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Procedures have been developed to identify the chromatographic binding domains of horse heart cytochrome c (Cyt c) and bovine growth hormone (bGH) during their interaction with reversed-phase sorbent materials. The procedure involves adsorption of the protein solute to the chromatographic sorbent, followed by proteolytic cleavage. Comparison of the proteolytic map obtained for Cyt c and bGH in free solution with the corresponding map obtained when these proteins are adsorbed to the chromatographic sorbent revealed significant differences in the digestion pattern. Following characterization of the peptides generated in both maps, the results indicated that specific regions on the surface of both Cyt c and bGH are inaccessible to tryptic cleavage when adsorbed to the hydrophobic surface of both a C-4 and a C-18 sorbent. Based on the assumption that the region of the protein surface that is in contact with the sorbent remains intact and bound to the sorbent during the digestion step, while the protein surface that is exposed to the solvent is accessible to proteolysis, the regions that were inaccessible to tryptic digestion were found to correspond to hydrophobic domains on the protein surface. These results also suggest that the three-dimensional structures of these proteins remain largely intact upon adsorption to the hydrophobic surface.

Non-covalent and covalent imprinting strategies have been investigated for the synthesis of stigmasterol imprinted polymers. The synthesized molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were then evaluated for their recognition and selectivity towards stigmasterol via static and dynamic batch-binding assays and their performance measured against control non-imprinted polymers (NIPs). MIPs prepared using the conventional non-covalent imprinting method displayed little to no binding affinity for stigmasterol under various conditions. In contrast, the application of a covalent imprinting approach using the novel post-synthetically cleavable monomer-template composite stigmasteryl-3-O-methacrylate resulted in the fabrication of a MIP that successfully recognized stigmasterol in both organic and partially aqueous environments. The affinity and selectivity of the covalently prepared MIP was enhanced when undertaken in a partially aqueous environment consisting of an acetonitrile/water (9:1, v/v) solvent mixture. These features have been exploited in a molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) format, wherein the preferential retention of stigmasterol (with an imprint factor of 12) was demonstrated with 99% recovery in comparison to cholesterol (imprint factor of 6) and ergosterol (imprint factor of 4) while in the presence of several closely related steryl analogues.

A novel chiral stationary phase consisting of an amidopropyltrimethylammonium chloride divinylbenzene (APAT–DVB) polymer containing the chiral selector heptakis(2,3-di-O-acetyl-6-O-sulfo)-β-cyclodextrin (HSβCD) has been employed in porous layer open tubular (PLOT) capillary column format with various conditions evaluated to optimize the polymerization and chiral selector immobilization. Scanning electron microscopy demonstrated a near homogenous longitudinal open path in the column with a polymer film of uniform thickness. IR spectroscopy characterized the functional groups of the polymer and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy provided further evidence of the successful polymer modification with HSβCD. Optimum electrochromatographic separation conditions were elaborated with respect to organic solvent content and pH of the background electrolyte. Colum-to-column and long-term reproducibility was excellent. The effectiveness of the new capillary column was demonstrated with the successful separation of d -and l -aspartic acid, d - and l -tyrosine and d -and l -lysine.

In this study, the zeta potentials of type-B silica, bare silica hydride, the so-called Diamond Hydride™ and phenyl substituted silica hydride stationary phases have been measured in aqueous-organic media and correction procedures developed to account for the more negative zeta potential values in media containing different acetonitrile contents. Retention studies of 16 basic, acidic and neutral compounds were also performed with these four stationary phases with mobile phases containing 0.1% (v/v) formic acid and various acetonitrile-water compositions ranging from 0-90% (v/v) acetonitrile. The retention properties of these analytes were correlated to the corrected stationary phase zeta potentials measured under these different mobile phase conditions with R(2) values ranging from 0.01 to 1.00, depending on the stationary phase and analyte type. Using linear solvation energy relationships, stationary phase descriptors for each stationary phase have been developed for the different mobile phase conditions. Very high correlations of the zeta potentials with the ionic interaction descriptors were obtained for the type-B silica and the Diamond Hydride™ phases and good correlation with bare silica hydride material whilst there was no correlation observed for the phenyl substituted silica hydride phase. The nature of the retention mechanisms which gives rise to these different observations is discussed. The described methods represent a useful new approach to characterize and assess the retention properties of silica-hydride based chromatographic stationary phases of varying bonded-phase coverage and chemistries, as would be broadly applicable to other types of stationary phase used in the separation sciences.

