The use of sub-nanometer resolution electron density as spatial constraints for denovo and ab-initio structure prediction requires knowledge of protein boundaries...Full Text Available
This conference was held December 4--8, 1994 in Asilomar, California. The purpose of this meeting was to provide a forum for exchange of state-of-the-art information concerning the prediction of protein structure. Attention if focused on the following: comparative modeling; sequence to fold assignment; and abinitio folding.
This paper presents fundamental researches based on the electronic structure calculations and X absorption spectroscopy, allowing the knowledge on nuclear fuels at an atomic scale. They bring a better understanding of these material behavior to accurate the macroscopic simulation. The calculation methods, the experimental techniques of validation and the abinitio calculations results are detailed. (A.L.B.)
In abinitio molecular dynamics, whenever information about the potential energy surface is needed for integrating the equations of motion, it is computed 'on the fly' using electronic structure calculations. For Born-Oppenheimer methods, the electronic structure calculations are converged, whereas in the extended Lagrangian approach the electronic structure is propagated along with the nuclei. Some recent advances for both approaches are discussed.
We present a formulation of abinitio electronic structure calculations in a finite magnetic field, which retains the simplicity and efficiency of techniques widely used in first principles molecular dynamics simulations, based on plane-wave basis sets and Fourier transforms. In addition we discuss results obtained with this method for the energy spectrum of interacting electrons in quantum wells, and for the electronic properties of dense fluid deuterium in a uniform magnetic field.
Genetic algorithms (GA) were used to develop specific copper metal-ligand force field parameters for the MM3 force field, from a combination of crystallographic structures and abinitio...Full Text Available
The authors calculated the stress-strain relation for elastomeric foam from an abinitio theory, which shows that the plateau and densification regions should be described by a hyperbola. The theory seems to agree reasonably well with experiment.
Electronic and structural properties of antiphase boundaries in group III-V semiconductor compounds have been receiving increased attention due to the potential to integration of optically-active III-V...Full Text Available
Abinitio total-energy calculations, based on the exact muffin-tin orbital method, are used to determine the elastic properties of Pd1-xAgx random alloys in the face-centered-cubic crystallographic phase. The compositional disorder is treated within the coherent-potential approximation. The single crystal and polycrystalline elastic constants and the Debye temperature are calculated for the whole range of concentration, 0?x?1. It is shown that the variation in the elastic parameters of Pd-Ag alloys with chemical composition strongly deviates from a simple linear or parabolic trend. The complex electronic origin of these anomalies is demonstrated.
This thesis is divided up into five chapters as outlined below. Chapter 1 gives the background to the techniques used in this thesis including X-ray structure determination and abinitio methods. An overview of some recent studies using abinitio methods to study transition metal complexes is also given. Chapter 2 investigates structural trans influence in a number of transition metal and p-block complexes. The database and abinitio studies showed that the classical trans influence model based on Pt(II) chemistry does not always hold. For some systems (eg. d sup 1 sup 0 s sup 0 for Sb sup V and Sn sup I sup V) the cis influence is of similar magnitude to the trans influence. For other systems (d sup 0), the trans influence is not as powerful as usually assumed. Chapter 3 is an investigation into the bridging chloride unit. A database study was performed on ...
By using a variational Monte Carlo method, we examine an effective low-energy model for LaFeAsO derived from an abinitio downfolding scheme. We show that quantum and many-body fluctuations near the antiferromagnetic (AF) quantum critical point largely reduce the antiferromagnetic ordered moment. Our derived model not only quantitatively reproduces the small ordered moment in LaFeAsO, but also accounts for the diversity from LaFePO, BaFe_2As_2 to FeTe. Electron correlation is found to determine the observed material dependence. We also find that LaFeAsO is subject to large orbital fluctuations, sandwiched by the AF Mott insulator and weakly correlated metals. The orbital fluctuations and Dirac-cone dispersion hold keys for the diverse magnetic properties. (author)
The structure of ammonium azide (NH{sub 4})N{sub 3} was (re-)determined abinitio from x-ray powder diffraction experiment using synchrotron radiation. We tried to detail and comment the different steps involved in the structure determination. The compound crystallize in the orthorhombic Pmna space group (no.53) with a = 8.937(1) A, b= 3.8070(5) A, c = 8.664(1) A, V = 294.79(7) A{sup 3}; Z= 4. It was possible to locate and refine the hydrogen coordinates, in two different approaches, and to establish the H-bonds. The final structural parameters are in good agreement with previous results based on three-dimensional neutron diffraction. (Author)
The structure of ammonium azide (NH_4)N_3 was (re-)determined abinitio from x-ray powder diffraction experiment using synchrotron radiation. We tried to detail and comment the different steps involved in the structure determination. The compound crystallize in the orthorhombic Pmna space group (no.53) with a = 8.937(1) A, b= 3.8070(5) A, c = 8.664(1) A, V = 294.79(7) A"3; Z= 4. It was possible to locate and refine the hydrogen coordinates, in two different approaches, and to establish the H-bonds. The final structural parameters are in good agreement with previous results based on three-dimensional neutron diffraction. (Author)
We carried out theoretical analyses based on abinitio calculations that incorporate free energy of the vapor phase in order to determine the initial growth process of cubic GaN on GaN (001)-(4x1). The results suggest that a N-adsorbed structure appears at the initial growth stage and then Ga adsorbs on the N-adsorbed GaN (001)-(4x1) surface. Considering this process, we performed Monte Carlo simulations. The results suggest that the maximum point of Ga coverage after supplying a Formula Not Shown monolayer of atoms shifted toward a Ga-rich condition from V/III=1.0.
Abinitio lattice dynamics based on linear response method are performed for high pressure phase of yttrium to describe electron-phonon coupling and subsequent superconducting behavior. The critical temperature Tc in fcc-Y increases monotonically with pressure up to 9.25 K at 31 GPa, which is quantitatively in excellent agreement with two quasihydrostatic experiments and is qualitatively compatible with recent experiments. The excellent agreement with experiments gives us a better understanding of the effective pseudopotential ?* as well as spectral function ?2(?)F(?) in yttrium. These results demonstrate that there exists strong electron-phonon coupling in Y within the studied pressure regime, and for lower pressure electron correlation becomes stronger. Generally, it is found that superconductivity in yttrium under pressure can be described quantitatively within standard theory of phonon-mediated superconductivity.
This work presents accurate abinitio determination of the hyperfine splitting for the ground state and few low-lying excited states of 113Cd+; important candidates for the frequency standard in the microwave region, using coupled-cluster theory (CC) in the relativistic framework. The calculated hyperfine splitting are well in agreement with recent experimental results. We have also carried out the lifetimes of the 5p2P1=2 and 5p2P3=2 states, which are in well agreement with recent experimental result (Moehring et al., PRA 73 023413, 2006). The roles of different electron correlation effects in the determination of these quantities are discussed and their contributions are presented in the CC terms.
Abinitio planewave pseudopotential method is used to study carbon diffusion and pairing in crystalline silicon. The calculation is performed with a 40 Ry planewave cutoff and 2x2x2 special k-point sampling with a supercell of 64 atoms. It is found that substitutional carbon attracts interstitial Si forming a <001> C interstitial with a large binding energy of 1.45 eV. The interstitial carbon is mobile and can migrate with a migration energy of 0.5 eV. The interstitial carbon can bind further to another substitutional carbon forming a substitutional carbon-interstitutional carbon pair with a binding energy of 1.0 eV. This model is used to understand the effect of high C concentration on the transient enhanced diffusion in Si.
The reactions of the hydroxyl radical with hydrocarbons and fluoro hydrocarbons attract significant attention due to their importance in atmospheric chemistry. Its reactions with the two first hydrocarbons, methane and ethane are of special interest because, owing to the small size of these systems, they serve as a prototype for the theoretical studies of hydrogen abstraction reactions. In this work, the reaction and activation energies of the hydroxyl radical abstraction reaction with methane and ethane have been investigated by correlated abinitio and DFT methods. The DFT reaction energies are in good agreement with experimental values, but the activation energies may be in severe error. (authors) 22 refs.
Abs are central to malaria immunity, which is only acquired after years of exposure to Plasmodium falciparum (Pf). Despite the enormous worldwide burden of malaria,...Full Text Available
This book examines some of the basic principles behind chemical reactions kinetics. Topics considered include abinitio determination of potential energy for chemical reactions; semi-empirical potential energy surfaces; general theory of reactive scattering: different equation approach; and integral equation approach to reactive scattering.
Model phosphate-metal solvation complexes have been studied by ab-initio self-consistent-field techniques. The complexes studied include (RO)2PO2-(R = H or CH3) with Li+, Na+, K+, Be++, Mg++, Ca++,...Full Text Available
We have measured the oxygen positions in LaNiO{sub 3} films to elucidate the coupling between epitaxial strain and oxygen octahedral rotations. The oxygen positions are determined by comparing the measured and calculated intensities of half-order Bragg peaks, arising from the octahedral rotations. Combining abinitio density-functional calculations with these experimental results, we show how strain systematically modifies both bond angles and lengths in this functional perovskite oxide.
We report on large-scale applications of the abinitio, no-core shell model with the primary goal of achieving an accurate description of nuclear structure from the fundamental inter-nucleon interactions. In particular, we show that realistic two-nucleon interactions are inadequate to describe the low-lying structure of {sup 10}B, and that realistic three-nucleon interactions are essential.
Using abinitio (SCF/6-31G) method, mechanisms of proton migrations in methaboric acid dimers have studied. It is shown that in all the dimers considered a cooperative transfer of protons occurs. The calculated values of activation barriers of cooperative proton transfer reactions in the dimers are equal to 28.6 kcal/mol.
Tripartite efflux systems are responsible for the export of toxins across both the inner and outer membranes of Gram negative bacteria. Previous work has indicated that EmrAB-TolC from Escherichia coli is such a tripartite system, comprised of EmrB an MFS transporter, EmrA, a membrane fusion protein and TolC, an outer membrane channel. The whole complex is predicted to form a continuous channel allowing direct export from the cytoplasm to the exterior of the cell. Little is known, however, about the interactions between the individual components of this system. Reconstitution of EmrA + EmrB resulted in co-elution of the two proteins from a gel filtration column indicating formation of the EmrAB complex. Electron microscopic single particle analysis of the reconstituted EmrAB complex revealed the presence of particles approximately 240 x 140 A, likely to correspond to two ...
The abinitio pseudopotential method is used to study transient-enhanced-diffusion (TED) related processes. The electronic degrees of freedom are included explicitly, together with the fully self-consistent treatment of the electron charge density. A large supercell and a fine k-point mesh are used to ensure numerical convergence. Such method has been demonstrated to give quantitative description of defect energetic. We will show that boron diffusion is significantly enhanced in the presence of the Si interstitial due to the substantial lowering of the migrational barrier through a kick-out mechanism. The resulting mobile boron can also be trapped by another substitutional boron, forming an immobile and elect rically inactive two-boron pair. Similarly, carbon diffusion is also enhanced significantly due to the pairing with Si interstitial. However, carbon binds to Si interstitial much more strongly than boron does, taking away most Si ...
The structural parameters of various Haegg phases (H or M_n_+_1AX_n phases) are studied experimentally by x-ray and electron spectroscopies, x-ray diffraction, and abinitio full potential as well as full mutiple scattering theoretical calculations. Experimentally it was found that the structure of all ternary compounds analyzed herein are relaxed. The values of the lattice parameters and relaxations obtained from abinitio calculations are in excellent agreement with those deduced from the analysis of the experimental data. The bonding scheme has been analyzed and the charge transfer between constituting atoms determined. It is demonstrated that the strength and electrical transport properties in these materials are principally governed by the metallic planes. For the solid solution (Ti_0_._5Nb_0_._5)_2AlC, the most salient result is that the basal planes are corrugated, which could explain the solid ...
In this thesis, a new ab-initio method for molecular dynamics within the framework of density functional theory was developed and implemented. It is strongly related to the projector-augmented-wave method (PAW) by P. Bloechl, but also includes elements of a pseudocharge method proposed by M. Weinert for the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method (FLAPW). Like the FLAPW-method, the PAW-method is an all-electron method. In the later case, the hamiltonian takes quite a simple form similar to the one obtained when using normconserving Kleinman-Bylander-type pseudopotentials or ultrasoft Vanderbilt pseudopotentials. The PAW-method allows for an efficient calculation of systems containing virtually any element of the periodic table, including those which require high numerical effort when treated using normconserving pseudopotentials (e.g. 2p-elements like oxygen or 3d-transitional metals like copper). In addition, a higher accuracy compared to the ...
We improve the steady-state abinitio laser theory (SALT) of Tureci et al. by expressing its fundamental self-consistent equation in a basis set of threshold constant flux states that contains the exact threshold lasing mode. For cavities with non-uniform index and/or non-uniform gain, the new basis set allows the steady-state lasing properties to be computed with much greater efficiency. This formulation of the SALT can be solved in the single-pole approximation, which gives the intensities and thresholds, including the effects of nonlinear hole-burning interactions to all orders, with negligible computational effort. The approximation yields a number of analytic predictions, including a "gain-clamping" transition at which strong modal interactions suppress all higher modes. We show that the single-pole approximation agrees well with exact SALT calculations, particularly for high-Q cavities. Within this range of validity, it provides an ...
Over the last decade {\\it abinitio} modeling of material properties has become widespread in diverse fields of research. It has proved to be a powerful tool for predicting various properties of matter under extreme conditions. We apply modern computational chemistry and materials science methods, including density functional theory (DFT), to solve lingering problems in the modeling of the dense atmospheres of cool white dwarfs ($T_{\\rm eff}\\rm <7000 \\, K$). Our work on the revision and improvements of the absorption mechanisms in the hydrogen and helium dominated atmospheres resulted in a new set of atmosphere models. By inclusion of the Ly-$\\rm \\alpha$ red wing opacity we successfully fitted the entire spectral energy distributions of known cool DA stars. In the subsequent work we fitted the majority of the coolest stars with hydrogen-rich models. This finding challenges our understanding of the spectral evolution of cool white ...
Using an abinitio pseudopotential method within a generalized gradient approximation of the density functional theory, the structural, electronic, and phonon properties of SrS in the B1 (NaCl) and B2 (CsCl) structures have been studied. The calculated lattice constants, static bulk modulus, and first-order pressure derivative of the bulk modulus are reported for both the B1 and B2 structures and compared with previous experimental and theoretical calculations. Electronic band structures and densities of states have been derived for SrS. Subsequently, a linear-response approach to the density functional theory is used to derive the phonon frequencies and densities of states.
The nature of the first generation of stars in the Universe remains largely unknown. Observations imply the existence of massive primordial stars early in the history of the universe, and the standard theory for the growth of cosmic structure predicts that structures grow hierarchically through gravitational instability. We have developed an abinitio computer simulation of the formation of primordial stars that follows the relevant atomic and molecular processes in a primordial gas in an expanding universe. The results show that primeval density fluctuations left over from the Big Bang can drive the formation of a tiny protostar with a mass of just one percent that of the sun. The protostar is a seed for the subsequent formation of a massive primordial star.
We report a study of the nonmetal-metal transition of free-standing Pd{sub N} clusters (2{<=}N{<=}21) carried out through two different theoretical approaches that are extensively employed in electronic structure calculations: a semi-empirical tight-binding (TB) model and an abinitio DFT pseudopotential model. The calculated critical size for the metallic transition decreases rapidly with the temperature and an oscillatory dependence with the cluster size is obtained, particularly in the DFT approach. The TB model describes the metallic behavior for cluster sizes beyond N{approx}12 well. Our obtained critical size at room temperature is of the order of the experimental estimation.
We present ab-initio calculations of the electronic structure of small Fe clusters (1-9 atoms) on Ni(001), Ni(111), Cu(001) and Cu(111) surfaces. Our focus is on the spin moments and their dependence on cluster size and shape. We derive a simple quantitative rule that relates the moment of each Fe atom linearly to its coordination number. Thus, for an arbitrary Fe cluster the spin moment of the cluster and of the individual Fe atoms can be readily found if the positions of the atoms are known. (orig.)
We present results from ab-initio electronic-structure calculations of mechanical properties of the rhombohedral phase of vanadium reported in recent experiments (R Ia), and other predicted high-pressure phases (R Ib and bcc), focusing on properties relevant to dynamic experiments. We find that of the three transitions the largest volume collapse (1.3%) is for the R Ia to R Ib transition. Calculations of the single crystal and polycrystal elastic constants reveal a remarkably small discontinuity across the phase transitions even at zero temperature where the transitions are first order.
A {lambda}gt11 cDNA library was constructed from poly(U)-Spharose-selected Entamoeba histolytica trophozoite RNA in order to clone and identify surface antigens. The library was screened with rabbit polyclonal anti-E. histolytica serum. A 700-base-pair cDNA insert was isolated and the nucleotide sequence was determined. The deduced amino acid sequence of the cDNA revealed a cysteine-rich protein. DNA hybridizations showed that the gene was specific to E. histolytica since the cDNA probe reacted with DNA from four axenic strains of E. histolytica but did not react with DNA from Entamoeba invadens, Acanthamoeba castellanii, or Trichomonas vaginalis. The insert was subcloned into the expression vector pGEX-1 and the protein was expressed as a fusion with the C terminus of glutathione S-transferase. Purified fusion protein was used to generate 22 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and a mouse polyclonal antiserum ...
A #lambda#gt11 cDNA library was constructed from poly(U)-Spharose-selected Entamoeba histolytica trophozoite RNA in order to clone and identify surface antigens. The library was screened with rabbit polyclonal anti-E. histolytica serum. A 700-base-pair cDNA insert was isolated and the nucleotide sequence was determined. The deduced amino acid sequence of the cDNA revealed a cysteine-rich protein. DNA hybridizations showed that the gene was specific to E. histolytica since the cDNA probe reacted with DNA from four axenic strains of E. histolytica but did not react with DNA from Entamoeba invadens, Acanthamoeba castellanii, or Trichomonas vaginalis. The insert was subcloned into the expression vector pGEX-1 and the protein was expressed as a fusion with the C terminus of glutathione S-transferase. Purified fusion protein was used to generate 22 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and a mouse polyclonal antiserum ...
Amyloid precursor protein (APP), a key protein in pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), is a type I transmembrane protein which can be cleaved by b- and g-secretase to release the amyloidogenic b-amyloid peptides (Ab) and the APP intracellular domain (AICD). While Ab has been widely believed to initiate pathogenic cascades culminating AD, the physiological functions and regulations of AICD remain elusive. In present study, endogenous AICD was demonstrated to be increased by canonical Wnt signal. Instead of due to g-secretase activity, enhanced AICD expression was found due to the increased protein stability by Wnt/b-catenin. b-Catenin was demonstrated to be an associating partner of AICD, capable of promoting AICD mediated transcriptional activity. Investigation by AICD mutants proved ...
By means of ab-initio electronic structure calculation and one-dimensional Boltzmann transport equation solution, we investigate the size dependent thermoelectric (TE) properties of n-type ZnO nanowires (NWs) and surface passivation effects. As demonstrated by our calculations, largest figure of merit ZT achievable in thin NWs is larger than that in wide NWs, whereas being restrained by higher demand of n-type doping. Moreover, bare NWs are superior in TE application comparing with the passivated. To compete with conventional TE materials, lattice thermal conductivity of ZnO NWs should be at least 2 orders of magnitude lower than bulk value.
We present results from a kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of boron transient enhanced diffusion (TED) in silicon. Our approach avoids the use of phenomenological fits to experimental data by using a complete and self-consistent set of values for defect and dopant energetics derived mostly from {ital abinitio} calculations. The results predict that, during annealing of 40 keV B-implanted Si at 800{degree}C, there exists a time window during which all the implanted boron atoms are substitutional. At earlier or later times, the interactions between free silicon self-interstitials and boron atoms drive the growth of boron clusters and result in an inactive boron fraction. The results show that the majority of boron TED takes place during the growth period of interstitial clusters and not during their dissolution. {copyright} {ital 1998 American Institute of Physics.}
We present results from a kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of boron transient enhanced diffusion (TED) in silicon. Our approach avoids the use of phenomenological fits to experimental data by using a complete and self-consistent set of values for defect and dopant energetics derived mostly from abinitio calculations. The results predict that, during annealing of 40 keV B-implanted Si at 800 degree C, there exists a time window during which all the implanted boron atoms are substitutional. At earlier or later times, the interactions between free silicon self-interstitials and boron atoms drive the growth of boron clusters and result in an inactive boron fraction. The results show that the majority of boron TED takes place during the growth period of interstitial clusters and not during their dissolution. copyright 1998 American Institute of Physics.
The portion of the potential energy surface (PES) of acetylacetone relevant for the intramolecular proton transfer reaction is studied using abinitio and DFT methods. The best estimate of the barrier governing proton transfer was found to be 3.4 kcal mol{sup -1} at the MP4(FC)/6-311 + G(2d,2p)//MP2(FC)/6-311 + G(2d,2p) level of theory. Six stationary points on the PES were characterized as well as the reaction paths connecting these points. Special attention paid to the pathway of intramolecular proton transfer reveals that the internal rotation of the methyl group adjacent to the carbonyl group and the proton transfer reaction are consecutive processes.
A first-principles quasiparticle approach to the electronic excitation energies in crystals and at surfaces is described. The quasiparticle energies are calculated within the GW approximation for comparison with photoemission and other spectroscopic experiments. Applications of the method to bulk semiconductors and the Si(111)2[times]l, Ge(111)2[times]l. and H/Si(III) surfaces are presented. In both cases, significant self-energy corrections arising from many-electron effects to the excitation energies are found. Using atomic positions from total energy minimization, the calculated excitation energies explain quantitatively the experimental spectra. This approach thus provides an abinitio means for analyzing and predicting results from spectroscopic probes.
