Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry: A Technique to Access the Information beyond the Molecular Weight of the Analyte

The Electrospray Ionization (ESI) is a soft ionization technique extensively used for production of gas phase ions (without fragmentation) of thermally labile large supramolecules. In the present review we have described the development of Electrospray Ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) during the last 25 years in the study of various properties of different types of biological molecules. There have been extensive studies on the mechanism of formation of charged gaseous species by the ESI. Several groups have investigated the origin and implications of the multiple charge states of proteins observed in the ESI-mass spectra of the proteins. The charged analytes produced by ESI can be fragmented by activating them in the gas-phase, and thus tandem mass spectrometry has been developed, which provides very important insights on the structural properties of the molecule. The review will highlight recent developments and emerging directions in this fascinating area of research

Diagnosis of prostate cancer by desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometric imaging of small metabolites and lipids

Accurate identification of prostate cancer in frozen sections at the time of surgery can be challenging, limiting the surgeon's ability to best determine resection margins during prostatectomy. We performed desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging (DESI-MSI) on 54 banked human cancerous and normal prostate tissue specimens to investigate the spatial distribution of a wide variety of small metabolites, carbohydrates, and lipids. In contrast to several previous studies, our method included Krebs cycle intermediates (m/z <200), which we found to be highly informative in distinguishing cancer from benign tissue. Malignant prostate cells showed marked metabolic derangements compared with their benign counterparts. Using the "Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator" (Lasso), we analyzed all metabolites from the DESI-MS data and identified parsimonious sets of metabolic profiles for distinguishing between cancer and normal tissue. In an independent set of samples, we could use these models to classify prostate cancer from benign specimens with nearly 90% accuracy per patient. Based on previous work in prostate cancer showing that glucose levels are high while citrate is low, we found that measurement of the glucose/citrate ion signal ratio accurately predicted cancer when this ratio exceeds 1.0 and normal prostate when the ratio is less than 0.5. After brief tissue preparation, the glucose/citrate ratio can be recorded on a tissue sample in 1 min or less, which is in sharp contrast to the 20 min or more required by histopathological examination of frozen tissue specimens. prostate cancer | Krebs cycle | metabolism | desorption electrospray ionization | mass spectrometry P rostate cancer (PCa) is the most commonly diagnosed solidorgan cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States (1). Because of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in the United States, most PCas are discovered when they are confined to the prostate (2). Many of these localized PCas are treated by surgical removal of the entire prostate (radical prostatectomy). The presence of cancer cells at the edge of the surgical resection, or positive surgical margins, is associated with higher rates of recurrence and death from PCa (3, 4). Therefore, an important clinical challenge in PCa management is to devise a rapid and highly accurate method to detect cancerous cells in real time to allow resection of additional periprostatic tissues and reduce cancer recurrence after surgery. Over the last decade, several innovative analytical techniques (5-12) have been developed to distinguish cancer from benign tissue in various organs. However, none has achieved wide clinical adoption for various reasons including inconvenience, narrow information content, unavailability, poor sensitivity, slowness of adoption, and operating room workflow incompatibility. In PCa, intraoperative frozen sections have been used to attempt to identify PCa at the margin based on analysis of histology. However, frozen sections have been shown to have poor sensitivity and specificity for the detection of PCa and currently are not recommended Recently, a label-free molecular imaging method called desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometric imaging (DESI-MSI) has been developed (15-17). DESI-MSI can rapidly evaluate the tissue metabolome in situ by simultaneously characterizing hundreds of lipids and metabolites. In the last 5 y, reports from our group Given the known alterations in metabolic pathways in PCa, we tested whether DESI-MSI of metabolites and lipids could have utility in discriminating cancer from normal tissue obtained from radical prostatectomy. Using tandem and high-resolution mass spectrometry we have characterized the distinct metabolite and lipid profiles of normal and malignant prostate. Although many earlier DESI-MSI studies considered only lipid profiles in identification of cancer, here we report imaging small metabolite Significance Desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging (DESI-MSI) is a label-free molecular imaging technique that provides a window into the biochemical processes present in benign and malignant prostate tissue. This is important both in improving the understanding of tissue biology and in achieving rapid cancer diagnosis. We applied DESI-MSI to record lipid, carbohydrate, and most importantly, small metabolite images from 54 normal and malignant prostate tissue specimens. Several Krebs cycle intermediates were present at different concentrations in prostate cancer compared with normal tissue. Statistical calculations identified panels of metabolites that could readily distinguish prostate cancer from normal tissue with nearly 90% accuracy in a validation set. The results also indicated that the ratio of glucose to citrate ion signals could be used to accurately identify prostate cancer

