abstract / Chemistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In recent decades, small molecules have been widely applied to the generation of functional ion transporters. Major discoveries disclosed in this thesis include a self-assembled chloride-dependent potassium channel candidate, a physiological chloride and bicarbonate dual-transporter, and a series of efficient synthetic ion transporters. In nature, K+ channels play an important role in Ca2+ signaling, volume regulation, secretion, proliferation, and migration. The extracellular K+ concentration (4 mM) is about 40 times lower than the intracellular K+ concentration (160 mM). The opening of K+ channels consequently generates an efflux of positive charge, which hyperpolarizes or repolarizes the cellular membrane. In this research, by using fluorescence assays, NMR and patch clamp experiments, compound ZHY-CM23 was found to self-assemble into a chloride-dependent K+ selective channel mediating K+ transport across lipid bilayers and cell membranes. In addition, the synthetic K+ channel formed by ZHY-CM23 was found to be capable of generating and modulating the membrane potential of liposomes and to significantly hyperpolarize the resting membrane potential of HEK 293 cells. This finding provides new insight into developing drugs for the treatment of severe human diseases caused by K+ channel malfunction, such as arrhythmia, neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases. Cystic fibrosis is a chronic recessive disease resulting from the loss of function mutations in the gene encoding of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), a member of the ABC family of membrane transporters. Recent findings reveal that restoring bicarbonate transport might be useful for the treatments of the underlying defect in cystic fibrosis. On the basis of fluorescence assays, NMR and short circuit current experiments, the small molecule ZHY-CM11 has been discovered to not only act as a bicarbonate transporter in lipid membranes, but also to induce chloride-dependent bicarbonate secretion in cultured calu-3 epithelia. It is a promising lead compound to be developed for the treatment of cystic fibrosis and other diseases related to chloride and bicarbonate transport defects. Through structural modifications on the bioactive ion channels and the transporters ZHY-CM23 and ZHY-CM11, some valuable information on the structure-activity relationship has been obtained, and a series of potentially biologically applicable synthetic ion transporters have been discovered. / published_or_final_version / Chemistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis comprises three parts united by a single theme: development of flexible ditopic receptors. In part 1, two bis(crown ether)s were synthesized and their binding selectivities with alkali, alkaline earth and α,ω-primaryalkylidenediammonium cations were studied by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). First, we confirmed that the ion intensities of complexes in the gas phase are linearly related to the concentrations of complexes in solution for single crown ether dicarboxylic acid. Binding selectivities of complex bis(crown ether)s with mixtures of alkali cations and with mixtures of alkaline earth cations were then determined directly from ESI-MS spectra. The results from ESIMS are consistent with literature data if ions of like charge and similar type are compared (e. g., among the alkali metals). The stoichiometries of complexes in solution were also probed. Complexes with up to two K⁺ per crown ether were detected by ESI-MS. The research shows that ESI-MS provides an effective tool to study complexation by structurally complex molecules in solution. From the ESI-MS results, bis(crown ether) bolaamphiphiles were designed and synthesized as cation-recognition based membrane-disruption agents. Three bis(crown ether)s were obtained by capping an 18-crown-6 dicarboxylate anhydride with different lengthes of α,ω-alkanedicarboxylic acids extended as the 3-amino-1-propyl esters. Their membrane disrupting activities were explored using vesicle encapsulated 5(6)- carboxyfluorescein (CF) by a fluorescence self-quenching (FSQ) method. The membrane disrupting activity is significantly and specifically enhanced specifically by the addition Sr²⁺ or Ba²⁺ in solution. The membrane-disrupting activity is also enhanced with a increased aliphatic loop length of the starting α,ω-alkanedicarboxylic acid. Based on the mechanism studies of Regen and work conducted in this thesis, we propose that the active form for membrane-disruption is created by a U-shaped sandwich complex between Ba²⁺ and the bis(crown ether) bolaamphiphiles which interacts only with the outer leaflet of the vesicle bilayer. In part 3, a photoswitchable bis(crown ether) based on thioindigo was designed and synthesized as a cation- and photo-regulated membrane-disruption agent. The bis(crown ether) was prepared by capping an 18-crown-6 dicarboxylate anhydride with 7,7’-thioindigo dicarboxylic acid extended as the 8-amino-1-octanyl esters. There is significant difference in the membrane-disrupting activities of the cis- (U-shape) and trans- (S-shape) isomers using the vesicle entrapped CF (FSQ) method. Alkaline earth cations suppress the cis-to-trans thermal isomerization and stabilize the cis-isomers of the 7,7’- thioindigo bis(crown ether) in organic solvent. The results confirm the mechanism proposed, namely, that a U-shaped conformation is required for membrane disruption, that the bis(crown ether)s form sandwich complexes with alkaline earth metal ions. / Graduate

