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Updated: May 7, 2026

Using Neuron Spiking Activity to Trigger Closed-Loop Stimuli in Neurophysiological Experiments
Published on: November 12, 2019
Opening or closing the lock? When reactivity is the key to biological activity
Nafisah Al-Rifai1, Hannelore Rücker, Sabine Amslinger
1Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31, 93053 Regensburg (Germany).
Abstract:
Thiol-mediated processes play a key role to induce or inhibit inflammation proteins. Tailoring the reactivity of electrophiles can enhance the selectivity to address only certain surface cysteines. Fourteen 2',3,4,4'-tetramethoxychalcones with different α-X substituents (X=H, F, Cl, Br, I, CN, Me, p-NO2-C6H4, Ph, p-OMe-C6H4, NO2, CF3, COOEt, COOH) were synthesized, containing the potentially electrophilic α,β-unsaturated carbonyl unit. The assessment of their reactivity as electrophiles in thia-Michael additions with cysteamine shows a change in the reactivity of more than six orders of magnitude. Moreover, a clear correlation between their reactivity and an influence on the inflammation proteins heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and the inducible NO synthase (iNOS) is demonstrated. As the biologically most active compound, the α-CF3 -chalcone is shown to inhibit the NO production in RAW264.7 mouse macrophages in the nanomolar range.
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