The dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase-binding protein (E3BP) and the dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase (E2) component enzyme form the structural core of the human pyruvate dehydrogenase complex by providing the binding sites for two other component proteins, dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase (E3) and pyruvate dehydrogenase (E1), as well as pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases and phosphatases. Despite a high similarity between the primary structures of E3BP and E2, the E3-binding domain of human E3BP is highly specific to human E3, whereas the E1-binding domain of human E2 is highly specific to human E1. In this study, we characterized binding of human E3 to the E3-binding domain of E3BP by x-ray crystallography at 2.6-Å resolution, and we used this structural information to interpret the specificity for selective binding. Two subunits of E3 form a single recognition site for the E3-binding domain of E3BP through their hydrophobic interface. The hydrophobic residues Pro 133 , Pro 154 , and Ile 157 in the E3-binding domain of E3BP insert themselves into the surface of both E3 polypeptide chains. Numerous ionic and hydrogen bonds between the residues of three interacting polypeptide chains adjacent to the central hydrophobic patch add to the stability of the subcomplex. The specificity of pairing for human E3BP with E3 is interpreted from its subcomplex structure to be most likely due to conformational rigidity of the binding fragment of the E3-binding domain of E3BP and its exquisite amino acid match with the E3 target interface. The human pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDC)2 with an approximate molecular mass of 8 ϫ 10 6 Da consists of multiple copies of three catalytic enzymes known as pyruvate dehydrogenase (E1), dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase (E2), and dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase (E3) as well as the dedicated E3-binding protein (E3BP) (1). In addition, pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase and phosphatase interacting with the complex are responsible for regulation of PDC activity by a reversible phosphorylation/dephosphorylation mechanism that involves covalent modification of E1. PDC plays a key role in regulation of the flux of two-carbon acetyl units from pyruvate through acetyl-CoA into the Krebs cycle, yielding CO 2 , NADH, and H ϩ . The E1 component catalyzes the decarboxylation of pyruvate and the reductive acetylation of the lipoyl moieties of E2. The E2 component transfers the acetyl group to CoA. The E3 component oxidizes the reduced lipoyl moieties through reduction of NAD ϩ to NADH, thus preparing the lipoyl moiety for another cycle of catalytic reaction. Along with E3BP, the human E2 component forms the structural core of PDC and provides the binding site for E1 (2). E3BP (previously known as protein X) provides primarily the binding site for E3 (3, 4). In the absence of E3BP, PDC catalysis is supported at a rate of 4% only (5, 6). Both E2 and E3BP share considerable sequence identity (37%) as revealed in pairwise sequence alignment (7). The principal differences are that mammalian E3BP has a single lipoyl ...

Liquid‐crystal materials exhibiting up to three nematic phases are reported. Dielectric response measurements show that while the lower temperature nematic phase has ferroelectric order and the highest temperature nematic phase is apolar, the intermediate phase has local antiferroelectric order. The modification of the molecular structure by increasing the number of lateral fluorine substituents leads to one of the materials showing a direct isotropic‐ferronematic phase transition.

The electron density distributions in crystals of five previously studied DMAN complexes and five Schiff bases (two new ones) have been analysed in terms of various properties of bond critical points (BCPs) found in the pair-wise interactions in their lattices. We analysed the continua of interactions including covalent/ionic bonds as well as hydrogen bonds and all other types of weak interactions for all pairs of interacting atoms. The charge density at BCPs and local kinetic and potential energy densities vary exponentially with internuclear distance (or other measures of separation). The parameters of the dependences appear to be characteristics of particular pairs of atom types. The Laplacian and the total (sum of kinetic and potential) energy density at BCPs show similar behaviour with the dependence being of the Morse type. The components lambda1, lambda2, lambda3 of the Laplacian at BCPs vary systematically with internuclear distance according to the type of atom pair. For lambda1 and lambda2 the distribution is of the exponential type, whereas lambda3 does not seem to follow any simple functional form, consistent with previous theoretical findings. Analytical nonlinear dependences of Laplacian on charge density have been found. They agree reasonably well with those obtained by least square fit of the Laplacian to charge density data. There are four distinct regions of the [symbol: see text]2rho(BCP)/rho(BCP) space, generated by E(BCP) = 0 and G(BCP)/rho(BCP) = 1 conditions. Two regions clearly correspond to the shared-shell and closed-shell interactions and the other two to some intermediate situation.

Three naphthalene-based analogues (4 a-c) of the Hoveyda-Grubbs metathesis catalyst exhibited immense differences in reactivity. Systematic structural and spectroscopic studies revealed that the ruthenafurane ring present in all 2-isopropoxyarylidene chelates possesses some aromatic character, which inhibits catalyst activity. This aromatic stabilization within the chelate ring may be controlled by variation of the polycyclic core topology as was demonstrated for tetraline and phenanthrene derivatives (4 d, e). General conclusions about a new mode of ligand-structure tuning in catalytic systems are presented.

A short overview on the structural design of the Hoveyda-Grubbs-type ruthenium initiators chelated through oxygen, nitrogen or sulfur atoms is presented. Our aim was to compare and contrast O-, N- and S-chelated ruthenium complexes to better understand the impact of electron-withdrawing and -donating substituents on the geometry and activity of the ruthenium complexes and to gain further insight into the trans-cis isomerisation process of the S-chelated complexes. To evaluate the different effects of chelating heteroatoms and to probe electronic effects on sulfur- and nitrogen-chelated latent catalysts, we synthesised a series of novel complexes. These catalysts were compared against two well-known oxygen-chelated initiators and a sulfoxide-chelated complex. The structures of the new complexes have been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and analysed to search for correlations between the structural features and activity. The replacement of the oxygen-chelating atom by a sulfur or nitrogen atom resulted in catalysts that were inert at room temperature for typical ring-closing metathesis (RCM) and cross-metathesis reactions and showed catalytic activity only at higher temperatures. Furthermore, one nitrogen-chelated initiator demonstrated thermo-switchable behaviour in RCM reactions, similar to its sulfur-chelated counterparts.