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This paper offers a social capital explanation for the purported relationship between human capital investment and an organization's innovation capability. We argue that social capital plays a mediating role in the relationship between the level of individual knowledge of employees and organizations' innovation capabilities. The mediating mechanism is attributed to the role of social capital in knowledge exchange and combination that help enhance knowledge creation. Using survey data of 319 manufacturing firms in Korea, we conducted structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to verify the mediating role of social capital in firms' innovation performance. The results demonstrated that relational and cognitive dimensions of social capital are important mediators in realizing organizational innovation performance.

A3 adenosine receptor (AR) ligands including A3 AR agonist, N6-(3-iodobenzyl)adenosine-5′-N-methyluronamide (1a, IB-MECA) were examined for adiponectin production in human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs). In this model, 1a significantly increased adiponectin production, which is associated with improved insulin sensitivity. However, A3 AR antagonists also promoted adiponectin production in hBM-MSCs, indicating that the A3 AR pathway may not be directly involved in the adiponectin promoting activity. In a target deconvolution study, their adiponectin-promoting activity was significantly correlated to their binding activity to both peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) γ and PPARδ. They functioned as both PPARγ partial agonists and PPARδ antagonists. In the diabetic mouse model, 1a and its structural analogues A3 AR antagonists significantly decreased the serum levels of glucose and triglyceride, supporting their antidiabetic potential. These findings indicate that the polypharmacophore of these compounds may provide therapeutic insight into their multipotent efficacy against various human diseases.

A marine-derived Streptomyces strain, SSC21, was isolated from the sediment of Suncheon Bay, Republic of Korea. Chemical analysis of the bacterial strain resulted in the isolation of four new metabolites, suncheonosides A-D (1-4, respectively), each bearing a sulfur atom. The planar structures of the suncheonosides were identified as hexasubstituted benzothioate glycosides by combined spectroscopic analyses. Analysis of the configuration of the sugar moieties based on ROESY nuclear magnetic resonance correlations, one-bond (1)H-(13)C coupling constant analysis, and chemical derivatizations indicated that the suncheonosides incorporate only l-rhamnose. Suncheonosides A, B, and D promoted adiponectin production in a concentration-dependent manner during adipogenesis in human mesenchymal stem cells, suggesting antidiabetic potential.

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