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Monocytes/macrophages play very important roles in innate and adaptive immunity. Ion channels are small molecules embedded in the cell membrane and they play fundamental roles in cell function. Both topics have been extensively studied in isolation, however the role of ion channels in macrophage function is far less understood. In this thesis, the functional and molecular aspects of two ion channels expressed in macrophages, Kor, a potassium channel, and CLIC1, a chloride channel were studied. The biological function of Kor and CLIC1 in activated human macrophages was examined using ion channel blockers. In addition, the role of CLIC1 in the cell cycling of CHO-K1 cells was also investigated. The in vitro studies showed that Kor and CLIC1 are involved in cytokine production by PMA-activated human macrophages and that CLIC1 is also involved in the cell cycling of CHO-K1 cells. Despite providing interesting data, the results of the in vitro studies were difficult to interpret due to the uncertain specificities of the Cl- channel blockers. Therefore, to understand the biological role of CLIC1 in vivo, a gene targeting experiment was performed to create a CLIC1 knock-out (KO) mouse. This involved cloning the mouse CLIC1 gene, making a targeting vector, producing targeted ES cells, and generating a CLIC1 knock-in (KI) mouse which carries a flag tag at the N-terminal and three loxP sites in the targeted locus. Crossing the CLIC1 KI mouse with the TNAP-Cre mouse, a strain over expressing Cre recombinase under a TNAP promoter, a CLIC1 KO mouse was generated. The initial phenotype analysis showed no major development or growth abnormality in the CLIC1 KO mouse. Instead, hyperplasia of megakaryocytes and possible erythroid cells in the spleen and bone marrow was observed suggesting some degree of abnormality in the haematopoeitic system. Furthermore, a comparison of wild type mice with the CLIC1 KO mouse showed that CLIC1 protein expresses at high levels in monocytes, lymphocytes, platelets, and tissue macrophages of normal animals tissues, such as spleen, kidney (mesangial cell), and liver (kupffer cells). This further indicates that CLIC1 may play a significant role in regulating functions of platelets, lymphocytes, and specially tissue macrophages. More extensive studies can now be performed on the CLIC1 KO mouse to clarify the biological function of CLIC1. In summary, the generation of the CLIC1 KO mouse provides a valuable model to study the biological function of CLIC1 both in vivo and in vitro.

abstract / Chemistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

Ion channel models are related to non-equilibrium statistical physics, fluid mechanics and electromagnetism. Some classes of ordinary differential equations that model ion channels can be seen as a limit of finite state-space continuous-time Markov chains. The purpose of this thesis is to qualitatively investigate the numerical results of systems of equations that incorporate ion channels modeled by such Markov chains and an electrical circuit model of a single neuron with isopotential extracellular space. This may be useful for making more detailed micro-physical simulations of neurons. A subset of the Rallpack benchmarks is conducted in order to evaluate the accuracy of the electrical circuit model of the transmembrane voltage propagation. In order to test the tau-leap method employed to simulate the Markov-chain based ion channel models a cylindrical geometry is implemented. Convergence properties are presented in terms of mean interspike intervals of the transmembrane voltages for different time- and spatial discretisations. Accuracy of the tau-leap method is presented in relation to the deterministic versions of the ion channel models. The results show that the method used to simulate the transmembrane voltages is accurate and that while the tau-leap method is convergent in the mean interspike interval sense, it is not conclusive how accurate it is compared to the corresponding ordinary differential equations or how efficient it is.