Abstract The mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation system is composed of five multisubunit enzyme complexes. Complex I is the first and largest of these, containing 46 subunits, seven encoded by mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the rest by nuclear DNA. Isolated complex I deficiency is a major cause of metabolic errors in infancy and childhood, presenting as encephalomyopathies or multisystem disorders. Due to the bigenomic origin of complex I, the genetic causes of these defects can be either mitochondrial or nuclear. The object of the present work was to identify the underlying genetic cause in cases of children with complex I deficiency and to obtain more information on the structurally and functionally important sites of complex I subunits. The complete coding region of mtDNA was analysed by conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis and subsequent sequencing. In addition, nine nuclear genes encoding conserved subunits of complex I were sequenced. The structural and functional consequences of the new sequence variants were further elucidated using mutagenesis of homologous residue in bacterial NDH-1 or by studying complex I assembly and expression in patient cell lines. Analysis of the mtDNA coding region in 50 children revealed four definitely pathogenic mutations, 3460G>A, 10191T>C, 11778G>A and 14487T>C, in seven patients. In addition, two novel mtDNA base pair substitutions were identified, 3866T>C in a patient with muscle weakness and short stature and 4681T>C in a patient with Leigh syndrome. The latter mutation causes a Leu71Pro amino acid exchange in the ND2 subunit. Cybrid clones harbouring this mutation retained the complex I defect, and reduced amounts of fully assembled complex I were detected in patient cell lines. The 3866T>C mutation leads to a Ile187Thr amino acid substitution in the ND1 subunit, and functional studies of the homologous amino acid substitution in E. coli showed that this had an effect on the assembly or stability of the NDH-1 holoenzyme. Sequencing of the nine nuclear-encoded complex I genes revealed only one novel base pair substitution with pathogenic potential. Further studies are needed, however, to establish the role of the Arg18Cys substitution in the mitochondrial leading peptide of the TYKY subunit. The above findings emphasize the contribution of mtDNA mutations to the aetiology of pediatric patients with complex I deficiency. Furthermore, two LHON primary mutations were identified in the present cohort of patients, although the clinical signs differed considerably from the classical symptoms of LHON. This suggests that the phenotype caused by primary LHON mutations is more variable than has so far been thought.

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Palladium-catalysed carbonylative multicomponent reactions have proven useful for the synthesis of structurally diverse compounds. Carbon monoxide serves as an atom-efficient, one-carbon building block, which allows for further structural elaboration of the carbonyl compound. By varying the components of the carbonylative multicomponent reaction, considerable product diversity can readily be attained. However, due to the reluctance to use toxic CO gas, considerable efforts have been directed at exploring non-gaseous approaches. The work described in this thesis has mainly focused on the development of palladium(0)-catalysed, carbonylative multicomponent synthetic methodology, using the non-gaseous CO source molybdenum hexacarbonyl, in the synthesis of heterocycles and other biologically relevant functional groups. The first part of this work describes the development of a non-gaseous carbonylative Sonogashira cross-coupling of bifunctional ortho-iodoanilines and terminal alkynes. Where 4-quinolones were synthesised via a carbonylation/cyclisation sequence. Using a similar synthetic strategy, three different N-cyanobenzamide intermediates were prepared by palladium-catalysed carbonylative couplings of various aryl halides and bromides and cyanamide. The formed intermediates provided a basis for further chemical transformations. First, ortho-iodoanilines were carbonylatively coupled with cyanamide and subsequently cyclised to yield heterocyclic 2-aminoquinazolinones. Next, building on those findings, the same synthetic strategy was applied to ortho-halophenols to provide a highly convenient domino carbonylation/cyclisation method for the preparation of benzoxazinones. The developed method was used to evaluate the efficiency of various non-gaseous CO sources. Third, the palladium-catalysed carbonylative synthesis of N-cyanobenzamides, was used to produce biologically relevant N-acylguanidines with considerable product diversity. Finally, one of the developed carbonylative methodologies was used in the preparation of potential NDH-2 inhibitors based on a quinolinyl pyrimidine scaffold. The prepared compounds were biologically evaluated in terms of inhibition of oxidoreductase NDH-2 and antibacterial activity on Gram-negative bacteria, S. aureus and Mtb. The biological evaluation revealed that some of the quinolinyl pyrimidines exerted inhibitory activity on the NDH-2 enzyme and possessed antibacterial properties. The work described in this thesis has been devoted to the development of non-gaseous one-pot, multicomponent carbonylation/cyclisation and carbonylation/amination reactions. The described methods offer highly attractive synthetic strategies that can be of great value to synthetic and medicinal chemists.

Today, DNA-barcoding with the gene COI is regularly used in the identification of fish. However, this is not an adequate way of identifying species of tuna due to COI lacking sufficient interspecies divergence. This is problematic since fraud and mislabeling are a major concern within the fish and tuna industries. Thus, there is a need for a new genetic barcode region when identifying the 15 tuna species within the tribe Thunnini. This study has considered six mitochondrial genetic regions (16S, ATP8, COII, CR, CytB, and ND2) and their potential as barcodes in comparison to COI. To be of practical use, the barcode has to be able to differentiate between all 15 tuna species, as well as contain conserved primer binding sites and be approximately 400 bp, or shorter. Analyses of the regions were made through Multiple Sequence Alignments built using ClustalW in Mega 11.0. The candidates were first evaluated through neighbor-joining trees and plots of inter- and intraspecies variation, and then analyzed further in search of conserved regions for primer binding, flanking a segment of approximately 400 bp (or shorter). This resulted in two possible barcode candidates with corresponding primers from the CR and ND2 genes. As a final step, these two were analyzed for specificity using BLAST, to evaluate their actual utility in differentiating the tuna species. The results show that they both can identify the different tuna species, but that ND2 is superior with 100% identification accuracy. In addition to the theoretical analysis, the ability of the primers was measured through a real PCR amplification. Unfortunately, only the CR barcode could be evaluated, but the results show it to be practically useful. Even though the utility of ND2 in PCR could not be analyzed, it is highly recommended as a region for further investigations. Given the strong theoretical support, it definitely shows promise as a new barcode for species identification of tuna.