Theoretical spectroscopic insights of tautomers and enantiomers of penicillamine.

B3LYP and MP2 calculations have been carried out to investigate tautomers and enantiomers of penicillamine (Pen). Their infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), circular dichroism (CD) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra were obtained at linear-response, time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT). IR, UV and NMR spectra cannot be used to identify Pen enantiomers, showing nearly equal spectral profiles. CD spectra, however, give rise to completely symmetric signals, forming a perfect specular image to each other. Distinct CD profiles were also obtained for Pen tautomers. Important IR differences were found in positions and intensities of the vibrational stretching bands involving acid and amine groups of Pen tautomers. The highest electron transitions involving HOMO-LUMO orbitals show to be of major importance in the computed UV spectra, showing a large red-shift around 30nm as the zwitterionic and neutral Pen spectra are compared. NMR results show to be quite useful for identification of Pen tautomers since clear differences are found by means of the computed shielding tensors as well as spin-spin coupling constants 1J(N,H) data.

Effects of load carrying on metabolic cost and hindlimb muscle dynamics in guinea fowl (Numida meleagris).

The goal of this study was to test whether the contractile patterns of two major hindlimb extensors of guinea fowl are altered by load-carrying exercise. We hypothesized that changes in contractile pattern, specifically a decrease in muscle shortening velocity or enhanced stretch activation, would result in a reduction in locomotor energy cost relative to the load carried. We also anticipated that changes in kinematics would reflect underlying changes in muscle strain. Oxygen consumption, muscle activation intensity, and fascicle strain rate were measured over a range of speeds while animals ran unloaded vs. when they carried a trunk load equal to 22% of their body mass. Our results showed that loading produced no significant (P > 0.05) changes in kinematic patterns at any speed. In vivo muscle contractile strain patterns in the iliotibialis lateralis pars postacetabularis and the medial head of the gastrocnemius showed a significant increase in active stretch early in stance (P < 0.01), but muscle fascicle shortening velocity was not significantly affected by load carrying. The rate of oxygen consumption increased by 17% (P < 0.01) during loaded conditions, equivalent to 77% of the relative increase in mass. Additionally, relative increases in EMG intensity (quantified as mean spike amplitude) indicated less than proportional recruitment, consistent with force enhancement via stretch activation, in the proximal iliotibialis lateralis pars postacetabularis; however, a greater than proportional increase in the medial gastrocnemius was observed. As a result, when averaged for the two muscles, EMG intensity increased in direct proportion to the fractional increase in load carried.

A physicochemical study of the tetracycline coordination to oxovanadium(IV).

The interaction of tetracycline and oxovanadium(IV) in aqueous solution was studied by potentiometric and spectrophotometric methods. Oxovanadium(IV) ions form both a positively charged 1:1 and a neutral 2:1 metal-ligand complex with tetracycline. When a 1:1 ligand-to-metal ratio mixture is used at about pH 4.5 the 1:1 species predominates, being replaced at pH 6 by the binuclear complex. The binuclear complex has been isolated and fully characterised. Infrared and EPR studies suggest the existence of two distinct vanadyl binding sites. Our results indicate that the first vanadium coordinates to the BCD-ring system and the second one to the A-ring. Biological implications of the existence of a neutral complex at physiological pH are briefly discussed.

Importance of tautomers in the chemical behavior of tetracyclinesdagger.

We advance the concept that tautomerism is crucial for the understanding of the chemical behavior of tetracycline. Indeed, considering four deprotonations, there are 64 different possible tautomers to be considered for tetracycline. Our results indicate that tetracycline is a very adaptive molecule, capable of easily modifying itself through tautomerism in response to various chemical environments. Indeed, its situation in solution can be more accurately pictured as an equilibrium among a diversity of tautomeric species-an equilibrium that can be easily displaced depending on the various possible chemical perturbations, such as varying the pH or the dielectric constant of the solvent. Moreover, we also show that tetracycline could undergo four deprotonations and predict for it a fourth pKa of 13 and refer to our experimental determination of this parameter, which yielded the value of 12. We conclude that tautomerism is essential to the comprehension of the chemical behavior of tetracycline as determined by the semiempirical method AM1 as well as by the self-consistent reaction field method, which estimates the effects of the solvent on the tautomers. All tautomers in their different conformations have been fully optimized for each of the possible degrees of protonation of this molecule. Thus, the relative stabilities of the different tautomeric species have been computed.