Herein, we report the synthesis, photophysical characterization and validation of iridium(iii)-polypyridine complexes functionalized for click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry, as well as their versatile applications as probes in bioimaging studies exploiting metabolic labeling. The designed dyes are conjugated to chemical reporters in a specific manner within cells by CuAAC ligation and display attractive photophysical properties in the UV-visible range. They are indeed highly photostable and emit in the far-red to near-IR region with long lifetimes and large Stokes shifts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLignin biosynthesis is a critical process that underpins plant structural integrity and defenses. Central to this pathway are monolignol glucosides (MLGs), whose role as intermediates remains debated. To elucidate MLGs' involvement, we developed thioglycosylated monolignol probes compatible with click chemistry for in situ visualization of lignin biosynthesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman sialyltransferases primarily utilize CMP-Sias, especially transferring Neu5Ac from CMP-Neu5Ac to various acceptors. Advances in chemical biology have led to the synthesis of novel CMP-Sia donors suitable for bioorthogonal reactions in cell-based assays. However, the compatibility of these donors with all human enzymes remains uncertain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe human polysialyltransferases ST8Sia II and ST8Sia IV catalyze the transfer of several Neu5Ac residues onto glycoproteins forming homopolymers with essential roles during different physiological processes. In salmonids, heterogeneous set of sialic acids polymers have been described in ovary and on eggs cell surface and three genes st8sia4, st8sia2-r1 and st8sia2-r2 were identified that could be implicated in these heteropolymers. The three polysialyltransferases from the salmonid Coregonus maraena were cloned, recombinantly expressed in HEK293 cells and the ST8Sia IV was biochemically characterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMost strains associated with neonatal meningitis express the K1 capsule, a sialic acid polysaccharide that is directly related to their pathogenicity. Metabolic oligosaccharide engineering (MOE) has mostly been developed in eukaryotes, but has also been successfully applied to the study of several oligosaccharides or polysaccharides constitutive of the bacterial cell wall. However, bacterial capsules are seldom targeted despite their important role as virulence factors, and the K1 polysialic acid (PSA) antigen that shields bacteria from the immune system still remains untackled.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSialylation of cell surface glycans plays an essential role in cell-cell interaction and communication of cells with their microenvironment. Among the tools that have been developed for the study of sialylation in living cells, metabolic oligosaccharide engineering (MOE) exploits the biosynthetic pathway of sialic acid (Sia) to incorporate unnatural monosaccharides into nascent sialylatedglycoconjugates, followed by their detection by a bioorthogonal ligation of a molecular probe. Among bioorthogonal reactions, the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) is the only ligation where both reactive tags can be switched on the chemical reporter or on the probe, making this reaction very flexible and adaptable to various labeling strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe emotional expression and gaze direction of a face are important cues for human social interactions. However, the interplay of these factors and their neural correlates are only partially understood. In the current study, we investigated ERP correlates of gaze and emotion processing following the initial presentation of faces with different emotional expressions (happy, neutral, angry) and an averted or direct gaze direction as well as following a subsequent change in gaze direction that occurred in half of the trials.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn some specific vascular plant tissues, lignin can impregnate the entire cell wall to make it more rigid and hydrophobic. Different techniques have been developed in the past years to make possible the quantification of this polyphenolic polymer at the organ or tissue level, but difficulties of access to the cellular level remain. Here we describe an approach based on ratiometric emission measurements using safranin-O and the development of a macro adapted for the FIJI software, which makes it possible to quantify lignin in three different layers of the cell wall on images captured on a fluorescent confocal microscope.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe CMP-sialic acid synthetase (CSS) activates free sialic acid (Sia) to CMP-Sia using CTP, and is prerequisite for the sialylation of cell surface glycoconjugates. The vertebrate CSS consists of two domains, a catalytic N-domain and a non-catalytic C-domain. Although the C-domain is not required for the CSS enzyme to synthesize CMP-Sia, its involvement in the catalytic activity remains unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe surging development of bioorthogonal chemistry has profoundly transformed chemical biology over the last two decades. Involving chemical partners that specifically react together in highly complex biological fluids, this branch of chemistry now allows researchers to probe biomolecules in their natural habitat through metabolic labelling technologies. Chemical reporter strategies include metabolic glycan labelling, site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids in proteins, and post-synthetic labelling of nucleic acids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCorrection for 'EPR imaging of sinapyl alcohol and its application to the study of plant cell wall lignification' by Clémence Simon et al., Chem. Commun.