The electronic structures of the set of molecular clusters of dielectric oxide crystals AWO4 (A = Pb, Cd, Zn), the sizes of which increase sequentially are ab-initio calculated by the Restricted Hartree-Fock (RHF) method. The results of calculations of molecular orbitals and energy dependences of partial densities of electronic states of different clusters are compared each to other and to experimental data. It is found that calculated electronic structures of the tungstate groups and cations which are surrounded in cluster by certain number of the nearest neighbor atoms of the crystals quite well represent the experimentally obtained value of the forbidden gap of corresponding AWO4 crystal. (authors)
By ab-initio calculation we show that the (Ga,Fe)N ground state may be changed from anti-ferromagnetic to ferromagnetic by acceptor defect like Ga vacancies. The electronic structures are calculated by using the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (KKR) method combined with coherent potential approximation (CPA). We show that we can increase the magnetic moment of Fe in p-type GaN by oxygen co-doping. Mechanism of exchange interactions between magnetic ions in p-type (Ga,Fe)N is also studied. The effect of external magnetic field on the electronic structure of (Ga, Fe)N and p-type (Ga, Fe)N is investigated.
Electrostatic fields of the order of 1 V/Angst, as they occur at field emission tips, are comparable to those experienced by valence electrons in atoms and molecules. Such fields are strong enough to induce a significant redistribution of the valence charge in chemical bonds. In this work we investigate the effects on the electronic properties of a single adatom on a metal surface induced by the presence of an electrostatic field. In particular we present the results of a full abinitio DFT calculation, within the embedding method, of the CCV Auger spectra of Si and Mg atoms in and on a jellium-Ag host. Differently from impurities in bulk, Auger spectral profiles of adsorbates on metal surfaces can show notable modifications due to the applied electric field.
The transformation mechanism of hexagonal delta phase from the disordered bcc gamma phase has not been reported before in the Zr-rich U-Zr alloy system. With the help of X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution TEM analyses it was shown that the gamma to delta conversion takes place by the lattice collapse mechanism of omega transformation. It was also ascertained that a higher aging temperature or time promotes the growth of all four variants of the delta phase within a parent gamma grain. In addition, abinitio electronic structure calculations showed that the bcc to hexagonal transformation, involving partial ordering of the parent bcc phase followed by (111) plane collapse, is energetically favorable.
We have performed abinitio calculations on a wide range of small molecules, demonstrating the accuracy and flexibility of an alternative method for calculating the electronic structure of molecules, solids, and surfaces. It is based on the local-density approximation (LDA) for exchange and correlation and the nonlinear augmented-plane-wave method. Very accurate atomic forces are obtained directly. This allows for implementation of Car-Parrinello-like techniques to determine simultaneously the self-consistent electron wave functions and the equilibrium atomic positions within an iterative scheme. We find excellent agreement with the best existing LDA-based calculations and remarkable agreement with experiment for the equilibrium geometries, vibrational frequencies, and dipole moments of a wide variety of molecules, including strongly bound homopolar and polar molecules, hydrogen-bound and electron-deficient molecules, and weakly bound alkali ...
In order to obtain the electronic structure of leucine (Leu) in aqueous solution, we studied three systems: Leu+7H2O, Leu+8H2O and Leu+9H2O. The results indicated that the system Leu+8H2O was the only choice which was both acceptable and doable: its computational effort was affordable, and it could simulate a main part of the solvent effect on the electronic structure of Leu in solution. Based on the system Leu+8H2O, all-electron, abinitio calculations were performed to construct an equivalent potential of water for the electronic structure of Leu with dipoles. The results showed that the main effect of water on the electronic structure of Leu was raising the occupied states about 0.0824 Ry on average, and broadening the energy gap by 11%. The water effect on the electronic structure of L...
In this study we show the effect of anti-sulfatide (RmAb) antibodies and inflammatory cytokines, TNF-α and IFN-γ in inducing myelin basic protein (MBP) degradation in myelin...Full Text Available
The levels of General Transcription Factor (TF) IIA were examined during mammalian brain development and in rat embryo fibroblasts and transformed cell lines. The large TFIIA subunit paralogues ab and t are largely produced in unsynchronized cell lines, yet only TFIIA ab is observed in a number of differentiated tissue extracts. Steady-state protein levels of the TFIIA t, ab, and g subunits were significantly reduced when human embryonal (ec) and hepatic carcinoma cell lines were stimulated to differentiate with either all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) or sodium butyrate. ATRA-treated NT2-ec cells required replating to induce a neuronal phenotype and loss of detectable TFIIA t and g proteins. High levels of TFIIA t, ab, and g and Sp factors were identified in extracts from human fetal and rat...
The helicase action of the Escherichia coli UvrAB complex on a covalently closed circular DNA template was monitored using bacterial DNA topoisomerase I, which specifically removes negative supercoils. In the presence of E. coli DNA topoisomerase I and ATP, the UvrAB complex gradually introduced positive supercoils into the input relaxed plasmid DNA template. Positive supercoils were not produced when E. coli DNA topoisomerase I was replaced by eukaryotic DNA topoisomerase I or when both E. coli and eukaryotic DNA topoisomerases I were added simultaneously. These results suggest that like other DNA helix-tracking processes, the ATP-dependent action of the UvrAM complex on duplex DNA simultaneously generates both positive and negative supercoils, which are not constrained by protein binding but are torsionally strained. The supercoiling activity of UvrAB on UV-damaged DNA was also studied using ...
A systematic study for the materials design of III-V and II-VI compound-based ferromagnetic diluted magnetic semiconductors is given based on abinitio calculations within the local spin density approximation. The electronic structures of 3d-transition-metal-atom-doped GaN and Mn-doped InN, InP, InAs, InSb, GaN, GaP, GaAs, GaSb, AlN, AlP, AlAs and AlSb were calculated by the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method combined with the coherent potential approximation. It is found that the ferromagnetic ground states are readily achievable in V-, Cr- or Mn-doped GaN without any additional carrier doping treatments, and that InN is the most promising candidate for high-T_C ferromagnet. A simple explanation of the systematic behavior of the magnetic states in III-V and II-VI compound-based diluted magnetic semiconductors is also given. It is also shown that V or Cr-doped ZnS, ZnSe, and ZnTe are ferromagnetic without p- or n-type doping treatment. However, Mn-, ...
We have developed a kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) simulator that links atomic migration and binding energies determined primarily from first principles calculations to macroscopic phenomena and laboratory time scales. Input for the kMC simulation is obtained from a combination of abinitio planewave pseudopotential calculations, molecular dynamics simulations, and experimental data. The simulator is validated against an extensive series of experimental studies of the diffusion of B spikes in self-implanted Si. The implant energy, dose, and dose rate, as well as the detailed thermal history of the sample, are included. Good agreement is obtained with the experimental data for temperatures between 750 and 950 C and times from 15 to 255 s. At 1050o C we predict too little diffusion after 105 s compared to experiment: apparently, some mechanism which is not adequately represented by our model becomes important at this temperature. Below 1050o C, the ...
Full text: Hybrid functionals, containing a fraction of the exact exchange, allow for a rather accurate treatment of e.g. small molecules and band gaps in bulk materials. A plane-wave based algorithm was implemented in VASP (Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Package) to accomplish the calculation of the exact exchange. Two functionals including exact exchange are presently available, i.e. the PBE0 (Perdew-BurKEX-Ernzerhof) and the HSE (Heyd-Scuseria-Ernzerhof). A rigorous assessment of the implementation was performed by geometry optimization and calculation of the atomization energies of the G2-1 quantum chemical test set, containing 55 molecules. Excellent agreement compared to corresponding Gaussian 03 data and good agreement with experiment was achieved. The mean absolute error (theory related to experiment) for the atomization energies calculated with the PBE and the PBE0 is 8.6 and 3.7 kcal/mol, respectively. To investigate the properties of bulk materials, the ...
(12/11)CASSCF and (12/11)CASPT2 abinitio electronic structure calculations with both the cc-pVDZ and cc-pVTZ basis sets find that there is a barrier to the very exothermic hydrogen shift that converts singlet methylnitrene, CH{sub 3}N, to methyleneimine, H{sub 2}C{double{underscore}bond}NH. These two energy minima are connected by a transition structure of C{sub s} symmetry, which is computed to lie 3.8 kcal/mol above the reactant at the (12/11)CASPT2/cc-pVTZ//(12/11)CASSCF/cc-pVTZ level of theory. The (12/11)CASSCF/cc-pVTZ value for the lowest frequency vibration in the transition structure is 854 cm{sup {minus}1}, and CASPT2 calculations concur that this a{double{underscore}prime} vibration does indeed have a positive force constant. Thus, there is no evidence that this geometry is actually a mountain top, rather than a transition structure, on the global potential energy surface or that a C{sub 1} pathway of lower energy connects the ...
Abinitio calculations of the electronic structure were performed for the silver palladium oxide, Ag_2PdO_2, by the full potential mixed linearized augmented plane wave and augmented plane wave plus local orbitals method (mixed LAPW/APW+lo) within the density functional theory and using the generalized gradient approximation (GGA96, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77 (1996) 3865) for the exchange-correlation potential. The lattice parameters were calculated from the ground-state total energy versus volume curve, and are in good agreement with the available experimental results. Our calculations of band structure predicted that the compound Ag_2PdO_2 has indirect band gap, and the Pd 4d states strongly hybridize with the O 2p states all over the valence bands and conduction bands. The valence bands are composed mainly of Ag, Pd 4d states and O 2p states, while the conduction bands consist mainly of the Pd 4d states and O 2p states. In addition, focusing on the ...
Light increased the rate of LHCP synthesis as measured by pulse-labeling with /sup 35/SO/sub 4/ and immunoprecipitation with antibody specific for Euglena LHCP. In addition to the mature LHCP, 26,000 daltons, the LHCP specific antibody immunoprecipitated large amounts of several proteins having molecular weights of approximately 100,000. On immunoblots of immunoprecipitated unlabeled protein, the antibody only detected the mature LHCP suggesting that the high molecular weight proteins are not LHCP aggregates produced during immunoprecipitation. After a 10 min pulse with /sup 35/SO/sub 4/, the 100,000 dalton proteins constituted over 80% of the immunoprecipitated material. In a subsequent chase, the radioactivity in the 100,000 dalton proteins decreased and the radioactivity in the mature LHCP increased suggesting a precursor-product relationship. After a 35 minute chase, the mature ...
We report the results of abinitio calculations of cross sections and molecular-frame photoelectron angular distributions for C 1s ionization of CO2, and propose a mechanism for the recently observed asymmetry of those angular distributions with respect to the CO^+and O^+ions produced by subsequent Auger decay. The fixed-nuclei, photoionization amplitudes were constructed using variationally obtained electron-molecular ion scattering wave functions. We have also carried out electronic structure calculations which identify a dissociative state of the CO2^++ dication that is likely populated following Auger decay and which leads to O^+ + CO^+ fragment ions. We show that a proper accounting of vibrational motion in the computation of the photoelectron angular distributions, along with reasonable assumptions about the nuclear dissociation dynamics, gives results in good agreement with recent experimental observations. We also demonstrate that ...
We carried out theoretical analyses based on abinitio calculations incorporates in which free energy of the vapor phase is incorporated in order to determine the initial growth kinetics of c-GaN on GaN(001)-(4x1). The feasibility of the theoretical approach had been confirmed by calculations of Ga adsorption-desorption transition temperature and transition beam equivalent pressures on the GaAs(001)-(4x2)b2 surface in our previous work [Y. Kangawa, T. Ito, A. Taguchi, K. Shiraishi, T. Ohachi, Surf. Sci. 493 (2001) 178]. The results of calculations suggest that no Ga adsorption occurs on the initial surface under typical growth conditions but that a Ga adsorption site appears after N adsorption on GaN(001)-(4x1). That is, in the initial growth stage of c-GaN on GaN(001)-(4x1), a N-adsorbed ...
We studied the influence of alloying on the structural and electronic properties of the unrelaxed and relaxed Si_1_-_yC_y random alloys by means of abinitio theoretical calculations using two methods: (i) a supercell approach in connection with the plane-wave pseudopotential method; (ii) the full-potential augmented plane-wave plus local orbitals (APW+lo) method. The first method is used to obtain the relaxed atomic structure. The relaxed atomic positions obtained by pseudopotential calculations were used to calculate the band structure via the second method. The local density approximation was used for the exchange and correlation energy density functional. We investigated the lattice parameters and band gap energies. We found that a quite smaller gap appears in the neighborhood of y=0.03125 concentration of C atoms. The band gap shows a large anomalous bowing and is strongly composition dependent. The electron densities of states for the ...
We report abinitio calculations of positron wave functions in the high-T/sub c/ superconductors YBa_2Cu_3O_7, Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8, and Tl_2Ba_2CaCu_2O_8 using the general potential linearized augmented plane-wave method. The calculated positron wave functions are fairly insensitive to whether or not electron-positron correlation is included in the calculation for YBa_2Cu_3O_7 and Tl_2Ba_2CaCu_2O_8, but the calculated positron density is quite sensitive to correlation in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8. While the positron wave function samples primarily the chain region in YBa_2Cu_3O_7, the results indicate that positrons should be good probes of the Cu-O layer-derived electronic states near the Fermi energy in Tl_2Ba_2CaCu_2O_8 since a large overlap with these states is predicted.
We investigate some aspects of the radiation damage mechanisms in biomolecules, focusing on the modelling of resonant fragmentation caused by the attachment of low-energy electrons (LEEs) initially ejected by biological tissues when exposed to ionizing radiation. Scattering equations are formulated within a symmetry-adapted, single-center expansion of both continuum and bound electrons, and the interaction forces are obtained from a combination of abinitio calculations and a nonempirical model of exchange and correlation effects developed in our group. We present total elastic scattering cross-sections and resonance features obtained for the equilibrium geometries of glycine, alanine, proline and valine. Our results at those geometries of the target molecules are briefly shown to qualitatively explain some of the fragmentation patterns obtained in experiments. We further carry out a one-dimensional (1D) modeling for the dynamics of ...
Some kind of one-dimensional (1D) peanut-shaped fullerene polymers (PSFPs) exhibit metallic properties, but their occurrence conditions are not yet clarified. By using the VASP (Vienna ab-initio simulation package) with density functional theory (DFT) and projector augmented wave (PAW) method, we have performed first-principles electronic structure calculations of four basic 1D PSFPs, T1, T2, T6, and T7 (the name of T1-T6 is the same as that of Wang et al. [9]) and two associated 1D PSFPs, T1SW1 and T6SW that are created by generalized Stone-Wales transformation (GSW) from T1 and T6. We found that almost regular six-membered rings connected throughout the tube are necessary to get metallic properties for the 1D PSFPs, although there may be several other conditions to expect metallic proper...
It is well established from experiments in premixed, laminar flames, jet-stirred reactors, flow reactors, and batch reactors that SO2 acts to catalyze hydrogen atom removal at stoichiometric and reducing conditions. However, the commonly accepted mechanism for radical removal, SO2 + H(+M) reversible arrow HOSO(+M), HOSO + H/OH reversible arrow SO2 + H-2/H2O, has been challenged by recent theoretical and experimental results. Based on abinitio calculations for key reactions, we update the kinetic model for this chemistry and re-examine the mechanism of fuel/SO2 interactions. We find that the interaction of SO, with the radical pool is more complex than previously assumed, involving HOSO and SO, as well as, at high temperatures also HSO, SH, and S. The revised mechanism with a high rate constant for H + SO2 recombination and with SO + H2O, rather than SO2 + H-2, as major products of the HOSO + H reaction is in agreement with a range of ...
We have measured the lattice relaxation around As in Si at a homogeneous As concentration of 4x10"1"8 cm"-"3 by EXAFS spectroscopy. From the absorption spectra, distances up to the 4th shell could be extracted. A sizeable misfit due to an increased distance is only observed for the 1st shell. Complementing our experimental work we have performed abinitio calculations based on the density functional theory with the WIEN97 package which uses the linearised augmented plane wave method and with the FHI96md program which uses first-principles pseudo-potentials and a plane wave basis set to investigate the size dependence of the super-cells constructed around one substitutional As atom. The calculations yielded good agreement with our EXAFS experiment so that the determined relaxations can be used as a solid basis for further interpretations of derived parameters such as hyperfine interaction parameters in defect complexes.
The aim of this study was to evaluate cucurbitacins (Cucs) liver protective activity in vitro and conduct QSAR studies against lipophilicity and abinitio descriptors. Nine Cucs were isolated from Cucurbitaceae plants and eight prepared by C2-alkylation or C16-acylation. Ten Cucs demonstrated protective activity on human hepatocyte-derived HepG2 cells exposed to CCl4 (EC50=2.4-45.3mM) with good margin to toxicity (T/A). All Cucs exhibited anti-proliferative effect on serum-activated rat stellate cells, HSC-T6 (EC50=0.02-4.12mM) with high T/A. While silybin is nontoxic, its protection is lower compared to Cuc D (3), iso-D (4), I (5), B (11), E (12), I-Me (6), L-Me (7), and E-Me (13) on both cell lines. Strong correlations were found for lipophilicity with both protection and toxicity on Hep...
The IR double-resonance techniques IR/R2PI (infrared/resonant 2-photon ionization), IR/PIRI (infrared-photo-induced Rydberg ionization) and IR-photodissociation spectroscopy are valuable tools to investigate structure, vibrations, and dynamical processes of neutral and ionic hydrogen-bonded clusters containing aromatic molecules. In this paper we report on the application of the IR double-resonance techniques to determine the NH and OH stretching vibrations of 4-aminophenol and 4-aminophenol(H{sub 2}O){sub 1}, both in the neutral (S{sub 0}) and ionic (D{sub 0}) ground state. All vibrational frequencies obtained for 4-aminophenol and the cluster are compared with the values obtained from abinitio and DFT calculations. In the S{sub 0} state, a trans-linear arrangement of 4-aminophenol(H{sub 2}O){sub 1} is obtained containing an O-H. O hydrogen bond. In the D{sub 0} state an overlay of two spectra can be observed resulting from the trans-linear ...
In the presence of hydroxyl anion, both formaldehyde and glyoxal are known to undergo rearrangements involving intermolecular and intramolecular hydride transfer (the Cannizzaro and Benzilic acid rearrangements respectively). The authors report abinitio SCF-MO calculations of the transition state geometries, the activation barriers, and the hydrogen isotope effects for these two reactions. The structure of the transition state for the rection involving formaldehyde is usually basis set dependent, becoming more linear and symmetrical as the basis set size increases. In contrast, the analogous transition state for the glyoxal reaction involves a highly non-linear hydride transfer. They find the isotope effects to be quite low for the Cannizzaro reaction, and significantly larger for the non-linear benzilic acid rection, in apparent contradiction to Westheimer's suggestion the isotope effects reach a maximum for linear hydrogen transfers. Since ...
The atomic structures of calcium sialons Ca_xSi_1_2_-_mAl_mN_1_6 (m = 0.5, 1, 2, 4) with the #alpha#- or #beta#-Si_3N_4-type structure were calculated, using the abinitio DFT approach, including relaxations of both lattice parameters and positions of the atoms. For all m values the #alpha#-Si_3N_4-type structure has a lower energy than the #beta#-type. For m = 1, 2 and 4 the #alpha#-type structure is also stable against decomposition into the metal nitrides, in agreement with experimental data. For m = 0.5 stability becomes uncertain. Al ions prefer positions close to Ca. Rather strong structural relaxations occur around the Ca ion.
The isotope shifts of the levels 5p/sup 2/ /sup 1/D/sub 2/, /sup 1/S/sub 0/ and 5sns /sup 1/S/sub 0/(n = 7,8) of strontium have been measured between the isotopes 84, 86, 87 and 88 in two-photon transitions from the ground state, using two lasers with different wavelengths. These levels occur below the beginning of the Rydberg series, and are known to exhibit very strong configuration mixing. Mass and field isotope shifts are calculated abinitio by means of the MCHF method for these levels and 5s4d /sup 1/D2, 5s6s /sup 1/S/sub 0/. The qualitative agreement between theory and experiment confirms the necessity of taking into account the mixing (up to 50%) with both the 5p/sup 2/ and 4d/sup 2/ perturbers in the wavefunction expansions.
We demonstrate tuning of Schottky energy barriers in organic electronic devices by utilizing chemically tailored electrodes. The Schottky energy barrier of Ag on poly[2-methoxy], 5-(2{prime}-ethyl-hexyloxy)- 1,4-phenylene was tuned over a range of more than 1 eV by using self-assembled monolayers (SAM{close_quote}s) to attach oriented dipole layers to the Ag prior to device fabrication. Kelvin probe measurements were used to determine the effect of the SAM{close_quote}s on the Ag surface potential. {ital Ab} {ital initio} Hartree-Fock calculations of the molecular dipole moments successfully describe the surface potential changes. The chemically tailored electrodes were then incorporated in organic diode structures and changes in the metal/organic Schottky energy barriers were measured using an electroabsorption technique. These results demonstrate the use of self-assembled monolayers to control metal/organic interfacial electronic properties. ...
