Bicyclic dihydrothiazolo fused 2-pyridones have been studied as a new class of antibacterial agents, termed pilicides, that target the formation of adhesive bacterial surface organelles (pili) in pathogenic bacteria. Synthetic methods to further functionalize the bicyclic 2-pyridone scaffold have been developed in order to increase water-solubility and thereby facilitate biological evalua-tions. This was accomplished by introducing aminomethylenes at the open position C-6. Tertiary amines were introduced via a microwave–assisted Mannich reaction and a synthetic route based on a formyl intermediate gave access to primary, secondary and tertiary amines, but also to other interesting functionalities. Biological evaluation confirmed that several of the function-alized compounds inhibited pili formation in uropathogenic E. coli., as dem-onstrated by assays of hemagglutination, biofilm formation and adherence to bladder cells. Co-crystallizing one of the pilicides with the target protein gave information about the binding site and based on this a mechanism of action was proposed, which was supported experimentally by surface plas-mon resonance and single point mutations in the protein. Furthermore, the previously developed acylketene imine reaction used to prepare bicyclic thiazolo fused 2-pyridone pilicides has been developed to allow preparation of other ring-fused 2-pyridone systems. Benzo[a]quinolizine-4-ones and indolo[2,3-a]quinolizine-4-ones could be prepared in a fast and simple manner starting from dihydroisoquinolines and a β-carboline. Finally, this method could also be applied for the preparation of heteroatom analogs of the previously studied sulfur containing pilicides. Biological evaluations established that the sulfur atom can be replaced by oxygen and still maintain the ability to prevent pili assembly.

Glycoconjugates are biologically important molecules with diverse functions. They consist of carbohydrates of varying size and complexity, attached to a non-sugar moiety as a lipid or a protein. Glycoconjugate structures are often very complex and their intricate biosynthetic pathways makes overexpression difficult. This renders the isolation of pure, structurally defined compounds from natural sources cumbersome. Therefore, to better address questions in glycobiology, synthetic glycoconjugates are an appealing alternative. In addition, synthetic methods allow for the preparation of non-natural glycoconjugates that can enhance the understanding of the influence of structural features on the biological responses. In this thesis, synthetic methods for the preparation of glycoconjugates, especially glycolipid analogues, have been developed. These methods make use of solid-phase chemistry and are amenable to library synthesis of series of similar compounds. Solid-phase synthesis is a technique where the starting material of the reaction is attached to small plastic beads through a linker. This allows large excess of reagents to speed up the reactions and the sometimes difficult purifications of intermediate products are reduced to simple washings of the beads. One problem with solid-phase synthesis is the difficulties to monitor the reactions and characterize the intermediate products. Gel-phase 19 F-NMR spectroscopy, using fluorinated linkers and protecting groups, is an excellent tool to overcome this problem and to monitor solid-phase synthesis of e.g. glycoconjugates. Two novel fluorinated linkers for the attachment of carboxylic acids have been developed and are presented in the thesis. These linkers can be cleaved with both acids of varying strengths and nucleophiles like hydroxide ions, and they are stable to glycosylation conditions. In addition, a novel filter reactor for solid-phase synthesis was designed. The reactor fits into an ordinary NMR spectrometer to facilitate the reaction monitoring with gel-phase 19 F-NMR spectroscopy. The biological applications of the synthesized glycolipids were demonstrated in two different settings. The CD1d restricted binding of glycolipids carrying the monosaccharide α-GalNAc as carbohydrate could be detected on viable cells of mouse origin. CD1d is one of several antigen presenting molecules (the CD1 proteins) that presents lipids and glycolipids to circulating T-cells that in turn can initiate an immune response. The CD1 molecules are relatively sparsely investigated, and the method to measure glycolipid binding on viable cells, as described in the thesis, has the possibility to greatly enhance the knowledge of the structural requirements for CD1-binding. Serine-based neoglycolipids with terminal carboxylic acids were used to prepare glycoconjugate arrays with covalent bonds to secondary amines on microtiter plates. Carbohydrate arrays have great possibilities to simplify the study of interactions between carbohydrates and e.g. proteins and microbes. The usefulness of the glycolipid arrays constructed in the thesis was illustrated with two lectins, RCA120 from Ricinus communis and BS-1 from Bandeiraea simplicifolia. Both lectins bound to the array of neoglycolipids in agreement with their respective specificity for galactosides. Glycobiology is a large area of great interest and the methods described in this thesis can be used to answer a variety of glycoconjugaterelated biological questions.

