Chemoselective protein modification plays extremely important roles in various biological, medical, and pharmaceutical investigations. Mimicking the mechanism of the chemoselective reaction between natural azaphilones and primary amines, this work successfully simplified the azaphilone scaffold into much simpler 3-acyl-4-pyranones. Examinations confirmed that these slim-size mimics perfectly kept the unique reactivity for selective conjugation with the primary amines including lysine residues of peptides and proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFControlling the optical properties of metal plasma nanomaterials through structure manipulation has attracted great attention for solar steam generation. However, realizing broadband solar absorption for high-efficiency vapor generation is still challenging. In this work, a free-standing ultralight gold film/foam with a hierarchical porous microstructure and high porosity is obtained through controllably etching a designed cold-rolled (NiCoFeCr)Au high-entropy precursor alloy with a unique grain texture.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn 11-step enantioselective total synthesis of (+)-sieboldine A () has been accomplished from (5)-methylcyclohex-2-en-1-one (), in which an intramolecular ketone/ester reductive coupling followed by one-pot acidic treatment to quickly construct the unique oxa-spiroacetal and a TsOH-catalyzed displacement to directly form the characteristic -hydroxyazacyclononane ring successfully served as the key methodologies. Moreover, several full-skeleton analogues of were also synthesized on the basis of the advanced intermediates, and their inhibitory effects on electric eel acetylcholinesterase were examined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the combination of the advantages of both Zn-Ag and Zn-air batteries, hybrid Zn-Ag/Zn-air batteries nevertheless suffer greatly from structural instability and activity degradation of the catalysts at the air electrodes. Herein, we introduce a scalable chemical dealloying procedure to synthesize mutually interacting and stable bifunctional catalysts, consisting of imbedded Ag nanoparticles for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and quantitatively designed multicomponent high-entropy oxides (HEOs) for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The ORR performance and the Zn-Ag battery capacity can be precisely controlled by the content of Ag nanoparticles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCyanotis arachnoidea contains a rich source of bioactive phytoecdysteroids (i.e. analogues of insect steroid hormones).
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