A colorless, odorless G nerve agent, a type of chemical transfer agent (CWA) that causes significant loss life, is being studied for quick and accurate detection. In this study, detection materials with different functional groups were synthesized based on thiourea (TU)-decorated polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) to study the most suitable material dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP), s...

The well-studied interaction between the MS2 coat protein and its cognate hairpin was used to test the utility of the methylphosphonate linkage as a phosphate analog. A nitrocellulose filter binding assay was used to measure the change in binding affinity upon introduction of a single methylphosphonate stereoisomer at 13 different positions in the RNA hairpin. Comparing these data to the availa...

The interaction between propranolol (PROP) and human serum albumin (HSA) was studied in the presence of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP). DMMP is usually considered as a simulant for chemical warfare agents (CWAs). For this purpose fluorescence quenching, resonance light scattering (RLS), synchronous, three-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation were emplo...

A theoretical model is established to describe the response mechanism of surface acoustic wave (SAW) gas sensors based on physical adsorption on the detector surface. Wohljent's method is utilized to describe the relationship of sensor output (frequency shift of SAW oscillator) and the mass loaded on the detector surface. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) formula and its improved form are introd...

Sensitive, selective and fast detection of chemical warfare agents is necessary for anti-terrorism purposes. In our search for functional materials sensitive to dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP), a simulant of sarin and other toxic organophosphorus compounds, we found that zinc oxide (ZnO) modification potentially enhances the absorption of DMMP on a manganese dioxide (MnO(2)) surface. The adso...

Methylphosphonate synthase is a non-heme iron-dependent oxygenase that converts 2-hydroxyethylphosphonate (2-HEP) to methylphosphonate. On the basis of experiments with two enantiomers of a substrate analog, 2-hydroxypropylphosphonate, catalysis is proposed to commence with stereospecific abstraction of the pro-S hydrogen on C2 of the substrate. Experiments with isotopologues of 2-HEP indicate ...

The most lethal organophosphorus nerve agents (NA), like sarin, soman, agent-VX and Russian-VX, share a methylphosphonate moiety. Pseudomonas diminuta phosphotriesterase (PTE) catalyses the hydrolysis of methylphosphonate NA analogues with a catalytic efficiency orders of magnitude lower than that towards the pesticide paraoxon. With a view to obtaining PTE variants that more readily accept met...