α-mangostin protected the old mice against liver injury through suppressing the secretion of microRNA-155-5p from macrophages. The above results demonstrated that α-mangostin represents a new scaffold to alleviate adipose tissue inflammation, which might be a novel candidate to treat aging-related metabolic disorders.

Iron-Catalyzed Intramolecular Amination of Aliphatic C-H Bonds of Sulfamate Esters with High Reactivity and Chemoselectivity.

It is challenging to develop simple and low cost catalytic systems while maintaining high reactivity and selectivity. An iron-catalyzed intramolecular C-H amination of sulfamate esters using simple and cheap ligands is reported with general substrate scope (31 examples, up to 95% yield). The addition of second ligand, bipyridine, is able to accelerate the reaction and increase the yield. The ready availability of these iron catalysts provides a promising approach to selective introduction of nitrogen into hydrocarbon feedstock.

Cyclohexyl-Substituted Anthracene Derivatives for High Thermal Stability Organic Semiconductors.

A novel p-type organic semiconductor with high thermal stability is developed by simply incorporating cyclohexyl substituted aryl groups into the 2,6-position of anthracene, namely 2,6-di(4-cyclohexylphenyl)anthracene (DcHPA), and a similar compound with linear alkyl chain, 2,6-di(4-n-hexylphenyl)anthracene (DnHPA), is also studied for comparison. DcHPA shows sublimation temperature around 360°C, and thin film field-effect transistors of DcHPA could maintain half of the original mobility value when heated up to 150°C. Corresponding DnHPA has sublimation temperature of 310°C and the performance of its thin film devices decreases by about 50% when heated to 80°C. The impressing thermal stability of the cyclohexyl substitution compounds might provide guidelines for developing organic electronic materials with high thermal stability.

[Effect of glutathione and sodium selenite on the metabolism of arsenic in mice exposed to arsenic through drinking water].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of glutathione (GSH) and sodium selenite on the metabolism of arsenic in the liver, kidney and blood of mice exposed to iAsIII through drinking water. METHODS: The mice were randomly divided into control, arsenic, GSH and sodium selenite group, respectively. And each group had eight mice and the mice were exposed to 50 mg/L arsenite by drinking water for 4 weeks. Mice were intraperitoneally injected with GSH (600 mg/kg) and sodium selenite (1 mg/kg) for seven days from the beginning of the fourth week. At the end of the fourth week, liver, kidney and blood were sampled to assess the concentrations of inorganic arsenic (iAs), monomethylarsenic acid (MMA), dimethylarsenic acid (DMA) by hydride generation trapping by ultra-hypothermia coupled with atomic absorption spectrometry. RESULTS: The liver DMA (233.76 +/- 60.63 ng/g) concentration in GSH group was significantly higher than the arsenic group (218.36 +/- 42.71 ng/g). The concentration of DMA (88.52 +/- 30.86 ng/g) and total arsenic (TAs) (162.32 +/- 49.45 ng/g) in blood of GSH group was significantly higher than those [(45.32 +/- 12.19 ng/g), (108.51 +/- 18.00 ng/g), respectively] of arsenic groups(q values were 3.06, 6.40, 10.72 respectively, P < 0.05). The primary methylated index (PMI) (0.65 +/- 0.050) and secondary methylated index (SMI) (0.55 +/- 0.050) in liver sample of GSH group were significantly higher than those (0.58 +/- 0.056, 0.44 +/- 0. 093) in arsenic group. In blood samples, the PMI (0.85 +/- 0.066) in GSH group was significantly higher than that (0.54 +/- 0.113) in arsenic group (q values were 3.75, 5.26, 4.21 respectively, P < 0.05). However, no significant difference was identified between sodium selenite and arsenic groups in liver, kidney or blood samples. And no significant difference was detected in kidney samples among all arsenic exposing groups. CONCLUSION: Exogenous GSH could promote the methylated metabolism of iAsIII, but sodium selenite showed no significant effects.

Soft-Etching Copper and Silver Electrodes for Significant Device Performance Improvement toward Facile, Cost-Effective, Bottom-Contacted, Organic Field-Effect Transistors.

Poor charge injection and transport at the electrode/semiconductor contacts has been so far a severe performance hurdle for bottom-contact bottom-gate (BCBG) organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). Here, we have developed a simple, economic, and effective method to improve the carrier injection efficiency and obtained high-performance devices with low cost and widely used source/drain (S/D) electrodes (Ag/Cu). Through the simple electrode etching process, the work function of the electrodes is more aligned with the semiconductors, which reduces the energy barrier and facilitates the charge injection. Besides, the formation of the thinned electrode edge with desirable micro/nanostructures not only leads to the enlarged contact side area beneficial for the carrier injection but also is in favor of the molecular self-organization for continuous crystal growth at the contact/active channel interface, which is better for the charge injection and transport. These effects give rise to the great reduction of contact resistance and the amazing improvement of the low-cost bottom-contact configuration OFETs performance.

Tuning the crystal polymorphs of alkyl thienoacene via solution self-assembly toward air-stable and high-performance organic field-effect transistors.

The first example for thienoacene derivatives with selective growth of different crystal polymorphs is simply achieved by solution-phase self-assembly. Compared with platelet-shaped α-phase crystals, organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on microribbon-shaped ß-phase crystals show a hole mobility up to 18.9 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), which is one of the highest values for p-type organic semiconductors measured under ambient conditions.

Aggregation-induced emission enhancement based on 11,11,12,12,-tetracyano-9,10-anthraquinodimethane.

By introducing phenyl groups into the 2- and 6-positions of 11,11,12,12-tetracyano-9,10-anthraquinodimethane, a material (dP-TCAQ) with aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AEE) characteristics was synthesized. The AEE phenomenon was explained by analysis of its solid-state packing mode. To our best knowledge, this is the first report regarding 11,11,12,12-tetracyano-9,10-anthraquinodimethane with AEE behaviour.

Selection of agents for prevention of cisplatin-induced hepatotoxicity.

The objective of this study was to explore the optimal combination of agents used along with cisplatin for protection of hepatotoxicity. Animal experiment was carried out based on the orthogonal design L(8) (2(7)) setting seven factors with two different levels of each, and eight groups of mice were needed. The agents tested in this study were zinc, selenium, fosfomycin, sodium thiosulfate (STS), N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), methionine and taurine. Mice were supplemented by gavage with various combinations of agents as designed in the orthogonal table once a day for nine days beginning two days before cisplatin administration. 3.5mg/kg body weight of cisplatin was given intraperitoneally once a day for five days simultaneously. After cessation of cisplatin administration, the agents were supplemented continuously for two days. Activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in serum, levels of glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in liver were analyzed after cessation of supplementation. Results showed zinc, fosfomycin and methionine were the effective factors for protection of weight loss; fosfomycin and methionine were the effective factors for prevention of decreased liver ratio; selenium, fosfomycin and STS were the effective factors for prevention of increased ALT activities in serum. On the other hand, methionine was the only effective factor for prevention of decreased GSH levels in liver; zinc, selenium and fosfomycin were the effective factors for prevention of increased MDA levels in liver. Based on the data observed in this study, the optimum combinations of agents were selenium, fosfomycin, methionine and taurine, and zinc, selenium, STS and methionine. In conclusion, each agent used in this study could play a beneficial role for prevention of cisplatin hepatotoxicity, however, none could play the crucial role. The potentiated actions for prevention of cisplatin hepatotoxicity could be achieved via combined use of these agents.