The isostructural uranium monopnictides and monochalcogenides have become prototype systems in actinide research with respect to their unusual magnetic properties. We have investigated the origins in the electronic structure of the variation in magnetic behavior as the degree of 5f-electron localization changes from localized to itinerant on going up the pnictogen or chalcogen column, thus decreasing the U-U separation. We have applied a synthesis of: (1) A phenomenological theory of orbitally driven magnetic ordering which includes both the hybridization-induced and the RKKY exchange interactions on an equal footing, and (2) Abinitio electronic structure calculations, based on the linear-muffin-tin-orbital method, allowing a first-principles evaluation of the parameters entering the model Hamiltonian. We have investigated systematically characteristic trends and changes of the 5f-state resonance width, the hybridization potential, and the ...
We show that accretion disks, both in the subcritical and supercritical accretion rate regime, may exhibit significant amplitude luminosity oscillations. The luminosity time behavior has been obtained by performing a set of time-dependent 2D SPH simulations of accretion disks with different values of alpha and accretion rate. In this study, to avoid any influence of the initial disk configuration, we produced the disks injecting matter from an outer edge far from the central object. The period of oscillations is 2 - 50 s respectively for the two cases, and the variation amplitude of the disc luminosity is 10^38 - 10^39 erg/s. An explanation of this luminosity behavior is proposed in terms of limit cycle instability: the disk oscillates between a radiation pressure dominated configuration (with a high luminosity value) and a gas pressure dominated one (with a low luminosity value). The origin of this instability is the difference between the heat produced by viscosity and the energy ...
Abstract Series of typical -type and pseudo--type halogen-bonded complexes BClY and BBrY and hydrogen-bonded complex BHY (B = C2H4, C2H2, and C3H6; Y = F, Cl, and Br) have been investigated using the MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ method. A striking parallelism was found in the geometries, vibrational frequencies, binding energies, and topological properties between BXY and BHY (X = Cl and Br). It has been found that the lengths of the weak bond d(X)/d(H), the frequencies of the weak bond (X)/(H), the frequency shifts (XY)/(HY), the electron densities at the bond critical point of the weak bonds c(X)/c(H), and the electron density changes c(XY)/c(HY) could be used as measures of the strengths of typical -type and pseudo--type halogen/hydrogen bonds. The typical -type and pseudo--type halogen bond and hyd...
Without using any moduli, sheaves, stacks, nor any analytic, nor category-type arguments, we exhibit an analogue to Geometric Langlands Theory in an entirely model-independent, non-perturbative,purely smooth topological context in Artin Presentation Theory. A basic initial feature is that AP Theory, as a whole, is already, abinitio, a universal canonical 2D sigma-model, targeting smooth, compact, simply-connected 4-manifolds with a connected boundary, and its topological Planckian quantum starting point, as well as its cone-like, infinitely-generated at each stage, graded group of homology-preserving, but topology-changing transitions/interactions, exhibit the most general qualitative S-duality. We first point out the numerous mathematically rigorous, model-free, (i.e., intrinsic), topological AP analogues with the heuristic Kapustin-Witten version of Geometric Langlands theory, as well as the crucial differences between the two theories. The ...
The diagnosis of dialysis-related amyloid (AB-amyloid) has been based usually on clinical and radiological criteria. Following the discovery that beta 2-microglobulin was the major protein of this amyloid, we isolated and radiolabelled uremic plasma beta 2-microglobulin. After intravenous injection, gamma-camera images of selected joint areas were obtained from 42 patients who were on regular hemodialysis therapy. Positive scans involving the shoulder, hip, knee and carpal regions were found in 13 of 14 patients treated for more than 10 years and 10 of 16 patients treated for 5 to 10 years. Patients treated for less time had negative scans. Specificity was indicated by negative scans in non-amyloid inflammatory lesions in control hemodialysis patients. Up to 48-fold tracer enrichment was detected in excised AB-amyloid containing tissue as compared to amyloid-free tissue. These findings suggest that circulating radiolabelled ...
The human articular cartilagineous proteoglycans (PG) R.I.A. is highly specific. The PG used as the standard and the /sup 125/I labelled molecule appear to be pure. Under these conditions, all the potential interfering substances which have been tested show no cross reaction. For instance, the Ag-Ab equilibrium is not affected by adding human IgG, human albumin, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, rat type II collagen or total human serum proteins. This R.I.A. also exhibits a species spcificity since there is no cross reaction with rat PG and negligible cross section with dog PG. The results obtained after addition of enzymes to the antigen demonstrate that the antigenic sites are localized on the protein region and not on the glycosaminoglycan region of the molecule.
There is an increased emphasis on hyphenated techniques such as immunoaffinity LC/MS/MS (IA-LC/MS/MS) or IA-LC/MRM. These techniques offer competitive advantages with respect to sensitivity and selectivity over traditional LC/MS and are complementary to ligand binding assays (LBA) or ELISA's. However, these techniques are not entirely straightforward and there are several tips and tricks to routine sample analysis. We describe here our methods and procedures for how to perform online IA-LC/MS/MS including a detailed protocol for the preparation of antibody (Ab) enrichment columns. We have included sample trapping and Ab methods. Furthermore, we highlight tips, tricks, minimal and optimal approaches. This technology has been shown to be viable for several applications, species and fluids from small molecules to proteins and biomarkers to PK assays. PMID:21872661
We present high-quality X-ray scattering experiments on pure water taken over a temperature range of 2 to 77 C using a synchrotron beam line at the advanced light source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The ALS X-ray scattering intensities are qualitatively different in trend of maximum intensity over this temperature range compared to older X-ray experiments. While the common procedure is to report both the intensity curve and radial distribution function(s), the proper extraction of the real-space pair correlation functions from the experimental scattering is very difficult due to uncertainty introduced in the experimental corrections, the proper weighting of OO, OH, and HH contributions, and numerical problems of Fourier transforming truncated data in Q-space. Instead, we consider the direct calculation of X-ray scattering spectra using electron densities derived from density functional theory based on real-space configurations generated with classical water models. ...
Increased nitrogen levels have been correlated with decreased ductility and elevated ductile-to-brittle transition temperature in pressure vessel steels [1]. However, the exact role played by nitrogen in the embrittlement of steels remains unclear. Miller and Burke have reported atom probe ion microscopy findings from neutron-irradiated low-alloy pressure vessel steel showing the presence of a 1 to 2 ruonolayer thick film of Mo, N, and C at prior austenitic grain boundaries (GB's) [2], suggesting a role for nitrogen as an intergranular embrittler. It is of interest for the development of mitigation strategies whether nitrogen must combine with other impurities to form nitride precipitates in order to exert an embrittling effect. Briant et al [1] have associated the embrittling effect of N in steels exclusively with intergranular nitride formation. This association suggests that high nitrogen levels may be acceptable if nitride precipitation at grain boundaries is suppressed. ...
The effects of hydrostatic pressure on the electronic band structure of the semiconductor mineral iron pyrite FeS_2 have been investigated theoretically by an abinitio full-potential linearized-augmented plane wave (FPLAPW) method within a local approximation (LDA/GGA) to the density functional theory. The calculations predict that at a pressure of 94.1 GPa the indirect band gap of pyrite FeS_2 vanishes and the material becomes a metal. This is due to the presence of the S-S and Fe-S bonds, which provide novel energy band distortions in the process of attaining the metallic state. Analysis indicates that, under increasing high pressure, the conduction bands (3p_z of sulfur and 3d_x_"2_-_y_"2+3d_x_y of iron) intrude downwards into the valence bands, which are predominantly 3d in nature. At normal pressure, the lattice constant, the bulk modulus, sulfur position parameter u, S-S bond length, and the indirect band gap of pyrite FeS_2 are ...
The gas-phase reaction of benzene with O(3P) is of considerable interest for modeling of aromatic oxidation, and also because there exist fundamental questions concerning the prominence of intersystem crossing in the reaction. While its overall rate constant has been studied extensively, there are still significant uncertainties in the product distribution. The reaction proceeds mainly through the addition of the O atom to benzene, forming an initial triplet diradical adduct, which can either dissociate to form the phenoxy radical and H atom, or undergo intersystem crossing onto a singlet surface, followed by a multiplicity of internal isomerizations, leading to several possible reaction products. In this work, we examined the product branching ratios of the reaction between benzene and O(3P) over the temperature range of 300 to 1000 K and pressure range of 1 to 10 Torr. The reactions were initiated by pulsed-laser photolysis of NO2 in the presence of benzene and helium buffer in a ...
From the crystal field analysis of optical absorption spectra on monoclinic S.G. P2{sub 1}/c MgNd(BO{sub 2}){sub 5}, where Nd{sup 3+} occupies a single crystallographic position with no symmetry elements, energy level schemes and an expression of the associated wavefunctions for the 4f{sup 3} configuration of Nd{sup 3+} have been derived, considering approximate C{sub 2v} and C{sub s} (C{sub 2}) symmetries. Despite of the low symmetry of Nd{sup 3+}, resulting rms deviations between calculated and experimental levels are very satisfactory. The composition of the crystal field wavefunctions from both sets of phenomenological free-ion and crystal field parameters has been checked through a calculation of the thermal evolution of the paramagnetic susceptibility {chi}, according to the Van Vleck formula. The same simulation was performed with crystal field parameters (CFPs) resulting from the abinitio simple overlap model (SOM), considering the ...
Noncollinear (NC) magnetism is common in nature, especially when there exist geometrical frustration and chemical imparity in the system. In this work we studied the NC magnetism and the response to external magnetic fields in surfaces and interfaces of transition metals by using an semi-empirical tight-binding (TB) method that parameterized to the abinitio TB-LMTO calculations. We implemented this method to study two systems. The first one is the system of 6 Mn monolayers on Fe(001) substrate. Due to the complex structure and magnetic properties of Mn, we found 23 collinear magnetic configurations but only one NC configuration. The collinear ground state has a layered antiferromagnetic (AFM) coupling which agrees with previous experiments and calculations. In the NC configuration the local AFM coupling in the Mn layers is preserved, but the surface is 90 degree coupled to the substrate. Similar to the experiment in CdCr{sub 2}O{sub 4}, we ...
The reactions of CF{sub 3}O radicals with (1) NO and (2) NO{sub 2} were studied using two different experimental techniques. A laser photolysis/LIF detection method was applied for measuring the rate constants as a function of temperature (T=222-302 K) and total pressure (p{sub tot}=7-107 mbar). Whereas the reaction with (1) NO was found to be independent of temperature and pressure with k{sub 1}=(4.5{+-}1.2) x 10{sup -11} cm{sup 3}s{sup -1}, the reaction with (2) NO{sub 2} was found to be dependent on both of these variables. The temperature dependence of k{sub 2} in the high pressure limit can be given by the expression k{sub 2{infinity}}{sup -}(T)=(8{+-}5) x 10{sup -13} exp ((863{+-}194) K/T) cm{sup 3}s{sup -1}. The product distributions of the two reactions were determined in separate experiments using steady-state photolysis combined with FTIR spectroscopy. For reaction (1) only CF{sub 2}O was found as a reaction product with a yield of 0.93{+-}0.10, independent of temperature. ...
Infrared spectra of bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane (C5H8) have been recorded at a resolution (0.0015 cm-1) sufficient to resolve for the first time individual rovibrational lines. This initial report presents the ground state constants for this molecule determined from the detailed analysis of three of the ten infrared-allowed bands, v14(e?) at 540 cm-1, v17(a2?) at 1220 cm-1, v18(a2?) at 832 cm-1, and a partial analysis of the v11(e?) band at 1237 cm-1. The upper states of transitions involving the lowest frequency mode, v14(e?), show no evidence of rovibrational perturbations but those for the v17 and v18 (a2?) modes give clear indication of Coriolis coupling to nearby e? levels. Accordingly, ground state constants were determined by use of the combination-difference method for all three bands. The assigned frequencies provided over 3300 consistent ground state difference values, yielding the following constants for the ground state (in units of cm-1): B0 = 0.2399412(2), DJ = 6.024(6) x 10-8, ...
We use the Generalized Quasi-Chemical Approach (GQCA) combined with abinitio ultrasoft pseudopotential calculations within density functional theory in order to obtain the structural and electronic properties of Al_xGa_yIn_1_-_x_-_yX (X=As, P or N) quaternary alloys in the zincblende structure. Results for the bond lengths show that their variations with composition are approximately linear and that they do not deviate much from the values of the corresponding binary compounds. For the variation of the band gaps, we obtain a bowing parameter b=0.26 eV for the (Ga_0_._4_7In_0_._5_3As)_z(Al_0_._4_8In_0_._5_2As)_1_-_z quaternary alloy lattice matched to InP, in very good agreement with experimental data. In the case of AlGaInN, a bowing parameter of 0.22 eV is obtained for zincblende AlGaInN lattice matched to GaN. (copyright 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim) (orig.)
A massively-parallel abinitio computer code, which uses Gaussian bases, pseudopotentials, and the local density approximation, permits the study of transition-metal systems with literally hundreds of atoms. We present total energies and relaxed geometries for Ru, Pd, and Ag clusters with N = 55, 135, and 140 atoms; we also used the DMOL code to study 13-atom Pd and Cu clusters, with and without hydrogen. The N = 55 and 135 clusters were chosen because of simultaneous cubo-octahedral (fcc) and icosahedral (icos) sub-shell closings, and we find icos geometries are preferred. Remarkably large compressions of the central atoms are observed for the icos structures (up to 6% compared with bulk interatomic spacings), while small core compressions ({approx} 1 %) are found for the fcc geometry. In contrast, large surface compressive relaxations are found for the fcc clusters ({approx} 2-3% in average nearest neighbor spacing), while the icos surface ...
The total and state-specific electron-ion recombination rate coefficients are obtained for FeI. The calculations are carried out using a new abinitio method that incorporates both the radiative and the dielectronic recombination processes in an unified and self-consistent manner. The computations employ the close coupling approximation and the R-matrix method from atomic collision theory. A 52 state close coupling eigenfunction expansion dominated by the states of the ground 3d{sup 6}4s and excited 3d{sup 7}, 3d{sup 6}4p, 3d{sup 5}4s{sup 2}, and 3d{sup 5}4s4p configurations of FeII are used in the present calculations. The important electron correlation and radiation damping effects are included via explicit coupling of autoionization and radiative channels. This is the first detailed atomic calculation for the recombination rates for FeI. The present rates are considerably higher than the radiative recombination rates being used currently in ...
Abinitio total energy calculations within the framework of density functional theory have been performed for water molecule adsorption on the (0001) surface of double hexagonal packed americium using a full-potential all-electron linearized augmented plane wave plus local orbitals method (FP-L/APW+lo). Subsequent partial dissociation (OH+H) and complete dissociation (H+O+H) of the water molecule have been examined. The completely dissociated H+O+H configuration exhibit the strongest binding with the surface (3.35 eV), followed by partially dissociated species OH+H (2.23 eV), with all molecular H_2O configurations showing weak physisorption (0.366 eV). For molecular adsorptions, the flat lying orientation of the water molecule if found to be more favorable for majority of the cases. In the case of partial dissociation (OH+H), the vertical orientation of OH molecule with O facing the surface adsorbed at a h3 adsorption site and the H atom ...
Density functional theory (DFT) calculations using plane-wave methods were performed for Li2TMPO4F, LiTMPO4F, and TMPO4F (TM=V, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni) to address their feasibility as high-voltage cathode materials for Li ion batteries. We computed their structures, average open circuit voltages, and thermal stabilities for step-wise lithiation/delithation (discharge/charge) reactions. The calculations suggest that associated unit cell volume changes are sufficiently small on average that they should not be a significant detriment to the mechanical stability of the cathode. In the nickel case, the calculated volume change deviates from the series by increasing during the first delithiation step. Furthermore, the volume increases for all these materials during the second delithiation step. It appears that the relative volume expansion in the series during delithiation is directly correlated to the degree of d-p rehybridization. Predicted average open circuit voltages indicate that these ...
Abinitio total energy calculations within the framework of density functional theory have been performed for atomic hydrogen and oxygen chemisorption on the (0001) surface of double hexagonal packed (dhcp) americium using a full-potential all-electron linearized augmented plane wave plus local orbitals method. Chemisorption energies were optimized with respect to the distance of the adatom from the relaxed surface for three adsorption sites, namely top, bridge, and hollow hcp sites, the ad-layer structure corresponding to the coverage of a 0.25 monolayer in all cases. Chemisorption energies were computed at the scalar-relativistic level (no spin-orbit coupling NSOC) and at the fully relativistic level (with spin-orbit coupling SOC). The two-fold bridge adsorption site was found to be the most stable site for O at both the NSOC and SOC theoretical levels with chemisorption energies of 8.204 eV and 8.368 eV respectively, while the three-fold ...
Tungsten, in the form of tungstate, polymerizes with phosphate, and as extensive polymerization occurs, cellular phosphorylation and dephosphorylation reactions may be disrupted, resulting in negative effects on cellular functions. A series of studies were conducted to evaluate the effect of tungsten on several phosphate-dependent intracellular functions, including energy cycling (ATP), regulation of enzyme activity (cytosolic protein tyrosine kinase [cytPTK] and tyrosine phosphatase), and intracellular secondary messengers (cyclic adenosine monophosphate [cAMP]). Rat noncancerous hepatocyte (Clone-9), rat cancerous hepatocyte (H4IIE), and human cancerous hepatocyte (HepG2) cells were exposed to 1-1000 mg/l tungsten (in the form of sodium tungstate) for 24 h, lysed, and analyzed for the ab...
The spike (S) protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) has two major functions: interacting with the receptor to mediate virus entry and inducing protective immunity. Coincidently, the receptor-binding domain (RBD, residues 318-510) of SAR-CoV S protein is a major antigenic site to induce neutralizing antibodies. Here, we used RBD-Fc, a fusion protein containing the RBD and human IgG1 Fc, as a model in the studies and found that a single amino acid substitution in the RBD (R441A) could abolish the immunogenicity of RBD to induce neutralizing antibodies in immunized mice and rabbits. With a panel of anti-RBD mAbs as probes, we observed that R441A substitution was able to disrupt the majority of neutralizing epitopes in the RBD, suggesting that this residue is critical for the antigenic structure responsible for inducing protective immune responses. We also demonstrated that the ...
Abs facilitate humoral immunity via the classical mechanisms of opsonization, complement activation, Ab-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, and toxin/viral neutralization. There is also evidence that some...Full Text Available
An essential issue in gallium (Ga)-stabilized fcc-phase plutonium ({delta}-Pu) is the formation of helium (He) voids and bubbles emanating from the radiolytic decay of the Pu. The rate of formation of He voids and bubbles is related to the He-defect formation energies and their associated migration barriers. The size and shape distributions of the bubbles are coupled to these critical migration processes. The values of the defect formation energies, internal pressure, and migration barriers can be estimated from atomistic calculations. Complicating this picture is the destruction of He-filled voids and bubbles by subsequent radiolytic decay events. The present study concerns the construction of the necessary potential energy surfaces for the Pu-He and He-He interactions within the modified embedded atom method (MEAM). Once fully tested, the potentials will be used to estimate the He-defect formation energies and barriers to the migration of these defects for both interstitial and ...
In the framework of the search for a ceramic material usable in the radioactive waste storage, uranium and thorium phosphates have been investigated. Their experimental synthesis conditions have been entirely reviewed, they lead to the preparation of four new compounds: U(UO{sub 2})(PO{sub 4}){sub 2}, U{sub 2}O(PO{sub 4}){sub 2}, UCIPO{sub 4}, 4H{sub 2}O, and Th{sub 4}(PO{sub 4}){sub 4}P{sub 2}O{sub 7}. Experimental evidenced are advanced for non existent compounds such as: U{sub 3}(PO{sub 4}){sub 4}, U{sub 2}O{sub 3}P{sub 2}O{sub 7} and Th{sub 3} (PO{sub 4}){sub 4}. Characterization by several techniques (X-rays and neutron powder diffractions, UV-Visible and Infra-red spectroscopies, XPS,...) were performed. The abinitio structure determination of U(UO{sub 2})(PO{sub 4}){sub 2} has been achieved by X-rays and refined by neutron diffractions. Through its physico-chemical analysis, we found that this compound was a new mixed valence uranium ...
Radioisotopes of Pb(II) have been of some interest in radioimmunotherapy and radioimmunoimaging (RII). However, the absence of a kinetically stable bifunctional chelating agent for Pb(II) has hampered its use for these applications. {sup 203}Pb (T{sub 1/2}=52.02 h) has application potential in RII, with a {gamma}-emission that is ideal for single photon emission computerized tomography, whereas {sup 212}Pb (T{sub 1/2}=10 h) is a source of highly cytotoxic {alpha}-particles via its decay to its {sup 212}Bi (T{sub 1/2}=60 min) daughter. The synthesis of the novel bifunctional chelating agent 2-(4-isothiocyanotobenzyl)-1,4,7,10-tetraaza-1,4,7,10-tetra-(2-carbamoyl methyl)-cyclododecane (4-NCS-Bz-TCMC) is reported herein. The Pb[TCMC]{sup 2+} complex was less labile to metal ion release than Pb[DOTA]{sup 2-} at pH 3.5 and below in isotopic exchange experiments. In addition to increased stability to Pb{sup 2+} ion release at low pH, the bifunctional TCMC ligand was found to have many other ...
