Correction to: Creation of Straight-Chain Cationic Polysaccharide-Based Bile Salt Sequestrants Made from Euglenoid ß-1,3-Glucan as Potential Antidiabetic Agents.

The corresponding author (Motonari Shibakami) inadvertently failed to include his ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4484-2982 In the published article.

Creation of Straight-Chain Cationic Polysaccharide-Based Bile Salt Sequestrants Made from Euglenoid ß-1,3-Glucan as Potential Antidiabetic Agents.

PURPOSE: Straight-chain polysaccharides have a greater potential of selectively adsorbing hydrophobic bile salts than resin-based bile salt sequesters because of ionic and hydrophobic interactions; hence, they may possess antidiabetic activity. The feasibility of using cationic polysaccharides made from euglenoid ß-1,3-glucan (referred to as paramylon) as potential antidiabetic agents was examined by using in vitro and animal experiments. METHODS: Cationic straight-chain polysaccharides were synthesized from euglenoid polysaccharide and glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride. The effects of administration of the synthetic polysaccharide on metabolic syndrome-related indicators were examined in high-fat diet-induced obesity mice. The degree of adsorption of bile salts by the polysaccharides was evaluated using spectroscopic analysis. RESULTS: Administration of the cationic paramylon derivatives significantly reduced body and mesenteric fat weight in high-fat diet-induced obesity mice. A noteworthy effect was that glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) secretion was approximately three times higher in diet-induced obesity mice receiving cationic paramylon derivatives than in those receiving cellulose as a control. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that these cationic paramylon derivatives are potential GLP-1 secretagogues suitable for further study.

Efficient and practical arene hydrogenation by heterogeneous catalysts under mild conditions.

An efficient and practical arene hydrogenation procedure based on the use of heterogeneous platinum group catalysts has been developed. Rh/C is the most effective catalyst for the hydrogenation of the aromatic ring, which can be conducted in iPrOH under neutral conditions and at ordinary to medium H(2) pressures (<10 atm). A variety of arenes such as alkylbenzenes, benzoic acids, pyridines, furans, are hydrogenated to the corresponding cyclohexyl and heterocyclic compounds in good to excellent yields. The use of Ru/C, less expensive than Rh/C, affords an effective and practical method for the hydrogenation of arenes including phenols. Both catalysts can be reused several times after simple filtration without any significant loss of catalytic activity.

Pd/C(en) catalyzed chemoselective hydrogenation in the presence of aryl nitriles.

Aromatic nitriles are not only important components of natural products, pharmaceuticals, herbicides and agrochemicals but also a synthetic equivalent of various functionalities. The development of synthetic methods of aromatic nitriles have been increasing in terms of its usefulness. Since aromatic nitriles are susceptible to the hydrogenation, it has been desired for the development of chemoselective hydrogenation method with retention of nitrile groups. Pd/C is one of the most popular catalysts for hydrogenation and many of reducible functional groups such as multiple bonds, benzyl ethers, N-Cbzs, nitro groups and so on could be easily reduced under the conditions. Therefore, it is very difficult to achieve the chemoselective hydrogenation of substrates containing two or more reducible functional groups. We have found that a Pd/C catalyst formed an isolable complex with ethylenediamine (en) employed as catalytic poison, and the complex [Pd/C(en)] catalyzed chemoselective hydrogenation of a variety of reducible functionalities distinguishing O-benzyl, N-Cbz and O-TBDMS protective groups, benzyl alcohols and epoxides. In the course of these investigations, we found the aryl nitriles could survive under the Pd/C(en)-catalyzed hydrogenation conditions in THF whose choice is important for the effective suppression. This methodology could be applied to the selective hydrogenation of alkene and alkyne functionalities in the presence of aromatic nitrile.

Fas-mediated lysis of target cell by IL-2 treated cytotoxic T lymphocytes.

Interleukin-2 (IL-2) plays an important role as an immunoregulatory mediator. It is also known to enhance the killing activity of killer cells such as natural killer (NK) cells or lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells. When cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) lyse antigen (Ag)-treated target cells, the presence of IL-2 enhances the killing activity of CTL. In the present study, we examined the mechanisms by which IL-2 treated CTL lyse normal target cells at the cellular and mRNA levels. Our results suggest that IL-2 treated CTL can lyse target cells predominantly via Fas-mediated mechanism and to a lesser extent via a granule exocytosis-based mechanism. Interestingly, the level of FasL mRNA in CTL clone remained unchanged following IL-2 treatment, whereas the level of expression of Fas ligand (FasL) on CTL surface was slightly enhanced. On the other hand, treatment with metalloproteinase inhibitor augmented the level of FasL expression on the cell surface of CTL as well as the activity of target cell killing. Our results indicate that IL-2 plays a crucial role in the regulatory mechanisms of target cell killing by CTL without TCR-stimulation.