In this study, the use of monolithic molecularly imprinted polymers in a micropipette tip format allowing the simple and fast extraction of flavonoids from standard solutions and a black tea sample is demonstrated. The imprinted polymer employed quercetin, methacrylic acid or 4-vinylpyridine, and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as template, functional monomer, and cross-linker, respectively. Surface morphologies of the quercetin-imprinted polymers and the corresponding nonimprinted polymers were characterized by SEM. Extraction of flavonoid standards was performed to evaluate the selectivity and recovery with these imprinted and nonimprinted polymers. Flavonoid compositions in aliquots eluted from the tips were identified using fast GC with flame ionization detection. Maximum specific capacities of 0.2, 5.7, and 16.0 mg/g for catechin, morin, and quercetin, respectively, were obtained with the imprinted polymer prepared with methacrylic acid, with the corresponding recoveries of 99.8, 98.8, and 95.4%, respectively. Efficient extraction by the quercetin-imprinted polymer of epicatechin, catechin, and quercetin from an apple-flavored black tea sample was achieved, with GC-MS employed for compound identification for both the tea and extracted samples.

High concentrations of free metal ions in the environment can be detrimental to bacterial survival. However, bacteria utilize strategies, including the activation of stress response pathways and immobilizing chemical elements on their surface, to limit this toxicity. In this study, we characterized LA4131, the HtpX-like M48 metalloprotease from Leptospira interrogans , with a putative role in bacterial stress response and membrane homeostasis. Growth of the la4131 transposon mutant strain (L522) in 360 μM FeSO 4 (10-fold the normal in vitro concentration) resulted in the production of an amorphous iron precipitate. Atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy analysis of the strain demonstrated that precipitate production was associated with the generation and release of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) from the leptospiral surface. Transcriptional studies indicated that inactivation of la4131 resulted in altered expression of a subset of metal toxicity and stress response genes. Combining these findings, this report describes OMV production in response to environmental stressors and associates OMV production with the in vitro activity of an HtpX-like metalloprotease.

Red wine has long been credited as a good source of health-beneficial antioxidants, including the bioactive polyphenols catechin, quercetin, and (E)-resveratrol. In this paper, we report the application of reusable molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for the selective and robust solid-phase extraction (SPE) and rapid analysis of (E)-resveratrol (LOD=8.87×10(-3) mg/L, LOQ=2.94×10(-2) mg/L), along with a range of other polyphenols from an Australian Pinot noir red wine. Optimization of the molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) protocol resulted in the significant enrichment of (E)-resveratrol and several structurally related polyphenols. These secondary metabolites were subsequently identified by RP-HPLC and μLC-ESI ion trap MS/MS methods. The developed MISPE protocol employed low volumes of environmentally benign solvents selected according to the Green Chemistry principles, and resulted in the recovery of 99% of the total (E)-resveratrol present. These results further demonstrate the potential of generic protocols for the analysis of target compound with health beneficial properties within the food and nutraceutical industries using tailor-made MIPs.

