Xanthones, A Promising Anti-Inflammatory Scaffold: Structure, Activity, and Drug Likeness Analysis.

Inflammation is the body's self-protective response to multiple stimulus, from external harmful substances to internal danger signals released after trauma or cell dysfunction. Many diseases are considered to be related to inflammation, such as cancer, metabolic disorders, aging, and neurodegenerative diseases. Current therapeutic approaches include mainly non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and glucocorticoids, which are generally of limited effectiveness and severe side-effects.

Synthesis of Furo[3,2-]quinolines and Furo[2,3-:4,5-]diquinolines through [4 + 2] Cycloaddition of Aza--Quinone Methides and Furans.

An approach for the construction of furo[3,2-]quinolines and furo[2,3-:4,5-]diquinolines is developed through a metal-free [4 + 2] cycloaddition of easily available in situ generated aza--quinone methides and furans. The reaction tolerates a wide range of aza--quinone methides and substituted furans to afford the corresponding dihydro- or tetrahydrofuroquinolines in good to excellent yields. Mechanistic studies reveal that the reaction involves a concerted [4 + 2] cycloaddition pathway and shows a high regioselectivity of cycloaddition for a furan ring.

α-Mangostin remodels visceral adipose tissue inflammation to ameliorate age-related metabolic disorders in mice.

Low-grade chronic adipose tissue inflammation contributes to the onset and development of aging-related insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. In the current study, α-mangostin, a xanthone isolated from mangosteen (), was identified to ameliorate lipopolysaccharides-induced acute adipose tissue inflammation in mice, by reducing the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. In a cohort of young (3 months) and old (18-20 months) mice, α-mangostin mitigated aging-associated adiposity, hyperlipidemia, and insulin resistance.

Synthesis of Sultams and Cyclic -Sulfonyl Ketimines via Iron-Catalyzed Intramolecular Aliphatic C-H Amidation.

Cyclic sulfonamides (sultams) play a unique role in drug discovery and synthetic chemistry. A direct synthesis of sultams by an intramolecular C(sp)-H amidation reaction using an iron complex in situ derived from Fe(ClO) and aminopyridine ligand is reported. This strategy features a readily available catalyst and tolerates a broad variety of substrates as demonstrated by 22 examples (up to 89% yield).

Iron-Catalyzed Intramolecular Amination of Aliphatic C-H Bonds of Sulfamate Esters with High Reactivity and Chemoselectivity.

It is challenging to develop simple and low cost catalytic systems while maintaining high reactivity and selectivity. An iron-catalyzed intramolecular C-H amination of sulfamate esters using simple and cheap ligands is reported with general substrate scope (31 examples, up to 95% yield). The addition of second ligand, bipyridine, is able to accelerate the reaction and increase the yield.

Cyclohexyl-Substituted Anthracene Derivatives for High Thermal Stability Organic Semiconductors.

A novel p-type organic semiconductor with high thermal stability is developed by simply incorporating cyclohexyl substituted aryl groups into the 2,6-position of anthracene, namely 2,6-di(4-cyclohexylphenyl)anthracene (DcHPA), and a similar compound with linear alkyl chain, 2,6-di(4--hexylphenyl)anthracene (DnHPA), is also studied for comparison. DcHPA shows sublimation temperature around 360°C, and thin film field-effect transistors of DcHPA could maintain half of the original mobility value when heated up to 150°C. Corresponding DnHPA has sublimation temperature of 310°C and the performance of its thin film devices decreases by about 50% when heated to 80°C.

Soft-Etching Copper and Silver Electrodes for Significant Device Performance Improvement toward Facile, Cost-Effective, Bottom-Contacted, Organic Field-Effect Transistors.

Poor charge injection and transport at the electrode/semiconductor contacts has been so far a severe performance hurdle for bottom-contact bottom-gate (BCBG) organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). Here, we have developed a simple, economic, and effective method to improve the carrier injection efficiency and obtained high-performance devices with low cost and widely used source/drain (S/D) electrodes (Ag/Cu). Through the simple electrode etching process, the work function of the electrodes is more aligned with the semiconductors, which reduces the energy barrier and facilitates the charge injection.

Tuning the crystal polymorphs of alkyl thienoacene via solution self-assembly toward air-stable and high-performance organic field-effect transistors.

The first example for thienoacene derivatives with selective growth of different crystal polymorphs is simply achieved by solution-phase self-assembly. Compared with platelet-shaped α-phase crystals, organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on microribbon-shaped β-phase crystals show a hole mobility up to 18.9 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), which is one of the highest values for p-type organic semiconductors measured under ambient conditions.

Low-temperature, bottom-up synthesis of graphene via a radical-coupling reaction.

In this article, we demonstrated a method to synthesize graphene films at low temperature via a mild radical-coupling reaction. During the deposition process, with the effectively breaking of the C-Br bonds of hexabromobenzene (HBB) precursors, the generated HBB radicals couple efficiently to form graphene films at the low temperature of 220-250 °C. In situ low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy was used to provide atomic scale investigation of the graphene growth mechanism using HBB as precursor.

Aggregation-induced emission enhancement based on 11,11,12,12,-tetracyano-9,10-anthraquinodimethane.

By introducing phenyl groups into the 2- and 6-positions of 11,11,12,12-tetracyano-9,10-anthraquinodimethane, a material (dP-TCAQ) with aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AEE) characteristics was synthesized. The AEE phenomenon was explained by analysis of its solid-state packing mode. To our best knowledge, this is the first report regarding 11,11,12,12-tetracyano-9,10-anthraquinodimethane with AEE behaviour.

[Effect of glutathione and sodium selenite on the metabolism of arsenic in mice exposed to arsenic through drinking water].

Objective: To explore the effect of glutathione (GSH) and sodium selenite on the metabolism of arsenic in the liver, kidney and blood of mice exposed to iAsIII through drinking water.

Methods: The mice were randomly divided into control, arsenic, GSH and sodium selenite group, respectively. And each group had eight mice and the mice were exposed to 50 mg/L arsenite by drinking water for 4 weeks.

Selection of agents for prevention of cisplatin-induced hepatotoxicity.

The objective of this study was to explore the optimal combination of agents used along with cisplatin for protection of hepatotoxicity. Animal experiment was carried out based on the orthogonal design L(8) (2(7)) setting seven factors with two different levels of each, and eight groups of mice were needed. The agents tested in this study were zinc, selenium, fosfomycin, sodium thiosulfate (STS), N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), methionine and taurine.