Concanavalin A is a legume lectin which preferentially agglutinates transformed cells and shows antitumor effects on human breast carcinoma cells in vitro and in vivo. It is considered as a new potential antineoplastic agent targeting apoptosis, autophagy, and anti-angiogenesis in preclinical or clinical trials for cancer therapeutics, which has recently become the object of intensive study. In...

Oxidative stress has been implicated to play a major role in multiorgan dysfunction during sepsis. To study the mechanism of oxidant generation in acute kidney injury (AKI) during sepsis, we developed an in vitro model of sepsis using primary cultures of mouse cortical tubular epithelial cells exposed to serum (2.5-10%) collected from mice at 4 h after induction of sepsis by cecal ligation and ...

The present work is concerned with the manganese complexes of 5,10,15,20-tetraphenylporphyrin and of 5,10,15,20-tetra(3-hydroxyphenyl)porphyrin, which were prepared by metallation of the corresponding porphyrin ligands, and the study of their spectroscopic and photophysical behavior under strongly acidic and alkaline conditions. The second objective was to obtain and study some new hybrid mater...

Two new water-soluble metal carboxyl porphyrins, manganese (III) meso-tetrakis (carboxyl) porphyrin and iron (III) meso-tetrakis (carboxyl) porphyrin, were synthesized and characterized. Their interactions with ct-DNA were investigated by UV-Vis titration, fluorescence spectra, viscosity measurement and CD spectra. The results showed they can strongly bind to ct-DNA via outside binding mode. El...

Anthracene and related compounds function as lifetime-extending cofactors in the (meso-tetraphenylporphine)Mn(III) chloride-catalyzed epoxidation of olefins. An experiment with a chiral porphyrin catalyst shows that enantioselectivity is preserved in the presence of the cofactor. Additional experiments show that (a) turnover number enhancement is greatest for the least reactive substrates, (b) ...

Primary cultures of rat embryonic motor neurons deprived of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) induce neuronal nitric oxide synthase (NOS) within 18 hr. Subsequently, >60% of the neurons undergo apoptosis between 18 and 24 hr after plating. Nitro-L-arginine and nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) prevented motor neuron death induced by trophic factor deprivation. Exogenous generation o...

Despite the growing importance of fluorinated organic compounds in drug development, there are no direct protocols for the fluorination of aliphatic C-H bonds using conveniently handled fluoride salts. We have discovered that a manganese porphyrin complex catalyzes alkyl fluorination by fluoride ion under mild conditions in conjunction with stoichiometric oxidation by iodosylbenzene. Simple alk...