Nerve agent | EPFL Graph Search

Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class of organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. Nerve agents are irreversible acetylcholinesterase inhibitors used as poison. Poisoning by a nerve agent leads to constriction of pupils, profuse salivation, convulsions, and involuntary urination and defecation, with the first symptoms appearing in seconds after exposure. Death by asphyxiation or cardiac arrest may follow in minutes due to the loss of the body's control over respiratory and other muscles. Some nerve agents are readily vaporized or aerosolized, and the primary portal of entry into the body is the respiratory system. Nerve agents can also be absorbed through the skin, requiring that those likely to be subjected to such agents wear a full body suit in addition to a respirator. Nerve agents are generally colorless, tasteless liquids that may evaporate to a gas. Agents Sarin and VX are odorless; Tabun has a slightly fruity odor and Soman has a slight camphor odor. Nerve agents attack the nervous system. All such agents function the same way resulting in cholinergic crisis: they inhibit the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, which is responsible for the breakdown of acetylcholine (ACh) in the synapses between nerves that control whether muscle tissues are to relax or contract. If the agent cannot be broken down, muscles are prevented from receiving 'relax' signals and they are effectively paralyzed. It is the compounding of this paralysis throughout the body that quickly leads to more severe complications, including the heart and the muscles used for breathing. Because of this, the first symptoms usually appear within 30 seconds of exposure and death can occur via asphyxiation or cardiac arrest in a few minutes, depending upon the dose received and the agent used.

Solid-phase peptide synthesis on disulfide-linker resin followed by reductive release affords pure thiol-functionalized peptides

Christian Heinis, Peter Matei Frisius Pânzar, Alexander Lund Nielsen, Manuel Leonardo Merz, Ganesh Kumar Mothukuri, Zsolt Bognár

Thiol groups are suitable handles for site-selectively modifying, immobilizing or cyclizing individual peptides or entire peptide libraries. A limiting step in producing the thiol-functionalized peptides is the chromatographic purification, which is partic ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2022

A releasable disulfide-linked peptide tag facilitates the synthesis and purification of short peptides

Christian Heinis, Yu Teng Wu, Alessandro Zorzi, Jack Peter Christopher Williams

Combinatorial cyclization of hundreds to thousands of random linear peptides by structurally diverse chemical linkers offers access to large macrocyclic compound libraries. A bottleneck in the development of such libraries is the preparation of large numbe ...

2020