Continuous-flow Setup Research Articles

Reconstitution of acid-denatured holomyoglobin studied by time-resolved electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.

Time-resolved electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry (MS) is a new technique for studying the kinetics of protein folding reactions. It can monitor both changes in the protein conformation and the loss or binding of protein ligands as a function of time. Time-resolved ESI MS was previously used to monitor the acid-induced unfolding of holomyoglobin (hMb). The native form of this protein is characterized by a tightly folded conformation and a heme group that is noncovalently attached to the protein. Acid-induced denaturation induces substantial unfolding of the polypeptide chain and disruption of the heme-protein interactions. In this work, time-resolved ESI MS is used to study the reverse reaction, i.e., reconstitution of acid-denatured hMb. To examine the mechanism and the kinetics of this reaction, a continuous-flow setup with two sequential mixing steps was developed. The data presented in this work show that reconstitution involves the formation of various short-lived intermediates such as tightly folded myoglobin without a heme group and several nativelike forms of the protein that are bound to more than one heme. The occurrence of these transient states is most likely due to the rapid aggregation of free heme in solution.

Determination of (15)N in (15)N-enriched nitrite and nitrate in aqueous samples by reaction continuous flow quadrupole mass spectrometry.

The (15)N tracer method is the most suitable method for studying complex N transformation processes in microbiology and biochemistry. It entails the constant determination of the (15)N abundance of the inorganic nitrogen (N) compounds nitrite and nitrate. However, (15)N analytical methods are time-consuming, difficult to automate, and require at least 10 µg of N per determination. An additional obstacle in the case of nitrite is that it usually only occurs in very small amounts (ppb) dwarfed by much larger quantities of nitrate (ppm). More useful is an approach in which the N compound is selectively converted into a gaseous form suitable for direct measurement by mass spectrometry. By using this 'reaction continuous-flow mass spectrometry' (R/CFMS) we developed methods for the (15)N determination of nitrite and nitrate from tracer experiment samples, i.e. artificially enriched in (15)N. Because both methods are based on the same principle, one continuous flow setup connected directly to a quadrupole mass spectrometer for all determinations was used. Nitrite and nitrate are reduced to NO by iodide and titanium(III) chloride, respectively. The technique developed ensures a precision of relative standard deviation </=3% if at least 0.5 and 2 µg N with an abundance of >/=1 at.% are to be measured for nitrite and nitrate, respectively. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Electronic Structure of a Transient Histidine Radical in Liquid Aqueous Solution: EPR Continuous-Flow Studies and Density Functional Calculations

Transient histidine radicals formed in aqueous solutions by oxidation of histidine with a Ti3+/H2O2 Fenton system at pH 2.0 have been studied by EPR using a fast continuous-flow setup and a dielectric ring resonator equipped with a mixing chamber. A histidine peroxy radical with a single EPR line at g = 2.0151 and a histidine cation radical with a complex hyperfine structure and g = 2.0023 have been detected. The hyperfine structure of the latter radical was analyzed by investigating two selectively deuterated histidines and using an EPR simulation and fit program for analysis of the spectra. Isotropic hyperfine coupling constants of two β-protons, three ring protons, and two nitrogen nuclei have been determined in this way and assigned to a histidine−OH adduct cation radical. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations at the B3LYP and PWP86 levels have been performed on protonated cation radicals of 4-ethylimidazole (as histidine models), yielding isotropic hyperfine coupling constants for three different positions of OH addition. The C5 position for OH addition (a 5-oxohistidine cation radical) is clearly supported by the calculated hyperfine coupling constants. The agreement between DFT and EPR is further improved when hydrogen-bonding interactions to the N1 and C2 protons are introduced in the calculations.

Effect of pressure on the oxidative coupling of methane in the absence of catalyst

AbstractThe oxidative coupling of methane was carried out in the absence of catalyst in a continuous flow setup at total pressures up to 1,000 kPa, temperatures from 950 to 1,230 K, and inlet molar ratios of CH4/O2 down to 2.5. At constant temperature and residence time, the conversions of methane and oxygen increase drastically with increasing pressure. At oxygen conversions higher than 80%, product selectivities are comparable at different pressures. The space‐time yield of the C2 products reaches a level comparable to that required for industrial operations from 400 kPa on. A radical‐reaction network consisting of 38 elementary reactions allows to describe the experimental data. To describe adequately the effect of total pressure, the pressure fall‐off behavior of the rate coefficients for the unimolecular reactions in the network has to be taken into account explicitly.General features of the reaction mechanism do not depend on the total pressure. Methyl and hydrogen peroxy radicals are the most abundant radicals. The total pressure increase results in a drastic increase of the concentrations of the chain carriers, particularly the hydrogen peroxy radical. Higher pressure favor the oxidative route from ethane to ethylene compared to the pyrolytic route. Increasing the total pressure leads to an increase of the primary and a decrease of the consecutive CO formation relative to the coupling. The balance between these nonselective routes determines the effect of the total pressure on the integral selectivity to C2 products at different conversions. The major contribution to the integral CO selectivity comes from the oxidation of methyl radicals.

Real time monitoring of acylations during solid phase peptide synthesis: a method based on electrochemical detection

Monitoring of acylation reactions during solid phase peptide synthesis is important to ensure high coupling yields in all steps of the synthesis. We describe in this paper a simple and reliable method for monitoring the time course of the acylation steps as well as the washing and deprotection steps during computer-controlled solid phase peptide synthesis. The method is based on the continuous measurement of electrical conductivity in the reaction vessel. It is shown that there is a close correspondence between the degree of acylation (as determined from the amount of 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl- (Fmoc) groups released during deprotection) and the conductivity profile obtained during coupling of the amino acids to the growing peptide chain. The measurements are fed back to the computer providing data for software control of the duration of the acylation, deprotection and washing steps. The method is demonstrated with pentafluorophenol esters [1,2], but is equally applicable to dihydroxybenzotriazole esters [3,4] and symmetric anhydrides using the Fmoc-polyamide strategy [5–7] in a continuous flow set-up with dimethylformamide (DMF) as the general solvent.