Modifications of flexible nonyl chain and nucleobase head group of (+)-erythro-9-(2's-hydroxy-3's-nonyl)adenine [(+)-EHNA] as adenosine deaminase inhibitors

A series of terminal nonyl chain and nucleobase modified analogues of (+)-EHNA (III) were synthesized and evaluated for their ability to inhibit adenosine deaminase (ADA). The constrained carbon analogues of (+)-EHNA, 7a-7h, 10a-c, 12, 13, 14 and 17a-c appeared very potent with Ki values in the low nanomolar range. Thio-analogues of (+)-EHNA 24a-e wherein 5'C of nonyl chain replaced by sulfur atom found to be less potent compared to (+)-EHNA. Docking of the representative compounds into the active site of ADA was performed to understand structure-activity relationships. Compounds 7a (Ki: 1.1nM) 7b (Ki: 5.2nM) and 26a (Ki: 5.9nM) showed suitable balance of potency, microsomal stability and demonstrated better pharmacokinetic properties as compared to (+)-EHNA and therefore may have therapeutic potential for various inflammatory diseases, hypertension and cancer.

Potent and Selective Inhibitors of Long Chain l-2-Hydroxy Acid Oxidase Reduced Blood Pressure in DOCA Salt-Treated Rats

l-2-Hydroxy acid oxidase (Hao2) is a peroxisomal enzyme with predominant expression in the liver and kidney. Hao2 was recently identified as a candidate gene for blood pressure quantitative trait locus in rats. To investigate a pharmacological role of Hao2 in the management of blood pressure, selective Hao2 inhibitors were developed. Optimization of screening hits 1 and 2 led to the discovery of compounds 3 and 4 as potent and selective rat Hao2 inhibitors with pharmacokinetic properties suitable for in vivo studies in rats. Treatment with compound 3 or 4 resulted in a significant reduction or attenuation of blood pressure in an established or developing model of hypertension, deoxycorticosterone acetate-treated rats. This is the first report demonstrating a pharmacological benefit of selective Hao2 inhibitors in a relevant model of hypertension.

Treatment of high-strength pharmaceutical wastewater by electrocoagulation combined with anaerobic process

This article discusses a combined treatment system comprising electrocoagulation (EC) as a pre-treatment followed by anaerobic fixed film fixed bed reactor (AFFBR) for treatment of high strength pharmaceutical wastewater. The effect of various operating parameters such as pH, current density and electrolysis duration on COD, BOD and colour removal was studied. The maximum removals for COD, BOD and colour under optimal operating conditions i.e. pH 7.2, current density (CD) of 80 A/m(2) and electrolysis time of 25 minutes were 24%, 35% and 70.25% respectively. Increase in current density has resulted in decrease in electrolysis duration with marginal improvement in treatment efficiency. The efficiency of removal is discussed in terms of kg COD(r) A(-1)m(-2)h(-1) and energy consumption as Wh kg(-1)COD(r). The effluents obtained after EC were treated by AFFBR at various organic loading rates (OLRs) and hydraulic retention times (HRTs). The results indicated removals in the range of 80-90% for COD and 86-94% for BOD respectively, at OLRs between 0.6 to 4.0 Kg COD/m(3) d at an HRT of 2 days. The total gas quantity increased with increase in both HRT and OLR up to a loading of 6 Kg COD/m(3)/d but it did not commensurate with organic load. The results indicated that the combined treatment option is competitive and can be used effectively for high strength wastewaters.

PHC3, a component of the hPRC-H complex, associates with E2F6 during G0 and is lost in osteosarcoma tumors

Polyhomeotic-like 3 (PHC3) is a ubiquitously expressed member of the polycomb gene family and part of the human polycomb complex hPRC-H. We found that in normal cells PHC3 associated with both hPRC-H complex components and with the transcription factor E2F6. In differentiating and confluent cells, PHC3 and E2F6 showed nuclear colocalization in a punctate pattern that resembled the binding of polycomb bodies to heterochromatin. This punctate pattern was not seen in proliferating cells suggesting that PHC3 may be part of an E2F6-polycomb complex that has been shown to occupy and silence target promoters in G(0). Previous loss of heterozygosity (LoH) analyses had shown that the region containing PHC3 underwent frequent LoH in primary human osteosarcoma tumors. When we examined normal bone and human osteosarcoma tumors, we found loss of PHC3 expression in 36 of 56 osteosarcoma tumors. Sequence analysis revealed that PHC3 was mutated in nine of 15 primary osteosarcoma tumors. These findings suggest that loss of PHC3 may favor tumorigenesis by potentially disrupting the ability of cells to remain in G(0).

