This work comprises two main parts. The first part outlines our efforts to expand on the recent work of Gütlich et.al. by synthesizing Co(II) based spin crossover systems within a dendritic framework. We wanted to investigate the possibility of synthesizing different first generation, triazole containing dendrimers using “click” type reactions and their coordination ability with Co(II) ions. To this end we have had limited success mainly due to the numerous challenges in synthesizing a pure dendrimer product. The second part details our efforts in the synthesis of a mononuclear Co(II) based single molecule magnet. This comes as an extension to recent reports by Chang and Long where they have successfully obtained mononuclear Fe(II) single molecule magnets by inducing structural distortions within the complexes to amplify the spin-orbit coupling. We postulated that the use of Co(II) in conjunction with a bulky ligand framework would lead to desirable magnetic properties. We chose the known bis(imino)pyridine ligand scaffold due to its rich chemistry and its interesting and unexpected coordination behaviour, as we have seen in previous research efforts by our lab. To this end we were successful in isolating and characterizing 4 compounds, and we have carried out detailed magnetic measurements on the two most magnetically interesting species.

Chemical biology encompasses the study and manipulation of biological system using chemistry, often by virtue of small molecules or unnatural amino acids. Much insight has been gained into the mechanisms of biological processes with regards to protein structure and function, metabolic processes and changes between healthy and diseased states. As an ever expanding field, developing new tools to interact with and impact biological systems is an extremely valuable goal. Herein, work is described towards the synthesis of a small library of heterocyclic-containing small molecules and the mechanistic details regarding the interesting and unexpected chemical compounds that arose; an alternative set of non-toxic copper catalyzed azide-alkyne click conditions for in vivo metabolic labelling; and the synthesis of an unnatural amino acid for further chemical modification via [3+2] cycloadditions with nitrones upon incorporation into a peptide of interest. Altogether, these projects strive to supplement pre-existing methodology for the synthesis of small molecule libraries and tools for metabolic labelling, and thus provide further small molecules for understanding biological systems.

This work comprises two main parts. The first part outlines our efforts to expand on the recent work of Gütlich et.al. by synthesizing Co(II) based spin crossover systems within a dendritic framework. We wanted to investigate the possibility of synthesizing different first generation, triazole containing dendrimers using “click” type reactions and their coordination ability with Co(II) ions. To this end we have had limited success mainly due to the numerous challenges in synthesizing a pure dendrimer product. The second part details our efforts in the synthesis of a mononuclear Co(II) based single molecule magnet. This comes as an extension to recent reports by Chang and Long where they have successfully obtained mononuclear Fe(II) single molecule magnets by inducing structural distortions within the complexes to amplify the spin-orbit coupling. We postulated that the use of Co(II) in conjunction with a bulky ligand framework would lead to desirable magnetic properties. We chose the known bis(imino)pyridine ligand scaffold due to its rich chemistry and its interesting and unexpected coordination behaviour, as we have seen in previous research efforts by our lab. To this end we were successful in isolating and characterizing 4 compounds, and we have carried out detailed magnetic measurements on the two most magnetically interesting species.

Le sujet de cette thèse concerne l'élaboration depolymères hydrophiles biocompatibles et fonctionnelspour la stabilisation et la bio-fonctionnalisation denanoparticules d'oxyde de fer en vue d'une utilisation entant qu'agents de contraste en imagerie par résonancemagnétique et/ou en tant que vecteurs de principesactifs ou de thérapie génique. Pour ce travail de thèse,l'objectif a été de fonctionnaliser des poly(oxyded'éthylène)s (POE) commerciaux, connus pour leurspropriétés d'hydrophilie, de biocompatibilité et defurtivité par un groupement acide phosphonique, pourchélater les nanoparticules d'oxyde de fer, et par ungroupement furane, susceptible de réagir avec desbiomolécules à fonctionnalité maléimide, facilementaccessibles, selon une réaction de Diels-Alderthermoréversible.Des POEs à extrémité acide phosphonique et àfonctionnalité furane ont été synthétisés selon deuxstratégies originales combinant des réactionsd'Atherton-Todd ou de Kabachnik-Fields et lacycloaddition 1,3-dipolaire de Huisgen, réaction dechimie " click " très efficace, orthogonale, spécifique etréalisée dans des conditions douces.Les POEs obtenus ont ensuite été greffés à la surfacede nanoparticules d'oxyde de fer selon la stratégie'grafting onto'. L'efficacité des POEs à stabiliser lesnanoparticules d'oxyde de fer a été mise en évidence.De plus, les tests de cytotoxicité ont montré que cessystèmes sont biocompatibles. De plus, lesnanoparticules d'oxyde de fer, une fois greffées, ontconservé leurs propriétés de relaxivité autorisant leurutilisation en imagerie médicale. Enfin, l'aptitude de cesnanoparticules fonctionnalisées par des groupementsfurane à immobiliser des molécules à fonctionnalitémaléimide a été mise en évidence ainsi que lapossibilité ultérieure à libérer ces molécules sous effetd'un stimulus thermique. Ce comportement réversibleouvre des perspectives tout à fait intéressantes dans ledomaine de la vectorisation de principes actifs.

