The two important epigenetic markers in the human genome, 5-methylcytosine (mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hmC), are involved in gene regulation processes. As a major epigenetic target, cytosines in a C-rich DNA sequence were substituted with mC and hmC to investigate the thermal stability and pH sensitivity of the corresponding i-motifs. Circular Dichroism (CD) studies indicate the formation of i-motifs at acidic pH (<6.5) for mC- and hmC-modified DNA sequences. Thermal denaturation results suggest that DNA i-motifs are stabilized when modified with one or two mCs. However, hypermethylation with mC and single modification with hmC cause destabilization of the structure. A biomimetic crowding agent does not alter the stability effect trends resulting from mC and hmC modifications, though the corresponding i-motifs show elevated melting temperatures without significant changes in pKa values.

A series of novel vanadium(III) complexes bearing iminopyrrolide chelating ligands [2-(RN=CH)C4H3N]V(THF)2Cl2 (2a: R = cyclohexyl; 2b: R = Ph; 2c: R = 2,6-iPr2C6H3; 2d: R = p-CF3C6H4; 2e: R = C6F5) have been synthesized and characterized. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction revealed that complexes 2a, 2c and 2e adopt an octahedral geometry around the vanadium center. In the presence of Et2AlCl as a co-catalyst, these complexes displayed high catalytic activities up to 48.6 kg PE mmol(V)(-1) h(-1) bar(-1) for ethylene polymerization, and produced high molecular weight polymers. 2a-e/Et2AlCl catalytic systems were tolerant to elevated temperature (70 degrees C) and yielded unimodal polyethylenes, indicating the single site behaviour of these catalysts. By pre-treating with equimolar amounts of alkylaluminums, functional alpha-olefin 10-undecen-1-ol can be efficiently incorporated into polyethylene chains. 10-Undecen-1-ol incorporation can easily reach 15.8 mol% under the mild conditions. When compared with VCl3(THF)3 or rac-Et[Ind]2ZrCl2, these vanadium(III) complexes exhibited higher activities towards the copolymerization, and can incorporate more 10-undecen-1-ol into polymer chains under the similar conditions.

A C2-protected imidazolium salt that generates an abnormal N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) was applied for the palladium-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions. The abnormal NHC precursor promoted the reactions while suppressing homocoupling of aryl boronic acid, which was observed with the corresponding normal NHC precursor. The related well-defined abnormal NHC-based palladium complexes also showed better activity than the normal NHC-based analogues, exhibiting faster reaction rates especially at the initial stage of the reaction.

A series of amino‐pyrrolide ligands (1–4a) and their derivatives amino‐thiophene ligand (5a), amino‐indole ligand (6a) were prepared. Chromium catalysts, which were generated in situ by mixing the ligands with CrCl3(thf)3 in toluene, were tested for ethylene polymerization. The preliminary screening results revealed that the tridentate amino‐pyrrolide ligands containing soft pendant donor, 3a, 4a/CrCl3(thf)3 systems displayed high catalytic activities towards ethylene polymerization in the presence of modified methyaluminoxane. The electronic and steric factors attached to the ligand backbone significantly affected both the catalyst activity and the polymer molecular weight. Complex 4b was obtained by the reaction of CrCl3(thf)3 with one equivalent of the lithium salts of 4a, which was the most efficient ligand among the tested ones. The effect of polymerization parameters such as cocatalyst concentration, ethylene pressure, reaction temperature, and time on polymerization behavior were investigated in detail. The resulting polymer obtained by 4b display wax‐like and possess linear structure, low molecular weight, and unimodal distribution. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 47: 713–721, 2009

A fluorescent exciplex of thiazole orange (TO) is formed in a single-dye conjugated DNA i-motif. The exciplex fluorescence exhibits a large Stokes shift, high quantum yield, robust response to pH oscillation and little structural disturbance to the DNA quadruplex, which can be used to monitor the folding of high-order DNA structures.

The unfolding pathway of human telomeric i-motifs was monitored by both monomer and exciplex fluorescence of in-stem thiazole orange. A uniform triplex intermediate was observed upon unfolding i-motifs against either pH or thermal denaturation.