Myocardial Injury Is Distinguished from Stable Angina by a Set of Candidate Plasma Biomarkers Identified Using iTRAQ/MRM-Based Approach.

The lack of precise biomarkers that identify patients at risk for myocardial injury and stable angina delays administration of optimal therapy. Hence, the search for noninvasive biomarkers that could accurately stratify patients with impending heart attack, from patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD), is urgently needed in the clinic. Herein, we performed comparative quantitative proteomics on whole plasma sampled from patients with stable angina (NMI), acute myocardial infarction (MI), and healthy control subjects (Ctrl). We detected a total of 371 proteins with high confidence (FDR < 1%, p < 0.05) including 53 preliminary biomarkers that displayed ≥2-fold modulated expression in patients with CAD (27 associated with atherosclerotic stable angina, 26 with myocardial injury). In the verification phase, we used label-free LC-MRM-MS-based targeted method to verify the preliminary biomarkers in pooled plasma, excluded peptides that were poorly distinguished from background, and performed further validation of the remaining candidates in 49 individual plasma samples. Using this approach, we identified a final panel of eight novel candidate biomarkers that were significantly modulated in CAD (p < 0.05) including proteins associated with atherosclerotic stable angina that were implicated in endothelial dysfunction (F10 and MST1), proteins associated with myocardial injury reportedly involved in plaque destabilization (SERPINA3, CPN2, LUM), and in tissue protection/repair mechanisms (ORM2, ACTG1, NAGLU). Taken together, our data showed that candidate biomarkers with potential diagnostic values can be successfully detected in nondepleted human plasma using an iTRAQ/MRM-based discovery-validation approach and demonstrated the plausible clinical utility of the proposed panel in discriminating atherosclerotic stable angina from myocardial injury in the studied cohort.

5-Methylisoxazole-3-carboxamide-Directed Palladium-Catalyzed γ-C(sp(3))-H Acetoxylation and Application to the Synthesis of γ-Mercapto Amino Acids for Native Chemical Ligation.

Palladium-catalyzed acetoxylation of the primary γ-C(sp(3))-H bonds in the amino acids Val, Thr, and Ile was achieved using a newly discovered 5-methylisoxazole-3-carboxamide directing group. The γ-acetoxylated α-amino acid derivatives could be easily converted to γ-mercapto amino acids, which are useful for native chemical ligation (NCL). The first application of NCL at isoleucine in the semisynthesis of a Xenopus histone H3 protein was also demonstrated.

Auxiliary-Directed Pd-Catalyzed γ-C(sp(3))-H Bond Activation of α-Aminobutanoic Acid Derivatives.

New bidentate auxiliaries derived from the isoxazole-3-carboxamide and oxazole-4-carboxamide moieties were used for Pd-catalyzed C(sp(3))-H bond activation. The results show that, when placed on a primary amine compound, 5-methylisoxazole-3-carboxamide (MICA) directs Pd-catalyzed activation of inert γ-C(sp(3))-H bonds for C-C bond formation. Selective and efficient arylation and alkylation of several α-aminobutanoic acid derivatives led to various γ-substituted non-natural amino acids. The MICA directing group can be conveniently removed and recovered under very mild conditions.

Thermally reversible single-crystal to single-crystal transformation of mononuclear to dinuclear Zn(II) complexes by [2+2] cycloaddition reaction.

Two Zn(II) complexes of trans-4-styrylpyridine ligands undergo [2+2] cycloaddition reaction forming Zn(II) complex dimers in a single-crystal to single-crystal (SCSC) manner which were thermally reversible. The dimers are presumed to be the stable intermediates in the formation of 1D coordination polymers upon prolonged exposure to UV light.