The retention behavior of a set of polar peptides separated on a silica hydride stationary phase was examined with a capillary HPLC system coupled to ESI-MS detection. The mobile phases consisted of formic acid or acetic acid/acetonitrile/water mixtures with the acetonitrile content ranging from 5 to 80% v/v. The effects on peptide retention of these two acidic buffer additives and their concentrations in the mobile phase were systematically investigated. Strong retention of the peptides on the silica hydride phase was observed with relatively high-organic low-aqueous mobile phases (i.e. under aqueous normal-phase conditions). However, when low concentrations of acetic acid were employed as the buffer additive, strong retention of the peptides was also observed even when high aqueous content mobile phases were employed. This unique feature of the stationary phase therefore provides an opportunity for chromatographic analysis of polar peptides with water-rich eluents, a feature usually not feasible with traditional RP sorbents, and thus under conditions more compatible with analytical green chemistry criteria. In addition, both isocratic and gradient elution procedures can be employed to optimize peptide separations with excellent reproducibility and resolution under these high aqueous mobile phase conditions with this silica hydride stationary phase.

Hintergrund: Es gibt eine Vielzahl an Outcome Kriterien zur Messung der Effektivität in klinischen Studien zur Alkoholabhängigkeit. Neben der Zeit bis zum ersten schweren Rückfall (>= 4 bzw. 5 Standarddrinks pro Tag für Frauen bzw. Männer), welches das Hauptzielkriterium[for full text, please go to the a.m. URL], GMDS 2013; 58. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e.V. (GMDS)

In this study, the retention behavior and selectivity differences of water-soluble vitamins were evaluated with three types of polar stationary phases (i.e. an underivatized silica phase, an amide phase, and an amino phase) operated in the hydrophilic interaction chromatographic mode with ESI mass spectrometric detection. The effects of mobile phase composition, including buffer pH and concentration, on the retention and selectivity of the vitamins were investigated. In all stationary phases, the neutral or weakly charged vitamins exhibited very weak retention under each of the pH conditions, while the acidic and more basic vitamins showed diverse retention behaviors. With the underivatized silica phase, increasing the salt concentration of the mobile phase resulted in enhanced retention of the acidic vitamins, but decreased retention of the basic vitamins. These observations thus signify the involvement of secondary mechanisms, such as electrostatic interaction in the retention of these analytes. Under optimized conditions, a baseline separation of all vitamins was achieved with excellent peak efficiency. In addition, the effects of water content in the sample on retention and peak efficiency were examined, with sample stacking effects observed when the injected sample contained a high amount of water.

In this study, the retention behavior of selected hydrophobic and polar bases on a minimally modified silica hydride phase was investigated. From these results and the associated retention plots, significant differences in the chromatographic dependencies of these two classes of basic compounds were evident. The polar bases exhibited strong retention with mobile phases of high organic solvent content, but displayed weak retention with mobile phases of high water content. In contrast, the hydrophobic bases showed "U-shape" retention dependencies, indicative of the interplay of both RP and normal-phase retention characteristics. These studies have demonstrated that hydrophobic and polar bases can be simultaneously separated on the same column either under typical RP-like or aqueous normal-phase-like conditions, respectively, with distinctive selectivity. Finally, the effects of temperature on the RP and aqueous normal phase modality of separations with these analytes were investigated, where discrete changes in retention behavior were also observed.

This chapter provides an overview of contemporary high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation methods used in the analysis and purification of natural products. The emphasis has been placed on natural products found as low-molecular-weight secondary metabolites. The text encompasses details on the most commonly applied high-resolution chromatographic separation modes, aspects of systematic method development and optimization, approaches employed for analytical separations and their scaling up to preparative purifications, as well as the strategies that can be employed for the design and application of multidimensional liquid chromatographic (MD-HPLC) purification schemes. The application of HPLC and MD-HPLC methods is illustrated for the natural product groups of isoprenoids (with examples of mono-, sesqui-, di-, and triterpenes; iridoids and secoiridoids; carotenoids; saponins; and ecdysteroids), phenolics (with examples of coumarins as well as flavonoids and isoflavonoids), and alkaloids.