Despite the large arsenal of antibiotics available on the market, treatment of bacterial infections becomes more challenging in view of the fact that microbes develop resistance against existing drugs. There is an obvious need for novel drugs acting on both old and new targets in bacteria. In this thesis we have employed a whole cell bacterial assay for screening and identification of type III secretion system (T3SS) inhibitors in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. The T3SS is a common virulence mechanism utilized by several clinically relevant Gram-negative bacteria including Salmonella, Shigella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Chlamydiae and Escherichia coli. Several components in the T3SS have proved to be conserved and hence data generated with Y. pseudotuberculosis as model might also be valid for other bacterial species. We have screened a 9,400 commercial compound library for T3S inhibitors in Y. pseudotuberculosis using a yopE reporter gene assay. The initial ~ 30 hits were followed up in a growth inhibition assay resulting in 26 interesting compounds that were examined in more detail. Three of the most interesting compounds, salicylanilides, 2-hydroxybenzylidene-hydrazides and 2-arylsulfonamino-benzanilides, were selected for continued investigations. The inhibitor classes show different profiles regarding the effects on T3SS in Yersinia and their use as research tools and identification of the target proteins using a chemical biology approach will increase our understanding of bacterial virulence. The 2-hydroxybenzylidene-hydrazides have been extensively studied in vitro and show potential as selective T3S inhibitors in several Gram-negative pathogens besides Y. pseudotuberculosis. The data obtained suggest that this inhibitor class targets a conserved protein in the secretion apparatus. In cell-based ex vivo infection models T3SS was inhibited to the advantage of the infected eukaryotic cells. The salicylanilides and 2-arylsulfonamino-benzanilides have been further investigated by statistical molecular design (SMD) followed by synthesis and biological evaluation in the T3SS linked reporter gene assay. Multivariate QSAR models were established despite the challenges with data obtained from assays using viable bacteria. Our results indicate that this SMD QSAR strategy is powerful in development of virulence inhibitors targeting the T3SS.

Enligt teorin kan ett väl implementerat styrsystem anses vara en självklarhet för företag som verkar på dagens allt mer konkurrensutsatta marknad. Vidare har det samtidigt visat sig att styrsystem i många mindre företag sällan är till större nytta och att dessa företag således inte har ett formellt implementerat styrsystem. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur mindre företag på grund av deras förutsättningar, använder mekanistisk och organisk styrning. Vidare syftar även studien att klargöra i vilken utsträckning som styrsystemet stämmer överens med deras förutsättningar. Den teoretiska referensramen består av två huvudsakliga teorier, contingency theory samt mekanistisk och organisk styrning. Genom att göra en fallstudie på ett mindre plåtföretag i tillverkningsindustrin, syftar denna studie att få en djupare förståelse för ett företags styrning och hur styrningen påverkas av företagets förutsättningar. De slutsatser som kan dras utifrån studien är att ett mindre företags förhållanden kan anses påverka företages styrning samt att situationsvariablerna speglar vilket styrsystem de använder. Fortsättningsvis kan däremot andra faktorer än de som undersökts i denna studie haft en påverkan på styrningen. Tilläggningsvis kan även de situationsvariabler som undersökts haft olika stor påverkan på styrningen. Ytterligare slutsatser är att mindre företag sällan är medvetna om att de format deras styrning efter deras förhållanden och att deras styrsystem snarare vuxit fram i takt med att deras förutsättningar har förändrats. / According to the theory, a well-implemented control system can be regarded as mandatory for companies that operate in today's increasingly competitive market. At the same time, it has also been found that smaller companies rarely benefit from management control systems (MCS), thus these companies do not have a formally implemented MCS. The purpose of this study is to investigate how smaller companies, due to their prerequisites, use mechanistic and organic MCS. Furthermore, the study aims to clarify the extent to which the MCS is in line with the contingencies. The theoretical framework consists of two main theories, contingency theory and mechanistic and organic MCS. By doing a case study on a small industrial company with support of interviews, this study aims at gaining a deeper understanding of a company's MCS and how it is affected by the contingencies of the company. The conclusions that can be drawn from the study are that the circumstances of a smaller company can be regarded as influencing companies' MCS. Additionally, the contingencies are also considered to reflect the MCS they use, although these contingencies might not be exhaustive and there might be other factors that can affect the MCS. Further conclusions are that smaller companies rarely consciously form their MCS according to their circumstances and it is more likely that they grow in line with the changes of the conditions.

