In the retinal rod and cone photoreceptors, light photoactivates rhodopsin or cone visual pigments by converting 11-cis-retinal to all-trans-retinal, the process that ultimately results in phototransduction and visual sensation. The production of 11-cis-retinal in adjacent retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells is a fundamental process that allows regeneration of the vertebrate visual system. H...

Dynamical decoupling sequences detect spin system and solvent-induced decoherence contributions for nitroxides, trityl radicals gadolinium complexes in glassy water–glycerol.

Terpene synthases/cyclases yield core structures of some of the most valuable bioactive molecules, such as artemisinin and paclitaxel. A detailed understanding of structure–function relationship of terpene synthases/ cyclases delineates the evolutionary relationship between different enzymes and molecular basis of their strategies to direct and manipulate carbocation intermdiates throughout the...

We previously reported that the garlic-derived compound S-allylmercaptocysteine (SAMC) causes growth inhibition, mitotic arrest, and induction of apoptosis in SW480 human colon cancer cells by inducing microtubule depolymerization and c-Jun NH(2) terminus kinase-1 activation. In the present study, we compared the aforementioned effects of SAMC to those of a series of garlic-derived and other or...

Kinesin spindle protein (KSP), known as Hs Eg5, a member of the kinesin-5 family, plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of the bipolar spindle. We previously reported S-trityl-l-cysteine derivatives as selective KSP inhibitors. Here, we report further optimizations using docking modeling in the L5 allosteric binding site, which led to the discovery of several high affinity de...

Carbocations have gained much attention as fundamental and reactive chemical species, enabling the construction of sterically hindered complex molecules. Conventionally, generation a carbocation requires use strong acid, which limits their applications to synthesis highly functionalized Herein, we present visible light-mediated, organophotoredox, radical-polar crossover catalytic method for non...

Quartet states, generated after photoexcitation of chromophore–radical dyads, are promising for applications in quantum sensing. We demonstrate the potential trityl radicals improving their coherence properties and spectral addressability.

(1R)-(+)-2,10- and (1S)-(-)-2,10-camphorsultam were acylated with ethyl 2-phenylthiazoline 4-carboxylate to afford (+)- and (-)-2-phenylthiazolinylcamphorsultam, which were stereoselectively alkylated with MeI in the presence of n-BuLi. Alkylation of these phenylthiazolinylcamphorsultams occurred from the beta-face rather than alpha-face, resulting in the formation of (S)-alpha-methylcysteine f...