Bioactive metabolites from Spilanthes acmella Murr.

Spilanthes acmella Murr. (Compositae) has been used as a traditional medicine for toothache, rheumatism and fever. Its extracts had been shown to exhibit vasorelaxant and antioxidant activities. Herein, its antimicrobial, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities were evaluated. Agar dilution method assays against 27 strains of microorganisms were performed. Results showed that fractions from the chloroform and methanol extracts inhibited the growth of many tested organisms, e.g. Corynebacterium diphtheriae NCTC 10356 with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 64-256 mg/mL and Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 with MIC of 128-256 mg/mL. The tested fractions all exhibited antioxidant properties in both DPPH and SOD assays. Potent radical scavenging activity was observed in the DPPH assay. No cytotoxic effects of the extracts against KB and HuCCA-1 cell lines were evident. Bioassay-guided isolation resulted in a diverse group of bioactive compounds such as phenolics [vanillic acid (2), trans-ferulic acid (5) and trans-isoferulic acid (6)], coumarin (scopoletin, 4) and triterpenoids like 3-acetylaleuritolic acid (1), b-sitostenone (3), stigmasterol and stigmasteryl-3-O-b-D-glucopyranosides, in addition to a mixture of stigmasteryl-and b-sitosteryl-3-O-b-D-glucopyranosides. The compounds 1-6 represent bioactive metabolites of S. acmella Murr. that were never previously reported. Our findings demonstrate for the first time the potential benefits of this medicinal plant as a rich source of high therapeutic value compounds for medicines, cosmetics, supplements and as a health food.

Synthesis and theoretical study of molecularly imprinted nanospheres for recognition of tocopherols.

Molecular imprinting is a technology that facilitates the production of artificial receptors toward compounds of interest. The molecularly imprinted polymers act as artificial antibodies, artificial receptors, or artificial enzymes with the added benefit over their biological counterparts of being highly durable. In this study, we prepared molecularly imprinted polymers for the purpose of binding specifically to tocopherol (vitamin E) and its derivative, tocopherol acetate. Binding of the imprinted polymers to the template was found to be two times greater than that of the control, non-imprinted polymers, when using only 10 mg of polymers. Optimization of the rebinding solvent indicated that ethanol-water at a molar ratio of 6:4 (v/v) was the best solvent system as it enhanced the rebinding performance of the imprinted polymers toward both tocopherol and tocopherol acetate with a binding capacity of approximately 2 mg/g of polymer. Furthermore, imprinted nanospheres against tocopherol was successfully prepared by precipitation polymerization with ethanol-water at a molar ratio of 8:2 (v/v) as the optimal rebinding solvent. Computer simulation was also performed to provide mechanistic insights on the binding mode of template-monomer complexes. Such polymers show high potential for industrial and medical applications, particularly for selective separation of tocopherol and derivatives.

Computational insights on sulfonamide imprinted polymers.

Molecular imprinting is one of the most efficient methods for preparing synthetic receptors that possess user defined recognition properties. Despite general success of non-covalent imprinting for a large variety of templates, some groups of compounds remain difficult to tackle due to their structural complexity. In this study we investigate preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers that can bind sulfonamide compounds, which represent important drug candidates. Compared to the biological system that utilizes metal coordinated interaction, the imprinted polymer provided pronounced selectivity when hydrogen bond interaction was employed in an organic solvent. Computer simulation of the interaction between the sulfonamide template and functional monomers pointed out that although methacrylic acid had strong interaction energy with the template, it also possessed high non-specific interaction with the solvent molecules of tetrahydrofuran as well as being prone to self-complexation. On the other hand, 1-vinyl-imidazole was suitable for imprinting sulfonamides as it did not cross-react with the solvent molecules or engage in self-complexation structures.

Quantitative structure-imprinting factor relationship of molecularly imprinted polymers.

Computational approach for evaluating the feasibility of template-monomer complexes has great potential in assisting the selection of appropriate functional monomers for template molecule of interest. A quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) study of template-monomer complexes was investigated for the prediction of imprinting factor of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). The data set was based on uniformly-sized MIP particles taken from the literature and was used in our previous study for computing the imprinting factor using molecular descriptors derived from charge density-based electronic properties of molecules. In this study, we examined the feasibility of using quantum chemical descriptors and artificial neural networks for prediction of the imprinting factor. The proposed methodology reliably predicted the imprinting factor of MIPs with correlation coefficient from 0.7083 to 0.8378 albeit to a lesser degree than charge-based descriptors, which yielded correlation coefficient as high as 0.9680. The importance of mobile phase descriptors on the predictive performance of the QSPR model has surprisingly shown that the use of mobile phase descriptors alone was able to predict the imprinting factor with good performance.