Advances in the elaboration of vaccines and enzyme inhibitors rely on acquiring more knowledge about protein-carbohydrate binding events. Furthermore, the relationships between biological function and the three-dimensional properties of large glycans can be studied by focusing on the structural components they contained, namely, by scaling down the system under analysis. Chemical methods are useful assets as they allow the isolation and determination of epitopes; these small and recognizable fragments that lead to very specific interactions. In this thesis, biologically relevant saccharides were obtained using recently developed concepts in carbohydrate synthesis and NMR spectroscopy was used to unravel their conformational preferences. In paper I, the convergent synthesis of the tetrasaccharide found in the natural product solaradixine is described. Reactivity enhanced disaccharide glycosyl donors were coupled to a disaccharide acceptor in a 2 + 2 fashion. The computer program CASPER was subsequently used to verify the synthesized structure. The conformation arming concept employed in paper I was further investigated in paper II. An NMR-based methodology enabled the determination of the ring conformations of a set of donors. Subsequently, glycosylation reactions were performed and yields were correlated to donors ring shapes. Perturbations in the rings shape caused by bulky silyl ether protective groups were sufficient to boost the potency of several donors. As a matter of fact, complex branched oligosaccharides could be obtained in good to excellent yields. In paper III, NMR spectroscopy observables were measured to elucidate the ring shape, the mutual orientation of the rings across the glycosidic bond and the positions of the side chains of 5 trisaccharides found in larger structures. With the aid of molecular dynamics simulations, their overall conformational propensities were revealed. Finally, the software CASPER prediction skills were improved by adding, inter alia, NMR information of synthesized mono- and disaccharides to its database. Unassigned chemical shifts from polysaccharides served as input to challenge its ability to solve large carbohydrate structures. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Carbohydrates are ubiquitous components in nature involved in a range of tasks. They cover every cell and contribute both structural stability as well as identity. Lipopolysaccharides are the outermost exposed part of the bacterial cell wall and the primary target for host-pathogen recognition. Understanding the structure and biosynthesis of these polysaccharides is crucial to combat disease and develop new medicine. Structural determinations can be carried out using NMR spectroscopy, a powerful tool giving information on an atomistic scale. This thesis is focused on method development to study polysaccharide structures as well as application on bacterial lipopolysaccharides. The focus has been to incorporate a bioinformatics approach prior to analysis by NMR spectroscopy, and then computer assisted methods to aid in the subsequent analysis of the spectra. The third chapter deals with the recent developments of ECODAB, a tool that can help predict structural fragments in Escherichia coli O-antigens. It was migrated to a relational database and the aforementioned predictions can now be made automatically by ECODAB. The fourth chapter gives insight into the program CASPER, a computer program that helps with structure determination of oligo- and polysaccharides. An approach to determine substituent positions in polysaccharides was investigated. The underlying database was also expanded and the improved capabilities were demonstrated by determining O-antigenic structures that could not previously be solved. The fifth chapter is an application to O‑antigen structures of E. coli strains. This is done by a combination of NMR spectroscopy and bioinformatics to predict components as well as linkages prior to spectra analysis. In the first case, a full structure elucidation was performed on E. coli serogroup O63, and in the second case a demonstration of the bioinformatics approach is done to E. coli serogroup O93. In the sixth chapter, a new version of the CarbBuilder software is presented. This includes a more robust building algorithm that helps build sterically crowded polysaccharide structures, as well as a general expansion of possible components. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 5: Manuscript.</p>