Accurate quantification of the hydrophobic/hydrophilic properties of protein surfaces requires detailed knowledge of the hydrophobicity of amino acids at the atomic level. As discussed previously in various published papers, molecular modeling can be used with effect to acquire such knowledge. In this study, molecular dynamics methods have been employed to examine the role of the distance between an amino acid atom and its nearest water molecule in relation to its intrinsic atom hydrophobicity. This distance is the radius of the water-excluding-region around the atom; therefore, it can provide information on the solvent accessibility and steric hindrance that may influence the atom hydrophobicity. Molecular models of tripeptide in the form of GXG, and pentapeptides in the form of AcWLXLL-NH 2 and AcGGXGGNH 2 for 20 natural amino acids in the X position were constructed and allowed to dynamically interact with surrounding water for a sufficient period of time. The distance value for each atom in all natural amino acids were calculated and analyzed against the atom/amino acid's other parameters such as radial distribution function, solvent-accessible surface area, and hydrogen bonding. It was observed that, when the dynamic factor is taken into account, peptide molecular conformation is modified noticeably with residue type. For protein surface identification purposes, preliminary results are consistent with those reported in the literature on the need to include the amino acid structural properties as well as the effects of its neighboring residues. Further investigation is envisaged in order to verify these observations.

In this work, we have investigated the effect of nanostructured surfaces on the attachment and viability of two bacterial species of medical relevance. Surfaces having squares, channels and dots in the nano size range with intermittent hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity showed complex effects on both live and dead E. coli cells. Nevertheless the behaviour of S. aureus was found to be less modulated by the surface properties. The square structures had promising repellent effect on both live and dead E. coli species while S. aureus populated these surfaces very well. On dot nanostructures the population by E. coli was considerably higher than on the surrounding spaces while the distribution of S. aureus cells remained uniform on both structured and unstructured areas. When the bacteria were applied to surfaces with channels, live E. coli cells showed a very interesting fluctuation in function depending on the width of the channels but this fluctuation was not observed in case of dead cells. Because of its spherical form, lacking flagellae and production of extracellular substances, S. aureus adhered to this structure more evenly and no fluctuation was observed. Strain specific bacterial physiology and reactivity to these surfaces may possibly also be a factor in influencing the interaction. These initial results contribute to the purposeful design of species-specific pro- or anti-bacterial surfaces for the use of lab-on-a-chip devices and various types of medical devices.

Self-assembling polymers have recently attracted significant scientific interest, since they spontaneously generate highly ordered structures with high resolution precision, and provide simple, parallel, and cost-effective processes for nanofabrication. Such systems can be achieved with block copolymers which, when produced as thin films, offer great potential as lithographic templates for the fabrication of photonic band-gap materials, ultrahigh-density nanodots or nanowire arrays, memory and capacitor devices, and nano-patterned substrates for biosensors. Although self-assembling block copolymers can form a variety of surface topographies at the nm scale, like spheres, cylinders, and lamellae, their structural steering through the annealing conditions has in many cases not been fully investigated. In the present investigation optimum production conditions for the preparation of nanostructures from poly(styrene)-block-poly(MMA) diblock copolymers have been established to enable the production of surfaces as thin films (

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) in conjunction with cross-section analysis was applied to determine the distribution, position and contact angle of spray-deposited water micro-droplets on micro-structured arrays. For this investigation, two micro-structured arrays on silicon wafers with a chessboard pattern of depressions and protrusions of various sizes were manufactured by e-beam lithography. The first array had a silicon oxide/silicon structure (hydrophilic/hydrophilic) with an elevated silicon oxide layer of 40 nm and the second had a gold/silicon structure (hydrophobic/hydrophilic) with an elevated gold layer of 35 nm. On the first array with only hydrophilic surfaces, the behavior of the water droplets was mainly affected by topography, whereby the contact angles on the structures were considerably higher than the contact angles of droplets on unstructured reference surfaces. On the second array the water micro-droplets were confined in the hydrophilic depressions by the hydrophobic boundary whereby the highest contact angle was measured on the smallest squares and the lowest contact angle was found on the largest squares, with the droplet angles of the squares of 1 and 0.5 µm exceeding the contact angles of the droplets on the unstructured reference materials.