Radioisotopes of Pb(II) have been of some interest in radioimmunotherapy and radioimmunoimaging (RII). However, the absence of a kinetically stable bifunctional chelating agent for Pb(II) has hampered its use for these applications. "2"0"3Pb (T_1_/_2=52.02 h) has application potential in RII, with a #gamma#-emission that is ideal for single photon emission computerized tomography, whereas "2"1"2Pb (T_1_/_2=10 h) is a source of highly cytotoxic #alpha#-particles via its decay to its "2"1"2Bi (T_1_/_2=60 min) daughter. The synthesis of the novel bifunctional chelating agent 2-(4-isothiocyanotobenzyl)-1,4,7,10-tetraaza-1,4,7,10-tetra-(2-carbamoyl methyl)-cyclododecane (4-NCS-Bz-TCMC) is reported herein. The Pb[TCMC]"2"+ complex was less labile to metal ion release than Pb[DOTA]"2"- at pH 3.5 and below in isotopic exchange experiments. In addition to increased stability to Pb"2"+ ion release at low pH, the bifunctional TCMC ligand was found to have many other advantages over the ...
Complete text of publication follows. We have published on the spectroscopic study on the formation of a 1:1 molecular complex of fluoranthene (F) with benzene (B) in cyclohexane and estimated the equilibrium constant K(F-B) (0.147 dm3 mol-1 at 298 K), enthalpy change DH(F-B) (-5.9 kJ mol-1) and entropy change DS(F-B) (-36 JK-1mol-1 at 298 K) for this complex formation (S. Enomoto et al., Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn., 75 (2002) 689-693). In this study, the electronic absorption spectra have been observed for the fluoranthene derivatives in cyclohexane-benzene and/or cyclohexane-ethanol mixed solvents to investigate the weak intermolecular interactions between fluoranthene derivatives and benzene or ethanol. The electronic absorption spectra of 3-aminofluoranthene (AF) in the mixed solvent mentioned above showed isosbestic points with varying B and ethanol (E) concentrations. These observations indicate that AF forms a 1:1 molecular complex with B or E, the K(AF-B) and K(AF-E) values for these ...
In this study, the biosorption of Acid Blue 290 and Acid Blue 324 on Spirogyra rhizopus, a green algae growing on fresh water, was studied with respect to initial pH, temperature, initial dye concentration and biosorbent concentration. The optimum initial pH and temperature values for AB 290 and AB 324 biosorption were found to be 2.0, 30 deg. C and 3.0, 25 deg. C, respectively. It was observed that the adsorbed AB 290 and AB 324 amounts increased with increasing the initial dye concentration up to 1500 and 750 mg/L, respectively. The Langmuir, Freundlich, Redlich-Peterson and Koble-Corrigan isotherm models were applied to the experimental equilibrium data and the isotherm constants were determined by using Polymath 4.1 software. The monolayer coverage capacities of S. rhizopus for AB 290 and AB 324 dyes were found as 1356.6 mg/g and 367.0 mg/g, respectively. ...
In this study acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) terpolymer was reinforced with HNO3-treated short carbon fibers (HCFs). The effects of HCF concentration on the tensile properties of the composites were examined. Increasing the HCF concentration in the ABS matrix from 10 wt% to 30 wt% resulted in improved tensile strength and tensile modulus. To obtain a strong interaction at the interface, polyamide-6 (PA6) at varying concentrations was introduced into the ABS/10 wt% HCF composite. The incorporation and increasing amount of PA6 in the composites increased tensile properties of the ABS/PA6/HCF systems due to the improved adhesion at the interface, which was confirmed by the ratio of tensile strength as an adhesion parameter. These results were also supported by scanning electron microgr...
Chaperones (stress proteins) are essential proteins to help the formation and maintenance of the proper conformation of other proteins and to promote cell survival after a large variety of environmental...Full Text Available
Tumor imaging using radioiodinated monoclonal antibodies (Mab) suffered from rapid in vivo deiodination. This problem can be circumvented by covalent attachment of a bifunctional chelating group to the Mab followed by chelation with a suitable cationic radionuclide such as In-111. Competition of trace metal contaminants with In-111 for chelating sites, however, is known to lower the labeling yield. Since commercially available reagents may be contaminated with other trace metal ions, the effect of trace metals on Mab-DTPA chelation and the possibility of masking the trace metal effect on the In-111 labeling of Mab-DTPA were, therefore, investigated. Labeling yield of 93% was obtained when 1 mg (20mg/ml) of Mab F(ab')/sub 2/-DTPA (protein to DTPA ratio of --1) was allowed to incubate with 3 mCi In-111 in 2 ml acetate buffer (0.5M, pH 5.5) for 30 min. The yield was drastically decreased to 13-76% when the reactions were carried out with the ...
Expression of Bacterial luciferase enzyme (lux) in mammalian cells would be a powerful bioreporter protein system for in vivo imaging because eukaryotic luciferases need expensive substrates. However, only a few efforts have been made to express bacterial luciferase enzyme in mammalian cells. As the result of this, we attempted to construct bicistronic vector including two bacterial luciferase genes (LuxA and LuxB) for assessing the potential to be visualized in vitro or in vivo by optical imaging system after transfection to mammalian cells. We designed and synthesized luxA and luxB genes from Photorhabdus Luminescens. To co-express both luxA and luxB genes from a single promoter, we cloned as a bicistronic transcript fused with an internal ribosomal entry site (IRES). This bicistronic transcript was transfected by Superfect to HEK 293T cell line. We also transfected lux A and lux B vector to HEK 293T cells separately. To evaluate gene expression, n-decanal and ...
The intracellular concentration of protein may be as high as 400 mg per ml; thus it seems inevitable that within the cell, numerous protein-protein contacts are constantly occurring. A basic biochemical...Full Text Available
Reversion-induced LIM protein (RIL) is a member of the ALP (actinin-associated LIM protein) subfamily of the PDZ/LIM protein family. RIL serves as an adaptor protein and seems to regulate cytoskeletons....Full Text Available
The multidrug efflux transporter AcrAB-TolC is known to pump out a diverse range of antibiotics, including β-lactams. However, the kinetic constants of the efflux process, needed for the quantitative...Full Text Available
Ammonia borane (AB) and sodium borohydride (SBH) are candidate materials for on-board hydrogen storage that can be dehydrogenated upon demand. The rheological properties of the dehydrogenated by-products are important to quantify their removal and transportability from the hydrogen storage system. This paper presents visco-elastic property (elastic stiffness and viscous damping) measurements of the spent fuels obtained from AB hydrolysis, hydrothermolysis and thermolysis; and SBH hydrolysis. Smaller stiffness and larger mobility (or smaller viscous damping) indicate better transportability of the spent fuel. In addition, flow property (dynamic angle of repose and avalanching time) measurements for the hydrolysis spent fuels of AB and SBH are also presented. Comparing with the SBH hydrolysis spent fuel, the AB hydrolysis spent fuel had a lower stiffness and larger mobility, as well as lower angles of ...
In order to achieve efficient d-lactic acid fermentation from a mixture of xylose and glucose, the xylose-assimilating xylAB operon from Lactobacillus pentosus (PXylAB) was introduced into an l-lactate dehydrogenase gene (ldhL1)-deficient Lactobacillus plantarum (?ldhL1-xpk1::tkt-?xpk2) strain in which the phosphoketolase 1 gene (xpk1) was replaced with the transketolase gene (tkt) from Lactococcus lactis, and the phosphoketolase 2 (xpk2) gene was deleted. Two copies of xylAB introduced into the genome significantly improved the xylose fermentation ability, raising it to the same level as that of ?ldhL1-xpk1::tkt-?xpk2 harboring a xylAB operon-expressing plasmid. Using the two-copy xylAB integrated strain, successful homo-d-lactic acid production was achieved from a mixture of 25?g/l xylos...
A large group of diseases, termed protein misfolding disorders, share the common feature of the accumulation of misfolded proteins. The possibility of a common mechanism underlying either the pathogenesis...Full Text Available
Many mutations associated with retinal degeneration lead to the production of misfolded proteins by cells of the retina. Emerging evidence suggests that these abnormal proteins cause cell death...Full Text Available
CAAX proteins are widely involved in global cellular functions such as proliferation, differentiation, and carcinogenesis. As an important modulator of biological activity, signal transduction via protein...Full Text Available
Interactions between cationic dye-cationic surfactant and anionic dye-cationic surfactant systems were investigated in aqueous solutions using spectrophotometric method at 288.15, 298.15, 308.15 and 318.15K. C.I. Basic Red 9 (BR9) and C.I. Acid Blue 25 (AB25) were used as cationic and anionic dyes, respectively, and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTMABr) was selected as cationic surfactant in this study. Although there was an interaction between the AB25 and the HDTMABr molecules, an interaction between the BR9 and HDTMABr did not occur due to the electrostatic repulsion forces. Binding constants and partition coefficients between the micellar and the bulk water phases for the AB25-HDTMABr system were calculated from the changes in absorbance values and the critical micelle concentra...
Aberrant amyloid-b peptide (Ab) accumulation along with altered expression and function of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) stand prominently in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Since the discovery that Ab is bound to a7 nAChRs under many experimental settings, including post-mortem AD brain, much effort has been expended to understand the implications of this interaction in the disease milieu. This research update will review the current literature on the a7 nAChR-Ab interaction in vitro and in vivo, the functional consequences of this interaction from sub-cellular to cognitive levels, and discuss the implications these relationships might have for AD therapies.
We complete the effective potential calculation of the two-loop, top/bottom Yukawa corrections to the Higgs boson masses in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, by computing the O(at^2 + at*ab + ab^2) contributions for arbitrary values of the bottom Yukawa coupling. We also compute the corrections to the minimization conditions of the effective potential at the same perturbative order. Our results extend the existing O(at^2) calculation, and are relevant in regions of the parameter space corresponding to tan(beta) >> 1. We extend to the Yukawa corrections a convenient renormalization scheme, previously proposed for the O(ab*as) corrections, that avoids unphysically large threshold effects associated with the bottom mass and absorbs the bulk of the corrections into the one-loop expression. For large values of tan(beta), the new contributions can account for a variation of several GeV in the lightest Higgs boson ...
Abstract Hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) viruses are the most important infections transmitted by the parenteral route in patients receiving maintenance dialysis. The prevalence varies markedly from country to country. The aim of this study is to review the efficacy of the strategies to reduce the incidence of these infections and the trend of results in Iran. As a routine, all hemodialysis patients in Iran have biannual blood samples for assessment of serum HBSAg, HBS Abs, and HCV Abs. The data are collected in the Ministry of Health. For statistical analysis, prevalence, and incidence were calculated. There is an increasing prevalence/incidence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in Iran, from 238/49.9 pmp in 2000 to 357/63.8 pmp in 2006. The prevalence of positive HBSAg and HCV Abs decrease...
The main objective of this work was to investigate the biosorption performance of unmodified and Cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC)-modified biomass of Penicillium YW 01 for Acid Blue 25 (AB 25). Maximum biosorption capacity of AB 25 onto CPC-modified biosorbent was 118.48mgg^-^1 under phosphoric-phosphate buffer with initial dye concentration of 200mgL^-^1 at 30^oC. The biosorption pattern of AB 25 onto unmodified biosorbent in aqueous solution and phosphoric-phosphate buffer was well fitted with both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. While the equilibrium data of CPC-modified biosorbent in aqueous solution and phosphoric-phosphate buffer failed to fit the Freundlich isotherm model, indicating the monolayer biosorption formed onto CPC-modified biosorbent. The values of initial biosorpt...
Resistance (R) protein mediated recognition of pathogen avirulence effectors triggers signaling that induces a very robust form of species-specific immunity in plants. The soybean Rpg1-b protein mediates...Full Text Available
Membrane protein structural biology is still a largely unconquered area, given that approximately 25% of all proteins are membrane proteins and yet less than 150 unique structures are available. Membrane...Full Text Available
Pathogenic strains of Vibrio cholerae are lysogens of the filamentous phage CTXφ, which carries the genes for cholera toxin (ctxAB). We found that the titers...Full Text Available
Background/Objective:Three patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and 3 able-bodied (AB) patients were infused with naloxone during a study to examine their neuroendocrine...Full Text Available
Despite the demonstrated clinical efficacy of CD20 monoclonal antibody (mAb) for lymphoma therapy, the in vivo mechanisms of tumor depletion remain controversial and variable. To identify the molecular...Full Text Available
The agglutination of human platelets by ristocetin and von Willebrand factor was inhibited by aggregated immunoglobulin (Ig)G and by Fc fragments of IgG, but not by Fab, F(ab′)2 or...Full Text Available
Air conditioning of urban electric cars by Peltier effect is simulated. Advantages (noise, simplicity of construction and of regulation, good heating performances...) and disadvantages (cooling performances lower than actual compressors, actual costs...) are presented. (A.B.). 8 refs., 5 figs.
The device is designed for automatic testing of the degree of discharge of tractive storage batteries (AB) for electric loaders, electric cars and electric ore locomotives. The basic electrical schematic of the device is cited.
A DNA fragment located on the 3' side of the Coxiella burnetii htpAB operon was determined by Southern blotting to exist in approximately 19 copies in the Nine Mile I genome. The DNA sequences of this...Full Text Available
Proteins aggregated into spherulite structures of amyloid fibrils have been observed in patients with certain brain diseases such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons. The conditions under which these protein spherulites form and grow are not currently known. In order to illuminate the role of environmental factors on protein spherulites, this research aims to explore the kinetics and mechanisms of spherulite formation and growth, as monitored by optical microscopy, in a range of salt concentrations, and initial protein concentrations for two model proteins: bovine b-lactoglobulin and insulin. These two proteins are significantly different in their size and fibril growth rate, but both of these proteins have been shown previously to form amyloid fibrils and spherulites under low pH conditions. The...
BackgroundWe examined the effects of short-term consumption of whey protein isolate on muscle proteins and force recovery after eccentrically-induced muscle damage in healthy individuals.MethodsSeventeen...Full Text Available
Known vertebrate GATA proteins contain two zinc fingers and are required in development, whereas invertebrates express a class of essential proteins containing one GATA-type zinc finger. We isolated...Full Text Available
Thioredoxin, a small, ubiquitous protein which participates in redox reactions through the reversible oxidation of its active center dithiol to a disulfide, is an essential protein in Bacillus...Full Text Available
Storage proteins are deposited into protein storage vacuoles (PSVs) during plant seed development and maturation and stably accumulate to high levels; subsequently, during germination the storage...Full Text Available
The fusogenic orthoreoviruses express nonstructural fusion-associated small transmembrane (FAST) proteins that induce cell-cell fusion and syncytium formation. It has been speculated that the FAST proteins...Full Text Available
The homologous sequences observed for many calcium binding proteins such as parvalbumin, troponin C, the myosin light chains, and calmodulin has lead to the hypothesis that these proteins have homologous...Full Text Available
The changes in protein species synthesized during early Drosophila embryogenesis were characterized by two-dimensional electrophoresis. Of the 261 proteins scored, 68 (26%) show dramatic changes in...Full Text Available
Serum protein and lipid concentrations as well as the serum protein binding of propranolol, diazepam and phenytoin were measured in normal weight and obese volunteers. Concentrations of alpha 1-acid...Full Text Available
A protein evolution strategy is described by which double-stranded DNA fragments encoding defined E. coli protein secondary structural elements (α-helices, β-strands...Full Text Available
Filamin and Cortexillin are F-actin crosslinking proteins in Dictyostelium discoideum allowing actin filaments to form three-dimensional networks. GAPA, an IQGAP related protein, is...Full Text Available
We have used the two-electrode voltage clamp technique and the patch clamp technique to investigate the regulation of ROMK1 channels by protein-tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) and protein-tyrosine...Full Text Available
The characterization of the single-chain protein in Chinese-cobra (Naja naja atra) blood serum, which yields strong specific protection against the venom of the same snake, is reported. The protein,...Full Text Available
A heterobifunctional reagent, N-succinimidyl 3-(2-pyridyldithio)propionate, was synthesized. Its N-hydroxysuccinimide ester group reacts with amino groups and the 2-pyridyl disulphide structure reacts...Full Text Available
It has been sixty years since the Millers first described the covalent binding of carcinogens to tissue proteins. Protein covalent binding was gradually overshadowed by the emergence of DNA...Full Text Available
Protein modifications such as phosphorylation are often studied by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis since the perturbation in the protein’s pI value is readily detected by this method....Full Text Available
Cd-binding protein was extracted from tomato roots and purified on QAE-Sephadex A-25 and on Sephadex G-75 in 1 molar KCl buffer. The protein preparation was light brown and contained predominantly Cd...Full Text Available
The Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe; pdbe.org) is actively involved in managing the international archive of biomacromolecular structure data as one of the partners in the Worldwide Protein Data Bank...Full Text Available
The nucleocapsid protein (NC) of retroviruses plays a major role in genomic RNA packaging, and some evidence has implicated the matrix protein (MA) of certain retroviruses in viral RNA binding. To further...Full Text Available
The activity of Src-related protein-tyrosine kinases is repressed by the phosphorylation of a conserved carboxyl-terminal tyrosine by another cytoplasmic protein-tyrosine kinase termed p50csk. In this...Full Text Available
Large quantity of reliable protein interaction data are available for model organisms in public depositories (e.g., MINT, DIP, HPRD, INTERACT). Most data correspond to experiments with the proteins...Full Text Available
In this study, we investigated on a systems level how complex protein interactions underlying cell polarity in yeast determine the dynamic association of proteins with the polar cortical domain (PCD)...Full Text Available
End binding proteins (EBs) are highly conserved core components of microtubule plus-end tracking protein networks. Here we investigated the roles of the three mammalian EBs in controlling microtubule...Full Text Available
Many genetic processes depend on proteins interacting with specific sequences on DNA. Despite the large excess of nonspecific DNA in the cell, proteins can locate their targets rapidly. After initial...Full Text Available
PknB is a member of the newly discovered eukaryotic-like protein serine/threonine kinase (PSTK) family of proteins. The pknB gene was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli....Full Text Available
Ethylene rapidly and transiently up-regulates the activity of several monomeric GTP-binding proteins (monomeric G proteins) in leaves of Arabidopsis as determined by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis...Full Text Available
During antibiotic drug development, media are frequently spiked with either serum/plasma or protein supplements to evaluate the effect of protein binding. Usually, previously reported serum or plasma...Full Text Available
Computer-assisted analysis revealed a striking sequence similarity between the putative 24-kDa protein (p24) encoded by open reading frame (ORF) 5 of beet yellows closterovirus and the coat protein...Full Text Available
Zipper-interacting protein kinase (ZIPK) is a member of the death-associated protein kinase family associated with apoptosis in nonmuscle cells where it phosphorylates myosin regulatory light chain...Full Text Available
Tooth enamel biomineralization is mediated by enamel proteins synthesized by ameloblast cells. Two classes of proteins have been described: enamelins and amelogenins. In lower vertebrates the absence...Full Text Available
The Protein Data Bank contains the description of more than 45,000 three-dimensional protein and nucleic-acid structures today. Started to exist as the computer-readable depository of crystallographic...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe fast growing Protein Data Bank contains the three-dimensional description of more than 45000 protein- and nucleic-acid structures today. The large majority of the data...Full Text Available
Chromatographic and electrophoretic studies have shown that the subunits of the crystalloid protein, isolated from mature castor bean (Ricinus communis L. cv Hale) seed endosperm protein...Full Text Available
Alpha-hemoglobin-stabilizing protein (AHSP) is an erythroid-specific protein that acts as a molecular chaperone for the free α chains of hemoglobin. Evidence strongly suggests...Full Text Available
The receptor-associated protein (RAP) is a molecular chaperone that binds tightly to certain newly synthesized LDL receptor family members in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and facilitates their delivery...Full Text Available
Phospholemman (PLM), a member of the FXYD family of regulators of ion transport, is a major sarcolemmal substrate for protein kinases A and C in cardiac and skeletal muscle. In the heart, PLM...Full Text Available
Summary: Protein features are often displayed along the linear sequence of amino acids that make up that protein, but in reality these features occupy a position in the folded proteins 3D space. Mapping sequence features to known or predicted protein structures is useful when trying to deduce the function of those features and when evaluating sequence or structural predictions. To facilitate this goal, we developed PDBpaint, a simple tool that displays protein sequence features gathered from bioinformatics resources on top of protein structures, which are displayed in an interactive window (using the Jmol Java viewer). PDBpaint can be used either with existing protein structures or with novel structures provided by the user. The current version of PDBpaint allows the visualization of annot...
Male reproductive proteins (MRPs), associated with sperm and semen, are the moieties responsible for carrying male genes into the next generation. Evolutionary biologists have focused on their...Full Text Available
We identify new organelles associated with the vacuolar system in plant cells. These organelles are defined biochemically by their internal content of three integral membrane proteins: a chimeric reporter...Full Text Available
BackgroundFunction exertion of specific proteins are key factors in disease progression, thus the systematical identification of those specific proteins is a prerequisite to understand...Full Text Available
Protein isolated from hen egg-white and functions as a bacteriostatic enzyme by degrading bacterial cell walls. First enzyme ever characterized by protein ...
Three new rare earth metal-rich compounds, Gd_6MTe_2 (M=Co, Ni) and Er_6RuTe_2, were synthesized in direct reactions between the R, R_3M, and R_2Te_3 (R=Gd, Er, M=Co, Ni, Ru). These materials all adopt the same Zr_6CoAl_2 structure type with space group P6-bar 2m (No. 189, Z=1). Single crystal structures of Gd_6CoTe_2 and Er_6RuTe_2 were determined and lattice parameters are a=b=8.3799(5), c=3.9801(4) A, and a=b=8.1473(5) A, c=3.9962(4) A, respectively. Gd_6NiTe_2 was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction; lattice parameters are a=b=8.412(2), c=3.9577(9) A. Metal-metal bonding correlations were analyzed using the empirical Pauling bond order concept.