Potassium tert-Butoxide-Catalyzed Dehydrogenative C–H Silylation of Heteroaromatics: A Combined Experimental and Computational Mechanistic Study

We recently reported a new method for the direct dehydrogenative C–H silylation of heteroaromatics utilizing Earth-abundant potassium tert-butoxide. Herein we report a systematic experimental and computational mechanistic investigation of this transformation. Our experimental results are consistent with a radical chain mechanism. A trialkylsilyl radical may be initially generated by homolytic cleavage of a weakened Si–H bond of a hypercoordinated silicon species as detected by IR, or by traces of oxygen which can generate a reactive peroxide by reaction with (KOt-Bu)_4 as indicated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Radical clock and kinetic isotope experiments support a mechanism in which the C–Si bond is formed through silyl radical addition to the heterocycle followed by subsequent β-hydrogen scission. DFT calculations reveal a reasonable energy profile for a radical mechanism and support the experimentally observed regioselectivity. The silylation reaction is shown to be reversible, with an equilibrium favoring products due to the generation of H_2 gas. In situ NMR experiments with deuterated substrates show that H_2 is formed by a cross-dehydrogenative mechanism. The stereochemical course at the silicon center was investigated utilizing a ^2H-labeled silolane probe; complete scrambling at the silicon center was observed, consistent with a number of possible radical intermediates or hypercoordinate silicates

Mediterranean-type diet and brain structural change from 73 to 76 years in a Scottish cohort

STUDY FUNDING The data were collected by a Research into Ageing programme grant; research continues as part of the Age UK–funded Disconnected Mind project. The work was undertaken by The University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, part of the cross-council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Initiative (MR/K026992/1), with funding from the BBSRC and Medical Research Council. Imaging and image analysis was performed at the Brain Research Imaging Centre (sbirc.ed.ac.uk/), Edinburgh, supported by the Scottish Funding Council SINAPSE Collaboration. Derivation of mean cortical thickness measures was funded by the Scottish Funding Council’s Postdoctoral and Early Career Researchers Exchange Fund awarded by SINAPSE to David Alexander Dickie. L.C.A.C. acknowledges funding from the Scottish Government's Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) division.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Paradigms for Reliable Communication Protocols in Mobile Agents based Systems Abstract

Mobile Agents are regarded as a promising paradigm for future distributed computing. Among essential features of mobile agents, communication is a fundamental ability that enables mobile agents to cooperate with each other. But the presence of mobility raises a number of new challenges in designing message delivery protocols for effective and efficient communications between mobile agents, especially the Communication Failure and Message Chasing problem for highly mobile agents. In this paper, we firstly discuss ways to solve Communication Failure, and then describe a two-dimensional solution space for designing inter-agent communication protocols. We also propose a reliable and efficient mechanism for mobile agent communication named MEFS, which is implemented flexibly and adaptively. The MEFS provides a location-transparent tracking mechanism and, in particular, guarantees message delivery under any condition in a fault-free network. The experiments demonstrate the performance of MEFS too

ABSTRACT A FAST IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RSA ALGORITHM USING THE GNU MP LIBRARY

Organizations in both public and private sectors have become increasingly dependent on electronic data processing. Protecting these important data is of utmost concern to the organizations and cryptography is one of the primary ways to do the job. Public Key Cryptography is used to protect digital data going through an insecure channel from one place to another. RSA algorithm is extensively used in the popular implementations of Public Key Infrastructures. In this paper, we have done a efficient implementation of RSA algorithm using gmp library from GNU. We have also analyzed the changes in the performance of the algorithm by changing the number of characters we are encoding together (we termed this procedure as bitwise incremental RSA)

Abstract A CORBA BASED ANALYSIS OF MULTI AGENT BEHAVIOR

An agent is a computer software that is capable of taking indepent action on behalf of its user or owner. It is an entity with goals, actions and domain knowledge, situated in an environment. Multiagent systems comprises of multiple autonomous, interacting computer softwares, or agents. These systems can successfully emulate the entities active in a distributed environment. The analysis of multiagent behavior has been studied in this paper based on a specific board game problem similar to the famous problem of GO. In this paper we have developed a framework to define the state of the multiagent entities and measure the convergence metrics for this problem. An analysis of the changes of states leading to the goal state is also made. We support our study of multiagent behavior by simulations based on a CORBA framework in order to substantiate our findings

