Francisco Cardona

cis-Glyco-fused benzopyran compounds as new amyloid-β peptide ligands

A small library of glyco-fused benzopyran compounds has been synthesised. Their interaction features with Aβ peptides have been characterised by using STD-NMR and trNOESY experiments. The conformational analysis of the compounds has also been carried out through molecular mechanics (MM) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.

Luminescent bi-metallic fluoroborate derivatives of bulky salen ligands

A family of hemisalen fluoroborate complexes has been prepared and characterized. These new fluorophores exhibit an intense blue emission upon irradiation with UV light. Interestingly, the introduction of bulky aromatic substituents enhanced the quantum yield considerably, up to 44%. Upon studying various solvents, it appeared that the effect of the phenyl substituents is more of electron donating nature than of restricting the intramolecular motion of the dyes.

Synthesis of C‐Glycoconjugates from Readily Available Unprotected C‐Allyl Glycosides by Chemoselective Ligation

Glycoconjugates such as glycoproteins, glycolipids, and proteoglycans are key components of the living system and are involved in various recognition processes such as cell adhesion, migration, and signaling, and in many pathological events such as autoimmune disease, bacterial and viral invasion of the host, and tumor-cell motility and progression. Understanding how and why these highly specific interactions come about is a hard task due to the difficulties associated with the “microheterogenity” of natural glycoconjugates. Thus, there is an increasing demand for synthetic glycoconjugates for a better comprehension of these biological processes and to expedite the development of therapeutic agents.

Tunable Color of Aggregation Induced Emission Enhancement in a Family of Hydrogen-Bonded Azines and Schiff Bases

A simple synthesis strategy afforded a family of hydrogen-bonded azines and Schiff-bases. Although in dilute solution these dyes are faint light emitters, all exhibit bright luminescence upon aggregation. Changing the peripheral substituents from electron donating to electron withdrawing allows emission fine-tuning in a range from bluish-green to orange-red. The crystal structures of the materials reveal that the restriction of intramolecular rotations is the main mechanism for the aggregation-induced emission enhancement properties.