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn bioimaging, bioorthogonal chemistry is most often used to visualize chemical reporters by fluorescence in their native environment. Herein, we show that TEMPO-based probes can be ligated to monolignol reporters by Diels-Alder chemistry in plant cell walls, paving the way for the study of lignification by EPR spectroscopy and imaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLignin is present in plant secondary cell walls and is among the most abundant biological polymers on Earth. In this work we investigated the potential role of the gene family in regulating lignification in . Chemical determination of floral stem lignin contents in , and mutants revealed no significant differences compared to WT plants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnvironmental pollution caused by heavy metals constitutes a serious public health problem. In the case of uranium depletion, amidoxime groups are important because of their high affinity for uranium(VI). New series of bis(amidoxime)s with catechol-derived anchor groups were tested (b-AMD-1 and b-AMD-2).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mammalian mono-α2,8-sialyltransferase ST8Sia VI has been shown to catalyze the transfer of a unique sialic acid residues onto core 1 -glycans leading to the formation of di-sialylated -glycosylproteins and to a lesser extent to diSia motifs onto glycolipids like GD1a. Previous studies also reported the identification of an orthologue of the gene in the zebrafish genome. Trying to get insights into the biosynthesis and function of the oligo-sialylated glycoproteins during zebrafish development, we cloned and studied this fish α2,8-sialyltransferase homologue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Substance use and abuse by young adolescents has become a serious issue for public health services, and several socio-environmental factors can influence how vulnerable a young adolescent may be to their appeal. The present study was devised to examine whether substance use in early adolescence is associated with problematic social networking site usage (PSNSU).
Methods: In the academic year 2013-2014, secondary schools in Padua (north-eastern Italy) were involved in a survey called "Pinocchio".
Reported herein is an in vivo triple labelling strategy to monitor the formation of plant cell walls. Based on a combination of copper-catalysed alkyne-azide cycloaddition (CuAAC), strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC), and Diels-Alder reaction with inverse electronic demand (DAR ), this methodology can be applied to various plant species of interest in research. It allowed detection of the differential incorporation of alkynyl-, azido-, and methylcyclopropenyl-tagged reporters of the three main monolignols into de novo biosynthesized lignin in different tissues, cell types, or cell wall layers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMammalian sialyltransferases transfer sialic acids onto glycoproteins and glycolipids within the Golgi apparatus. Despite their key role in glycosylation, the study of their enzymatic activities is limited by the lack of appropriate tools. Herein, we developed a quick and sensitive sialyltransferase microplate assay based on the use of the unnatural CMP-SiaNAl donor substrate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To validate new caregiver-reported quality measures assessing care coordination services for children with medical complexity (CMC).
Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of the associations between 20 newly developed Family Experiences with Coordination of Care (FECC) quality measures and 3 validation measures among 1209 caregivers who responded to a telephone or mailed survey from August to November 2013 in Minnesota and Washington. Validation measures included an access composite, a provider rating item, and a care coordination outcome measure, all derived from Consumer Assessments of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey items.
Lignin is one of the most prevalent biopolymers on the planet and a major component of lignocellulosic biomass. This phenolic polymer plays a vital structural and protective role in the development and life of higher plants. Although the intricate mechanisms regulating lignification processes in vivo strongly impact the industrial valorization of many plant-derived products, the scientific community still has a long way to go to decipher them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe development of metabolic oligosaccharide engineering (MOE) over the past two decades enabled the bioimaging studies of glycosylation processes in physio-pathological contexts. Herein, we successfully applied the chemical reporter strategy to image the fate of sialylated glycoconjugates in healthy and sialin-deficient patient fibroblasts. This chemical glycomics enrichment is a powerful tool for tracking sialylated glycoconjugates and probing lysosomal recycling capacities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLignin is a polyphenolic polymer of the plant cell wall formed by the oxidative polymerization of 3 main monomers called monolignols that give rise to the lignin H-, G- and S-units. Together with cellulose and hemicelluloses, lignin is a major component of plant biomass that is widely exploited by humans in numerous industrial processes. Despite recent advances in our understanding of monolignol biosynthesis, our current understanding of the spatio-temporal regulation of their transport and polymerization is more limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground and aims There is a well-established association between pathological gambling and substance use disorders in adolescents. The aim of this study was to shed light on the association between adolescents' different levels of involvement in gambling activities and substance use (smoking tobacco and cannabis and drinking alcoholic beverages), based on a large sample. Methods A survey was conducted in 2013 on 34,746 students attending 619 secondary schools, who formed a representative sample of the Italian 15- to 19-year-old population.
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