The ability of the gametes to escape detection by the immune system is vital to successful human reproduction. Furthermore, the observed capacity of the testis in some species to support tissue grafts without rejection (immunological privilege) indicates that spermatogenic cells are protected by local immunoregulatory mechanisms. One of these mechanisms involves targeting T cells for inactivation and destruction within the testicular environment. Although the fluids of the testis and ovary surrounding the developing gametes contain soluble factors that inhibit T cells, the identity of the molecule(s) responsible for this activity has been unknown. Using a specific T-cell proliferation assay to monitor bioactivity, these molecules were purified from bovine ovarian follicular fluid by methanol extraction and sequential reverse-phase HPLC (RP-HPLC). All purified active fractions coincided with the elution position on RP-HPLC of several small molecules ranging in size from 496 to 522 Da. The same molecules were localized to the immunosuppressive fractions of rat testicular interstitial fluid. The active molecules were identified, using capillary electrophoresis electrospray ionization mass spectroscopy, as lyso-glycerophosphocholines (lyso-GPCs), namely, 1-palmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, 1-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, a 18:2a/lyso-GPC (putatively, 1-linoleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine), and a 20:4a/lyso-GPC (putatively, 1-arachidonyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine). Comparison of the bioactivity and mass spectroscopy profiles of two of the purified molecules with their synthetic standards confirmed the identification. These molecules inhibit T-cell proliferation in response to activation and induce apoptosis of these cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. The emergence of gonadal lyso-GPCs as potential regulators of critical immune events opens up new avenues of inquiry into the origins of autoimmune infertility and more generally into mechanisms of peripheral immunoregulation and the development of novel immunosuppressives.

The standard operating conditions for the eight basic modes of HPLC are presented in this unit. They include: size-exclusion chromatography (HP-SEC), ion-exchange chromatography (HP-IEX), normal phase chromatography (HP-NPC), hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HP-HIC), reversed-phase chromatography (RP-HPLC), hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HP-HILIC), immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (HP-IMAC), and biospecific/biomimetic affinity chromatography (HP-BAC). In addition, some subsets of these chromatographic modes, e.g., mixed mode chromatography (HP-MMC), charge transfer chromatography (HP-CTC), or ligand-exchange chromatography (HP-LEC) are described. Procedures for multimodal column switching are also included, as are guidelines for a systematic approach to method development. Example separations help illustrate the procedures. The standard operating conditions for the eight basic modes of HPLC are presented in this unit.

Many bacterial species are able to colonize the surfaces of biomedical tools or devices and form biofilms creating a source of infection and other deleterious effects. Biofilms constitute environments in which bacteria grow and are protected from the host's immune system and antimicrobial medications. The bacterial adhesion, which is an important and first step in biofilm formation, is influenced by several physico-chemical and topographical factors at the interfaces between the bacterial cell and the surface. Therefore, the mechanism of initial adhesion needs to be investigated to better understand the events of anchorage and film formation as bacteria colonise surfaces. In this work, atomic force microscopy (AFM) in the tapping mode of imaging has been employed to investigate the attachment of bacteria onto a structured surface patterned with different hydrophilic and hydrophobic areas. The interactions of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus with these structures were also monitored by fluorescence microscopy. AFM was successfully employed for the study of the cell responses to both nanotopography and the surface chemistry via observation of various cell functions; including extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) mediated cellular adhesion.

The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) has been used for the characterization of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surfaces with embedded, randomly dispersed micron-sized glass beads as a model system for a nano-topographical composite material with adjacent hydrophobic/hydrophilic areas. The use of lateral force microscopy (LFM) for the differentiation of regions within a composite material allowed for a mapping of the position of the hydrophilic glass beads, the determination of the height of the protruding beads and the surface area of the glass. Material properties of the PDMS were obtained from AFM contact-mode scans, contact angle measurements and from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for both, unexposed surfaces and surfaces exposed for 3 hours with a 185 nm deep UV light source. The UV exposure was found to have an effect on the lateral force signal via a change in the stiffness of the PDMS but the resulting lower contrast was still sufficient for the discrimination of the different regions.

