First Report of Karelinia caspia (Pall.) Less as a new host of Orobanche cumana Wallr. in Xinjiang, China.

Sunflower broomrape (Orobanche cumana Wallr.) is a holoparasitic plant species which mainly parasitizes a few species of the Asteraceae in the wild and is exclusively found growing on sunflower in agricultural fields (Fernández-Martínez et al. 2015).

CO Activation over Catalytic Surfaces.

This article describes the main strategies to activate and convert carbon dioxide (CO ) into valuable chemicals over catalytic surfaces. Coherent elements such as common intermediates are identified in the different strategies and concisely discussed based on the reactivity of CO with the aim to understand the decisive factors for selective and efficient CO conversion.

Synthesis and structure-activity relationship studies of cytotoxic vinorelbine amide analogues.

A series of 3-demethoxycarbonyl-3-acylamide methyl vinorelbine derivatives (compounds 7a-7z) were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their inhibition activities against human non-small cell lung cancer cell line (A549). Most of the amide derivatives exhibited potent cytotoxicity, with the size of the introduced substituents being the foremost factor in determining the resultant cytotoxic activity. Test results in vivo against nude mice bearing A549 xenografts indicated that 7y showed comparable activities compared to the parent NVB.

The effect of vindoline C-16 substituents on the biomimetic coupling reaction: synthesis and cytotoxicity evaluation of the corresponding vinorelbine analogues.

A new series of vinorelbine analogues are designed and synthesized to explore the vindoline C-16 substituent effects on the biomimetic coupling with catharanthine, and the structure-activity relationships of these vinorelbine analogues as cytotoxic agents are also studied. The results show that introduction of severe steric hindrance and/or electron-withdrawing group at C-16 site are not propitious to improving the yields of the coupling reaction, and the SAR information collected so far suggests that small alkyl groups substituted at C-16 of vindoline are conductive to maintaining the cytotoxicity.

Ceric ammonium nitrate-promoted oxidative coupling reaction for the synthesis and evaluation of a series of anti-tumor amide anhydrovinblastine analogs.

A new, practical and efficient method for the synthesis of anhydrovinblastine AVBL (1f) by oxidative coupling of vindoline and catharanthine in the presence of ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN) was developed. Under the optimized reaction conditions, we synthesized a new series of amide anhydrovinblastine analogs substituted at the vindoline moiety of C-23 site and, evaluated for their proliferation inhibition against HeLa cell. The aryl-substituted derivatives showed loss of potency, while alkyl-substituted derivatives retained some of its cytotoxic potency.