In this study, SnO{sub 2} thin films have been grown using spray pyrolysis technique on glass substrates under a substrate temperature (T{sub s} = 440 {sup o}C). The precursors were methanol CH{sub 4}O and anhydrous tin tetrachloride. XRD analyses yielded strong (1 1 0)-(1 0 1)-(2 0 0) X-ray diffraction peaks which are characteristics to tetragonal crystals. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) analyses showed the existence of clusters with particular pyramidal shapes. The main part of this study concerns the optical measurements of transmittance T({lambda}) and reflectance R({lambda}) spectra inside 250-1800 nm domain. Conjoint optical and thermal properties were deduced using the Amlouk-Boubaker Opto-Thermal Expansivity {psi}{sub AB}. The obtained value: {psi}{sub AB} {approx} 23.4 m{sup 3} s{sup -1} helped situating the performance of the as-grown SnO{sub 2} compound among most known PV-T oxides like ZnO and TiO{sub 2}.
In this study, SnO2 thin films have been grown using spray pyrolysis technique on glass substrates under a substrate temperature (Ts = 440 oC). The precursors were methanol CH4O and anhydrous tin tetrachloride. XRD analyses yielded strong (1 1 0)-(1 0 1)-(2 0 0) X-ray diffraction peaks which are characteristics to tetragonal crystals. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) analyses showed the existence of clusters with particular pyramidal shapes. The main part of this study concerns the optical measurements of transmittance T(?) and reflectance R(?) spectra inside 250-1800 nm domain. Conjoint optical and thermal properties were deduced using the Amlouk-Boubaker Opto-Thermal Expansivity ?AB. The obtained value: ?AB ? 23.4 m3 s-1 helped situating the performance of the as-grown SnO2 compound among most known PV-T oxides like ZnO and TiO2.
Summary The objective of this study was to examine the role of root carbohydrate levels and metabolism in the waterlogging tolerance of contrasting mung bean genotypes. An experiment was conducted with two cultivated mung bean (Vigna radiata) genotypes viz., T44 (tolerant) and Pusa Baisakhi (PB) (susceptible), and a wild Vigna species Vigna luteola under pot-culture to study the physiological and molecular mechanism of waterlogging tolerance. Waterlogging resulted in decrease in relative water content (RWC), membrane stability index (MSI) in root and leaf tissues, and chlorophyll (Chl) content in leaves, while the Chl a/b ratio increased. Waterlogging-induced decline in RWC, MSI, Chl and increase in Chl a/b ratio was greater in PB than V. luteola and T44. Waterlogging caused decline in tot...
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder for which the research of new treatments is highly challenging. Since the fibrillogenesis of amyloid-b peptide 1-42 (Ab1-42) peptide is considered as a major cause of neuronal degeneration, specific interest has been focused on aromatic molecules for targeting this peptide. In this paper, the synthesis of selegiline-functionalized and fluorescent poly(alkyl cyanoacrylate) nanoparticles (NPs) and their evaluation for the targeting of the Ab1-42 peptide are reported. The synthetic strategy relied on the design of amphiphilic copolymers by tandem Knoevenagel-Michael addition of cyanoacetate derivatives, followed by their self-assembly in aqueous solutions to give the corresponding NPs. Different cyanoacetates were used: (i) hexadecyl cy...
Ethnopharmacological relevance: Tong Luo Jiu Nao (TLJN) is a modern Chinese formula based on Traditional Chinese Medicine theory that has been used to treat ischemic cerebral stroke and vascular dementia. TLJN belongs to the ethnopharmacological family of medicines. In this study, we investigated the mechanism of the TLJN effect on Alzheimer's disease (AD). Aim of the study: To investigate the effect of TLJN on b-amyloid-degrading enzymes and learning and memory in the AD rat brain. Materials and methods: AD rats whose disease was induced by Ab25-35 injection into the bilateral hippocampus CA1 region were subjected to intragastric administration of various preparations. The experimental animals were healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats which were randomly divided into normal, sham, model, TLJN...
Using the peptide hormone glucagon and Ab(1-40) as model systems, we have sought to elucidate the mechanisms by which fibrils grow and multiply. We here present real-time observations of growing fibrils at a single-fibril level. Growing from preformed seeds, glucagon fibrils were able to generate new fibril ends by continuously branching into new fibrils. To our knowledge, this is the first time amyloid fibril branching has been observed in real-time. Glucagon fibrils formed by branching always grew in the forward direction of the parent fibril with a preferred angle of 35-40degree. Furthermore, branching never occurred at the tip of the parent fibril. In contrast, in a previous study by some of us, Ab(1-40) fibrils grew exclusively by elongation of preformed seeds. Fibrillation kinetics i...
Pseudomonas syringae is a gram-negative bacterial plant pathogen that is dependent on a type III protein secretion system (TTSS) and the effector proteins it translocates into plant...Full Text Available
Biological cells of the nitrogen fixating bacteria Xanthobacter autotrophicus GZ 29 have been cultivated with 57-Fe, and from the nitrogenase of these cells the 57-Fe marked molybdenum-iron-protein is extracted. The Moessbauer spectra of this enzyme show that the structure of the iron cluster is similar to the structure in the molybdenum-iron-proteins of Azotobacter vinelandii, Klebsiella pneumoniae or Clostridium pasteurianum.
Protein bodies within the endosperm of castor bean (Ricinus communis L. cv. Hale) seeds arise from numerous small vacuoles which progressively become filled with storage protein, of...Full Text Available
In a series of experiments carried out on young and adult rabbits the effect of isocaloric low protein diets containing 4% or 8% protein compared with a diet containing 21% protein on Obeliscoides cuniculi infection was studied. The pathogenesis, resistance and local immunity were assessed after single infections with 10,000 larvae or reinfection with 5000 larvae. Live weight gain was reduced in young and adult rabbits fed the low protein diets, but the establishment of parasites was not substantially influenced by protein deprivation. However, development of worms in the histotrophic phase and parasite fecundity were impaired in association with the low protein diet. Moreover, mild anaemia as well as changes in the mucosal immune response as a result of infection were related to the level of dietary protein. (author). 30 refs, 6 figs, 5 ...
Assembly of icosahedral capsids of proper size and symmetry is not understood. Residue F170 in bacteriophage P22 coat protein is critical for conformational switching during assembly. Substitutions at this site cause assembly of tubes of hexamerically arranged coat protein. Intragenic suppressors of the ts phenotype of F170A and F170K coat protein mutants were isolated. Suppressors were repeatedly found in the coat protein telokin-like domain at position 285, which caused coat protein to assemble into petite procapsids and capsids. Petite capsid assembly strongly correlated to the side chain volume of the substituted amino acid. We hypothesize that larger side chains at position 285 torque the telokin-like domain, changing flexibility of the subunit and intercapsomer contacts. Thus, a sing...
TC inhibits protein synthesis in E. coli by interfering with aminoacyl-tRNA binding to the ribosomal A site, and there is strong evidence that such inhibition results from TC binding to a high affinity site on the 30S subunit. The SPORE approach has been used to define those 30S proteins that are potentially important for high affinity TC binding, measured as the (/sup 3/H)-TC co-sedimenting with the reconstitution particle through a sucrose density gradient. Reverse phase-HPLC has been used both to prepare ribosomal proteins and to analyze the protein content of reconstituted particles. The results obtained so far show that protein S7, as well as some proteins linked to S7 in the 30S assembly map, are important for TC binding, whereas other ribosomal proteins are not. These results are in very good accord with their earlier photoaffinity ...
White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is the causative agent of the white spot disease of shrimp. Penaeus monodon were captured from Muttukadu Estuary in Chennai, India, transported to the laboratory and maintained in an aerated system with continuous water circulation-biofiltration. WSSV-free P. monodon were challenged by feeding them only once with WSSV-infected tissues of P. monodon. Cumulative mortality (100%) of the infected individuals was determined. Tissues from infected and uninfected shrimp such as muscles, hepatopancreas, heart, gills and eye tissues (100mg of each) and haemolymph (50 microl) were subjected to SDS-PAGE. In infected muscle tissue, six newly expressed proteins were detected. In infected haemolymph, four new proteins and three intensely expressed high molecular weight proteins were observed. Three intensely expressed high molecular weight proteins were detected in infected heart ...
The zinc-blende (ZB) and wurtzite (W) structures are the most common crystal forms of binary octet semiconductors. In this work we have developed a simple scaling that systematizes the {ital T}=0 energy difference {Delta}{ital E}{sub W{minus}ZB} between W and ZB for all simple binary semiconductors. We have first calculated the energy difference {Delta}{ital E}{sub W{minus}ZB}{sup LDF}({ital AB}) for AlN, GaN, InN, AlP, AlAs, GaP, GaAs, ZnS, ZnSe, ZnTe, CdS, C, and Si using a numerically precise implementation of the first-principles local-density formalism (LDF), including structural relaxations. We then find a {ital linear} scaling between {Delta}{ital E}{sub W{minus}ZB}{sup LDF}({ital AB}) and an atomistic orbital-radii coordinate {ital {tilde R}}({ital A},{ital B}) that depends only on the properties of the free atoms {ital A} and {ital B} making up the binary compound {ital AB}. Unlike classical structural coordinates ...
In this work, the principal continuum radiative emission processes, which occur during the penetration of ions in solids or gases, are resumed. The characteristics of the following processes are discussed: secondary electron bremsstrahlung (SEB), atomic bremsstrahlung (AB), and internuclear bremsstrahlung (INB). Recent advances of the ion channeling effects in crystal solids on the spontaneous radiative spectra are exposed. (A.C.A.S.).
The subject of this volume is remote sensing for environmental monitoring and resource management. This session is divided in eight parts. First part is on general topics, methodology and meteorology. Second part is on geology, environment and land cover. Third part is on disaster monitoring. Fourth part is on operational status of remote sensing. Fifth part is on coastal zones and inland waters. Sixth and seventh parts are on forestry and agriculture. Eighth part is on instrumentation and systems. (A.B.). refs., figs., tabs.
With collaboration between chemistry, X-ray crystallography, and molecular modeling, we designed and synthesized a series of novel piperazine sulfonamide BACE1 inhibitors. Iterative exploration of the non-prime side and S2prime sub-pocket of the enzyme culminated in identification of an analog that potently lowers peripheral Ab40 in transgenic mice with a single subcutaneous dose.
We show that the relation between D-branes and noncommutative tachyons leads very naturally to the relation between D-branes and K-theory. We also discuss some relations between D-branes and K-homology, provide a noncommutative generalization of the ABS construction, and give a simple physical interpretation of Bott periodicity. In addition, a framework for constructing Neveu--Schwarz fivebranes as noncommutative solitons is proposed.
Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to ovine T-lymphocyte molecules SBU-T8 (Maddox, Mackay & Brandon, 1985), the cytotoxic T lymphocyte, human CD8 equivalent, and SBU-T6 (Mackay et al., 1985), the immature...Full Text Available
Papers presented at a meeting on indoor and outdoor climates on sites polluted with volatile organic chemicals. The papers deal with the subject of evaporation of organic chemicals on the polluted sites in relation to the influence on indoor and outdoor climates. Themes dealt with are diffusion through soils and transport of pollutants from the soil into buildings. (AB).
Using an anti-receptor mAb that blocks the attachment of echovirus 7 and related viruses (echoviruses 13, 21, 29 and 33), we have isolated a complementary DNA clone that encodes the human decay-accelerating...Full Text Available
The authors investigated the effect of T-2 toxin on rat liver mitochondrial protein synthesis. Isolated rat liver mitochondria were supplemented with an S-100 supernatant from rat liver and an external ATP-generating system. An in-vitro assay employing cycloheximide, and inhibitor of cytoplasmic protein synthesis, and chloramphenicol, and inhibitor of mitochondrial protein synthesis, to distinguish mitochondrial protein synthesis from the cytoplasmic process. Amino acid incorporation into mitochondria was dependent on the concentration of mitochondria and was inhibited by chloramphenicol. The rate of uptake of tritium leucine into mitochondrial protein was unaffected by the addition of T-2 toxin and was not a rate-limiting step in incorporation. However, 0.02 micrograms/ml of T-2 toxin decreased the rate of protein synthesis inhibition correlated with the amount ...
Cell extracts of the thermophile Clostridium thermohydrosulfuricum catalyzed the phosphorylation by (..gamma..-/sup 32/P)ATP of several endogenous proteins with M/sub r/s between 13,000 and 100,000. Serine and tyrosine were the main acceptors. Distinct substrate proteins were found in the soluble (e.g., proteins p66, p63, and p53 of M/sub r/s 66,000, 63,000, and 53,000, respectively) and particulate (p76 and p30) fractions, both of which contained protein kinase and phosphatase activity. The soluble fraction suppressed the phosphorylation of particulate proteins and contained a protein kinase inhibitor. Phosphorylation of p53 was promoted by 10..mu..M fructose 1,6-bisphosphate or glucose 1,6-bisphosphate and suppressed by hexose monophosphates, whereas p30 and p13 were suppressed by 5 ..mu..M brain (but not spinach) calmodulin. Polyamines, including the odd ...
We describe a method for affinity purification of sequence-specific DNA binding proteins that is fast and effective. Complementary chemically synthesized oligodeoxynucleotides that contain a recognition site for a sequence-specific DNA binding protein are annealed and ligated to give oligomers. This DNA is then covalently coupled to Sepharose CL-2B with cyanogen bromide to yield the affinity resin. A partially purified protein fraction is combined with competitor DNA and subsequently passed through the DNA-Sepharose resin. The desired sequence-specific DNA binding protein is purified because it preferentially binds to the recognition sites in the affinity resin rather than to the nonspecific competitor DNA in solution. For example, a protein fraction that is enriched for transcription factor Sp1 can be further purified 500- to 1000-fold by two sequential affinity chromatography ...
Metagenomics projects based on shotgun sequencing of populations of micro-organisms yield insight into protein families. We used sequence similarity clustering to explore proteins with a comprehensive dataset consisting of sequences from available databases together with 6.12 million proteins predicted from an assembly of 7.7 million Global Ocean Sampling (GOS) sequences. The GOS dataset covers nearly all known prokaryotic protein families. A total of 3,995 medium- and large-sized clusters consisting of only GOS sequences are identified, out of which 1,700 have no detectable homology to known families. The GOS-only clusters contain a higher than expected proportion of sequences of viral origin, thus reflecting a poor sampling of viral diversity until now. Protein domain distributions in the GOS dataset and current protein databases show distinct biases. Several ...
A general method for stable-isotope labeling of large proteins is introduced and applied for studies of the E. coli GroE chaperone proteins by solution NMR. In addition to enabling the residue-specific {sup 15}N-labeling of proteins on a highly deuterated background, it is also an efficient approach for uniform labeling. The method meets the requirements of high-level deuteration, minimal cross-labeling and high protein yield, which are crucial for NMR studies of structures with sizes above 150 kDa. The results obtained with the new protocol are compared to other strategies for protein labeling, and evaluated with regard to the influence of external factors on the resulting isotope labeling patterns. Applications with the GroE system show that these strategies are efficient tools for studies of structure, dynamics and intermolecular interactions in large supramolecular complexes, ...
Cocoon sericin plays an important role in the reeling of silk and serves as a valuable biomaterial in the field of biomedicine, skincare, and food industries; however, knowledge about cocoon sericin proteins has been limited. For a comprehensive study on sericin, cocoons of eight varieties of silkworm of different geographic origin and with varied cocoon color were analyzed utilizing proteomics and bioinformatics approaches. The electrophoresis pattern demonstrated some common protein bands for all silkworm varieties and distinctive protein bands for some of those examined in the present study. The Ser2 protein, a new Ser3 protein, and four other novel sericin proteins were identified in cocoons for the first time. Products of both Ser1 and Ser3 genes appear to be ubiquitous in the cocoon ...
Proteins are polymers of amino acids. These macromolecules are synthesized by intracellular machines called {\\it ribosome}. Although, traditionally, the experimental investigation of protein synthesis has been an active area of research in molecular cell biology, important quantitative models of this phenomenon have been reported mostly in the research journals devoted to statistical physics and related interdisciplinary topics. From the perspective of a physicist, protein synthesis is a phenomenon of {\\it classical transport of interacting ribosomes on a messenger RNA (mRNA) template} that dictates the sequence of the amino acids on the protein. Here we bring this frontier area of contemporary research into the classroom by appropriate simplification of the models and methods. In particular, we develope a simple toy model and analyze it by some elementary techniques of non-equilibrium statistical ...
SR proteins are essential splicing factors whose function is controlled by multi-site phosphorylation of a C-terminal domain rich in arginine-serine repeats (RS domain). The protein kinase SRPK1 has been shown to polyphosphorylate the N-terminal portion of the RS domain (RS1) of the SR protein ASF/SF2, a modification that promotes nuclear entry of this splicing factor and engagement in splicing function. Later, dephosphorylation is required for maturation of the spliceosome and other RNA processing steps. While phosphates are attached to RS1 in a sequential manner by SRPK1, little is known about how they are removed. To investigate factors that control dephosphorylation, we monitored region-specific mapping of phosphorylation sites in ASF/SF2 as a function of the protein phosphatase PP1. W...
This study was conducted to investigate the antibacterial effect of BSAP-254 on Bacillus cereus with the induced stress proteins. The BSAP-254 is an antimicrobial peptide isolated from soybean-fermenting bacteria, Bacillus subtilis SC-8. It had a narrow spectrum of activity against B. cereus group. The growth inhibitory effect of BSAP-254 (50??g/mL) reduced the population of B. cereus from >108 to 104 colony-forming units per milliliter within 30?min. In B. cereus exposed to BSAP-254, 14 intracellular proteins were differentially expressed as determined by 2-DE coupled with MS. Of the differentially expressed proteins identified, the stress protein GroEL, which is heat shock protein, was induced in B. cereus exposed to antibacterial peptide.
Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASp) is essential for optimal T cell activation. Patients with WAS exhibit both immunodeficiency and a marked susceptibility to systemic autoimmunity. We investigated...Full Text Available
Werner syndrome (WS) is characterized by premature onset of age-associated disorders and predisposition to cancer. The WS protein, WRN, encodes 3′ → 5′ DNA helicase and 3′...Full Text Available
Spin-lattice relaxation rates of protein and water protons in dry and hydrated immobilized bovine serum albumin were measured in the range of 1H Larmor frequency from 10 kHz to 30...Full Text Available
Effector proteins expressed in the esophageal gland cells of cyst nematodes are delivered into plant cells through a hollow, protrusible stylet. Although evidence indicates that effector proteins function...Full Text Available
Synthetic oligoribonucleotides have been used to probe the interaction of MS2 coat protein with the translational operator of the MS2 replicase gene. We have investigated the possible formation of a...Full Text Available
Amidination of aldolase, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, tryptophan synthetase B protein, L-arabinose isomerase, and the catalytic subunit of E. coli aspartate transcarbamylase...Full Text Available
In proteomics, one-dimensional (1D) SDS-PAGE is widely used for protein fractionation prior to mass spectrometric analysis to enhance dynamic range of analysis and to improve identification...Full Text Available
The mini-chromosome maintenance proteins Mcm2–7 are essential for DNA replication. They are loaded onto replication origins during G1 phase of the cell cycle to form a pre-replication complex...Full Text Available
We have previously reported the construction and characterization of an autonomously replicating plasmid in Trypanosoma brucei. In this plasmid the procyclic acidic repetitive protein (PARP) gene promoter...Full Text Available
Altered structure, and hence function, of cellular macromolecules caused by oxidation can contribute to loss of physiological function with age. Here, we tested whether the lifespan of bats, which generally...Full Text Available
The realization that there existed a G-protein coupled signal transduction mechanism developed gradually and was initially the result of an ill fated quest for uncovering the mechanism of action...Full Text Available
Previous studies have shown that salicylates and protein-calorie malnutrition independently compromise maturation and growth of infants. In the present study, pregnant rats were fed normal-and low-protein...Full Text Available
The objective of this research was to determine the role of acidic ribosomal protein (ARP) phosphorylation in translation. Ribosomes (Rbs) from germinated maize (Zea mays L.) axes had...Full Text Available
Surfactant protein A (SP-A), first identified as a component of the lung surfactant system, is now recognized to be an important contributor to host defence mechanisms. SP-A can facilitate phagocytosis...Full Text Available
Cytosol proteins prepared from castor bean endosperm (4-day-old) seedlings stimulate the exchange of [3H]phosphatidylethanolamine between liposomes and mitochondria. The acceleration of the...Full Text Available
The e.p.r. spectra of the Fe-proteins of nitrogenase from all sources studied have unusual features in that they have very anisotropic linewidths and low integrated intensities. These characteristics...Full Text Available
Excessive weight loss due to protein calorie malnutrition (PCM) is a significant problem in Nigerian children. This syndrome may be difficult to differentiate from the wasting disease caused by human...Full Text Available
Brucella abortus is a facultative, intracellular zoonotic pathogen which can cause undulant fever in humans and abortions in cattle. A 14-kDa protein of B. abortus...Full Text Available
Lupus anticoagulant, concentrations of anticardiolipin antibodies, antithrombin III, plasminogen, (free) protein S, protein C, prothrombin, platelet counts, and bleeding times were determined in 74...Full Text Available
Carbenoxolone (CBX) is a semisynthetic derivative of the licorice root substance glycyrrhizinic acid and has been previously reported to induce only heat shock protein 70 [Hsp70, HSPA1A (the systematic...Full Text Available
BackgroundSeveral proteins are known to be markedly expressed in the brain during cerebral ischemia; however, the changes in protein profiles within the ischemic brain after an ischemic...Full Text Available
Protein post-translational modifications are an important biological regulatory mechanism, and the rate of their discovery using high throughput techniques is rapidly increasingly. To make use of this...Full Text Available
The plasma protein binding of phenytoin was investigated in 100 epileptic patients, using equilibrium dialysis at 37 degrees C. The unbound fractions of phenytoin in plasma formed a skewed distribution,...Full Text Available
We demonstrate by using low-temperature high-resolution spectroscopy that red-shifted mutants of green fluorescent protein are photo-interconverted among three conformations and are, therefore, not...Full Text Available
The purpose of the present work was to study the pharmacokinetics and the protein binding (free fraction of the drug) of ceftriaxone (CTX) during pregnancy. Nine pregnant women (ages, 20 to 34 years)...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe expression of human virus surface proteins, as well as other mammalian glycoproteins, is much more efficient in cells of higher eukaryotes rather than yeasts. The limitations...Full Text Available
BackgroundZhx1 to 3 (zinc-fingers and homeoboxes) form a set of paralogous genes encoding multi-domain proteins. ZHX proteins consist of two zinc fingers followed...Full Text Available
The kinetic parameters of single bonds between neural cell adhesion molecules were determined from atomic force microscope measurements of the forced dissociation of the homophilic protein-protein bonds....Full Text Available
Genes of the S100 fused-type protein (SFTP) family are clustered within the epidermal differentiation complex and encode essential components that maintain epithelial homeostasis and barrier functions....Full Text Available
Centrioles are intriguing cylindrical organelles composed of triplet microtubules. Proteomic data suggest that a large number of proteins besides tubulin are necessary for the formation and maintenance...Full Text Available
The exposure of cells to several metal ions stabilizes HIF-1α protein. However, the molecular mechanisms are not completely understood. They may involve inhibition of hydroxylation by either...Full Text Available
Integration of solid-state biosensors and lipid bilayer membranes is important for membrane protein research and drug discovery. In these sensors, it is critical that the solid-state sensing...Full Text Available
In this paper, we report a method of precise in situ x-ray scattering measurements on protein solutions using small stationary sample cells. Although reduction in the radiation damage...Full Text Available
We had previously identified a macrophage surface protein whose expression is highly induced, transient, and specific, as it is restricted to actively fusing macrophages in vitro and in vivo. This protein...Full Text Available
A panel of 16 monoclonal antibodies recognizing M protein (M1) of influenza virus was generated. Competition analyses resulted in localization of 14 monoclonal antibodies to three antigenic sites. Three...Full Text Available
An interactive system for computer analysis of nucleic acid and protein sequences has been developed for the Los Alamos DNA Sequence Database. It provides a convenient way to search or verify various...Full Text Available
Acylation stimulating protein (ASP, C3adesArg) is an adipose tissue derived hormone that stimulates triglyceride (TG) synthesis. ASP stimulates lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity by relieving feedback...Full Text Available
BackgroundGene expression profiling and the analysis of protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks may support the identification of disease bio-markers and potential drug targets....Full Text Available
Mammals possess multiple insulin-like growth factor (IGF) binding proteins (IGFBPs), and related proteins, that modulate the activity of insulin/IGF signalling (IIS), a conserved neuroendocrine signalling...Full Text Available
Intrinsically disordered proteins are predicted to be highly abundant and play broad biological roles in eukaryotic cells. In particular, by virtue of their structural malleability and propensity...Full Text Available
Dysregulation of the alternative pathway of complement activation, caused by mutations or polymorphisms in the genes encoding factor H, membrane co-factor protein, factor I or factor B, is associated...Full Text Available
Pollen mother cells of the lily (Lilium speciosum) were found to have a histone-H1-like protein (PMCP) not detected in other tissues. The PMCP appears from the late S-G2...Full Text Available
AMP-activated-protein-kinase (AMPK) is a key sensor and regulator of cellular and whole-body energy metabolism and plays a key role in regulation of lipid metabolism. Since lipid metabolism...Full Text Available
We investigated the pathophysiological mechanism by proteomic approach as a possible tool to detect the marker proteins to develop lower urinary tract symptoms following bladder outlet obstruction (BOO)....Full Text Available
Gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR), a member of the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily, has been utilized for receptor-mediated targeting of imaging and therapeutic agents; here we extend...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe VP2 outer capsid protein Bluetongue Virus (BTV) is responsible for receptor binding, haemagglutination and eliciting host-specific immunity. However, the assembly of...Full Text Available
In isolated rat adipocytes, insulin inhibits lipolysis to a greater extent than would be predicted by the decrease in (-/+)cAMP activity ratio of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (A-kinase), from which it was speculated that insulin promotes the dephosphorylation of hormone-sensitive lipase. They have examined the phosphorylation state of cellular proteins under conditions of varying A-kinase activities in the presence and absence of insulin. Protein phosphorylation was determined by SDS-PAGE electrophoresis of extracts from /sup 32/P-loaded cells; glycerol and A-kinase activity ratios were measured in the cytosolic extracts from control, non-radioactive cells. Increased protein phosphorylation in general occurred over the same range of A-kinase activity ratios, 0.1-0.3, associated with increased glycerol release. The insulin-induced decrease in lipolysis was associated with a decrease in the /sup 32/P ...
The lysosomal catabolism of sulfatide requires arylsulfatase A and a specific sphingolipid activator protein, SAP-1. While most patients with metachromatic leukodystrophy have mutations in the gene...Full Text Available
One selection pressure shaping sequence evolution is the requirement that a protein fold with sufficient stability to perform its biological functions. We present...Full Text Available
SummaryMycobacterium tuberculosis has 10 universal stress proteins, whose function is unknown. However, proteomic and transcriptomic analyses have shown that a number...Full Text Available
The levels of in vitro protein binding of cefonicid and cefuroxime in human adult and neonatal sera were compared. Binding parameters for each drug were determined within the concentration range of...Full Text Available
The Moloney murine leukemia virus (MMLV) belongs to the Retroviridae family of enveloped viruses, which is known to acquire minute amounts of host cellular proteins both on the surface...Full Text Available
Numerous studies have noted that the evolution of new enzymatic specificities is accompanied by loss of the protein's thermodynamic stability (ΔΔG), thus suggesting...Full Text Available
Membrane cofactor protein (MCP or gp45-70) of the complement system is a cofactor for factor I-mediated cleavage of fluid-phase C3b and C3b-like C3, which opens the thioester bond. In the present study...Full Text Available
Parasitic nematodes cause serious diseases in humans, animals, and plants. They have limited lipid metabolism and are reliant on lipid-binding proteins to acquire these metabolites from their hosts....Full Text Available
The question of whether proteins originate from random sequences of amino acids is addressed. A statistical analysis is performed in terms of blocked and random walk values formed by binary hydrophobic...Full Text Available
All organisms, from bacteria and yeast to humans, respond to physical and chemical stressors by increasing the synthesis of a small group of cellular stress proteins.'' The authors have developed a simple in vitro system for quickly screening environmentally relevant stressors to detect stress-induced proteins that are good candidates for biomarkers. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to detect stressor-induced, concentration-dependent changes in cellular stress protein levels in two fish cell culture systems, whereas simultaneous in vitro neutral red uptake cytotoxicity assays measured the stressors effect on cellular physiology. There was a direct concentration-dependent relationship between sublethal cytotoxic effects and the increases in stress protein levels. Increases of 50 to 200% were detected in stress proteins from desert topminnow, Poeciliopsis ...
Evaluation of the protective efficacy of recombinant T-cell-reactive proteins of Coccidioides posadasii in a murine model of coccidioidomycosis has led to the discovery of potential...Full Text Available
Mitogen Activated Protein Kinases (MAPKs) are a class of serine/threonine kinases that regulate a number of different cellular activities including cell proliferation, differentiation, survival and...Full Text Available
FXYD1 (phospholemman) is a member of an evolutionarily conserved family of membrane proteins that regulate the function of the Na,K-ATPase enzyme complex in specific tissues and specific physiological...Full Text Available
A commercial blend of essential oil (EO) compounds was added to a grass, maize silage, and concentrate diet fed to dairy cattle in order to determine their influence on protein metabolism by ruminal...Full Text Available
Mutational inactivation of the RB1 tumor suppressor gene initiates retinoblastoma and other human cancers. RB1 protein (pRb) restrains cell proliferation by binding...Full Text Available
The display of proteins such as feed enzymes at the surface of bacterial spore systems has a great potential use for animal feed. Feed enzymes increase the digestibility of nutrients, leading to greater...Full Text Available
Uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) maps to a region on distal mouse chromosome 7 that has been linked to the phenotypes of obesity and type II diabetes. We recently reported that UCP2 expression is increased...Full Text Available
1 The plasma protein binding of theophylline was determined after addition of [14C]-theophylline (15 micrograms/ml) to plasma from 24 healthy drug-free volunteers and equilibrium dialysis for 2 h at...Full Text Available
The identification of the protein targets for dengue virus-specific T lymphocytes may be useful for planning the development of subunit vaccines against dengue. We studied the recognition by murine...Full Text Available
Merozoite surface proteins have been implicated in the initial attachment to the host red blood cell membrane that begins the process of invasion, an important step in the life cycle of the malaria...Full Text Available
When an exogenous protein, bovine serum albumin, was introduced into the vacuole of a Chara australis internodal cell, it was degraded with time. This degradation proceeded only in...Full Text Available
Reversible protein glutathionylation plays a key role in cellular regulation and cell signaling and protects protein thiols from hyperoxidation. Sulfiredoxin (Srx), an enzyme that catalyzes the reduction...Full Text Available
Circadian clock is implicated in the regulation of aging. The transcription factor CLOCK, a core component of the circadian system, operates in complex with another circadian clock protein BMAL1. Recently...Full Text Available
DNA replication in Escherichia coli cells lacking protein HU was studied. HU has been suggested to be involved in the initiation of replication from in vitro studies. The isolated HU mutants, however,...Full Text Available
Proteins that metabolize or bind the nucleotide second messenger cyclic diguanylate regulate a wide variety of important processes in bacteria. These processes include motility, biofilm formation, cell...Full Text Available
AbstractX-ray diffraction analysis of pressure-induced structural changes in the Aequorea yellow fluorescent protein Citrine reveals the structural basis for the continuous...Full Text Available
Charge reduction electrospray mass spectrometry (CREMS) reduces the charge states of electrospray-generated ions, which concentrates the ions from a protein into fewer peaks spread over a larger...Full Text Available
AbstractThe present study aimed to compare the whole-cell protein profiles of Haemophilus parasuis field isolates by using a computer-based analysis, and evaluate the...Full Text Available
A simulation is developed that qualitatively describes the small-zone-gel-filtration behaviour of a reversibly associating protein. The results reflect the dependence of the apparent molecular weight...Full Text Available
BackgroundOne virulence property of Borrelia burgdorferi is its resistance to innate immunity, in particular to complement-mediated killing. Serum-resistant B....Full Text Available
AIM: To investigate the relation of Fas and Fas ligand (FasL) protein expression with carcinogenesis and metastasis of gastric carcinoma.METHODS: Immunohistochemistry was used to detect Fas and...Full Text Available
Cellular cholesterol homeostasis is controlled by sterol-regulated proteolysis of membrane-bound transcription factors called sterol-regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs). CPP32, a cysteine protease,...Full Text Available
Sera from multiple sclerosis patients with relapsing-remitting disease and normal subjects were tested for antibody to myelin basic protein by a sensitive radioimmunoassay. The results showed a marginally...Full Text Available
The aim of the present study was to describe the physicochemical characteristics of streptococcal T antigen. T protein isolated from Streptococcus pyogenes type 12 (R53/1077, Colindale) and purified...Full Text Available
The molecular diversity of the gene encoding the outer membrane protein A (OmpA) of Haemophilus parasuis has been unclear. In this study, the structural characteristics, sequence types,...Full Text Available
Recently, CID755673 was reported to act as a highly selective inhibitor of protein kinase D (PKD). In the course of experiments using CID755673, we noticed that it exerted unexpected stimulatory...Full Text Available
Hundreds of genomes have been successfully sequenced to date, and the data are publicly available. At the same time, the advances in large-scale expression and purification of recombinant proteins have...Full Text Available
Certain pathogenic species of Bacillus and Clostridium have developed unique methods for intoxicating cells that employ the classic enzymatic “A-B” paradigm for protein toxins. The binary...Full Text Available
Sustained nigrostriatal dopamine depletion increases the serine/threonine phosphorylation of multiple striatal proteins that play a role in corticostriatal synaptic plasticity, including Thr286...Full Text Available
BackgroundMolecular docking methods are commonly used for predicting binding modes and energies of ligands to proteins. For accurate complex geometry and binding energy estimation,...Full Text Available
PurposeCataract is the leading cause of blindness and is associated with oxidative damage and protein modification in the lens. In the present study, we have employed proteomic and...Full Text Available
Amyloid proteins constitute a chemically heterogeneous group of proteins, which share some biophysical and biological characteristics, the principal of which are the high propensity to acquire an incorrect...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe production of high yields of recombinant proteins is an enduring bottleneck in the post-genomic sciences that has yet to be addressed in a truly rational manner. Typically...Full Text Available
Albumin is a multifunctional transport protein that binds a wide variety of endogenous substances and drugs. Insulins with affinity for albumin were engineered by acylation of the epsilon-amino group...Full Text Available
To study the effect of agonist on the TRH (thyrotrophin-releasing hormone) receptor protein, an epitope-tagged receptor was stably expressed in HEK-293 cells (human embryonic kidney 293 cells) and receptor...Full Text Available
The adhesive proteins secreted by marine mussels form a natural glue that cures rapidly to form strong and durable bonds in aqueous environments. These mussel adhesive proteins contain an unusual...Full Text Available
Ataxin-3, the protein involved in Machado-Joseph disease, is able to bind ubiquitylated substrates and act as a deubiquitylating enzyme in vitro, and it has been involved in the modulation of protein...Full Text Available
AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a key regulator of energy metabolism; its activity is regulated by a plethora of physiological conditions, exercises and many anti-diabetic drugs. Recent...Full Text Available
AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) was initially viewed as energy sensor and activated by increased intracellular concentrations of AMP following nutrient deprivation. Physiological or pathological...Full Text Available
Amyloid precursor protein (APP), implicated in Alzheimer's disease, is a transmembrane protein of undetermined function. APP is cleaved by gamma-secretase that releases the APP intracellular domain...Full Text Available
SummaryThe prevalence of paralogous enzymes implies that novel catalytic functions can evolve on preexisting protein scaffolds. The weak secondary activities of proteins, which...Full Text Available
The extreme strength and elasticity of spider silks originate from the modular nature of their repetitive proteins. To exploit such materials and mimic spider silks, comprehensive strategies...Full Text Available
As part of efforts to develop improved methods for NMR protein sample preparation and structure determination, the Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium (NESG) has implemented an NMR screening pipeline for protein target selection, construct optimization, and buffer optimization, incorporating efficient microscale NMR screening of proteins using a micro-cryoprobe. The process is feasible because the newest generation probe requires only small amounts of protein, typically 30-200 ?g in 8-35 ?l volume. Extensive automation has been made possible by the combination of database tools, mechanization of key process steps, and the use of a micro-cryoprobe that gives excellent data while requiring little optimization and manual setup. In this perspective, we describe the overall process used by the NESG for screening NMR samples as part of a sample optimization process, assessing optimal construct design and ...
BackgroundA relevant problem in drug design is the comparison and recognition of protein binding sites. Binding sites recognition is generally based on geometry often combined with...Full Text Available
BackgroundProteins may evolve through the recruitment and modification of discrete domains, and in many cases, protein action can be dissected at the domain level. PDZ domains are...Full Text Available
We show that the expression of an indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)-modified protein from bean seed, IAP1, is correlated to the developmental period of rapid growth during seed development. Moreover, this...Full Text Available
In addition to inducing new transcriptional activities that lead within a few hours to the accumulation of heat shock proteins (Hsps), heat shock activates within minutes the major signaling transduction...Full Text Available
MOM22 is a component of the protein import complex of the mitochondrial outer membrane of Neurospora crassa. Using the newly developed procedure of 'sheltered disruption', we created a heterokaryotic...Full Text Available
... Considering these observations, it is most likely that Brucela proteins involved in protective immunity will preferentially stimulate INF-g producing T ...
Experimental investigation data are systematized of free radical states and processes in irradiated proteins. The investigation is performed by the radiospectral methods. Results are discussed in detail of the study of free radicals electronic structure of amino acids, peptides and proteins formed by the action of ionizing radiation. The specificity is stressed of the study of monocrystalls of these compounds by the method of electronic paramagnetic resonance. The nature is also studied of primary centres formed under the effect of radiation on biologically important compounds and their subsequent reactions in solid and liquid solutions. Ion-radical states of different functional groups of the protein molecule are studied. Prospects of the study and the role of anion-radicals in biological processes are discusses.
The effect of protein malnutrition on the metabolism of collagen in bone was studied in young female albino rats after a single injection of "3H-proline. Both specific and total radioactivities of hydroxyproline in the total collagen of the bone were found to decrease in the protein-deficient animals, indicating decreased rate of collagen synthesis. In the urine the amount of hydroxyproline excreted and total radioactivity of "3H-hydroxyproline were greatly decreased. The results of the present investigation therefore clearly indicate decreased synthesis and catabolism of collagen in bones of protein deficient animals compared to controls. (auth.).
Endurance-trained older men have a higher proportion of lean tissue and greater muscle cell oxidative capacity, reversing age-related trends and suggesting major changes in protein metabolism. In this study, protein turnover was determined in 6 middle-aged (52+/-1 yr) men who were well trained (VO_2 max 55.2+/-5.0 ml O_2/kg.min) and lean (body fat 18.9+/-2.8%, muscle mass 36.6+/-0.6%). The maintained habitual exercise while consuming 0.6, 0.9 or 1.2 g protein/kg.day for 10-day periods. N flux was measured from "1"5N in urea after oral "1"5N-glycine administration. Myofibrillar protein breakdown was estimated from urinary 3-methyl-histidine. Dietary protein had no effect on turnover rates, even when N balance was negative. Whole body protein synthesis was 3.60+/-0.12 g/kg.day and breakdown was 3.40+/-0.14 g/kg.day for all N intakes. Whole body ...
Programmed cell death (PCD) is triggered when Pto, a Ser-Thr protein kinase, recognizes either the AvrPto or AvrPtoB effector from Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato. This...Full Text Available
In higher plants, three subfamilies of sucrose nonfermenting-1 (Snf1)-related protein kinases have evolved. While the Snf1-related protein kinase 1 (SnRK1) subfamily has been shown to share pivotal...Full Text Available
Scyl1 is an evolutionarily conserved N-terminal protein kinase-like domain protein that plays a role in COP1-mediated retrograde protein trafficking in mammalian cells. Furthermore, loss of Scyl1 function...Full Text Available
This study investigated relationships between molecular weight distributions of unreduced grain proteins and grain, flour, and end-use quality characteristics of soft white winter wheats grown in Oregon. Absorbance area and area % values of protein fractions separated by size exclusion HPLC (SE-HPL...
CAP18 (an 18-kDa cationic antimicrobial protein) is a granulocyte-derived protein that can bind lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and inhibit various activities of LPS in vitro. The present study examined the...Full Text Available
The discovery of a specific high-affinity growth hormone (GH) binding protein (GH-BP) in plasma adds complexity to the dynamics of GH secretion and clearance. Intuitive predictions are that such a protein...Full Text Available
We have identified another Drosophila GTP-binding protein (G protein) alpha subunit, dGq alpha-3. Transcripts encoding dGq alpha-3 are derived from alternative splicing of the dGq alpha locus previously...Full Text Available
Gamma interferon plays an important role in regulating the functional properties of mononuclear phagocytes. In the present study, the role of activated protein kinases in the mechanism of action of...Full Text Available
Zn2+-finger proteins comprise one of the largest protein superfamilies with diverse biological functions. The ATM substrate Chk2-interacting Zn2+-finger protein...Full Text Available
The major core protein (p28) of MMC-1, an endogenous type C virus of the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta), was purified and subjected to structural and immunological analyses. The NH2-terminal amino acid...Full Text Available
The disk around AB Aur was imaged and resolved at 24.6\\,$\\mu$m using the Cooled Mid-Infrared Camera and Spectrometer on the 8.2m Subaru Telescope. The gaussian full-width at half-maximum of the source size is estimated to be 90 $\\pm$ 6 AU, indicating that the disk extends further out at 24.6\\,$\\mu$m than at shorter wavelengths. In order to interpret the extended 24.6\\,$\\mu$m image, we consider a disk with a reduced surface density within a boundary radius $R_c$, which is motivated by radio observations that suggest a reduced inner region within about 100 AU from the star. Introducing the surface density reduction factor $f_c$ for the inner disk, we determine that the best match with the observed radial intensity profile at 24.6\\,$\\mu$m is achieved with $R_c$=88 AU and $f_c$=0.01. We suggest that the extended emission at 24.6\\,$\\mu$m is due to the enhanced emission from a wall-like structure at the boundary radius (the inner edge of the outer disk), which ...