Oxygenation of Monoenoic Fatty Acids by CYP175A1, an Orphan Cytochrome P450 from <i>Thermus thermophilus</i> HB27

The catalytic activity of CYP175A1 toward monooxygenation of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids of various chain lengths (C16–C24) has been investigated to assess the enzymatic properties of this orphan thermostable cytochrome P450 enzyme. The results showed that the enzyme could catalyze the reaction of monounsaturated fatty acids but not of saturated fatty acids. The product analyses using ESI-MS and GC-MS revealed an important regioselectivity in the CYP175A1 catalyzed monooxygenation of the monoenoic fatty acids depending on the ethylenic double bond (CC) configuration. When the double bond was in cis-configuration, an epoxy fatty acid was found to be the major product and two allyl-hydroxy fatty acids were found to be the minor products. But when the double bond was in trans-configuration the product distribution was reversed. The oxygenation efficiency was found to be the highest for palmitoleic acid (chain length C16), but there was no direct correlation of the activity with the chain length or the position of unsaturation of the fatty acid. Molecular docking calculations showed that the “U”-type conformations of the monoenoic fatty acids are particularly responsible for their binding in the enzyme pocket, and that is also consistent with the observed regioselectivity in the oxygenation reaction. The present results provide evidence that CYP175A1 can catalyze the regioselective oxygenation reaction of several monoenoic fatty acids though it cannot catalyze the oxygenation of the corresponding saturated analogues. These studies may provide critical information on the nature of the enzyme pocket and of the possible natural substrate of this orphan enzyme

Acceleration of reaction in charged microdroplets

Using high-resolution mass spectrometry, we have studied the synthesis of isoquinoline in a charged electrospray droplet and the complexation between cytochrome c and maltose in a fused droplet to investigate the feasibility of droplets to drive reactions (both covalent and noncovalent interactions) at a faster rate than that observed in conventional bulk solution. In both the cases we found marked acceleration of reaction, by a factor of a million or more in the former and a factor of a thousand or more in the latter. We believe that carrying out reactions in microdroplets (about 1–15 μm in diameter corresponding to 0·5 pl – 2 nl) is a general method for increasing reaction rates. The mechanism is not presently established but droplet evaporation and droplet confinement of reagents appear to be two important factors among others. In the case of fused water droplets, evaporation has been shown to be almost negligible during the flight time from where droplet fusion occurs and the droplets enter the heated capillary inlet of the mass spectrometer. This suggests that (1) evaporation is not responsible for the acceleration process in aqueous droplet fusion and (2) the droplet–air interface may play a significant role in accelerating the reaction. We argue that this ‘microdroplet chemistry’ could be a remarkable alternative to accelerate slow and difficult reactions, and in conjunction with mass spectrometry, it may provide a new arena to study chemical and biochemical reactions in a confined environment.353

Acceleration of reaction in charged microdroplets

Using high-resolution mass spectrometry, we have studied the synthesis of isoquinoline in a charged electrospray droplet and the complexation between cytochrome c and maltose in a fused droplet to investigate the feasibility of droplets to drive reactions (both covalent and noncovalent interactions) at a faster rate than that observed in conventional bulk solution. In both the cases we found marked acceleration of reaction, by a factor of a million or more in the former and a factor of a thousand or more in the latter. We believe that carrying out reactions in microdroplets (about 1-15 μm in diameter corresponding to 0·5 pl-2 nl) is a general method for increasing reaction rates. The mechanism is not presently established but droplet evaporation and droplet confinement of reagents appear to be two important factors among others. In the case of fused water droplets, evaporation has been shown to be almost negligible during the flight time from where droplet fusion occurs and the droplets enter the heated capillary inlet of the mass spectrometer. This suggests that (1) evaporation is not responsible for the acceleration process in aqueous droplet fusion and (2) the droplet-air interface may play a significant role in accelerating the reaction. We argue that this &apos;microdroplet chemistry&apos; could be a remarkable alternative to accelerate slow and difficult reactions, and in conjunction with mass spectrometry, it may provide a new arena to study chemical and biochemical reactions in a confined environment. © 2015 Cambridge University Press.