Estudio DFT del mecanismo de reacción de la esterificación de ácido levulínico con metanol catalizada por la zeolita H-Beta

The esterification of levulinic acid to levulinate esters by heterogeneous acid catalysis is a promising chemical route for the sustainable production of high value-added products. In this work, a DFT study of the mechanism for this reaction was carried out using H-Beta zeolite as catalyst. The elementary steps of the reaction, such as acid adsorption and alcohol coadsorption, were identified and the associated transition states and intermediates were determined. The energy profile throughout the reaction was obtained and the energies associated with each step were found. Theoretical calculations revealed stable structures and a viable pathway for the formation of levulinate ester, where the rate-determining step is the formation of a tetrahedral intermediate via a TS involving hydrogen transfer from methanol to levulinic acid.Fil: Romero, Gonzalo David. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino; ArgentinaFil: Esquenazi, Eduardo Nicolás. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino; ArgentinaFil: Gomes, Glaucio José. Universidade Estadual de Maringá. Departamento de Engenharia Química.; BrasilFil: Peruchena, Nelida Maria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino; ArgentinaFil: Zalazar, Maria Fernanda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Química Básica y Aplicada del Nordeste Argentino; Argentina22° Congresso Brasileiro de CatáliseBrasilSociedade Brasileira de CatáliseUniversidad Federal de Río Grande del Sur. Instituto de Químic

Single Cell Genome Amplification Accelerates Identification of the Apratoxin Biosynthetic Pathway from a Complex Microbial Assemblage

Filamentous marine cyanobacteria are extraordinarily rich sources of structurally novel, biomedically relevant natural products. To understand their biosynthetic origins as well as produce increased supplies and analog molecules, access to the clustered biosynthetic genes that encode for the assembly enzymes is necessary. Complicating these efforts is the universal presence of heterotrophic bacteria in the cell wall and sheath material of cyanobacteria obtained from the environment and those grown in uni-cyanobacterial culture. Moreover, the high similarity in genetic elements across disparate secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways renders imprecise current gene cluster targeting strategies and contributes sequence complexity resulting in partial genome coverage. Thus, it was necessary to use a dual-method approach of single-cell genomic sequencing based on multiple displacement amplification (MDA) and metagenomic library screening. Here, we report the identification of the putative apratoxin. A biosynthetic gene cluster, a potent cancer cell cytotoxin with promise for medicinal applications. The roughly 58 kb biosynthetic gene cluster is composed of 12 open reading frames and has a type I modular mixed polyketide synthase/nonribosomal peptide synthetase (PKS/NRPS) organization and features loading and off-loading domain architecture never previously described. Moreover, this work represents the first successful isolation of a complete biosynthetic gene cluster from Lyngbya bouillonii, a tropical marine cyanobacterium renowned for its production of diverse bioactive secondary metabolites

Canagliflozin and renal outcomes in type 2 diabetes and nephropathy

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the leading cause of kidney failure worldwide, but few effective long-term treatments are available. In cardiovascular trials of inhibitors of sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2), exploratory results have suggested that such drugs may improve renal outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS In this double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuric chronic kidney disease to receive canagliflozin, an oral SGLT2 inhibitor, at a dose of 100 mg daily or placebo. All the patients had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 30 to <90 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area and albuminuria (ratio of albumin [mg] to creatinine [g], >300 to 5000) and were treated with renin–angiotensin system blockade. The primary outcome was a composite of end-stage kidney disease (dialysis, transplantation, or a sustained estimated GFR of <15 ml per minute per 1.73 m2), a doubling of the serum creatinine level, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes. Prespecified secondary outcomes were tested hierarchically. RESULTS The trial was stopped early after a planned interim analysis on the recommendation of the data and safety monitoring committee. At that time, 4401 patients had undergone randomization, with a median follow-up of 2.62 years. The relative risk of the primary outcome was 30% lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group, with event rates of 43.2 and 61.2 per 1000 patient-years, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59 to 0.82; P=0.00001). The relative risk of the renal-specific composite of end-stage kidney disease, a doubling of the creatinine level, or death from renal causes was lower by 34% (hazard ratio, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.81; P<0.001), and the relative risk of end-stage kidney disease was lower by 32% (hazard ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.86; P=0.002). The canagliflozin group also had a lower risk of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.67 to 0.95; P=0.01) and hospitalization for heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47 to 0.80; P<0.001). There were no significant differences in rates of amputation or fracture. CONCLUSIONS In patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, the risk of kidney failure and cardiovascular events was lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group at a median follow-up of 2.62 years