EDTA-induced membrane fluidization and destabilization: biophysical studies on artificial lipid membranes.

The molecular mechanism of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA)-induced membrane destabilization has been studied using a combination of four biophysical techniques on artificial lipid membranes. Data from Langmuir film balance and epifluorescence microscopy revealed the fluidization and expansion effect of EDTA on phase behavior of monolayers of either 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) or mixtures of DPPC and metal-chelating lipids, such as N(alpha),N(alpha)-Bis[carboxymethyl]-N(epsilon)-[(dioctadecylamino)succinyl]-L-lysine or 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-[N-(5-amino-1-carboxypentyl iminodiacetic acid) succinyl]. A plausible explanation could be drawn from the electrostatic interaction between negatively charged groups of EDTA and the positively charged choline head group of DPPC. Intercalation of EDTA into the lipid membrane induced membrane curvature as elucidated by atomic force microscopy. Growth in size and shape of the membrane protrusion was found to be time-dependent upon exposure to EDTA. Further loss of material from the lipid membrane surface was monitored in real time using a quartz crystal microbalance. This indicates membrane restabilization by exclusion of the protrusions from the surface. Loss of lipid components facilitates membrane instability, leading to membrane permeabilization and lysis.

Preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers using nitroxide-mediated living radical polymerization.

The use of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) in chemical and bioanalytical applications has been gaining in interest in recent years. Compared to their biological receptor counterparts, MIPs are easy to prepare, have long shelf stability and can be used under a variety of harsh conditions. The majority of MIPs currently used are produced by traditional free radical polymerization. One drawback with the use of standard free radical initiators is that little control can be exerted over the chemical processes that form the final imprinted cavities. In this study we set out to investigate the application of controlled (living) free radical polymerization to the preparation of MIPs. This was exemplified by the synthesis of cholesterol-imprinted bulk polymers by nitroxide-mediated polymerization (NMP). A sacrificial covalent bond was employed to maintain imprinting fidelity at elevated temperature. Selective uptake of cholesterol from solutions in hexane was studied with imprinted polymers prepared under different conditions. The imprinted hydrolyzed MIP prepared by NMP displayed higher selective cholesterol binding than that prepared by a traditional radical polymerization.

A polymer supported manganese catalyst useful as a superoxide dismutase mimic.

Polymer supported manganese was synthesized via a template polymerization involving functional monomers to afford a catalyst with superoxide dismutase activity.

Quantitative prediction of imprinting factor of molecularly imprinted polymers by artificial neural network.

Artificial neural network (ANN) implementing the back-propagation algorithm was applied for the calculation of the imprinting factors (IF) of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) as a function of the computed molecular descriptors of template and functional monomer molecules and mobile phase descriptors. The dataset used in our study were obtained from the literature and classified into two distinctive datasets on the basis of the polymer's morphology, irregularly sized MIP and uniformly sized MIP datasets. Results revealed that artificial neural network was able to perform well on datasets derived from uniformly sized MIP (n = 23, r = 0.946, RMS = 2.944) while performing poorly on datasets derived from irregularly sized MIP (n = 75, r = 0.382, RMS = 6.123). The superior performance of the uniformly sized MIP dataset over the irregularly sized MIP dataset could be attributed to its more predictable nature owing to the consistency of MIP particles, uniform number and association constant of binding sites, and minimal deviation of the imprinted polymers. The ability to predict the imprinting factor of imprinted polymer prior to performing actual experimental work provide great insights on the feasibility of the interaction between template-functional monomer pairs.

Nanoscale orientation and lateral organization of chimeric metal-binding green fluorescent protein on lipid membrane determined by epifluorescence and atomic force microscopy.

Epifluorescence microscopy as well as atomic force microscopy was successfully applied to explore the orientation and lateral organization of a group of chimeric green fluorescent proteins (GFPs) on lipid membrane. Incorporation of the chimeric GFP carrying Cd-binding region (His6CdBP4GFP) to the fluid phase of DPPC monolayer resulted in a strong fluorescence intensity at the air-water interface. Meanwhile, non-specific adsorption of the GFP having hexahistidine (His6GFP) led to the perturbation of the protein structure in which very low fluorescence was observed. Specific binding of both of the chimeric GFPs to immobilized zinc ions underneath the metal-chelating lipid membrane was revealed. This specific binding could be reversibly controlled by addition of metal ions or metal chelator. Binding of the chimeric GFPs to the metal-chelating lipid membrane was proven to be the end-on orientation while the side-on adsorption was contrarily noted in the absence of metal ions. Increase of lateral mobility owing to the fluidization effect on the chelating lipid membrane subsequently facilitated crystal formation. All these findings have opened up a potential approach for a specific orientation of immobilization of protein at the membrane interface. This could have accounted for a better opportunity of sensor development.