Spotlight on Charge-Transfer Excitons in Crystalline Textured n-Alkyl Anilino Squaraine Thin Films

Prototypical n-alkyl terminated anilino squaraines for photovoltaic applications show characteristic double-hump absorption features peaking in the green and deep-red spectral range. These signatures result from coupling of an intramolecular Frenkel exciton and an intermolecular charge transfer exciton. Crystalline, textured thin films suitable for polarized spectro-microscopy have been obtained for compounds with n-hexyl (nHSQ) and n-octyl (nOSQ) terminal alkyl chains. The here released triclinic crystal structure of nOSQ is similar to the known nHSQ crystal structure. Consequently, crystallites from both compounds show equal pronounced linear dichroism with two distinct polarization directions. The difference in polarization angle between the two absorbance maxima cannot be derived by spatial considerations from the crystal structure alone but requires theoretical modeling. Using an essential state model, the observed polarization behavior was discovered to depend on the relative contributions of the intramolecular Frenkel exciton and the intermolecular charge transfer exciton to the total transition dipole moment. For both nHSQ and nOSQ, the contribution of the charge transfer exciton to the total transition dipole moment was found to be small compared to the intramolecular Frenkel exciton. Therefore, the net transition dipole moment is largely determined by the intramolecular component resulting in a relatively small mutual difference between the polarization angles. Ultimately, the molecular alignment within the micro-textured crystallites can be deduced and, with that, the excited state transitions can be spotted.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

Bound States and Superconductivity in Dense Fermi Systems

A quantum field theoretical approach to the thermodynamics of dense Fermi systems is developed for the description of the formation and dissolution of quantum condensates and bound states in dependence of temperature and density. As a model system we study the chiral and superconducting phase transitions in two-flavor quark matter within the NJL model and their interrelation with the formation of quark-antiquark and diquark bound states. The phase diagram of quark matter is evaluated as a function of the diquark coupling strength and a coexistence region of chiral symmetry breaking and color superconductivity is obtained at very strong coupling. The crossover between Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of diquark bound states and condensation of diquark resonances (Cooper pairs) in the continuum (BCS) is discussed as a Mott effect. This effect consists in the transition of bound states into the continuum of scattering states under the influence of compression and heating. We explain the physics of the Mott transition with special emphasis on role of the Pauli principle for the case of the pion in quark matter.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Adenosine receptor agonists: Synthesis and binding affinity of 2-(aryl)alkylthioadenosine derivatives

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Progress in the discovery of selective, high affinity A2B adenosine receptor antagonists as clinical candidates

The selective, high affinity A2B adenosine receptor (AdoR) antagonists that were synthesized by several research groups should aid in determining the role of the A2B AdoR in inflammatory diseases like asthma or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and angiogenic diseases like diabetic retinopathy or cancer. CV Therapeutics scientists discovered the selective, high affinity A2B AdoR antagonist 10, a 8-(4-pyrazolyl)-xanthine derivative [CVT-6883, Ki(hA2B) = 22 nM; Ki(hA1) = 1,940 nM; Ki(hA2A) = 3,280; and Ki(hA3) = 1,070 nM] that has favorable pharmacokinetic (PK) properties (t1/2 = 4 h and F > 35% rat). Compound 10 demonstrated functional antagonism at the A2B AdoR (KB = 6 nM) and efficacy in a mouse model of asthma. In two phase 1 clinical trials, CVT-6883 was found to be safe, well tolerated, and suitable for once daily dosing. A second compound 20, 8-(5-pyrazolyl)-xanthine, has been nominated for development from Baraldi’s group in conjunction with King Pharmaceuticals that has favorable A2B AdoR affinity and selectivity [Ki(hA2B) = 5.5 nM; Ki(hA1) > 1,000 nM; Ki(hA2A) > 1,000; and Ki(hA3) > 1,000 nM], and it has been demonstrated to be a functional antagonist. A third compound 32, a 2-aminopyrimidine, from the Almirall group has high A2B AdoR affinity and selectivity [Ki(hA2B) = 17 nM; Ki(hA1) > 1,000 nM; Ki(hA2A) > 2,500; and Ki(hA3) > 1,000 nM], and 32 has been moved into preclinical safety testing. Since three highly selective, high affinity A2B AdoR antagonists have been nominated for development with 10 (CVT-6883) being the furthest along in the development process, the role of the A2B AdoR in various disease states will soon be established

Taxonomic assignment of uncultivated prokaryotic virus genomes is enabled by gene-sharing networks

© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc. Microbiomes from every environment contain a myriad of uncultivated archaeal and bacterial viruses, but studying these viruses is hampered by the lack of a universal, scalable taxonomic framework. We present vConTACT v.2.0, a network-based application utilizing whole genome gene-sharing profiles for virus taxonomy that integrates distance-based hierarchical clustering and confidence scores for all taxonomic predictions. We report near-identical (96%) replication of existing genus-level viral taxonomy assignments from the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses for National Center for Biotechnology Information virus RefSeq. Application of vConTACT v.2.0 to 1,364 previously unclassified viruses deposited in virus RefSeq as reference genomes produced automatic, high-confidence genus assignments for 820 of the 1,364. We applied vConTACT v.2.0 to analyze 15,280 Global Ocean Virome genome fragments and were able to provide taxonomic assignments for 31% of these data, which shows that our algorithm is scalable to very large metagenomic datasets. Our taxonomy tool can be automated and applied to metagenomes from any environment for virus classification

P2X7 purinoceptor alterations in dystrophic mdx mouse muscles: Relationship to pathology and potential target for treatment.

Open AccessDuchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a lethal inherited muscle disorder. Pathological characteristics of DMD skeletal muscles include, among others, abnormal Ca2 homeostasis and cell signalling. Here, in the mdx mouse model of DMD, we demonstrate significant P2X7 receptor abnormalities in isolated primary muscle cells and cell lines and in dystrophic muscles in vivo. P2X7 mRNA expression in dystrophic muscles was significantly up-regulated but without alterations of specific splice variant patterns. P2X7 protein was also up-regulated and this was associated with altered function of P2X7 receptors producing increased responsiveness of cytoplasmic Ca2 and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation to purinergic stimulation and altered sensitivity to NAD. Ca2 influx and ERK signalling were stimulated by ATP and BzATP, inhibited by specific P2X7 antagonists and insensitive to ivermectin, confirming P2X7 receptor involvement. Despite the presence of pannexin-1, prolonged P2X7 activation did not trigger cell permeabilization to propidium iodide or Lucifer yellow. In dystrophic mice, in vivo treatment with the P2X7 antagonist Coomassie Brilliant Blue reduced the number of degeneration–regeneration cycles in mdx skeletal muscles. Altered P2X7 expression and function is thus an important feature in dystrophic mdx muscle and treatments aiming to inhibit P2X7 receptor might slow the progression of this disease

A Search for Dark Higgs Bosons

Recent astrophysical and terrestrial experiments have motivated the proposal of a dark sector with GeV-scale gauge boson force carriers and new Higgs bosons. We present a search for a dark Higgs boson using 516 fb-1 of data collected with the BABAR detector. We do not observe a significant signal and we set 90% confidence level upper limits on the product of the Standard Model-dark sector mixing angle and the dark sector coupling constant.Comment: 7 pages, 5 postscript figures, published version with improved plots for b/w printin

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE