Author Archive

Gold Rocks the Casbah

Researchers at the University of Texas have developed an inventive method to deliver molecules into the cell’s nucleus. Advances in gene therapy and the development of drugs that target DNA, the transcription machinery and other regulatory systems all rely on effective transport of molecules into the nucleus. Furthermore, achieving selective delivery of drugs reduces toxicity to non-target organs while maintaining the therapeutic effect.

Towards this aim, the authors delivered liposomes coated with clusters of gold nanoparticles into the cytoplasm. Laser irradiation of the cells heats the nanoparticles to high temperatures resulting in vapourisation of the water-based cytosol, and the transient formation of nanobubbles. The effect of this is an increase in the porosity of the nuclear envelope, enabling the transfer of various macromolecules from the cytoplasm into the nucleus. The authors describe this technique as ‘nanomechanical transduction’ because it is hypothesised that the mechanical effects brought on by the rapid growth and collapse (20 – 50 ns lifetimes) of the bubbles is responsible for the observed increase in porosity.

Local heating of gold nanoparticles and the subsequent formation of nanobubbles occurs due to ‘plasmon resonance’, whereby an electromagnetic field interacts with gold on the surface of the liposome and drives free-electron oscillation in resonance with the incident laser.

A diagram showing nanomechanical transduction. A gold-coated nanoparticle liposome enters the cell and, upon activation by a laser pulse, creates nanobubbles which causes mechanical disruptions in the cell and increased permeability of the nuclear membrane so molecules such as plasmids can enter.

A diagram showing nanomechanical transduction. A gold-coated liposome enters the cell and, upon activation by a laser pulse, creates nanobubbles and mechanical disruption within the cell, resulting in increased permeability of the nuclear membrane.

As a proof-of-concept the authors investigated whether nanomechanical transduction can improve the nuclear localisation of two different types of macromolecule: a dextran polymer labelled with a fluorescent dye, and a plasmid encoding the green fluorescent protein. In the first experiment, cells containing the dextran polymer were incubated with plasmonic liposomes and subjected to a near-infrared laser pulse. Up to 70% fluorescence intensity was observed in the nucleus compared to the cytoplasm, far exceeding the result from control experiments using electroporation to increase cell membrane permeability. In a similar way, nanomechanical transduction resulted in a 2.7 fold increase in the expression of the green-fluorescent protein compared to using electroporation, demonstrating efficient delivery of the plasmid into the nucleus.

The authors entitle their paper ‘rock the nucleus’ and, unintentional reference or not, I think a Casbah (one meaning is the central keep, or citadel, of a walled city) is a rather fitting analogy for the nucleus: the command post of the cell, and safeguard of genetic information. The authors of this work offer a sophisticated yet general method for molecules to breach the walls.

To find out more please read:

Rock the nucleus: significantly enhanced nuclear membrane permeability and gene transfection by plasmonic nanobubble induced nanomechanical transduction

Xiuying Li, Peiyuan Kang, Zhuo Chen, Sneha Lal, Li Zhang, Jeremiah J. Gassensmith and Zhenpeng Qin.
Chem. Commun., 2008, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/c7cc09613e

About the author:

Zoë Hearne is a PhD candidate in chemistry at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, under the supervision of Professor Chao-Jun Li. She hails from Canberra, Australia, where she completed her undergraduate degree. Her current research focuses on transition metal catalysis to effect novel transformations, and out of the lab she is an enthusiastic chemistry tutor and science communicator.

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Hiding Carbon Dioxide in Oxazolidinones

Sometimes it feels as though the pinnacle of synthetic achievement is represented by 20 step total syntheses (with 10 contiguous stereocentres and 5 fused rings…). The level of chemical complexity that can be fashioned from simple building blocks is undoubtedly impressive, but amid such feats it is important not to lose sight of the elegance and worth of simple chemistry, especially when it aims to play a part in resolving profound challenges. One such challenge, which will increasingly confront future generations, is how to reduce the load of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One solution is to ‘fix’ carbon dioxide by integrating it into chemical building blocks of added complexity in a sustainable way.

The porosity and high surface area of metal organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of three-dimensional coordination networks, proffers them as ideal materials for capture and storage of carbon dioxide. A team of researchers have designed a MOF which consumes carbon dioxide in a different way: by transformation into value-added chemicals. The group have developed a catalytic MOF embedded with lewis-acidic copper centres capable of converting aziridines to oxazolidinones by the addition of carbon dioxide. Oxazolidinones are used as auxiliaries in chiral synthesis, and are structural components of some antibiotics.

The MOF, termed MMPF-10, is a metal-metalloporphyrin framework constructed from a copper-bound porphyrin ring chemically modified to incorporate 8 benzoic acid moieties, generating an octatopic ligand. These carboxylic acids groups form a second complex with copper in situ, termed a ‘paddlewheel’ for its appearance, with the formula [Cu2(CO2)4]. The resulting network contains hexagonal channels measuring 25.6 x 15.6 Å flanked by four of each of the two copper complexes. With 0.625 % of the catalyst at room temperature, 1 bar CO2 pressure, and in a solvent free environment, MMPF-10 catalyses the transformation of 1-methyl-2-phenylaziridine to yield 63% of the product.

metal-metalloporphyrin MOF catalyses catalyzes carbon dioxide fixation aziridines to oxazolidinones

Topology of MMPF-10 showing hexagonal channels in a) and c), and pentagonal cavities in b). Turquoise: copper, red: oxygen, grey: carbon, blue: nitrogen.

This work, a simple reaction to prepare oxazolidinones, shows that carbon dioxide can be fixed in specialised synthetic building blocks in a sustainable way. This is the way the first paragraph ended, ‘in a sustainable way’, because the challenge of developing such a reaction is two-fold: it must use carbon dioxide, and the reaction conditions must be sustainable. There will be no beneficial offset if the reaction uses a lot of energy, requires many resources, or generates larges quantities of waste. In this reaction the researchers have remained mindful of developing a mild, solvent-free reaction with low catalyst loading employing an earth abundant metal, reflecting an earnest aim to develop practical and sustainable chemistry.

To find out more please read:

A metal-metalloporphyrin framework based on an octatopic porphyrin ligand for chemical fixation of CO2 with aziridines

Xun Wang, Wen-Yang Gao, Zheng Niu, Lukasz Wojtas, Jason A. Perman, Yu-Sheng Chen, Zhong Li, Briana Aguila and Shengqian Ma
Chem. Commun., 2018, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/c7cc08844b

About the Author

Zoë Hearne is a PhD candidate in chemistry at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, under the supervision of Professor Chao-Jun Li. She hails from Canberra, Australia, where she completed her undergraduate degree. Her current research focuses on transition metal catalysis to effect novel transformations, and out of the lab she is an enthusiastic chemistry tutor and science communicator.

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Shoot the Messenger: Circular DNA-Graphene Oxide Material Targets mRNA in Living Cells

Schematic of the circular DNA cDNA/GO graphene oxide platform fabrication for intracellular mRNA messenger RNA imaging and gene therapy.

Scheme showing how cDNA/GO enters the cell and interacts with mRNA

Did you know that the combined length of DNA in your body’s cells is a number so large that the only references I could find use cosmic distances as a reference? Try twice the diameter of the solar system, or the distance to the moon and back 1500 times. Despite the complexity and infinite detail encountered when studying science, it is often something so simple as size that gives us pause. How can DNA be both uncomprehendingly huge and tiny at the same time?

The major function of DNA is to encode proteins, a process which begins with the transcription of genes into single-stranded messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules. It is mRNA that is directly translated into the strands of amino acids which fold to form proteins.

A team of researchers at Fuzhou University in China have developed a graphene oxide and circularised single-stranded DNA (cDNA/GO) hybrid material capable of penetrating living cells and binding mRNA. The material’s utility is shown in two practical applications: mRNA imaging and nucleotide therapeutics. The authors chose the mRNA of survivin and c-raf kinase as targets, because the enzymes are involved in carcinogenesis, and the mRNA are overexpressed in cancer cells and can be used as biomarkers.

cDNA was chosen for its increased stability over linear single-stranded DNA, which is rapidly degraded in vivo by exonucleases. For mRNA imaging the material is designed with a fluorescent dye coupled to the cDNA. GO was chosen as a hydrophilic delivery scaffold capable of adsorbing cDNA and quenching the dye. When cDNA/GO was incubated with HeLa cells (a cancer cell strain) a time-dependent increase in fluorescence was observed in the cytoplasm. Fluorescence is restored when cDNA encounters the target and desorbs from the GO to form a duplex with the mRNA.

CLSM images acquired for HeLa cells treated with both survivin and c-raf targeted cDNA/GO for duplexed intracellular mRNA imaging

The mRNA of both survivin and c-raf kinase can be imaged in living cells with cDNA/GO.

The researchers also probed whether the material might serve as a therapeutic agent: if formation of the cDNA-mRNA duplex blocks translation it may reduce the load of c-raf kinase and survivin in the cell and influence cancer cell growth. Accordingly, the researchers found that when the HeLa cells were incubated with cDNA/GO, cell proliferation was inhibited in a dose-dependent manner.

This research contributes a robust design which can be applied to diverse mRNA targets because optimisable properties such as stability, bioavailability and selectivity are largely independent of the sequence of nucleotides.

To find out more please read:

Circular DNA: a stable probe for highly efficient mRNA imaging and gene therapy in living cells

Jingying Li, Jie Zhou, Tong Liu, Shan Chen, Juan Li and Huanghao Yang
Chem. Commun., 2018, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C7CC08906F

About the author

Zoë Hearne is a PhD candidate in chemistry at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, under the supervision of Professor Chao-Jun Li. She hails from Canberra, Australia, where she completed her undergraduate degree. Her current research focuses on transition metal catalysis to effect novel transformations, and out of the lab she is an enthusiastic chemistry tutor and science communicator.

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Negative press is not always a bad thing: a novel anode material for sodium-ion batteries

At a product launch in California last week Elon Musk introduced Tesla’s new electric semi-trailer truck. Musk sells a tantalising future: one where an electric fleet replaces vehicles which currently rely on fossil fuels. Central to this fleet are powerful rechargeable batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are favoured for many current applications, such as portable electronic devices and the current offerings of full and hybrid vehicles. In coming years they are projected to be the technology of choice for the large-scale applications mentioned above and for storing power generated from intermittent renewable energy sources.

A limiting factor in the widespread roll-out of lithium batteries is that lithium is an expensive resource with low natural abundance. Sodium offers a possible alternative and has the obvious benefits of being both very cheap, and one of the most abundant elements in the earth’s crust. The electrode materials used in lithium batteries cannot be used to make the sodium variant because the sodium ion is larger (1.02 Å compared to 0.76 Å for lithium) and damages the crystalline materials optimised for lithium.

Researchers Gu, Gu and Yang at Beihang University in Beijing have reported the synthesis and performance of a novel anode material optimised for sodium. The material is a graphene-tetrahydroxybenzoquinone (Na4C6O6) hybrid, and is comprised of a porous graphene-oxide scaffold decorated with nanocrystals of Na4C6O6. Furthermore, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) reveals the homogenous distribution of sodium throughout this conducting material.

The electrochemical performance contrasts with previously reported materials of this type by exhibiting high cyclic stability. The reversible capacity of graphene-Na4C6O6 at a current density of 74.4 mA g-1 is 268 mA h g-1, a value which is steady over 60 cycles. This is competitive with the graphite anode materials found in lithium batteries, which have specific capacities between 200 and 400 mA h g-1. Furthermore the material performs well over a range of current densities, with reversible capacities of 95 – 211 mA h g-1 measured over a range of 3720 – 186 mA g-1.

With this work the authors contribute, at most, a viable candidate for the next rechargeable sodium battery and, at the very least, continued research into sustainable technologies. This ensures that in addressing our current energy challenges we are solving the problem, not delaying it.

To find out more please read:

3D organic Na4C6O6/graphene architecture for fast sodium storage with ultralong cycle life
Jianan Gu, Yue Gua and Shubin Yang
Chem. Commun., 2017, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C7CC08045J, Communication

About the author

Zoë Hearne is a PhD candidate in chemistry at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, under the supervision of Professor Chao-Jun Li. She hails from Canberra, Australia, where she completed her undergraduate degree. Her current research focuses on transition metal catalysis to effect novel transformations, and out of the lab she is an enthusiastic chemistry tutor and science communicator.

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MOF catalysts show great promise for the future of industrial oxidation

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have enjoyed a short but illustrious career to date. Much attention has focussed on their potential for gas storage, but as the field matures an emerging function of these materials is being developed to great success: MOFs as heterogeneous catalysts.

MOFs are highly porous coordination polymers comprised of metallic ‘nodes’ connected in a 3-dimensional lattice by organic ‘linkers’. This structure offers advantages of both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis: their large surface area and porosity offers an accessible network of active sites, they can be recovered and recycled, and they are well-characterised and crystalline with a uniformity which facilitates reproducibility, selectivity, and systematic modification.

The authors of the review entitled ‘Tunable nature of metal organic frameworks as heterogeneous solid catalysts for alcohol oxidation’ are tasked with reviewing the literature exploring catalytic MOFs developed to selectively oxidise alcohols to aldehydes and ketones, a reaction with particular relevance to the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

The review divides MOF oxidation catalysts into four categories. The first are defined by having transition-metal complexes attached to the linker, with the nodes having little to no catalytic activity. They compare to the second category, which are constructed with catalytically active metal nodes. The third category comprises photocatalysts, assembled from linkers that facilitate electron transfer to the nodes upon light irradiation, while the fourth category describes MOFs containing stabilised metallic nanoparticles.

This review highlights the most promising catalysts in each category, and MOFs are evaluated on more than catalytic performance alone. Catalysts are examined which contain precious transition metals such as ruthenium and iridium, used under reaction conditions requiring stoichiometric oxidant, base and/or co-catalyst. These are succeeded by MOFs which closely approach the ideal for industry and sustainability: a catalyst with high catalytic activity constructed from earth abundant metals such as copper and iron, which requires no added base or co-catalyst, uses air as the terminal oxidant and can be used under solvent-free conditions. And although we’re not there yet, the challenge has been set.

To find out more please read:

Tuneable nature of metal organic frameworks as heterogeneous solid catalysts for alcohol oxidation
Amarajothi Dhakshinamoorthy, Abdullah M. Asirib and Hermenegildo Garcia
Chem. Commun., 2017,53, 10851-10869
DOI10.1039/C7CC05927B

About the author

Zoë Hearne is a PhD candidate in chemistry at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, under the supervision of Professor Chao-Jun Li. She hails from Canberra, Australia, where she completed her undergraduate degree. Her current research focuses on transition metal catalysis to effect novel transformations, and out of the lab she is an enthusiastic chemistry tutor and science communicator.

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