Publications by authors named "Ai-Min Lu"

Background: Ceratocystis fimbriata is a fungal pathogen that infects sweet potato roots, producing enormous economic losses. Cyclic polyhydroxy compound quinic acid is a common metabolite synthesized in plant tissues, including sweet potato tubers, showing weak antifungal properties. Although several O-acylated quinic acid derivatives have been synthesized and found in nature and their antifungal properties have been explored, derivatives based on modification of the carboxylic acid have never been evaluated.

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To address the urgent need for new antifungal agents, a collection of novel pyrazole carboxamide derivatives incorporating a benzimidazole group were innovatively designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their efficacy against fungal pathogens. The bioassay results revealed that the EC values for the compounds A7 (3-(difluoromethyl)-1-methyl-N-(1-propyl-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)-1H-pyrazole-4-carboxamide) and B11 (N-(1-(4-chlorobenzyl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)-3-(difluoromethyl)-1-methyl-1H-pyrazole-4-carboxamide) against B. cinerea were notably low to 0.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers developed and tested new antifungal agents based on a unique molecular structure that targets succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), resulting in the creation of 24 '-phenyl-1-pyrazole-4-sulfonohydrazide derivatives.
  • The synthesized compounds were found to be effective against various plant pathogenic fungi, with one compound demonstrating potent inhibitory effects similar to a known antifungal, thifluzamide.
  • Analyses indicated that the most effective compound damaged fungal mycelium, increased cell membrane permeability, and inhibited SDH enzyme activity, suggesting potential for use as alternatives to existing antifungals.
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A novel imidazolium derivative (GITag) shows superior ionisation and consequently allows increased mass spectrometric detection capabilities of oligosaccharides and N-glycans. Here we demonstrate that human serum samples can be directly labelled by GITag on a MALDI target plate, abrogating prevalently required sample pretreatment or clean-up steps.

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Chitin is one of the most abundant and cheaply available biopolymers in Nature. Chitin has become a valuable starting material for many biotechnological products through manipulation of its N-acetyl functionality, which can be cleaved under mild conditions using the enzyme family of de-N-acetylases. However, the chemoselective enzymatic re-acylation of glucosamine derivatives, which can introduce new stable functionalities into chitin derivatives, is much less explored.

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The quantitative structure-activity relationship models of 40 phenylhydrazine-substituted tetronic acid derivatives were established between the H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and C NMR chemical shifts and the antifungal activity against Fusarium graminearum, Botrytis cinerea, Rhizoctonia cerealis, and Colletotrichum capsici. The models were validated by R, R , R , variance inflation factor, F, and P values testing and residual analysis. It was concluded from the models that the C NMR chemical shifts of C8, C10, C7, and the H NMR chemical shifts of Ha contributed positively to the activity against Fusarium graminearum, Botrytis cinerea, Colletotrichum capsici, and Rhizoctonia cerealis, respectively.

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Background: Mannoside phosphorylases are frequently found in bacteria and play an important role in carbohydrate processing. These enzymes catalyze the reversible conversion of β-1,2- or β-1,4-mannosides to mannose and mannose-1-phosphate in the presence of inorganic phosphate.

Methods: The biochemical parameters of this recombinantly expressed novel mannose phosphorylase were obtained.

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A highly efficient copper-catalyzed cyclization/cyanation cascade of unactivated olefins bearing oximes is described. A variety of cyano-containing isoxazolines have been obtained in high yields with cheap Cu(NO)·3HO as the catalyst and TMSCN as the non-metallic cyanide source. The present method provides a mild, simple, and practical access to cyano-substituted isoxazolines and is amenable to gram scale.

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Substituted phenylhydrazone moieties and two carbonate groups were merged in one molecule scaffold to obtain 48 novel compounds. H and C NMR, MS, elemental analysis, and X-ray single-crystal diffraction were used to confirm their structures. Bioassay results revealed that some of the compounds have strong antifungal activities against , , and (especially ).

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For the aim of discovering new fungicide, a series of phenylpyrrole-substituted tetramic acid derivatives bearing carbonates 6a-q were designed and synthesized via 4-(2,4-dioxopyrrolidin-3-ylidene)-4-(phenylamino)butanoic acids 4a-k and the cyclized products 1',3,4,5'-tetrahydro-[2,3'-bipyrrolylidene]-2',4',5(1H)-triones 5a-k. The compounds were characterized using IR, ¹H- and (13)C-NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry (EI-MS), and elemental analysis. The structure of 6b was confirmed by X-ray diffraction crystallography.

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Twenty eight 6,7-dihydrobenzo[f]benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-d][1,4]oxazepine derivatives were synthesized and evaluated their biological activities as PI3K inhibitors. Biological evaluation against four human tumor cell lines revealed that most target compounds showed impressively better antiproliferative activities than that of LY294002. Among these compounds, compound 25 exhibited the most potent and selective activity for PI3Kα, with the IC50 value of 0.

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Many reports implied that the BRAF serine/threonine kinase was mutated in various types of human tumors, which were related with cell growth, survival and differentiation. To provide new therapeutic opportunities, a series of novel 4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazole derivatives (6a-10d) containing thiazole moiety as potential V600E mutant BRAF kinase (BRAF(V600E)) inhibitors were designed and synthesized. All compounds were evaluated in vitro for anticancer activities against WM266.

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We disclose here the first palladium-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura couplings of aryl ethers functionalized allenylphosphine oxides with arylboronic acids. This new methodology with α-allenyl ethers as starting materials provides a novel approach to generate phosphinoyl 1,3-butadienes and derivatives with medium to excellent yields. The reaction tolerates a variety of functional groups to afford ranges of structurally diverse substituted phosphionyl 1,3-butadienes.

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A series of novel 2-alkyl-chromeno[4,3-c]pyrazol-4(2H)-one derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for their biological activities as PI3K inhibitors. In vitro biological evaluation against four human tumor cell lines revealed that most target compounds showed impressively better antiproliferative activities than that of LY294002. Among these compounds, compound 4l exhibited the most potent and selective activity for PI3Kα, with the value of 0.

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Different substituted phenylhydrazone groups were linked to the quinoxaline scaffold to provide 26 compounds (6a-6z). Their structures were confirmed by (1)H and (13)C NMR, MS, elemental analysis, and X-ray single-crystal diffraction. The antifungal activities of these compounds against Rhizoctonia solani were evaluated in vitro.

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A new method for the determination of trace chromium in geological samples by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS) with microsphere phase separation extraction was developed. With the existence of cosolvent of ethanol and solvent of 1-amylalcohol, the diphenylcarbazide reacted with Cr to form a complex in a homogenous phase. Then the complex was separated out with microsphere from the homogenous phase after a little water was added in the system.

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