Let A and B be two affinely generating sets of (Z_2)^n. As usual, we denote their Minkowski sum by A+B. How small can A+B be, given the cardinalities of A and B? We give a fairly tight answer to this question. Our bound is attained when both A and B are unions of cosets of a certain subgroup of (Z_2)^n. These cosets are arranged as Hamming balls, the smaller of which has radius 1. By similar methods, we reprove the Freiman-Ruzsa theorem in (Z_2)^n, with an optimal upper bound. Denote by F(K) the maximal spanning constant || / |A|, over all subsets A of (Z_2)^n with doubling constant |A+A| / |A| < K. We explicitly calculate F(K), and in particular show that 4^K / 4K < F(K) (1+o(1)) < 4^K / 2K. This improves the estimate F(K) = poly(K) 4^K, found recently by Green and Tao and by Konyagin.
Aims. We attempt to detect starlight reflected from a hot Jupiter, orbiting the main-sequence star HD 75289Ab. We report a revised analysis of observations of this planetary system presented previously by another research group. Methods. We analyse high-precision, high-resolution spectra, collected over four nights using UVES at the VLT/UT2, by way of data synthesis. We try to interpret our data using different atmospheric models for hot Jupiters. Results. We do not find any evidence for reflected light, and, therefore, establish revised upper limits to the planet-to-star flux ratio at the 99.9% significance level. At high orbital inclinations, where the best sensitivity is attained, we can limit the relative reflected radiation to be less than e = 6.7 x 10-5 assuming a grey albedo, and e = 8.3 x 10-5 assuming an Class IV function, respectively. This implies a geometric albedo smaller than p = 0.46 and p = 0.57, for the grey albedo and the Class IV albedo shape, ...
Previous research utilizing the AcB/BcA recombinant congenic strains (RCS) of mice mapped provisional quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for the psychostimulant effects of nicotine to multiple regions on chromosomes 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 17. The current study was designed to confirm these QTLs in an A/J (A)??C57Bl/6J (B6) F2 cross and a panel of B6.A chromosome substitution strains (CSS). The panel of B6.A CSS consists of 21 strains, each carrying a different A/J chromosome on a B6 background. The A??B6 F2, CSS, A, and B6 mice were tested for sensitivity to the effects of nicotine on locomotor activity using a computerized open-field apparatus. In A??B6 F2 mice two QTLs were identified which confirm those previously observed in the AcB/BcA RCS. Significant differences in the expression of ...
ABS>A horizontal steam generator design for the SM-2 was lysis to determine the per formance of such a steam generator under steady state operating conditions and during load transients, The configuration for this design is a two- drum unit consisting of a heat exchanger unit and separator drum interconnected by integral riser and downcomer. An analog computer was used to analyze the steam generator behavior Wring load transients. The effect of various design changes on the response of the steam generator to step chages in load was determined. The horizontal steam generator design was compared to the existing vertical steam generator design for weight, size, price, and performance. (auth)
Partial oxidation of 2-propanol was carried out on AB{sub 1-x}B`{sub x}O{sub 3} (A=Ba, B=Pb, Ce, Ti; B`=Bi, Sb and Cu) type perovskite oxides. Acetone was the major product observed on all the catalysts. All the catalysts underwent partial reduction during the reaction depending on the composition of the reactant, nature of the B site cation and the extent of substitution at B site. The catalytic activity has been correlated with the reducibility of the perovskite oxides determined from Temperature Programmed Reduction (TPR) studies. (orig.)
Building on the concepts of MIRD methods described by Webber, Watson and others at this Symposium on the Dosimetry of Administered Radionuclides, we will now consider how to apply these principles to several experimentally based open-quote macroclose quotes and multicellular models. Specifically, methods to calculate absorbed dose using different types of particulate emission (alpha, beta) with a variety of antibody carriers (IgG, F(ab')_2, Fab) for radioimmunotherapy (RIT) will be reviewed. Additionally, a discussion of direct measurement methods at the multicellular level will reveal the problems of tumor absorbed dose heterogeneity when applied to animal and clinical studies.
We review an analysis of a consistent renormalization of the top and bottom quark/squark sector of the MSSM with complex parameters (cMSSM). Various renormalization schemes are defined, analyzed analytically and tested numerically in the decays Stop_2 -> Sbottom_i H^+/W^+ (i = 1,2). No scheme is found that produces numerically acceptable results over all the cMSSM parameter space, where problems occur mostly already for real parameters. Some numerical examples for Gamma(Stop_2 -> Sbottom_1 H^+) in our preferred scheme, "m_b, A_b DRbar" are shown.
Use of hydrogen absorbing alloys in various practical applications is always connected with the problem of production of starting alloys. The transition from laboratory samples to small-scale production involves the change of furnace and its operation mode and this has an effect on the preparation method of mixture of starting metal. Also, for some applications such as thermosorption compressors the exact values of thermodynamical parameters of reaction are needed. In the present work we present the results of investigation of series Laves phase hydrogen-absorbing alloys which can be promising in for use in different devices. 1 ref.
In this note, we derive from Anstee's fractional $(g,f)$-factor theorem a similar characterization for the property of all fractional $(g,f)$-factors. Let $a$ be two positive integers and $G$ a graph of order $n$ sufficiently large for $a$ and $b$. Then G has all fractional $[a, b]$-factors if the minimum degree is at least $\\delta(G)\\geq \\frac{1}{4a}((a+b-1)^2+4b)$ and every pair of non-adjacent vertices has cardinality of the neighborhood union at least $bn/(a + b)$. This lower bounds are sharp.
We have studied freshly prepared lysozyme solutions in heavy water for two NaCl concentrations as a function of temperature. Lysozyme solubilities in this solvent are determined by static light scattering. By small angle neutron scattering, we evidence that interactions between lysozyme molecules are characterized by a second virial coefficient A{sub 2} whether the solution is under-saturated or supersaturated. From the variation of A{sub 2} as a function of temperature we have evaluated the enthalpy corresponding to the interaction between lysozyme molecules. We show that the interactions between protein molecules are higher in heavy water than in light water. (authors). 13 refs., 3 figs.
It is a useful hypothesis to thing of the reaction to protein deprivation as made up of two parts. First there is an initial adaptation involving rapid losses of protein. This is followed by slow continuing depletion. When considering two organ groups, such as the liver and muscle, it appears that the curve of urinary nitrogen excretion reflects the different parts they play in these two phases. The changes in the relative amounts of protein in different organs results in an alteration in the pattern of body protein at the level of the organ, the tissue and the cell. These changes are themselves the result of altered rates of synthesis and breakdown. The questions that must be asked and hopefully will be answered with the help of isotopes, are how these changes are brought about, how they are inter-related and controlled, and what is their significance? This paper contains a discussion of the few ...
The green fluorescent protein (GFP) asFP499 from Anemonia sulcata is a distant homologue of the GFP from Aequorea victoria. We cloned the asFP499 gene into a mammalian expression vector and showed that this protein was expressed in the human lymphoblast cell line Ramos RA1 and in the embryonic kidney 293T cell line (HEK 293T). In HEK 293T cells, asFP499 was localized mainly in the cytoplasm, suggesting that the protein was excluded from the nucleus. We identified _1_9_4LRMEKLNI_2_0_1 as a candidate nuclear export signal in asFP499 and mutated the isoleucine at position 201 to an alanine. Unlike the wildtype form, the mutant protein was distributed throughout the cytoplasm and nucleus. This is First report of a GFP that contains a functional NES.
Frozen boiled shrimp and dried shrimp are among the high-value fishery products of Thailand. During the production of these products boiling is one of the most important steps that affects significantly the product physicochemical properties, especially the quantity and quality of proteins, which in turn affect other apparent properties perceived by consumers. The protein changes are, however, difficult to evaluate comparing to other typical physical properties of shrimp. The objective of this study was therefore to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) model to predict the protein changes of shrimp in terms of protein loss and protein denaturation as a function of the boiling conditions, namely, concentration of salt solution and boiling time, as well as a rather easily determined ch...
It is assumed that protein fibrils manifested in amyloidosis result from an aggregation reaction involving small misfolded protein sequences being in an `oligomeric' or `prefibrillar' state. This review covers recent optical spectroscopic studies of amyloid protein misfolding, oligomerization and amyloid fibril growth. Although amyloid fibrils have been studied using established protein-characterization techniques throughout the years, their oligomeric precursor states require sensitive detection in real-time. Here, fluorescent staining is commonly performed using thioflavin T and other small fluorescent molecules such as 4-(dicyanovinyl)- julolidine and 1-amino-8-naphtalene sulphonate that have high affinity to hydrophobic patches. Thus, populated oligomeric intermediates and related `pre...
Tumor-targeted monoclonal antibodies (mAb) might be useful as diagnostic or therapeutic agents when linked to cytotoxic or imaging reagents. Our group is working to test this hypothesis by linking cytocidal and image-producing isotopes to mAb and testing the utility of the radioimmunoconjugates formed in animal model systems. Radioiodines were first employed for these purposes,but unfavorable nuclear properties (half-lives, #gamma#-ray and #beta#-particle energies) and chemical reactivity (deiodination in vivo) limit their utility. Labeling immunoproteins with metallic radionuclides offers more versatility in that the selection of potentially useful radiometals spans the periodic table.Of the metallic radionuclides with physical properties most suited for use with mAb in nuclear medicine, few are more available or desirable than those of bismuth ("2"1"2Bi) and lead ("2"0"3Pb, "2"1"2Pb), as listed in Table 1. "2"1"2Bi or ...
The effect of experimental diabetes on the phosphorylation of proteins in the rat sciatic nerve was studied. Nerves from animals made diabetic with streptozocin were incubated in vitro with (/sup 32/P)orthophosphate and divided into segments from the proximal to the distal end, and proteins from each segment were then separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The principal labeled species were the major myelin proteins, P0, and the basic proteins. After 6 wk of diabetes, the incorporation of isotope into these proteins rose as a function of distance along the nerve in a proximal to distal direction and was significantly higher at the distal end compared with incorporation into nerves from age-matched controls. The overall level of isotope uptake was similar in nerves from diabetic animals and weight-matched controls. The distribution of /sup 32/P among ...
The purpose of the present study was to examine the in vitro effects of low-dose cadmium (Cd) on developing cortical cells. The cortical cells removed from fetuses (embryonic day 15) were treated with 10 nM of Cd for 24 h. The effects of Cd on dendritic and synaptic development were immunocytochemically observed with anti-microtubule associated protein-2 (MAP2) and anti-synapsin I antibodies, respectively. Administration of Cd suppressed dendritic as well as synaptic development at 10 nM. By two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (LC/MS/MS) analysis, we identified three proteins with different expression after Cd-treatment; dihydropyrimidinase-related protein 2 (DRP-2/CRMP-2), 14-3-3-epsillon and calmodulin (CaM). Though the number of identified proteins was small, these proteins are known to be involved in neuronal development. The ...
The entrapment of proteins using the sol-gel route provides a means to retain its native properties and artificially reproduce the molecular crowding and confinement experienced by proteins in the cell allowing investigation of the physico-chemical and structural properties of biomolecules at the biotic/abiotic interface. The biomolecules are spatially separated and 'caged' in the gel structure but solutes can freely permeate the matrix. Thus, properties such as the folding of ensembles of individual molecules can be examined in the absence of aggregation effects that can occur in solution studies. Green fluorescent protein from Aequorea coerulescens was used as a model protein to examine the unfolding/re-folding properties of protein in silica gels. The recombinant protein was isolated and purified from Escherichia coli extracts by cell lysis, ...
In previous work the authors showed that on photolysis of Escherichia coli ribosomes in the presence of ({sup 3}H)tetracycline (TC) the major protein labeled is S7, and they presented strong evidence that such labeling takes place from a high-affinity site related to the inhibitory action of TC. In this work they use single protein omission reconstitution (SPORE) experiments to identify those proteins that are important for high-affinity TC binding to the 30S subunit, as measured by both cosedimentation and filter binding assays. With respect to both sedimentation coefficients and relative Phe-tRNA{sup Phe} binding, the properties of the SPORE particles they obtain parallel very closely those measured earlier, with the exception of the SPORE particle lacking S13. A total of five proteins, S3, S7, S8, S14, and S19, are shown to be important for TC binding, with the largest effects seen on omission of ...
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most frequent cutaneous neoplasm, with a generally favorable clinical behavior. Sometimes, indeed, it recurs after therapy and/or metastasizes. As point mutations in the coding sequence of the p53 tumor suppressor gene have been implicated in the progression of many human tumors, we studied the expression of p53 protein on this neoplasia. We tested immunohistochemically the positivity for p53 protein (NCL-p53-CM1, YLEM) on 19 cases of morphologically "non aggressive" BCC (BCC1) and on 19 "aggressive" BCC (BCC2), all with one or more relapses and 3 with distant metastases also. Results were related to clinico-pathological and follow-up data. All but one BCC2 were found positive for p53 protein. Conversely, only 2 cases of BCC1 exhibited low immunoreactivity for p53 protein, with high statistical differences between the two groups. No correlation was found between the ...
Proteomic changes in proteins secreted by human hepatocellular carcinomas (HepG2) cells exposed to butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) were evaluated. HepG2 cells were treated with three different concentrations of BBP (0, 10, or 25 ?M) for 24 or 48 h. Following incubation, the cells were subjected to proteomic analysis using two different pI ranges (4-7 and 6-9) and large-size two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Results showed resolution of a total of 2776 protein spots. Of these, 29, including 19 upregulated and 10 downregulated proteins, were identified by electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). Among these, the identities of cystatin C, Rho guanine nucleotide dissociation inhibitor, gelsolin, DEK protein, Raf kinase inhibitory protein, triose phosphate ...
Macronutrient self-selection and responses to dietary protein dilution were investigated in Senegalese sole, a flatfish species of interest for Mediterranean aquaculture. Eight groups of six sole were distributed among 75-l tanks and allowed to feed on three experimental diets composed of pure macronutrients: PC (75% crude protein and 25% carbohydrate), PF (75% crude protein and 25% crude fat) and PFC (10% crude protein, 45% crude fat and 45% carbohydrate). Choosing from the above diets, the sole selected a diet containing 68.0% crude protein, 15.7% crude fat and 16.3% carbohydrate. When the PF diet was diluted 50% with cellulose, the fish increased their feed intake to sustain the energy intake (5.0?kJ/kg BW/day). Their selection of fat remained unchanged, while carbohydrate selection sig...
Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of the maxillary galea of the silkworm were analyzed to identify proteins involved in food selection systems. From the 1251 redundant genes of the ESTs, we identified 7 odorant-binding protein-like genes (bmObpL), 6 takeout-like genes (bmToL), and 6 chemosensory protein genes (bmCsp). Quantitative RT-PCR analysis indicated that bmObpL1, bmObpL2, bmObpL3, bmObpL5, bmToL1, bmToL3, and bmorCsp15 were predominantly expressed in the larval oral appendages, such as the maxilla, labrum, labium and antenna. Immunocytochemical analysis indicated that the proteins of bmObpL1, bmObpL3, and bmToL1 were localized in the gustatory chemosensilla on the maxillary galea and olfactory sensilla in the antenna. The proteins encoded by bmObpL1 and bmObpL3 were detected in the gus...
Human complement protein C9 is shown to be a metalloprotein that binds 1 mol of Ca"2"+/mol of C9 with a dissociation constant of 3 #mu#m as measured by equilibrium dialysis. Incubation with EDTA removes the bound calcium, resulting in a apoprotein with decreased thermal stability. This loss in stability leads to aggregation and, therefore, to loss of hemolytic activity upon heating to a few degrees above the physiological temperature. Heat-induced aggregation of apoC9 can be prevented by salts that stabilize proteins according to the Hofmeister series of lyotropic ions, suggesting that the ion in native C9 may ligand with more than one structural element of domain of the protein. Ligand blotting indicates that the calcium binding site is located in the amino-terminal half of the protein. Removal of calcium by inclusion of EDTA in assay mixtures has no effect on the hemolytic activity of C9, and its ...
The subjects covered in this Symposium range through almost every clinical medical specialty. From an average of one paper in each of the past three Symposiums, the explosive interest in cerebral amyloidosis has led to the presentation of 12 papers on this subject in the present volume. The genetically predisposed familial amyloidotic processes, such as the polyneuropathies and familial Mediterranean fever have also stimulated extensive and intriguing investigations which have revealed the striking effect of a single amino acid substitution in transforming a normal protein into a lethal ''amyloidogenic'' one. This Symposium clearly depicts the advances since the first amyloid fibril protein was definitively identified and defined 14 years ago. Since all amyloid fibril proteins so far described are variants of normal proteins, attention to gene abnormalities now becomes a significant focus as well as the ...
The authors have previously identified a small-cell lung cancer cell line (NCI-H209) that expresses an aberrant, underphosphorylated form of the retinoblastoma protein RB1. Molecular analysis of RB1 mRNA from this cell line revealed a single point mutation within exon 21 that resulted in a nonconservative amino acid substitution (cysteine to phenylalanine) at codon 706. Stable expression of this mutant RB1 cDNA in a human cell line lacking endogenous RB1 demonstrated that this amino acid change was sufficient to inhibit phosphorylation. In addition, this cysteine-to-phenylalanine substitution also resulted in loss of RB1 binding to the simian virus 40 large tumor and adenovirus E1A transforming proteins. These results confirm the importance of exon 21 coding sequences and suggest that the cysteine residue at codon 706 may play a role in achieving a specific protein conformation essential for ...
Electronic circular dichroism (ECD) of the n-#pi# and #pi# -#pi# transitions of the amide groups in the ultraviolet has become an indispensable tool for qualitative characterization of proteins in solution. Since the existence of such a spectrum (that is, of natural optical activity) comes from the three dimensional interaction of the chromophores in the molecule, CD is exquisitely sensitive to molecular conformation. However, in proteins, the amide transitions available in the near UV are limited in number and are broads and overlapping. Interactions among them yield information about the polymeric backbone, but since such amide electronic excitation are relatively delocalized, the resulting
Exposure of the freshwater field crab Barytelphusa guerini to a sublethal concentration of NaF (30 mg litre(-1)) caused significant alterations in protein metabolism. After an exposure time of 15 days, the crab was found to have a marked depletion of total protein and free amino acid content. A significant elevation in transaminases, Aspartate aminotransferase (AAT) and Alanine aminotransferase (ALAT), and Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) activities was reflected in the free amino acid levels of the tissues. PMID:15092215
The term "homology" or "homologous" means an amino acid similarity measured by the program, BLAST (Altschul et al (1997), "Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs", Nucleic Acids Res. 25:33 89 3402), and expressed as --(% identity n/n). In measuring homology between a peptide and a protein of greater size, homology is measured only in the corresponding region; that is, the protein is regarded as only having the same general length as the peptide, allowing for gaps and insertions.
Cultures of chick skin fibroblasts were dissolved in solutions of sodium dodecyl sulphate, and their entire protein content was examined by gel electrophoresis. The most abundant species migrated in...Full Text Available
In previous studies we have demonstrated that prion protein (PrP) interacts with tubulin and disrupts microtubular cytoskeleton by inducing tubulin oligomerization. These observations may explain the molecular mechanism of toxicity of cytoplasmic PrP in transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Here, we check whether microtubule associated proteins (MAPs) that regulate microtubule stability, influence the PrP-induced oligomerization of tubulin. We show that tubulin preparations depleted of MAPs are more prone to oligomerization by PrP than those containing traces of MAPs. Tau protein, a major neuronal member of the MAPs family, reduces the effect of PrP. Importantly, phosphorylation of Tau abolishes its ability to affect the PrP-induced oligomerization of tubulin. We propose that t...
Gene expression is a fundamentally stochastic process, with randomness in transcription and translation leading to significant cell-to-cell variations in mRNA and protein levels. This variation...Full Text Available
Within the cardiac cell, the movements of calcium ions are tightly regulated by a number of regulatory proteins including pumps, and channels. The sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) is in large part...Full Text Available
We describe the stabilization by pressure of enzymes, including a hydrogenase from Methanococcus jannaschii, an extremely thermophilic deep-sea methanogen. This is the first published...Full Text Available
Eukaryotic genomes are packaged in two basic forms, euchromatin and heterochromatin. We have examined the composition and organization of Drosophila melanogaster heterochromatin in...Full Text Available
BackgroundPlasmodium falciparum is the most malignant agent of human malaria. It belongs to the taxon Laverania, which includes other ape-infecting Plasmodium...Full Text Available
The identification of individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) is essential for the timely administration of treatment approaches aimed at slowing the onset or progression of the disease....Full Text Available
... growth hormone-like factor from plerocercoids of the tapeworm Spirometra mansonoides is a multifunctional protein. In Parasites and pathogens: ... ...
BackgroundGenetic predisposition to scrapie in sheep is associated with several variations in the peptide sequence of the prion protein gene (PRNP). DNA-based tests...Full Text Available
Orphan G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are receptors lacking endogenous ligands. Found by molecular biological analyses, they became the roots of reverse pharmacology, in which receptors are attempted...Full Text Available
The Liver Carcinogenesis Section uses the modern technologies of molecular biology, cell biology, protein chemistry and genetics to investigate the biochemical and genetic pathways involved in human liver cancer.
Human heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27, HspB1) is an anti-apoptotic protein characterized for its tumorigenic and metastatic properties, and now referenced as a major therapeutic target in many types of cancer. Hsp27 biochemical properties rely on a structural oligomeric and dynamic organization. Downregulation by small interfering RNA or inhibition with dominant-negative mutant have proven their efficiency to counteract the anti-apoptotic and protective properties of Hsp27. In this study, we report the isolation and characterization of Hsp27-targeted molecules interfering with its structural organization. Using the peptide aptamer (PA) strategy, we isolated PAs that specifically interact with Hsp27 and not with the other members of the small heat shock protein family. In mammalian cell cultur...
