Origin of life is a still-enduring gap in human knowledge. This work is focused on revealing of several pieces of this puzzle. State of the art scenarios of biomolecules synthesis under prebiotic conditions are presented and discussed. This thesis presents our recent experiments suggesting a novel idea that neutral planetary atmosphere containing a mixture of neutral volcanic-type gasses (CO2, N2, H2O) can be converted over acidic mineral catalysts upon irradiation by a soft UV-radiation into a relatively reactive mixture of reducing gases (CH4, CO), which can be further reprocessed by high-energy chemistry. The resulting mixture (CH4, CO + N2) represents a common reducing atmosphere related e.g. to the chemistry of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, as well as a possible representation of the secondary atmosphere of our planet. Also, photocatalytic reduction of CO2-rich atmosphere can explain the abiotic origin of methane on current Mars or other terrestrial planets. In our subsequent experiments, corresponding equimolar model mixture of CH4 : CO : N2 in presence of water vapour was subjected to reprocessing by high-power laser plasma simulating an asteroid impact - one of a series of impact events which the young Earth experienced during the first 600 million years of her history. Upon delivery...

Influenza viruses cause respiratory illnesses which can vary in severity depending on the strain of the virus, as well as the age and health condition of the host. Influenza remains a major threat to public health due to its nature prone to suffer mutations. As a result, vaccines have to be reformulated annually and new strains may cause sporadic global pandemics. Furthermore, the recent emergence of resistant strains of the virus against the current standard of care (oseltamivir and zanamivir) underlines the need of novel anti-influenza therapeutics. The aim of this dissertation work is to contribute to the discovery of new anti-influenza inhibitors either by rational drug-design and optimization of oseltamivir structure, or by developing screening assays suitable for the discovery of novel inhibitors of the enzymes neuraminidase or RNA-polymerase. Scheme 1. Overview of the strategy used for the development of new anti-influenza therapeutics. The dashed arrows indicate the inhibitors that were converted into probes and their corresponding target enzymes Two main modification points were explored for the improvement of oseltamivir properties (Scheme 1); modifications at carbon C-3 aimed to overcome oseltamivir resistance caused by common mutations like H274Y, meanwhile modifications at carbon C-5...

This work deals with carborane and metallacarborane clusters, in terms of their fundamental chemistry and complexation with cyclodextrins, and in the context of emerging pharmacophores applicable in medicinal chemistry. Arguably, the most important part of this work is the preparation of cobalt bis(dicarbollide) sulfamide derivatives. The sulfamido group is attached to the metallacarborane carbon vertex by an alkyl chain that may be modified in its length. This was accomplished by, firstly, the abstraction of the acidic hydrogen, located on the {CH}-vertex from the metallacarborane, by reaction with lithium base, followed by, secondly, reaction with electrophilic agents (PFA, oxirane and oxetane), which leads to a cascade of reactions to give the desired sulfamide derivatives. These compounds were then tested by collaborators in other institutes for in vitro and in vivo activity towards Carbonic Anhydrase IX (CA IX), which is an enzyme associated with tumour growth. In vivo tests on mice have shown that these types of substances are able to effectively reduce tumour size by 30%. The synthetic research continued with the preparation of sulfonamide compounds of the isomers of the carborane series. The reactions began exclusively with propylhydroxy carborane starting materials, which provide optimum...

This work deals with the preparation of combinatorial libraries of peptides serving as platforms for proteolytic phenotyping. The primary objective was to prepare a solid phase fluorogenic peptide library and screen proteases by fluorescence. Further, the possibility of preparing solid phase DNA-encoded libraries was studied. Due to the non-reactivity of the specific proteases with the solid phase peptides, the solid phase was completely abandoned and DNA-encoded peptide library was prepared in the solution. Using this model of DNA-encoded dipeptide with terminal biotin, the new principle of testing proteolytic activities of proteases was verified. A combinatorial library of DNA-encoded hexapeptides was also prepared. Despite the low yield of the library, the possibility of DNA encoding, the amplifiability of the prepared molecules and the possibility of biotin-based separation were verified. The integrity of the hexapeptide sequence and the protease testing is the subject of further study.

Cytochrome b5 is a small heme protein. There are three isoforms present in human organism, one is located in the membrane of endoplasmic reticulum (microsomal cyt b5), second in the outer mitochondrial membrane and the third (soluble form) was found in cytoplasm of matured erythrocytes. The main role of cytochrome b5 is to transport single electron in various reactions including cytochrome P450-dependent reactions. First aim of the thesis was to prepare and to isolate the soluble form of rabbit microsomal cytochrome b5, using heterologous expression in Escherichia coli strain BL-21 Gold. The plasmid pET22b containing synthetic gene for rabbit microsomal cytochrome b5, lacking the sequence encoding the membrane associated C-terminal domain, was used as an expression vector. The second aim was to synthesize the expression vectors carrying genes for human microsomal and erythrocytic cytochromes b5. These genes were prepared by gene synthesis, ligated to cloning vector pUC19, amplified in E. coli DH5α competent cells and their sequences were verified by DNA sequencing. Consequently the pET22b expression vectors containing genes for human microsomal and erythrocytic cytochrome b5 were constructed and finally their suitability for heterologous expression was evaluated. Keywords: Heterologous expression,...