Sharing and community curation of mass spectrometry data with Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking

The potential of the diverse chemistries present in natural products (NP) for biotechnology and medicine remains untapped because NP databases are not searchable with raw data and the NP community has no way to share data other than in published papers. Although mass spectrometry techniques are well-suited to high-throughput characterization of natural products, there is a pressing need for an infrastructure to enable sharing and curation of data. We present Global Natural Products Social molecular networking (GNPS, http://gnps.ucsd.edu), an open-access knowledge base for community wide organization and sharing of raw, processed or identified tandem mass (MS/MS) spectrometry data. In GNPS crowdsourced curation of freely available community-wide reference MS libraries will underpin improved annotations. Data-driven social-networking should facilitate identification of spectra and foster collaborations. We also introduce the concept of ‘living data’ through continuous reanalysis of deposited data

Spatial and temporal dynamics of marine natural products biosynthesis

The marine environment represents one of the most promising sources of novel, bioactive natural products. The process used in their discovery has been simplified and accelerated greatly in the 20th century with the advent of new technology, including spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, chromatography, in conjunction with bioassay -guided fractionation. However, more recent developments in genomics and metabolomics suggest that the biosynthetic capacity and interrelationships between organisms has been underappreciated and could likely yield many more important discoveries, both in medical value and in basic biological understanding. Contained in this dissertation are a series of unique experiments that harness the capacity of Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) to detect multiple metabolites concurrently from a single, small sample. This ability is used to capture the temporal dynamics of biosynthesis and turnover of secondary metabolites from cultured marine filamentous cyanobacteria, both in relation to each other and to primary metabolites. These temporal relationships are useful for improving compound yields from cultured organisms, tracking nitrogen in nutrient cycles, as well as providing an experimental tool to explore secondary metabolism in general. Also contained are the first images of natural products captured by MALDI imaging mass spectrometry, revealing complex chemical microenvironments in marine sponges and the distribution of known bioactive metabolites in marine cyanobacteria. Initial results also suggest that there is differential distribution of metabolites in cultured cyanobacteria. A third series of experiments exploiting the sensitivity of MALDI was conducted on single cells of filamentous marine cyanobacteria that are freed from the sheath and associated heterotrophs. The results reveal that many known natural products are found in single cells, further confirming their origin of biosynthesis; however, it appears not all cells from a filament contain the same metabolites. Nitrogen labeling experiments with these same preparations suggest the biosynthesis of the metabolites that are present occurs at similar rates. The last set of experiments employ Ion Mobility mass spectrometry on various preparations of marine filamentous cyanobacteria and show that this new technology can effectively separate out halogenated metabolites from complex mixtures, a powerful tool for the identification and discovery of bioactive metabolite

A Maldiisotopic Approach to Discover Natural Products: Cryptomaldamide, a Hybrid Tripeptide from the Marine Cyanobacterium Moorea producens

Genome sequencing of microorganisms has revealed a greatly increased capacity for natural products biosynthesis than was previously recognized from compound isolation efforts alone. Hence, new methods are needed for the discovery and description of this hidden secondary metabolite potential. Here we show that provision of heavy nitrogen 15N-nitrate to marine cyanobacterial cultures followed by single-filament MALDI analysis over a period of days was highly effective in identifying a new natural product with an exceptionally high nitrogen content. The compound, named cryptomaldamide, was subsequently isolated using MS to guide the purification process, and its structure determined by 2D NMR and other spectroscopic and chromatographic methods. Bioinformatic analysis of the draft genome sequence identified a 28.7 kB gene cluster that putatively encodes for cryptomaldamide biosynthesis. Notably, an amidinotransferase is proposed to initiate the biosynthetic process by transferring an amidino group from arginine to serine to produce the first residue to be incorporated by the hybrid NRPS-PKS pathway. The maldiisotopic approach presented here is thus demonstrated to provide an orthogonal method by which to discover novel chemical diversity from Nature