Efficacy of new retinoids in the prevention of mammary cancers and correlations with short-term biomarkers

A number of retinoid X receptor (RXR) agonists have proven to be highly effective in preventing methylnitrosourea (MNU) induced mammary cancers. However, these agonists have side effects; particularly causing an increase in serum triglyceride levels. A series of ligands for RXR were designed based on computer modeling to the ligand binding domain (LBD) of the RXR receptors and on structure-activity relationships. The chemopreventive effects of these retinoids were evaluated in the relatively long-term MNU model. As a short-term assay to predict their efficacy, the ability of the retinoids to modulate cell proliferation and apoptosis was also determined in mammary cancers after only 7 days of treatment. The five UAB retinoids evaluated included two Class I UAB retinoids (UAB20, UAB112) and three Class II UAB retinoids (UAB30, 4-methyl-UAB30 and the benzosuberone-analog of UAB30). The previously evaluated RXR agonist targretin and the pan-agonist 9-cis-retinoic acid (9-cis-RA), which interacts with both RAR and RXR receptors, were included as positive agonists known to prevent cancer in the MNU model. In the prevention studies, in which the agents were administered beginning 5 days after MNU until the end of the study, targretin (150 mg/kg diet) and 4-methyl-UAB30 (200 mg/kg diet) were highly effective in decreasing cancer numbers by 75-85%. UAB30 (200 mg/kg diet) and 9-cis-RA (60 mg/kg diet) gave intermediate inhibitions of 60 and 45%, respectively. Targretin (15 mg/kg diet), UAB20 (200 mg/kg diet) and the benzosuberone analog of UAB30 (200 mg/kg diet) showed limited activity by decreasing cancer multiplicity 25-30%, while UAB112 had no effect on mammary cancer multiplicity. A direct correlation was observed between the long-term chemopreventive efficacy of these agents and their ability to decrease cell proliferation in mammary cancers after short-term treatment. Furthermore, the highly effective agents (4-methyl-UAB30 and targretin at 150 mg/kg diet) increased apoptosis 3-5 times, while agents with moderate or limited preventive efficacy failed to significantly increase apoptosis. Although the more effective retinoid treatments increased serum triglycerides 2.5- to 4.0-fold, one moderately effective agent (UAB30) had no significant effect on lipid levels. In summary, a short-term in vivo method has been identified for screening newly synthesized retinoids both for chemopreventive efficacy and for their adverse effect on serum triglycerides.

TrialDB: A web-based Clinical Study Data Management System

Clinical Study Data Management Systems (CSDMSs) are a class of software that support centralized management of data generated during the conduct of clinical studies. Commercial CSDMSs include Oracle Clinical, ClinTrial and MetaTrial. Such systems, which are typically deployed at an institutional or organizational level, must accommodate diverse types of data from different clinical domains that is generated by different groups of clinical investigators. Large-scale CSDMSs typically employ a high-end database engine that is usually accessed over an intranet or the Internet using Web-based technologies. CSDMSs in institution-wide use for a variety of clinical domains are best served by entity-attribute-value (EAV) modeling for the clinical data: all the commercial CSDMSs that we are aware of use EAV design. However, de novo development of EAV databases for data management is a challenging task. A large body of generic metadata-driven code must be developed before a basic EAV application can be written. Clearly, the availability of pre-existing software with the requisite functionality would be very valuable. We will discuss the benefits of such software being in open-source form.

An approach to guideline implementation with GEM

Implementation of practice guidelines refers to the creation of strategies and systems to operationalize the knowledge and recommendations set forth by guideline developers. We describe an approach to guideline implementation that makes direct use of the guideline document as a knowledge base. The Guideline Elements Model (GEM) provides an XML-based guideline document model that facilitates implementation of guidelines. Knowledge extraction using GEM requires document markup rather than programming and can promote authenticity and consistent knowledge encoding. Knowledge customization for the local enterprise requires addition of meta-information to pertinent components of the GEM hierarchy in a design database. GEM provides an audit trail to track local adaptation. Knowledge integration with patient data can be promoted using information management services. A design goal is to devise a system that can be applied by local clinical domain experts, quality assurance experts, and information systems programmers without requiring trained informaticians and knowledge engineers to serve as intermediaries

Intercistronic region required for polycistronic pre-mRNA processing in Caenorhabditis elegans

In Caenorhabditis elegans, polycistronic pre-mRNAs are processed by cleavage and polyadenylation at the 3' ends of the upstream genes and trans splicing, generally to the specialized spliced leader SL2, at the 5' ends of the downstream genes. Previous studies have indicated a relationship between these two events in the processing of a heat shock-induced gpd-2-gpd-3 polycistronic pre-mRNA. Here, we report mutational analysis of the intercistronic region of this operon by linker scan analysis. Surprisingly, no sequences downstream of the 3' end were important for 3'-end formation. In contrast, a U-rich (Ur) element located 29 bp downstream of the site of 3'-end formation was shown to be important for downstream mRNA biosynthesis. This approximately 20-bp element is sufficient for SL2 trans splicing and mRNA accumulation when transplanted to a heterologous context. Furthermore, when the downstream gene was replaced by a gene from another organism, no loss of trans-splicing specificity was observed, suggesting that the Ur element may be the primary signal required for downstream mRNA processing.