The work centersaround perfluoroaryl azides (PFAAs), and theirability to undergo certain fast and robusttransformations. The chemistry was furtherappliedfor biomedical applications. The first section focuses on the azide-aldehyde-amine cycloaddition using PFAAs. Experimental and computational investigations uncovered a fast azide-enamine cycloaddition to form triazolines, which spontaneously rearrange into stable amidine products. In addition, this transformation was explored in the formulation of pure nanodrugs. Because this reaction can introduce a phenyl and a perfluoroaryl moiety enabling supramolecular interactions near the antibiotic drug, the resulting ciprofloxacin derivatives formed nano-sized aggregates by precipitation, which displayed aggregation-induced emission for bacterial imaging as well as enhanced size-dependent antibacterial efficacy. In the second section, the high electrophilicity of PFAAs was explored to transform azides to aryl amides. The reactivity of PFAAs in the thioacid/azide reaction was studied. In addition, PFAAs were discovered to react with phenylacetaldehyde to form aryl amidesviaan azide-enol cycloaddition, similar tothe perfluoroaryl azide-aldehyde-amine reaction.This strategyof amide synthesiswas furthermoregeneralized through a combination of base-catalyzed azide-enolate cycloaddition reaction and acid-or heat-promoted rearrangement of triazolines. The last section describes a type of azide fluorogens whose fluorescence can be switched on by alight-initiated intramolecular nitrene insertion intoa C-H bond in the neighboring aromaticring. These fluorogenic structures were efficiently accessed via the direct nucleophilic aromatic substitution of PFAAs. / <p>QC 20150903</p>

Mass spectrometry (MS) is a power analytical tool which is capable of analyzing biomolecules in great detail, both structurally and quantitatively. With regards to glycans, special considerations regarding sample preparation are necessary in order to achieve reproducible identification and relative quantification of these analytes. A workflow for isolation at the glycopeptide level and subsequent detection at the glycan level with phenylhydrazine, demonstrated that monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) containing a specific amino acid mutation were able to express approximately an additional 50% of the α2,6 disialylated glycan compared to their non-mutant analogues. In a second experiment using mAbs, an azide modified glycan (Ac4ManAz) was introduced both metabolically and enzymatically during mAb production. This glycan is a precursor in the sialic acid pathway and the azide moiety allows for specific chemistry post-production including the potential for highly specific enrichment. The results of this workflow demonstrated that [100 μM] of Ac4ManAz precursor added to the cell media was necessary for metabolic expression. More complex samples however, may contain multiple sites of glycosylation. To conserve the site of attachment, these molecules are often studied at the glycopeptide level, and require enrichment of glycopeptides to improve the lower signal intensity observed in the presence of co-eluting peptides. Carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCH) as well as amine-functionalized magnetic-nanoparticles (MNP) were developed as novel materials for this purpose. CMCH is naturally occurring, and therefore is cost-effective and readily available. In a 12 protein mixture CMCH demonstrated the bulk enrichment of glycopeptides yielding an approximately 20% higher enrichment of sialylated species as compared to a commercially available glycopeptide kit through the use of tandem mass tags for relative quantification. In the same approach, amine functionalized MNP were produced and used to enrich glycopeptides from tryptic digests. This approach was fast (about 10 mins) and quantitatively demonstrated improved retention for sialylated species. Examples of these techniques and their applications are reported in this work. / October 2015

Nitric oxide (NO) overproduction is correlated with numerous human diseases, such as arthritis, asthma, diabetes, inflammation and septic shock. The enzyme activities of both NO synthase (NOS) and dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase-1 (DDAH-1) promote NO production. DDAH-1 mainly colocalizes in the same tissues as the neuronal isoform of NOS and catabolizes the endogenously-produced competitive inhibitors of NOS, N[omega]-monomethyl-L-arginine (NMMA) and asymmetric N[omega], N[omega]-dimethyl-L-arginine (ADMA). Inhibition of DDAH-1 leads to elevated concentrations of NMMA and ADMA, which subsequently inhibit NOS. To better understand DDAH-1, I first characterized the catalytic mechanism of human DDAH-1, where Cys274, His173, Asp79 and Asp127 form a catalytic center. Particularly, Cys274 is an active site nucleophile and His173 plays a dual role in acid/base catalysis. I also studied an unusual mechanism for covalent inhibition of DDAH-1 by S-nitroso-L-homocysteine (HcyNO), where an N-thiosulfoximide adduct is formed at Cys274. Using a combination of site directed mutagenesis and mass spectrometry, we found that many residues that participate in catalysis also participate in HcyNO mediated inactivation. Following these studies, I then screened a small set of known NOS inhibitors as potential inhibitors of DDAH-1. The most potent of these, an alkylamidine, was selected as a scaffold for homologation. Stepwise lengthening of the alkyl substituent changes an NOS-selective inhibitor into a dual-targeted NOS/DDAH-1 inhibitor then into a DDAH-1 selective inhibitor, as seen in the inhibition constants of N5-(1-iminoethyl)-, N5-(1-iminopropyl)-, N5-(1-iminopentyl)- and N5-(1-iminohexyl)-L-ornithine for neuronal NOS (1.7, 3, 20, >1,900 [mu]M, respectively) and DDAH-1 (990, 52, 7.5, 110 [mu]M, respectively). X-ray crystal structures suggest that this selectivity is likely due to active site size differences. To rank the inhibitors' in vivo potency, we constructed a click-chemistry based activity probe to detect inhibition of DDAH-1 in live mammalian cell culture. In vivo IC50 values for representative alkylamidine based inhibitors were measured in living HEK293T cells. Future application of this probe will address the regulation of DDAH-1 activity in pathophysiological states. In summary, this work identifies a versatile scaffold for developing DDAH targeted inhibitors to control NO overproduction and provides useful biochemical tools to better understand the etiology of endothelial dysfunction. / text

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A la suite des nombreux travaux sur l'inhibition de la glycogène phosphorylase (GP) menés au laboratoire et au travers de diverses collaborations, cette thèse décrit en cinq chapitres suivis d'une partie expérimentale détaillée, les dernières avancées en termes de synthèse et d'évaluation biologique des inhibiteurs du site catalytique de la GP. La chapitre I de ce manuscrit est consacrée à la présentation des diabètes et plus particulièrement du diabète de type II dont le traitement, motivation première de ce projet, repose sur la connaissance des mécanismes complexes régulant la glycémie. Les différents inhibiteurs synthétisés sont classés par famille selon leur structure qui associe un aglycone hétérocyclique, susceptible d'affinité pour le canal β proche du site actif de l'enzyme, avec un motif glycopyranosidique, ou glycopyranosylidène dans le cas des motifs spiro. Le chapitre II est consacré aux inhibiteurs spiro-bicycliques tels que les glucopyranosylidène-spiro-1,4,2-oxathiazoles et les glucopyranosylidène-spiro-isoxazolines. Le chapitre III décrit la synthèse de C- et N-glycosyles hétérocycles, principalement des glycopyranosyl-1,2,3-triazoles. Enfin le chapitre IV décrit la fonctionnalisation de 5-halogéno-1,2,3-triazoles 4-substitués par couplages pallado-catalysés qui ont constitué un développement imprévu mais original des travaux. Pour terminer, le chapitre V décrit l'évaluation des molécules préparées en tant qu'inhibiteurs de la glycogène phosphorylase. Les expériences et résultats d'enzymologie, de cristallographie ainsi que les tests cellulaires in vitro et in vivo sur le rat sont présentés

L'intérêt grandissant porté au cours de ces dix dernières années aux monolithes organiques pour des applications électroséparatives se justifie en partie par leur préparation aisée au sein de systèmes miniaturisés, le large choix des monomères précurseurs disponibles, ainsi que la possibilité d'ajuster les paramètres structuraux du matériau final par un contrôle judicieux des conditions opératoires. Au cours de ce travail, la synthèse de nouvelles phases monolithiques a été mise au point selon une stratégie en deux étapes. Dans une première étape, la copolymérisation radicalaire photo-initiée du Nacryloxysuccinimide avec le diméthacrylate d'éthylène glycol réalisée en présence de toluène, a permis l'élaboration de monolithes macroporeux réactifs et hautement perméables. La présence d'esters de succinimide dans la structure chimique du monolithe polymère a été mise à profit pour fonctionnaliser la surface du monolithe par des greffons de nature variée par réaction de substitution nucléophile faisant intervenir des dérivés aminés. Le choix judicieux des greffons a permis la mise au point rapide de phases stationnaires présentant des propriétés électrochromatographiques ciblées. Ainsi, le contrôle du caractère hydrophobe des supports obtenus par greffage d'alkylamines de taille variable a été mis en évidence par la séparation de dérivés benzéniques selon un mécanisme à polarité de phase inversée avec de très bonnes efficacités (200000 plateaux par mètre). L'utilisation de phases stationnaires monolithiques greffées par des sélecteurs aromatiques a été proposée comme alternative aux monolithes aliphatiques hydrophobes. La synthèse de monolithes organiques hydrophiles a été possible par la fonctionnalisation du support réactif par des alkyldiamines. La préparation d'une phase stationnaire chirale a été réalisée selon une approche originale de chimie click consistant à immobiliser un dérivé de cyclodextrine. Dans le but d'étendre l'application des monolithes à base de NAS au greffage de biomacromolécules, une nouvelle matrice monolithique incorporant dans sa structure chimique un co-monomère hydrophile a été élaborée. Les résultats préliminaires ont montré que l'augmentation du caractère hydrophile du squelette monolithique permet d'accroître sensiblement la réactivité des esters de Nhydroxysuccinimide en milieu aqueux