Aza-BODIPY Route to Ageladine A.

The marine natural product ageladine A was synthesized by exploiting novel aza-BODIPY-type boron complexes that allowed the regioselective dibromination of the pyrrole unit, as confirmed by quantum chemical calculation (ωB97XD/TApr-cc-pVDZ). The parent tricycle was accessed by Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling employing Buchwald's precatalyst. The boron complex of ageladine A exhibited strong fluorescence that was greater than that of the natural product by a factor of ∼30 and that disappeared in the presence of 2-azido groups.

Biocompatible Coatings from Smart Biopolymer Nanoparticles for Enzymatically Induced Drug Release.

Nanoparticles can be used as a smart drug delivery system, when they release the drug only upon degradation by specific enzymes. A method to create such responsive materials is the formation of hydrogel nanoparticles, which have enzymatically degradable crosslinkers. Such hydrogel nanoparticles were prepared by ionotropic gelation sodium alginate with lysine-rich peptide sequences-either α-poly-L-lysine (PLL) or the aggrecanase-labile sequence KKKK-GRD-ARGSV↓NITEGE-DRG-KKKK.