A versatile experimental approach is described to achieve very high sensitivity analysis of peptides by capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry with sheath flow configuration based on optimization of field-amplified sample injection. Compared to traditional hydrodynamic injection methods, signal enhancement in terms of detection sensitivity of the bioanalytes by more than 3000-fold can be achieved. The effects of injection conditions, composition of the acid and organic solvent in the sample solution, length of the water plug, sample injection time, and voltage on the efficiency of the sample stacking have been systematically investigated, with peptides in the low-nanomolar (10(-9) M) range readily detected under the optimized conditions. Linearity of the established stacking method was found to be excellent over 2 orders of magnitude of concentration. The method was further evaluated for the analysis of low concentration bioactive peptide mixtures and tryptic digests of proteins. A distinguishing feature of the described approach is that it can be employed directly for the analysis of low-abundance protein fragments generated by enzymatic digestion and a reversed-phase-based sample-desalting procedure. Thus, rapid identification of protein fragments as low-abundance analytes can be achieved with this new approach by comparison of the actual tandem mass spectra of selected peptides with the predicted fragmentation patterns using online database searching algorithms.

The effect of variations in the concentrations of different organic solvents, including acetonitrile, methanol, ethanol, propanol and isopropanol, with aqueous buffer electrolytes of defined composition and pH on the electroosmotic flow velocity, υ EOF , of uncoated fused silica capillaries and on the electrophoretic mobility, μ e , of synthetic peptides in high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) has been systematically investigated. In these experiments, the volume fractions of the organic solvent in the aqueous buffer electrolyte were changed from ψ =0.0 to 0.80. The addition of these organic solvents to the aqueous buffer electrolyte reduced the electroosmotic flow (EOF) of the system, but to significantly different extents. For the protic solvents as the alkyl chain of the alcohol increased, at the same volume fraction the greater was the influence on the electroosmotic flow. However, for the aprotic solvent, acetonitrile, the EOF did not change substantially as the volume fraction was varied. The electrophoretic mobility of synthetic peptides under the different buffer electrolyte conditions showed similar trends, confirming that the content and type of the organic modifier can be rationally employed to subtly manipulate the separation selectivity of synthetic peptides. These results, therefore, provide fundamental insight into the experimental options that can be used to maximise resolution of synthetic peptides in HPCE with aqueous buffer-organic solvent mixtures as well as a basis to select optimal binary or ternary buffer electrolyte compositions for the analysis of peptides when hyphenated techniques, such as HPCE–electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), are contemplated for the analysis of peptide samples of low abundance as can often be experienced in proteomic investigations.

In this study, procedures based on volatile ammonium acetate buffer electrolytes of high pH value containing different organic solvent modifiers have been developed to achieve very high efficiency separations of histidine-containing synthetic peptides by high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) employing untreated fused silica capillaries. Different organic solvents, including acetonitrile, methanol and ethanol, at high volume fractions were used to modify the composition of the background buffer electrolyte. With the peptides investigated, it was found that methanol had the greatest effect in terms of enhancement of separation efficiency, as determined from the evaluation of theoretical plate numbers, N, of these HPCE systems. On the other hand, separation selectivities, e.g. the alpha(ij) values, did not change significantly as the volume fraction, psi, of the organic solvents was increased up to psi = 60% (v/v). Under these conditions, very rapid, e.g. 1-2 min, separation times could be still achieved. Compared to the effect of carrying out the separation of these peptides at constant voltage, a dramatic increase in the separation efficiency was also achieved by applying a linear voltage gradient during the HPCE experiment. Under optimal conditions of organic solvent composition and linear voltage gradient ramps, very high peak efficiencies for the studied set of synthetic peptides with N values of approximately 2-3 million theoretical plates per meter could be routinely obtained with fast analysis times. Moreover, these buffer electrolyte conditions are compatible with direct interfacing of the HPCE effluent to electrospray ionisation and ion trap mass spectrometers, thus expanding the analytical capabilities of these HPCE systems.