Dynamic covalent chemistry (DCC) is currently exploited in several areas of biomedical applications such as in drug discovery, sensing, molecular separation, catalysis etc. Hydrazone and oxime chemistry have several advantages, such as mild reaction conditions, selectivity, efficiency, and biocompatibility and therefore, have the potential to be for bioconjugation applications. However, these reactions suffer from major drawbacks of slow reaction rate and poor bond stability under physiological conditions. In this regard, the work presented in this thesis focuses on designing novel bioconjugation reactions amenable under physiological conditions with tunable reaction kinetics and conjugation stability. The first part of the thesis presents different strategies of dynamic covalent reactions utilized for biomedical applications. In the next part, a detailed study related to the mechanism and catalysis of oxime chemistry was investigated in the presence of various catalysts. Aniline, carboxylate and saline were selective as target catalysts and their reaction kinetics were compared under physiological conditions (Paper I and II). Then we attempted to explore the potential of those chemistries in fabricating 3D hydrogel scaffolds for regenerative medicine application. A novel mild and regioselective method was devised to introduce an aldehyde moiety onto glycosaminoglycans structure. This involved the introduction of amino glycerol to glycosaminoglycans, followed by regioselective oxidation of tailed flexible diol without affecting the C2-C3 diol groups on the disaccharide repeating unit. The oxidation rate of the tailed flexible diol was 4-times faster than that of C2-C3 diol groups of native glycosaminoglycan. This strategy preserves the structural integrity of the glycosaminoglycans and provides a functional aldehyde moiety (Paper III). Further, different types of hydrazones were designed and their hydrolytic stability under acidic condition was carefully evaluated. The hydrazone linkage with the highest hydrolytic stability was utilized in the preparation of extracellular matrix hydrogel for delivery of bone morphogenetic proteins 2 in bone regeneration (Paper IV) and studied for controlled release of the growth factor (Paper III). In summary, this thesis presents a selection of strategies for designing bioconjugation chemistries that possess tunable stability and reaction kinetics under physiological conditions. These chemistries are powerful tools for conjugation of biomolecules for the biomedical applications.

In this thesis molecular interactions between polypeptide conjugates and protein targets were investigated. Polypeptides were derivatized with small organic molecules, peptides and oligonucleotides. New strategies were developed with the aim to increase affinities for proteins of biological interest. A 42-residue polypeptide (4-C15L8) conjugated to a small organic molecule 3,5-bis[[bis(2-pyridylmethyl)amino]methyl]benzoic acid (PP1), was shown to bind glycogen phosphorylase a (GPa) in the presence of zinc ions. Under the assumption that hydrophobic interactions dominated the binding energy, the hydrophobic residues of 4-C15L8-PP1 were systematically replaced in order to study their contribution to the affinity enhancement. The replacement of the Nle, Ile and Leu residues by Ala amino acids reduced affinities. The introduction of non-natural L-2-aminooctanoic acid (Aoc) residues into the peptide sequence enhanced the binding affinity for GPa. A decreased KD of 27nM was obtained when Nle5, Ile9 and Leu12 were replaced by Aoc residues, in comparison to the KD value of 280nM obtained for the unmodified 4-C15L8-PP1. It is evident that there are non-obvious hydrophobic binding sites on the surfaces of proteins that could be identified by introducing the more hydrophobic and conformationally flexible Aoc residues. The downsizing of the 42-mer peptide to an 11-mer and the incorporation of three Aoc residues gave rise to a KD of 550 nM, comparable to that of  4-C15L8-PP1 suggesting that bioactive peptides can be downsized by the introduction of Aoc. Aiming to improve in vivo stability, the affinity for human serum albumin (HSA) of hydrophobic, positively and negatively charged polypeptide-PP1 conjugates was evaluated. Increased hydrophobicity due to the introduction of Aoc residues did not significantly increase the affinity for HSA. No binding was observed in the case of the most negatively charged polypeptides whereas the slightly negatively and positively charged polypeptides conjugated to PP1 bound HSA with affinities that increased with the positive charge. It was found that polypeptide-PP1 conjugates target the zinc binding site of the HSA. Affinity enhancement was obtained due to the incorporation of PP1 and increased by charge to charge interactions between the positively charged amino acids of the polypeptide and the negatively charged residues of HSA, in close proximity to the HSA zinc binding site. The survival times of the peptide-PP1 conjugates in human serum were extended as a result of binding to HSA. Zn2+ ion chelating agents can be incorporated in potential peptide therapeutics with a short plasma half-life, without increasing their molecular weights.