A metadata framework for interoperating heterogeneous genome data using XML

The rapid advances in the Human Genome Project and genomic technologies have produced massive amounts of data populated in a large number of network-accessible databases. These technological advances and the associated data can have a great impact on biomedicine and healthcare. To answer many of the biologically or medically important questions, researchers often need to integrate data from a number of independent but related genome databases. One common practice is to download data sets (text files) from various genome Web sites and process them by some local programs. One main problem with this approach is that these programs are written on a case-by-case basis because the data sets involved are heterogeneous in structure. To address this problem, we define metadata that maps these heterogeneously structured files into a common eXtensible Markup Language (XML) structure to facilitate data interoperation. We illustrate this approach by interoperating two sets of essential yeast genes that are stored in two yeast genome databases (MIPS and YPD).

Functional characterization of five eIF4E isoforms in Caenorhabditis elegans

Recognition of the 5'-cap structure of mRNA by eIF4E is a critical step in the recruitment of most mRNAs to the ribosome. In Caenorhabditis elegans, approximately 70% of mRNAs contain an unusual 2,2,7-trimethylguanosine cap structure as a result of trans-splicing onto the 5' end of the pre-mRNA. The characterization of three eIF4E isoforms in C. elegans (IFE-1, IFE-2, and IFE-3) was reported previously. The present study describes two more eIF4E isoforms expressed in C. elegans, IFE-4 and IFE-5. We analyzed the requirement of each isoform for viability by RNA interference. IFE-3, the most closely related to mammalian eIF4E-1, binds only 7-methylguanosine caps and is essential for viability. In contrast, three closely related isoforms (IFE-1, IFE-2, and IFE-5) bind 2,2, 7-trimethylguanosine caps and are partially redundant, but at least one functional isoform is required for viability. IFE-4, which binds only 7-methylguanosine caps, is most closely related to an unusual eIF4E isoform found in plants (nCBP) and mammals (4E-HP) and is not essential for viability in any combination of IFE knockout. ife-2, ife-3, ife-4, and ife-5 mRNAs are themselves trans-spliced to SL1 spliced leaders. ife-1 mRNA is trans-spliced to an SL2 leader, indicating that its gene resides in a downstream position of an operon.

Synthesis and screening of a combinatorial library of naphthalene substituted chalcones: inhibitors of leukotriene B4

A combinatorial mini library of naphthalene substituted chalcones has been prepared by solution phase chemistry. Screening of these mixtures for leukotriene B4 inhibitory activity using human whole blood assay (HWBL) afforded a lead compound, 1-(6-butoxy-2-naphthyl)-3-(4-nitrophenyl)-prop-2-en-1-one (K4A3) with an IC50 value of 18.5 microM.

DNA replication fork pause sites dependent on transcription

Replication fork pause (RFP) sites transiently arresting replication fork movement were mapped to transfer RNA (tRNA) genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in vivo. RFP sites are polar, stalling replication forks only when they oppose the direction of tRNA transcription. Mutant tRNA genes defective in assembly of transcription initiation complexes and a temperature-sensitive RNA polymerase III mutant (rpc160-41) defective in initiation of transcription do not stall replication forks, suggesting that transcription is required for RFP activity.

Effects of nitroxazepine on diastolic blood pressure in mild hypertensive patients--a short term clinical study

In a double blind short term clinical study, nitroxazepine has been found to be superior over placebo in reducing the diastolic blood pressure in mild hypertensive patients. In short term open clinical trial design nitroxazepine (25 mg PO, HS) has been found to be superior and better tolerated than diazepam (5 mg PO, HS). In open clinical trial design, nitroxazepine (25 mg PO, HS) reduced the diastolic blood pressure to the target level (100 mm Hg and less) effectively controlling the uncontrolled hypertensive patients receiving maintenance dose of beta blockers. There was no such beneficial effect in patients receiving maintenance doses of other antihypertensive drugs (pilot study). Adverse drug reactions like disturbed sleep in one, uneasiness in 3, palpitation in one and dryness of mouth in one patient have been observed.

The ARS consensus sequence is required for chromosomal origin function in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Replication origins have been mapped to positions that coincide, within experimental error (several hundred base pairs), with ARS elements. To determine whether the DNA sequences required for ARS function on plasmids are required for chromosomal origin function, the chromosomal copy of ARS306 was deleted and the chromosomal copy of ARS307 was replaced with mutant derivatives of ARS307 containing single point mutations in domain A within the ARS core consensus sequence. The chromosomal origin function of these derivatives was assayed by two-dimensional agarose gel electrophoresis. Deletion of ARS306 deleted the associated replication origin. The effects on chromosomal origin function of mutations in domain A paralleled their effects on ARS function, as measured by plasmid stability. These results demonstrate that chromosomal origin function is a property of the ARS element itself.