Insight into the interaction of 5,6 epoxy-cholesterols with human serum albumin.

5,6-Epoxy-cholesterols has been recently revealed to control metabolic pathway in breast cancer, which makes investigating their binding interaction with human serum albumin (HSA) an attractive field of research. The main aim of this article is to examine the binding interaction of 5,6 α-epoxy-cholesterol (5,6 α EC) and 5,6 ß-epoxy-cholesterol (5,6 ß- EC) with HSA using different spectroscopic methods and molecular modeling. These compounds interact with HSA via hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds with binding constants 6.3 × 105 M-1 for 5,6 α-epoxy-cholesterol and 6.9 × 105 M-1 for 5,6 ß-epoxy-cholesterol besides, the mechanism of the interaction can be attributed to static quenching. Circular dichroism data indicated that the α-helical content of HSA increased from 50.5 to 59.8 and 61.1 % after the addition of 5,6 α-ECs and 5,6 ß-EC, respectively, with a ratio of 1:2. Thermodynamic analysis revealed that binding between 5,6-epoxy-cholesterols and HSA is spontaneous and entropy-driven. The molecular docking and esterase-like activity experiments were performed to envision a link between the experimental and theoretical results. The optimal binding site of 5,6-epoxy-cholesterols with HSA was located in subdomain IIA. Moreover, theoretical calculations were performed using the B3LYP function with the 6-311++G (d,p) basis set, indicating the HOMO-LUMO energy gap of 7.874 eV for 5,6 α-epoxy-cholesterol and 7.873 eV for 5,6 ß-epoxy-cholesterol. The obtained findings are assumed to provide basic data for understanding the binding interactions of HSA with oxysterol compounds, which could help explore the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of oxysterol compounds.

Structural and relative energy assessments of DFT functionals and the MP2 method to describe the gas phase methylation of nitronates: [R(1)R(2)CNO2](-) + CH3I.

The performances of 26 combinations of density-functional theory (DFT) functionals or second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2) methods and basis sets were evaluated for the calculation of the activation energy (Δ(‡)E), the energy available (ΔRCE) to the reactant complex, the energy of reaction (ΔrE), and rotational constants of the main structures involved in the methylation reactions of nitronates, [R(1)R(2)CNO2](-) + CH3I, in the gas phase, where R(1) = R(2) = H, R(1) = H and R(2) = CH3, R(1) = R(2) = CH3, and R(1) + R(2) = c-(CH2)2. The separated reactants and products, the reactant and product complexes, and the transition states were considered, leading to 43 data points for the statistical analysis for each method under assessment. Five statistical quantifiers: the mean signed error (MSE), the mean unsigned error (MUE), the percent mean relative error (% MRE), best and worse (BW), and the confidence interval (CI) were used to assess the performance of methods relative to the CCSD(T)/CBS//MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ reference method. The DFT functionals included the widely applied B3LYP and M06-2X global-hybrids and the recently available DSD-PBEP86, DSD-PBEP86-D3BJ and PWPB95 double-hybrids. The basis sets involved an effective core potential (ECP) for describing the inner electrons of iodine such as LANL2DZdp and aug-cc-pVXZ-PP (X = D, T, and Q), and all-electron basis sets for the remaining atoms. The energy available to the reactant complex is described quite well by all methods, however, only the MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ-PP method provided values within 2 kcal mol(-1) (8.4 kJ mol(-1)) from the reference method for Δ(‡)E and ΔrE. Amongst the DFT methods, the global-hybrid M06-2X functional produced the best overall results including BW and CI. Notice that all methods yielded the smallest Δ(‡)E for the C-methylation pathway. The rotational constants of the reactant complexes and the transition state structures were compared, for which the MP2 method and the M06-2X functional provided the most accurate results. Thus, unlike previous assessments of DFT functionals for describing SN2 reactions, M06-2X was the most accurate for these methylation reactions of nitronates, followed closely by the DSD-PBEP86 double-hybrid functional. The inclusion of dispersion effects with DSD-PBEP86-D3BJ does not improve the accuracy. Whereas MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ was the most accurate and nearly provided results with chemical accuracy.

Understanding the Reactivity and Regioselectivity of Methylation of Nitronates [R(1)R(2)CNO2](-) by CH3I in the Gas Phase.

Methylation of [R(1)R(2)CNO2](-), where R(1) = R(2) = H (1), R(1) = CH3 and R(2) = H (2), R(1) = R(2) = CH3 (3), and R(1) + R(2) = c-(CH2)2 (4), by CH3I was studied by an ab initio MP2/CBS method, RRKM theory, and kinetic simulations. Contrary to a previous proposal for the reaction mechanism, C-methylation is the preferred pathway of thermodynamics and kinetics. This is corroborated by the agreement between the calculated and experimental reactivity trend 4 ≫ 3 > 2 > 1. The regioselectivity toward C-alkylation is explained by the much larger exothermicity of this reaction channel compared to that of O-alkylation. The increase in reactivity with an increase in the crowdedness of the central carbon atom is explained by differences in sp(3) character at this atom and the decrease in the vibrational frequency associated with pyramidalization around this carbon atom.

N-[Amino-(azido)-meth-ylidene]-4-methyl-benzene-sulfonamide.

In the title mol-ecule, C(8)H(10)N(5)O(2)S, the amino-(azido)-methyl and p-toluene-sulfonyl moieties are inclined almost at right angles with respect to each other, making a dihedral angle of 83.49 (6)°. An intra-molecular N-H⋯O hydrogen bond gives rise to the formation of six-membered ring with graph-set motif S(6). In the crystal, inter-molecular N-H⋯O hydrogen bonding is responsible for the formation of dimers about inversion centers, which are linked through another N-H⋯O inter-action along the b axis.