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The determination of the absolute configuration of natural products still faces many challenges, especially the active pharmaceutical ingredient which is trace, oily and novel structures. Currently, NMR requires chiral reagents in determining the absolute configuration; ECD involves theoretical calculations and requires chromophores. In this study, the absolute configuration of asarinin had successfully identified by using synchrotron radiation with crystalline sponge method and combining MS with NMR. This method could identifying the crystal structure of trace amorphous substances, resolving the problem of absolute configuration of multi-chiral central compounds, and hopefully providing a new idea and approach for structural elucidation of natural products.

Besifloxacin is a fourth-generation broad-spectrum fluoroquinolone registered for the topical treatment of bacterial conjunctivitis. In this study, a rapid, sensitive and selective liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed for quantification of besifloxacin in rabbit plasma and ocular tissues using nateglinide as the internal standard (IS). The analyte and IS were separated on a Sepax GP-Phenyl column by isocratic elution with methanol-acetonitrile-5 mM ammonium formate-formic acid (29:55:16:0.1, v/v/v/v) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.2 mL/min, and the total run time was 3.0 min. An electrospray ionization (ESI) source was applied and operated in the positive ion mode; multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was used for quantification, and the monitored transitions were 394.2→377.1 for besifloxacin and m/z 318.3→166.1 for the IS. The calibration curve was linear over the range of 0.103-206 ng/mL for plasma and 2.06-2060 ng/mL for tears, aqueous humor, conjunctiva and cornea with correlation coefficient (r) greater than 0.99. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) for besifloxacin was 0.103 ng/mL for plasma and 2.06 ng/mL for other ocular tissues with good accuracy and precision. Intra- and inter-batch precision were both lower than 15% and accuracy ranged from 85% to 115% at all QC levels. The method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of besifloxacin in rabbit plasma and ocular tissues after single and multiple topical administrations.

Structure elucidation of volatile aromatic isomers at trace level has long been considered as an elusive task, due to their structural similarities and similar polarities, even with the aid of many spectroscopic techniques such as mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SCD) is recognized as one of the most powerful structural elucidation techniques. The recently developed crystalline sponge method overcomes the intrinsic limitation of SCD that the target molecules must be single crystals, being able to analyze non-crystalline and trace-amount compounds without any special treatment. In order to investigate whether the crystalline sponge method could be used for the structure elucidation of closely related isomers or other volatile and even oily compounds in complex mixtures at trace level, we combined HPLC separation with the crystalline sponge method for X-ray crystallographic analysis. In this paper, two pairs of volatile aromatic isomers including cis/trans isomers of asarone and positional isomers of carvacrol and thymol, as well as the main volatile component in essential oil extracted from Acorus Tatarinowii, were first isolated by HPLC and encapsulated into the crystalline sponge then elucidated by X-ray crystallographic analysis. Direct observation of these volatile compounds by X-ray crystallography was achieved using only microgram quantities without crystallization or derivatization. Unambiguous identification of these compounds was realized without reference standards. This strategy offers a promising platform capable of providing high-confidence detailed structural information of closely related isomers as well as other volatile and even oily compounds in complex mixtures in microgram quantities.

AIM This study was designed to investigate the effects of telmisartan and amlodipine on reduction of blood pressure (BP), myocardial hypertrophy, and renal injury in hypertensive rats. METHOD In acute experiments, the BP was measured in conscious freely moving rats. Spontaneously hypertensive rats were treated with intragastric administration of amlodipine (1, 2, 4 mg/kg), telmisartan (4, 8, 12, 16, 20 mg/kg), and their different combinations (4 + 4, 2 + 4, 4 + 8, 4 + 12, 1 + 4, 2 + 8, 4 + 16, 2 + 12, 1 + 8, 2 + 16, 2 + 20, 1 + 12, 1 + 16, 1 + 20 mg/kg). The probability sum test (q test) was used to evaluate the synergistic action on BP reduction. In two-kidney, one-clip rats, the effects of amlodipine (1 mg/kg), telmisartan (6 mg/kg) and their combination on BP reduction were observed. In the chronic study, spontaneously hypertensive rats were treated with amlodipine (1 mg/kg), telmisartan (6 mg/kg), and their combination for 4 months. Histopathologic examinations were performed after the determination of BP and BP variability. RESULTS There is a synergistic interaction between amlodipine and telmisartan on BP reduction. The optimal dose ratio was found at 1:6. The synergistic effect of this dose ratio (1:6) was also seen in two-kidney, one-clip rats. Long-term treatment with this combination results in a beneficial effect on the reduction of BP and BP variability. The end-organ damage, including myocardial hypertrophy, glomerular atrophy, and fibrosis, was significantly attenuated by this combination. CONCLUSION The optimal dose ratio of amlodipine and telmisartan on BP was 1:6. This combination is beneficial for the BP and BP variability reduction and end-organ damage prevention.

The Knill-Laflamme-Milburn (KLM) entangled state, proposed by Knill et al. in Nature409, 46 (2001)NATUAS0028-083610.1038/35051009, has unique advantages for linear optics quantum information processing tasks, because it is able to decrease the error rate. In this paper, we propose scalable schemes to generate the multi-qubit KLM entangled states with single-photon resources and weak cross-Kerr nonlinearity theoretically. We first construct the two-qubit KLM state, through which the three- and other n-qubit KLM states are generated. For the schemes using weak cross-Kerr nonlinearity, P homodyne measurement has a higher success rate than X homodyne measurement but with narrow applications since |αeiθ⟩ and |αe−iθ⟩ are distinguished from each other, which is undesirable for most of the entanglement generation schemes. To avoid this disadvantage, Jin et al. [Phys. Rev. A75, 054302 (2007)PLRAAN1050-294710.1103/PhysRevA.75.054302] introduced the coherent state superposition (CSS), c(|α⟩+|−α⟩), to generate a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state but with a rapid oscillation term, which needs to be ignored. Through designing the optical path uniquely and choosing the phase of cross-Kerr nonlinearity suitably, our P homodyne measurement and CSS probe mode-based schemes to generate the KLM state avoid the needless term. The present scalable schemes have high total success probabilities, high fidelities even in consideration of decoherence, and may find potential applications in the future with the further development of nonlinear optics.