Chemicals, application amino acids

QM/EFPl scheme was used for investigating a variety of chemical processes in aqueous environment, including chemical reactions, amino acid neutral/zwitterion equilibrium, solvent effects on properties of a solute such as changes in dipole moment and shifts in vibrational spectrum, and solvatochromic shifts of electronic levels [36, 56, 59-60, 71-79]. Applications of a general QM/EFP scheme were limited so far to studies of electronic excitations and ionization energies in various solvents [56-58]. Extensions of QM/EFP to biological systems have been also developed [80-85]. 

The most popular applications have been in the areas of spectrophotometry and/or spectroflu-orometry involving the measurement of light intensity as a function of wavelength. These devices have been used to measure chemical concentrations, amino acids, and fluorescent species down to an LOD of 25 nM (Table 1, 4th row) [14],... 

Amino acid separations represent another specific application of the technology. Amino acids are important synthesis precursors - in particular for pharmaceuticals -such as, for example, D-phenylglycine or D-parahydroxyphenylglycine in the preparation of semisynthetic penicillins. They are also used for other chiral fine chemicals and for incorporation into modified biologically active peptides. Since the unnatural amino acids cannot be obtained by fermentation or from natural sources, they must be prepared by conventional synthesis followed by racemate resolution, by asymmetric synthesis, or by biotransformation of chiral or prochiral precursors. Thus, amino acids represent an important class of compounds that can benefit from more efficient separations technology. 

In more recent times chemically defined basal media have been elaborated, on which the growth of various lactic acid bacteria is luxuriant and acid production is near-optimal. The proportions of the nutrients in the basal media have been determined which induce maximum sensitivity of the organisms for the test substance and minimize the stimulatory or inhibitory action of other nutrilites introduced with the test sample. Assay conditions have been provided which permit the attainment of satisfactory precision and accuracy in the determination of amino acids. Experimental techniques have been provided which facilitate the microbiological determination of amino acids. On the whole, microbiological procedures now available for the determination of all the amino acids except hydroxy-proline are convenient, reasonably accurate, and applicable to the assay of purified proteins, food, blood, urine, plant products, and other types of biological materials. On the other hand, it is improbable that any microbiological procedure approaches perfection and it is to be expected that old methods will be improved and new ones proposed by the many investigators interested in this problem. 

The field of synthetic enzyme models encompasses attempts to prepare enzymelike functional macromolecules by chemical synthesis [30]. One particularly relevant approach to such enzyme mimics concerns dendrimers, which are treelike synthetic macromolecules with a globular shape similar to a folded protein, and useful in a range of applications including catalysis [31]. Peptide dendrimers, which, like proteins, are composed of amino acids, are particularly well suited as mimics for proteins and enzymes [32]. These dendrimers can be prepared using combinatorial chemistry methods on solid support [33], similar to those used in the context of catalyst and ligand discovery programs in chemistry [34]. Peptide dendrimers used multivalency effects at the dendrimer surface to trigger cooperativity between amino acids, as has been observed in various esterase enzyme models [35]. 

Several dozens of aldolases have been identified so far in nature [23,24], and many of these enzymes are commercially available at a scale sufficient for preparative applications. Enzyme catalysis is more attractive for the synthesis and modification of biologically relevant classes of organic compounds that are typically complex, multifunctional, and water soluble. Typical examples are those structurally related to amino acids [5-10] or carbohydrates [25-28], which are difficult to prepare and to handle by conventional methods of chemical synthesis and mandate the laborious manipulation of protective groups. 

Applications of the oxalate-hydrogen peroxide chemiluminescence-based and fluorescence-based assays with NDA/CN derivatives to the analysis of amino acids and peptides are included. The sensitivity of the chemiluminescence and fluorescence methods is compared for several analytes. In general, peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence-based methods are 10 to 100 times more sensitive than their fluorescence-based counterparts. The chief limitation of chemiluminescence is that chemical excitation of the fluorophore apparently depends on its structure and oxidation potential. 

Unfortunately, the modification of the side chain is not a generally applicable approach. Among the major, naturally occurring amino acids, only L-lysine has a chemically reactive side chain that would be as readily available for chemical modification as the side chain of glutamic or aspartic acid. Since, however, poly (L-lysine) is known to be toxic (10), its derivatives cannot be candidates for generally applicable biomaterials. Thus, most of the poly(amino acids) that have so far been suggested as biomaterials are derivatives of gluteunic or aspartic acid or copolymers of such derivatives with leucine, methionine, or a limited number of additional amino acids (11). 

Kohn, J., and Langer, R., A new approach to the development of bioerodible polymers for controlled release applications employing naturally occurring amino acids, in Proceeding of the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials. Science and Engineering. American Chemical Society, 1984, Vol. 51, pp. 119-121. 

In an attempt to identify new, biocompatible diphenols for the synthesis of polyiminocarbonates and polycarbonates, we considered derivatives of tyrosine dipeptide as potential monomers. Our experimental rationale was based on the assumption that a diphenol derived from natural amino acids may be less toxic than many of the industrial diphenols. After protection of the amino and carboxylic acid groups, we expected the dipeptide to be chemically equivalent to conventional diphenols. In preliminary studies (14) this hypothesis was confirmed by the successful preparation of poly(Z-Tyr-Tyr-Et iminocarbonate) from the protected tyrosine dipeptide Z-Tyr-Tyr-Et (Figure 3). Unfortunately, poly (Z-Tyr-Tyr-Et iminocarbonate) was an insoluble, nonprocessible material for which no practical applications could be identified. This result illustrated the difficulty of balancing the requirement for biocompatibility with the need to obtain a material with suitable "engineering" properties. 

Esters represent an important class of chemical compounds with applications as solvents, plasticizers, flavors and fragrances, pesticides, medicinals, surfactants, chemical intermediates, and monomers for resins. Recently, esters of amino acids have attracted attention regarding their use as biobased surfactants with excellent adsorption and aggregation properties, low toxicity, and broad biological activity. 

The subsequent chapters will describe various quantum-chemical methods, compare them to experimental results and discuss their applications to such biological systems as amino acids, peptides, carcinostatic drugs, and DNA fragments. Proteins and large DNA fragments cannot be treated as yet with quantum-chemical methods, due to their size, but progress is being made continuously. 

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