SignificanceMalignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a devastating malignancy with a prognosis of less than 12 months. Even with bans on the use of asbestos in most Western countries, the incidence is still increasing due to the long latency periods between exposure and development of the disease. Diagnosis is often delayed due to invasive biopsies and lack of distinguishable markers. Patients frequently present with pleural effusions months to years before a radiologically detectable mass appears. This study aimed to investigate the proteome of pleural effusions taken from patients with MPM, adenocarcinoma and benign conditions in an attempt to identify a biomarker for early diagnosis. We identified several proteins that may be possible targets and warrant further investigation. Due to the predominance of up regulated proteins involved in VEGF signalling in MPM, we analys ed VEGFA levels in effusions and found a strong correlation between VEGFA levels and survival in MPM.

Ru3(CO)12 was systematically de‐ligated computationally and the energetic minima for all structures were calculated using density functional theory at the M06/SDD/cc‐pvdz level of theory. The lowest energy electronic configuration of the clusters Ru3(CO)12 to Ru3(CO)3 was found to be a singlet state, while for Ru3(CO)2, Ru3(CO)1 and Ru3 the minimum spin state was predicted to be quintet, septet, and nonet, respectively. The CO binding energies for all structures was found to increase approximately linearly with de‐ligation from Ru3(CO)12 to Ru3(CO)5, whereupon the binding energy decreased from this structure to Ru3CO. The average bond length of terminally bound CO ligands on each cluster was found to be larger than free carbon monoxide in all cases, and increased from 1.147 Å for Ru3(CO)12, to 1.161 Å for Ru3CO.

Two tris(triphenylphosphinegold)oxonium dimer salts [{{Au(PPh 3 )} 3 (m 3 ÀO)} 2 ] 2+ (X À ) 2 (X ¼ BF À 4 , MnO À 4 ) were investigated via synchrotron-based far-infrared vibrational spectroscopy and density functional theory modelled at the M06/LANL2DZ level of theory. The 50-800 cm À1 region of both oxonium salts is presented, with the spectrum for [{{Au(PPh 3 )} 3 (m 3 ÀO)} 2 ] 2+ (BF À 4 ) 2 found to possess a large feature at 330.3 cm À1 , attributable to counter-ion vibrational modes, which is only predicted upon explicit inclusion of counter-ions in the calculation. A feature around 107 cm À1 observed for the [{{Au(PPh 3 )} 3 (m 3 ÀO)} 2 ] 2+ (BF À 4 ) 2 infrared spectrum is assigned to 21 distinct vibrational modes arising from Au-Au bond stretching and other motions of the Au core. The same feature is predicted to be present within the [{{Au(PPh 3 )} 3 (m 3 ÀO)} 2 ] 2+ (MnO À 4 ) 2 spectrum but is masked by experimental noise. In the 50-400 cm À1 region, the relative intensities of predicted vibrational modes is found to depend heavily on the presence and nature of the counter-ions, while within the 400-800 cm À1 region, little dependence of the theoretical spectra on the type of counter-ion is predicted. Finally, the dimerization energies of both [{{Au(PPh 3 )} 3 (m 3 ÀO)} 2 ] 2+ (BF À 4 ) 2 and [{{Au(PPh 3 )} 3 (m 3 ÀO)} 2 ] 2+ (MnO À 4 ) 2 are calculated to be 3.06 eV and 3.20 eV, respectively, when the counter-ions are explicitly included within the calculation, and just 1.10 eV in their absence.