In this thesis, density functional theory is employed in the study of two kinds of systems that can be considered to be biomimetic in their own ways. First, three binuclear metal complexes, synthesized by the group of Prof. Ebbe Nordlander, have been investigated. The complexes are designed to resemble the active sites of phosphatase enzymes and have been examined in complexes where either two Zn(II) ions or one Fe(III) and one Mn(II) ion are bound. These dinuclear compounds were studied as catalysts for the hydrolysis of bis(2,4-dinitrophenyl) phosphate and the transesterification of 2-hydroxypropyl p-nitrophenyl phosphate, which are model systems for the same reactions occurring in DNA or RNA. It was found that the two reactions take place in similar ways: a hydroxide ion that is terminally bound to one of the metal centers acts either as a nucleophile in the hydrolysis reaction or as a base in the transesterification. The leaving groups depart in an effectively concerted manner, and the formed catalyst-product complexes are predicted to be the resting states of the catalytic cycles. The rate-determining free energy barriers are identified from the catalyst-product complex in one catalytic cycle to the transition state of nucleophilic attack in the next. Another type of biomimetic modeling is made with an aim of imitating the conceptual features of selective binding of guests and screening them from solute-solvent interactions. Such features are found in so-called nanocontainers, and this thesis is concerned with studies of two capsules synthesized by the group of Prof. Julius Rebek, Jr. First, the cycloaddition of phenyl acetylene and phenyl azide has experimentally been observed to be accelerated in the presence of a capsule. Computational studies were herein performed on this system, and a previously unrecognized structure of the capsule is discovered. Two main factors are then identified as sources of the rate acceleration compared to the uncatalyzed reaction, namely the reduction of the entropic component and the selective destabilization of the reactant supercomplex over the transition state. In the second capsule study, the alkane binding trends of a water-soluble cavitand was studied. It is found that implicit solvation models fail severely in reproducing the experimental equilibrium observed between binding of n-decane by the cavitand monomer and encapsulation in the capsule dimer. A mixed explicit/implicit solvation protocol is developed to better quantify the effect of hydrating the cavitand, and a simple correction to the hydration free energy of a single water molecule is proposed to remedy this. The resulting scheme is used to predict new hydration free energies of the cavitand complexes, resulting in significant improvement vis-à-vis experiments. The computational results presented in this thesis show the usefulness of the quantum chemical calculations to develop understanding of experimental trends observed for substrate binding and catalysis. In particular, the methodology is shown to be versatile enough such that experimental observations can be reproduced for such diverse systems as studied herein. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Manuscript.</p>

This thesis describes the design and synthesis of compounds that are intended to inhibit serine and aspartic proteases. The first part of the text deals with preparation of inhibitors of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 serine protease. Hepatitis C is predominantly a chronic disease that afflicts about 170 million people worldwide. The NS3 protease, encoded by HCV, is essential for replication of the virus and has become one of the main targets when developing drugs to fight HCV. The inhibitors discussed here constitute surrogates for the widely used N-acyl-hydroxyproline isostere designated 4-hydroxy-cyclopentene. The stereochemistry of the 4-hydroxy-cyclopentene scaffold was determined by nuclear overhauser effect spectroscopy (NOESY) and the regiochemistry by heteronuclear multiple bond correlation (HMBC). The scaffold was decorated with different substituents to obtain both linear and macrocyclic HCV NS3 protease inhibitors that display low nanomolar activity. The second part of the thesis describes the design and synthesis of potential aspartic protease inhibitors. The hydroxyethylene motif was used as a noncleavable transition state isostere. The synthetic route yielded a pivotal intermediate with excellent stereochemical control, which was corroborated by NOESY experiments. This intermediate can be diversified with different substituents to furnish novel aspartic protease inhibitors. / <p>Report code: LIU-TEK-LIC-2006:45</p>