Phytochemical investigations on Artemisia alba Turra growing in the North-East of Italy

Artemisia alba Turra (Asteraceae) is an Euro-Mediterranean plant used in Veneto (North-East of Italy) as traditional medicine for the treatment of various diseases. A. alba is a taxonomically problematic species, characterized by common polymorphism leading to a quite high variability in secondary metabolites content. Nonetheless, the phytochemical knowledge on its phytoconstituents, especially non-volatile components, is limited. In the present paper, the phytochemical composition of a tincture obtained from the aerial parts of A. alba growing in Veneto is presented. Extensive chromatographic separations led to the isolation of three new sesquiterpene derivatives, whose structures were elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR experiments and mass spectrometry. Furthermore, flavonoid composition and volatile constituents of the tincture of A. alba were preliminary studied by HPLC-MSn and GC-MS, respectivel

A threshold phenomenon for embeddings of H0mH^m_0 into Orlicz spaces

We consider a sequence of positive smooth critical points of the Adams-Moser-Trudinger embedding of $H^m_0$ into Orlicz spaces. We study its concentration-compactness behavior and show that if the sequence is not precompact, then the liminf of the $H^m_0$-norms of the functions is greater than or equal to a positive geometric constant.Comment: 14 Page

The CEA/CD3-Bispecific Antibody MEDI-565 (MT111) Binds a Nonlinear Epitope in the Full-Length but Not a Short Splice Variant of CEA

MEDI-565 (also known as MT111) is a bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE®) antibody in development for the treatment of patients with cancers expressing carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). MEDI-565 binds CEA on cancer cells and CD3 on T cells to induce T-cell mediated killing of cancer cells. To understand the molecular basis of human CEA recognition by MEDI-565 and how polymorphisms and spliced forms of CEA may affect MEDI-565 activity, we mapped the epitope of MEDI-565 on CEA using mutagenesis and homology modeling approaches. We found that MEDI-565 recognized a conformational epitope in the A2 domain comprised of amino acids 326–349 and 388–410, with critical residues F326, T328, N333, V388, G389, P390, E392, I408, and N410. Two non-synonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs10407503, rs7249230) were identified in the epitope region, but they are found at low homozygosity rates. Searching the National Center for Biotechnology Information GenBank® database, we further identified a single, previously uncharacterized mRNA splice variant of CEA that lacks a portion of the N-terminal domain, the A1 and B1 domains, and a large portion of the A2 domain. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis of multiple cancers showed widespread expression of full-length CEA in these tumors, with less frequent but concordant expression of the CEA splice variant. Because the epitope was largely absent from the CEA splice variant, MEDI-565 did not bind or mediate T-cell killing of cells solely expressing this form of CEA. In addition, the splice variant did not interfere with MEDI-565 binding or activity when co-expressed with full-length CEA. Thus MEDI-565 may broadly target CEA-positive tumors without regard for expression of the short splice variant of CEA. Together our data suggest that MEDI-565 activity will neither be impacted by SNPs nor by a splice variant of CEA

A classification theorem for Helfrich surfaces

In this paper we study the functional \SW_{\lambda_1,\lambda_2}, which is the the sum of the Willmore energy, $\lambda_1$-weighted surface area, and $\lambda_2$-weighted volume, for surfaces immersed in $\R^3$. This coincides with the Helfrich functional with zero `spontaneous curvature'. Our main result is a complete classification of all smooth immersed critical points of the functional with $\lambda_1\ge0$ and small $L^2$ norm of tracefree curvature. In particular we prove the non-existence of critical points of the functional for which the surface area and enclosed volume are positively weighted.Comment: 21 page

Polyyne Hybrid Compounds from Notopterygium incisum with Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Agonistic Effects

[Image: see text] In the search for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) active constituents from the roots and rhizomes of Notopterygium incisum, 11 new polyacetylene derivatives (1–11) were isolated. Their structures were elucidated by NMR and HRESIMS as new polyyne hybrid molecules of falcarindiol with sesquiterpenoid or phenylpropanoid moieties, named notoethers A–H (1–8) and notoincisols A–C (9–11), respectively. Notoincisol B (10) and notoincisol C (11) represent two new carbon skeletons. When tested for PPARγ activation in a luciferase reporter assay with HEK-293 cells, notoethers A–C (1–3), notoincisol A (9), and notoincisol B (10) showed promising agonistic activity (EC(50) values of 1.7 to 2.3 μM). In addition, notoincisol A (9) exhibited inhibitory activity on NO production of stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages

A new tool for modelling the decompression behaviour of CO 2 with impurities using the Peng-Robinson equation of state

Carbon capture and storage is considered as promising technique by the scientific community to reduce CO2 emissions and is composed by three different stages: CO2 capture, transportation and storage. The capturing plant has to be installed where processes involving large CO2 emissions, as power generation from fossil fuel, concrete and iron plants are present. The captured CO2 in real applications will be likely a CO2 dominated mixture with a content of several impurities, depending on the capture process which presence affects the thermo-physical properties of the pure CO2, especially increasing the vapour pressure curve. Such behaviour plays an important role in the control of the ductile fracture, whenever the CO2 is transported using pipelines. In the unfortunate event of a pipeline failure, the study of the pipeline decompression can be useful to estimate whether the fracture will remain confined or will propagate. The residual pressure acting on the crack tip of the pipeline represents the energy source governing the fracture's propagation. The pressure profile is given by the expansion wave, which propagates along the pipeline during the fracture. In the literature, it is common practice to model the expansion wave by assuming one-dimensional isentropic decompression. In this study, a new code developed by the authors for modelling the decompression behaviour in the fluid is presented. The code is based on the Peng-Robinson equation of state with the Peneloux correction correlation matching the density of pure components to experimental data. The sound velocity in the two-phase region has been modelled with the method proposed by Nichita et al., which increase the accuracy of prediction with respect to the most popular Wood's method. The code was validated against experimental and numerical data relating to hydrocarbon gas mixtures and CO2-rich mixtures. In particular, the results obtained for the hydrocarbon gas mixture decompression have been compared with experimental data and the predictions calculated by the software GASDECOM, in order to assess the accuracy of the code, that was then utilized to calculate the expansion wave curves for CO2-rich mixtures. The results obtained have been compared with experimental data and with predictions generated by the GERG2008 equation of state, found in literature. The simulated expansion wave curves show a good agreement with the experimental data for the tested compositions, especially for the plateau characterising the two-phase transition of rich gas compositions. The plateau corresponds to the saturation pressure, which is a key parameter for the fracture propagation control in CO2 pipelines, since the material toughness required to prevent a propagating ductile fracture is determined by applying the condition that the fracture propagation curve does not cross this value