Tagpyrrollins A and B and Tagpyrrollidone A: Three Pyrrole Steroid Analogues with AKR1B1-Targeting Inhibitory Activity from the Sponges Stylissa massa and Pseudospongosorites suberitoides.

Pyrrole alkaloids (PAs) are a diverse class of natural products with complex carbon frameworks and broad bioactivities that are usually derived from marine sponges. Stylissa massa and Pseudospongosorites suberitoides are two independent sponges collected from the South China Sea in 2013 and 2018, respectively. We discovered PAs are common constituents in both two sponges; more specifically, S. massa produces pyrrole-imidazole alkaloids, and P. suberitoides contains pyrrolidone alkaloids. In this study, three pyrrole steroid metabolites were obtained. Compounds 1 and 2 are a pair of epimers sharing a new 5/7/5/6/6 pentacyclic structural configuration, and compound 3 has a new rigid 5/6/6 tricyclic structure. Interestingly, their scaffolds all possess a 6/6 bicyclic system on the featured classic pyrrole/pyrrolidone skeletons, so-dubbed tagpyrrollins A and B (1 and 2, respectively) and tagpyrrollidone A (3). From a biosynthetic viewpoint, 4,5-dihydroxypent-2-enal probably plays a crucial role in constructing these pyrrole steroid analogues. Based on our previous study on the inhibitory activity of spongiacidin targeting AKR1B1, a drug target for the treatment of chronic diabetic complications, in this study we found that tagpyrrolin A (1) also exhibits an inhibitory effect against AKR1B1.

Sn species modified mesoporous zeolite TS-1 with oxygen vacancy for enzyme-free electrochemical H2O2 detecting.

Sn species modified zeolite TS-1 with a unique mesopore structure (Sn-TS-1) and rich oxygen vacancy defects has been designed via a sol-gel method and an ion-exchange process, which can be used as an enzyme-free electrochemical sensor for H2O2 detection. The resultant composite Sn-TS-1 has a high BET surface area of 191 cm2 g-1, fast electron transfer, rich oxygen vacancies, and abundant active sites, showing super performance in H2O2 reduction with a low detection limit (0.27 µM, S/N = 3). The current is linear with H2O2 concentration from 1 to 1000 and 1000 to 11 000 µM, and the corresponding sensitivities are 360.4 and 80.44 µA mM-1 cm-1, respectively. More importantly, this Sn-TS-1 sensor also shows excellent anti-interference ability and stability. This work provides a new idea for an enzyme-free sensor for H2O2 detection in biological environments, which has promising potential in point-of-care (POC) testing for H2O2.