Diabetes mellitus is considered as one of world's most common metabolic diseases. Complicated treatment and increasing number of newly diagnosed patients, suffering from diabetes every year, shows the importance and necessity of research in this area. Some of the major aims of this research are the development of new therapeutically utilized drugs and defining the problems of insulin acting in human body. Insulin is a peptide hormone whose main physiological function is to regulate blood glucose level in organism connected with large impact on whole metabolism. Insulin acts through binding of its monomeric form to the insulin receptor. Upon binding to the receptor molecule of insulin undergoes specific structural changes, which put the hormone into an active state. As of now, the structure of the insulin's active monomeric form is still unknown. By testing binding affinities of many modified insulin analogues there was discovered strong evidence between structural conformation of the C-terminus of the B-chain and binding affinity to the receptor. The most crucial data, necessary for this work, were observed from the structure of highly active insulin analogues that possessed unique B26 turn, recently prepared and described by team of Dr. J. Jiráček, IOCB AS CR. The aim of this work was synthesis of...

This work consists of four consecutive parts, each dealing with syntheses of structurally diverse compounds. The syntheses were based on the methods within the domain of transition-metal catalyzed and/or mediated reactions with particular emaphasis on the application of organozirconium chemistry. 1. A method for synthesis of tricyclic condensed hydrocarbons possessing 5(6)-7-6(aryl) framework was developed. It is based on reaction of bicyclic zirconacyclopentenes, prepared by oxidative dimerization of enynes on a low-valent zirconocene species (Negishi's reagent), with ortho-halobenzaldehydes in the presence of various additives. The presence of two different centers of reactivity - the sp2 C-Zr and sp3 C-Zr bond - allowed sequential functionalization of each bond. Thanks to its higher nucleophilicity, the sp3 C-Zr bond reacted preferentially with the carbonyl carbon of the aldehyde yielding an oxazirconacycloheptene. The subsequent transmetallation of the remaining sp2 C-Zr bond with CuCl in the presence of other additives (catalysts) enabled an intramolecular cross-coupling reaction with the aryl halide moiety furnishing the desired tricyclic products in reasonable yields. The scope of the reaction with respect to differently functionalized reactants was assessed, as well as its mechanistic...

The current methodologies of catalytic enantioselective allylation of aldehydes were studied on conjugated dienals and later on haloacrylaldehydes as the substrates. The resulting enantioenriched homoallylalcohols were prepared by reactions promoted either by commercial Brønsted acid catalysts or by Lewis base catalysts developed by our group, often with high enantio- and diastereoselectivities. Subsequently, the methodology was expanded on catalytic enantioselective crotylation and pentenylation reactions, practically unknown not only with these substrates. The applicability of this synthetic approach was demonstrated on preparation of several natural products or their intermediates.

Insulin/IGF system is a complex network of three similar hormones (insulin, IGF-1 and IGF-2) and their three similar receptors (IR-A, IR-B and IGF-1R,), which play important roles in maintaining basal energy homeostasis of the organism, in growth, development, life-span but also in development of diseases such as diabetes mellitus, cancer, acromegaly or Laron dwarfism. Despite structural similarities between family members, each member have its unique role in the system. Identification of structural determinants in insulin and IGFs that trigger their specific signalling pathways is important for rational drug design for safer treatment of diabetes or for more efficient combating of cancer or growth-related disorders. In this thesis, we focused on identification of such structural determinants in IGF-1. Comparison of our data with parallel studies with IGF-2 and insulin could give a more complex picture of the problem. First of all, we developed necessary methodologies for the preparation of IGF-1 analogues. We developed a new methodology for the total chemical synthesis of IGF-1 analogues based on the solid-phase synthesis of fragments and their ligation by a CuI -catalyzed cycloaddition of azides and alkynes. In parallel, we developed a procedure for a recombinant production of IGF- 1 and its...

Various ways of preparing enantiomerically pure 2-amino[6]helicene derivatives were explored. Ni(0) mediated cyclotrimerization of enantiopure triynes provided (M)- and (P)-7,8-bis(p-tolyl)hexahelicene-2-amine in >99% ee as well as its benzoderivative in >99% ee. The stereocontrol was found to be inefficient for a 2- aminobenzo[6]helicene congener with an embedded five-membered ring. Helically chiral imidazolium salts bearing one or two helicene moieties have been synthesized and applied in enantioselective [2+2+2] cyclotrimerization catalyzed by an in situ formed Ni(0)-NHC complex. The synthesis of the first helically chiral Pd- and Ru- NHC complexes and their application in enantioselective catalysis was demonstrated. The latter shows promising results in enantioselective olefin metathesis reactions. A mechanistic proposal for asymmetric ring closing metathesis is provided.