The tetrapeptide KDEL is commonly found at the C terminus of soluble proteins of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and it contributes to their localization by interacting with a receptor that recycles...Full Text Available
Contractile vacuole complexes are critical components of cell volume regulation and have been shown to have other functional roles in several free-living protists....Full Text Available
Hydrophobic labelling is frequently used in the study of membrane-inserted domains of intrinsic proteins. However, the published procedures, fail to incorporate sufficient radioactivity into membrane immunoglobulins of B lymhocytes to permit investigation of their subunit structures and associations with other proteins. In order to increase the specific radioactivity of ["1"2"5I]iodonaphtylazide ["1"2"5I]INA), an improved method for the synthesis of the reagent was developed. In addition, the optimal conditions for labelling B lymhpocytes with ["1"2"5I]INA and commercially available reagent 3-(trifluoromethyl)-3-(trifluoromethyl)-3-(3'-["1"2"5Iliodophenyl)diazirine (["1"2"5I]TID were isolated and analysed in detail by SDS-PAGE. The usefulness of the two reagents for the investigation of lipid-embedded domains of membrane proteins is discussed. (author). 28 refs.; 4 figs.
The PbII binding characteristics of the previously reported PbII binding proteins of rat kidney cytosol were investigated further. Saturation and Scatchard analysis of /sup 203/Pb binding in whole cytosol and in 40% saturated ammonium sulfate precipitated fractions disclosed a class of relatively high-affinity sites with an apparent Kd of approximately 50 nM and binding capacities of approximately 41 and 9 pmol/mg of protein, respectively. Two /sup 203/Pb binding proteins with approximate molecular masses of 63K and 11.5K daltons and a high molecular weight component (greater than 200K) were isolated by Sepharose-6B column chromatography. The time course of association of /sup 203/Pb with cytosol and the 63K protein showed maximum binding at 18 hr which was stable up to 25 hr at 4 degrees C. The approximate half-time dissociation rate (T 1/2) of specifically bound /sup 203/Pb to the 63K ...
The PbII binding characteristics of the previously reported PbII binding proteins of rat kidney cytosol were investigated further. Saturation and Scatchard analysis of "2"0"3Pb binding in whole cytosol and in 40% saturated ammonium sulfate precipitated fractions disclosed a class of relatively high-affinity sites with an apparent Kd of approximately 50 nM and binding capacities of approximately 41 and 9 pmol/mg of protein, respectively. Two "2"0"3Pb binding proteins with approximate molecular masses of 63K and 11.5K daltons and a high molecular weight component (greater than 200K) were isolated by Sepharose-6B column chromatography. The time course of association of "2"0"3Pb with cytosol and the 63K protein showed maximum binding at 18 hr which was stable up to 25 hr at 4 degrees C. The approximate half-time dissociation rate (T 1/2) of specifically bound "2"0"3Pb to the 63K protein ...
BackgroundAlterations in protein composition and oxidative damage of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) have been proposed to impair the cardioprotective properties of...Full Text Available
Fava beans (Vicia fava) are cultivated rather widely in most countries of the Eastern Mediterranean area and provide a cheap but protein-rich food that can be eaten alone, in various...Full Text Available
BackgroundEnzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a standard immunoassay to estimate a protein's concentration in a sample. Deploying ELISA in a microarray format permits simultaneous...Full Text Available
PurposeEarly detection of appendicitis has increased due to development of computed tomography and ultrasonography, yet we are frequently meeting complicated appendicitis, including...Full Text Available
Aims A depressed cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) activity is implicated in nitrate tolerance. The present study determines whether the leucine zipper-positive (LZ+) isoform of myosin phosphatase target subunit 1 (MYPT1), a key target protein for PKG actions, is involved in the development of nitrate tolerance. Methods and results Nitrate tolerance in in vitro preparations was obtained by a 24 h incubation with nitroglycerin (NTG). Nitrate tolerance in in vivo preparations was obtained by subcutaneous injection of mice with NTG, and the aortas were used. Protein levels of total MYPT1, MYPT1 (LZ+), PP1Cd, myosin light chain (MLC), and phosphorylated MLC were determined by Western blot analysis. Isometric vessel tension was determined by an organ chamber technique. Protein levels of MYPT1...
Functional properties of commercial and membrane processed pea protein isolates (PPI) prepared from yellow peas were investigated. Four protein isolates were prepared from yellow pea flour using water and KCl extractions at 25^oC followed by ultrafiltration and diafiltration (UF and DF) at pHs of 7.5 and 7.5 or 6 respectively. Following assessment of compositional attributes; solubility, foaming, flow and dynamic rheology, emulsification ability and heat-induced textural and rheological properties of prepared PPIs and a commercially available PPI were tested and compared. Membrane purification of proteins resulted in 28% to 68% reduction in phytic acid and enhanced, comparatively, the tested functional properties. Solubility of membrane processed PPIs, at all tested pHs, was superior and t...
Results in this study are consistent with those of Murdock and his colleagues who clearly demonstrated that clonidine, an agonist of octopaminergic receptors in some insects, significantly increases sucrose feeding. Their studies, however, did not examine the effect of clonidine on protein feeding. Injection of a 20mg/ml/fly dose of clonidine significantly reduces protein feeding in both sexes of Phormia regina, instead of stimulating feeding as is observed with carbohydrate feeding. The manner in which the flies are fed prior to starvation and the method of testing influences the amounts of diet consumed. It is proposed that the biogenic amines influence the state of hunger (i.e., protein versus carbohydrates) while other chemicals and neural mechanisms (i.e., such as sulfakinins and stre...
Carbohydrate-directed endocytosis is mediated by a receptor, the hepatic binding protein; it is responsible for the clearance of galactose-terminated glycoproteins from the circulation. This process...Full Text Available
The cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) is a highly conserved transcription factor that integrates signaling through the cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) in many eukaryotes. PKA plays a critical role in Dictyostelium development but no CREB homologue has been identified in this system. Here we show that Dictyostelium utilizes a CREB-like protein, BzpF, to integrate PKA signaling during late development. bzpF^- mutants produce compromised spores, which are extremely unstable and germination defective. Previously, we have found that BzpF binds the canonical CRE motif in vitro. In this paper, we determined the DNA binding specificity of BzpF using protein binding microarray (PBM) and showed that the motif with the highest specificity is a CRE-like sequence. BzpF is necessary to ...
When casein, a milk protein, is hydrolyzed, it renders human foods that contain it (e.g., hypoallergenic infant formula, cheeses) distasteful to many people. This rejection...Full Text Available
The synapsin III gene, SYN3, which belongs to the family of synaptic vesicle-associated proteins, has been implicated in the modulation of neurotransmitter...Full Text Available
Individual photophysical parameters of the chromophore of a fluorescent protein mRFP1 and its two mutants (amino-acid substitution at position 66 - mRFP1/ Q66C and mRFP1/Q66S proteins) are determined. For this purpose, apart from conventional methods of fluorimetry and spectrophotometry, nonlinear laser fluorimetry is used. It is shown that the individual extinction coefficients of the chromophore of proteins correlate (correlation coefficient above 0.9) with the volume of the substituted amino-acid residue at position 66 (similar to the positions of the absorption, fluorescence excitation and emission maxima). (laser biology and medicine)
Alpha-toxin, the major cytotoxic agent elaborated by Staphylococcus aureus, was the first bacterial exotoxin to be identified as a pore former. The protein is secreted as a single-chain, water-soluble...Full Text Available
Chemically reactive compounds in tissues can be monitored through their products of reaction with biomacromolecules. For the purpose of in vivo dose monitoring, hemoglobin (Hb) has been preferred to...Full Text Available
What genes are related to AEC syndrome? AEC syndrome is caused by mutations in the TP63 gene. This gene provides instructions for making a protein known as p63, which plays an...
BackgroundAmino-terminal signal peptides (SPs) are short regions that guide the targeting of secretory proteins to the correct subcellular compartments in the cell. They are cleaved...Full Text Available
Gaseous Nitrogen Dewar apparatus developed by Dr. Alex McPherson of the University of California, Irvine for use aboard Mir and the International Space ...
We describe the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) Early Release Science (ERS) observations in the GOODS-South field. The new WFC3 ERS data provide calibrated, drizzled mosaics with FHWM=0.07--0.15" in the near-UV (filters F225W, F275W, and F336W) and near-IR (F098W, F125W, and F160W) in typically 2 orbits per filter. Together with the existing HST/ACS GOODS-S mosaics in the BVi'z' filters, the 10-band ERS data cover 40-50 sq. arcmin to AB=26-27.0 mag (10-sigma for point sources). In this poster, we describe the: (1) scientific rationale, data taking and reduction procedures of the WFC3 ERS mosaics; (2) object cataloging and star-galaxy separation techniques used in these 10 different filters; (3) reliability and completeness of the 10-band object catalogs from the ERS mosaics; (4) object counts in 10 different filters from 0.2-1.7 microns to AB=26.0-27.0 mag; and (5) the full-color 10-band ERS images. We discuss the ...
The Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation describes nonlinear dispersive waves which travel mainly in one direction, generalizing the Korteweg-de Vries equation for purely uni-directional waves. In this Letter we derive an improved KP-equation that has exact dispersion in the main propagation direction and that is accurate in second order of the wave height. Moreover, different from the KP-equation, this new equation is also valid for waves on deep water. These properties are inherited from the AB-equation (E. van Groesen, Andonowati, 2007 ) which is the unidirectional improvement of the KdV equation. The derivation of the equation uses the variational formulation of surface water waves, and inherits the basic Hamiltonian structure.
The T cell receptor is a fundamental mediator of the adaptive immune responses, since TR ab on T cells recognize foreign structures (peptides derived from processed antigens) bound to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on APC cells. In the present study, we report the cloning of six TRB chains cDNA sequences from gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata), a fish of high economical impact in South Mediterranean aquaculture. The V-BETA domains have the canonical features of known teleost and mammalian TR V-BETA domains and have been divided in four different subgroups. A multiple alignment of the six sea bream TRB chains with other known TRB sequences was assembled and showed the conservation of the four cysteine residues involved in disulphide bonds and of some amino acids with an importan...
Site occupancies in three C15-structured AB{sub 2}(X) Laves phases have been determined by Atom Location by CHanneling Enhanced MIcroanalysis (ALCHEMI). In NbCr{sub 2}(V), the results were consistent with exclusive site occupancies of Nb for the A sublattice and Cr and V for the B sublattice. The B-site occupancy of V is not expected from atom size effects alone. In NbCr{sub 2}(Ti), the results were consistent with Ti partitioning mostly to the A sites with some anti-site defects likely. In HfV{sub 2}(Nb), the results were consistent with Nb partitioning between the A and B sites. The results of the ALCHEMI analyses of these ternary C15 Laves phase materials will be discussed with respect to previously determined phase diagrams and first-principles total energy and electronic structure calculations.
A survey was undertaken of literature on the conversion of coke-fired cupola furnaces so that they can be fuelled, either wholly or partially, with natural gas. The aim was to determine the most suitable method for a specific furnace. Substitution with natural gas can result in speedier adjustment and control of the smelting process and in addition operational costs are reduced as natural gas is a cheaper fuel. The payback period would be one year. Pollutive emissions would be reduced. It was concluded that the most satisfactory solution would be that 3-4 gas burners should be placed immediately above the smelting zone in the furnace. Each burner should be placed in a separate combustion box in which the complete combustion process could take place. The burners should be placed symmetrically about the furnace, pointing at a small degree downwards. In this way the combustion chamber will not be filled with materials from the furnace and the burners will not be damaged. ...
Olfactory memory dysfunctions were investigated in the triple-transgenic murine model of Alzheimer's disease (3x Tg-AD). In the social transmission of food preference test, 3x Tg-AD mice presented severe deficits in odor-based memory, without gross changes in general odor-ability. Ab and tau immunoreactivity was not observed in the primary processing regions for odor, the olfactory bulbs (OBs), whereas marked immunostaining was present in the piriform, entorhinal, and orbitofrontal cortex, as well as in the hippocampus. Our results suggest that the impairment in olfactory-based information processing might arise from degenerative mechanisms mostly affecting higher cortical regions and limbic areas, such as the hippocampus.
A new chemical reactor, the Open Plate Reactor, is being developed by Alfa Laval AB. It combines good mixing with high heat transfer capacity into one operation. With the new concept, highly exothermic reactions can be produced using more concentrated reactants. A nonlinear model of the reactor is derived and a control system is developed. For temperature control a cooling system is designed and experimentally verified, which uses a mid-ranging control structure to increase the operating range of the hydraulic equipment. A Model Predictive Controller is proposed to maximize the conversion under hard input and state constraints. An extended Kalman filter is designed to estimate unmeasured concentrations and parameters. Simulations show that the designed control system gives high conversion ...
The magnetic properties of diluted spinels Zn{sub 1-x}M{sub x}Fe{sub 2}O{sub 4} (M = Mg, Ni) systems have been studied by mean field theory, probability law and high-temperature series expansions method in the range 0 {<=} x {<=} 1. The exchange interactions are calculated by the first and second theory, respectively. The magnetic phase diagrams of Zn{sub 1-x}M{sub x}Fe{sub 2}O{sub 4} (M = Mg, Ni) are calculated by the high-temperature series expansions, combined with the Pade approximants method. The critical exponent associated with the magnetic susceptibility ({gamma}) is deduced.
ABB High Voltage Cables AB started the MPS (More Power Submarine cables) project in 1993 with a view to exploring new technology opportunities. The goal is to design and type test a submarine HVDC cable for a capacity of 1200 MW at 600 kV. On the day before ABB announced its success in winning the contract for the world`s largest ever submarine HVDC link project for the gigantic Bakun project in Malaysia, ABB Power Systems described progress to date at a symposium in Karlskrona. The proceedings included a test demonstration on an extruded cable which eventually broke down at a stress of over 935 kV -not in the insulation itself but in the end terminations. The electric field was in excess of 200 kV/mm which is higher than ever before reported. (UK)
Background: Thyroid-stimulating autoantibodies (TSAb) bind to the thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) extracellular domain, or ectodomain (ECD), comprising a leucine-rich repeat domain (LRD) linked by a hinge region to the transmembrane domain (TMD). The LRD (residues 22???260; signal peptide 1???21) contains two disulfide-bonded loops at its N-terminus. In the crystal structure of the isolated LRD complexed with human TSAb monoclonal antibody (mAb) M22, N-terminal disulfide loop 1 (residues 22???30) could not be determined because of crystal disorder. Nevertheless, present crystal structure data are interpreted to exclude a role for the LRD N-terminal disulfide loops in the TSAb epitope(s), contradicting prior functional evidence of a role for these loops in TSAb function. Materials and Methods: ...
2-methylpropan-1-ol (isobutanol) is a leading candidate biofuel for the replacement or supplementation of current fossil fuels. Recent work has demonstrated glucose to isobutanol conversion through a modified amino acid pathway in a recombinant organism. Although anaerobic conditions are required for an economically competitive process, only aerobic isobutanol production has been feasible due to an imbalance in cofactor utilization. Two of the pathway enzymes, ketol-acid reductoisomerase and alcohol dehydrogenase, require nicotinamide dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH); glycolysis, however, produces only nicotinamide dinucleotide (NADH). Here, we compare two solutions to this imbalance problem: (1) over-expression of pyridine nucleotide transhydrogenase PntAB and (2) construction of an NADH-de...
The emission of air pollutants from road vehicles is the most significant source of air pollution in towns. The chemical composition of these pollutive substances is dependent on the fuel, the type of vehicle and the character of the traffic system. The pollution concentration was measured, (nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide) in relation to each type of vehicle, in four streets in the Copenhagen area. The system of measurement used was the ''Operational Street Pollution Model'' (OSPM). Results are presented in the form of tables and charts. (AB) 11 refs.
The overall aim is to develope programme modules for a Danish integrated computer system for projecting buildings and to ensure that Danish programmes are compatible with international systems. The programmes to be integrated here were AutoCAD and SCRIBE-Models and the simulation programme tsbi3 for the calculation of indoor climate conditions, power demand and energy consumption in buildings. For the calculation of humidity and temperature conditions in constructions a certain amount of integration is carried out with the MATCH programme (Moisture And Temperature calculations for Constructions of Hygroscopic materials). The activities embodied in the pilot projects are described in this working report in addition to individual computer programmes and prototypes, and examples and diagrams are presented. The programmes described deal with handling design elements in relation to AutoCAD designs, and the formatting of a building`s data from AutoCAD to tsbi3 format. ...
Ribosomal protein L1 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae binds 5S rRNA and can be released from intact 60S ribosomal subunits as an L1-5S ribonucleoprotein (RNP) particle. To understand the nature of the...Full Text Available
Uteroglobin (UG) gene encodes a cytokine-like, multifunctional, antiinflammatory protein, with potent phospholipase A2-inhibitory activity. It has been suggested that during implantation this protein...Full Text Available
The molybdenum iron-sulphur protein originally isolated from Desulfovibrio gigas by Moura, Xavier, Bruschi, Le Gall, Hall & Cammack [(1976) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 72, 782-789] has been...Full Text Available
We have isolated and sequenced cDNA clones encoding the human U1-70K snRNP protein, and have mapped this locus (U1AP1) to human chromosome 19. The gene produces two size classes of RNA, a major 1.7-kb...Full Text Available
We show that the holographic principle in quantum gravity imposes a strong constraint on life. The degrees of freedom of an organism can be estimated according to the theory of Boolean networks, which is constrained by the entropy bound. Hence we can explain the languages in protein sequences or in DNA sequences. The overall evolution of biological complexity can be illustrated. And some general properties of protein length distributions can be explained by a linguistic mechanism.
The products of trithorax group (trxG) genes maintain active transcription of many important developmental regulatory genes, including homeotic genes. Several trxG proteins have been shown to act in...Full Text Available
Streptococcus pyogenes is an important human pathogen and surface structures allow it to adhere to, colonize and invade the human host. Proteins containing leucine rich repeats (LRR)...Full Text Available
The protein “amplified in osteosarcoma-9” (OS-9) has been shown previously to interact with the prolyl hydroxylases PHD2 and PHD3. These enzymes initiate oxygen-dependent degradation...Full Text Available
The temporal patterns of protein phosphorylation in the adrenal glomerulosa cell were analysed by two-dimensional electrophoresis after stimulation with 10 nM-angiotensin II or various agents [10 nM-12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol...Full Text Available
With the aim of an experimental check on the validity of the theory of molecular recognition, the authors have carried out the chemical-enzymatic synthesis and cloning of the gene of human calcitonin and also of the genes of antisense polypeptides to human calcitonin and miniproinsulin. It has been shown that recombinant plasmids obtained on the basis of these synthetic genes are capable of ensuring the biosynthesis of the given polypeptides in E. coli cells as hybrid proteins with the IgG-binding domain of staphylococcal protein A.
Two novel crystal structures of Zea mays protein kinase CK2α catalytic subunit, one in complex with the specific inhibitor 4,5,6,7-tetrabromobenzotriazole (TBB) and another...Full Text Available
There are about fifty SET domain protein methyltransferases (PMTs) in the human genome, that transfer a methyl group from S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) to substrate lysines on histone tails or other peptides. A number of structures in complex with cofactor, substrate, or inhibitors revealed the mechanisms of substrate recognition, methylation state specificity, and chemical inhibition. Based on these structures, we review the structural chemistry of SET domain PMTs, and propose general concepts towards the development of selective inhibitors.
BackgroundLand plant genomes contain multiple members of a eukaryote-specific gene family encoding proteins with pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) motifs. Some PPR proteins were shown...Full Text Available
We have identified two novel, very closely related genes, SAS1 and SAS2, from Dictyostelium discoideum. These encode small, approximately 20-kilodaton proteins with amino acid sequences thought to be...Full Text Available
The Epstein-Barr virus protein, LMP1, is a functional mimic of the cellular receptor CD40, but signals to B lymphocytes in an amplified and sustained manner compared to CD40. LMP1 contributes...Full Text Available
The rate of appearance of labeled thyroxine (T4) and albumin in lymph from various areas after simultaneous i.v. injection of the labeled substances in conscious ambulatory sheep has been used to estimate...Full Text Available
Rice (Oryza sativa) seed storage proteins (SSPs) are synthesized and deposited in storage organelles in the endosperm during seed maturation as a nitrogen source for germinating seedlings....Full Text Available
Escherichia coli rnh mutants lacking RNase H activity are capable of recA+-dependent DNA replication in the absence of concomitant protein synthesis (stable DNA replication). In rnh dnaA::Tn10 and rnh...Full Text Available
AIMS: To clarify the levels of protein oxidation markers such as protein carbonyl (PCO), protein hydroperoxides (P-OOH), advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP) and nitrotyrosine (NT), as well as antioxidative enzymes such as paraoxonase (PON-1) in women with and without gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). METHODS: The study was conducted on 23 women with GDM and 22 women without GDM. The levels of the P-OOH, AOPP, and PON-1 were determined by colorimetric methods; whereas NT and PCO levels were measured by ELISA. RESULTS: The concentrations of protein oxidation markers were significantly increased and PON1 activity was significantly decreased in GDM group compared to those of normal pregnant women. The control group showed a significant negative correlation between PON-1 and PCO (r=-0.451, p=0.027); whereas in GDM group, there was a significant positive correlation between ...
In this work we study the temperature dependence of the Soret band lineshape of the carbonmonoxy derivatives of sperm whale myoglobin, human hemoglobin, and its isolated alpha and beta subunits. To...Full Text Available
Extensive sequence repeats have been observed in a biologically active fragment of type 24 streptococcal M protein, namely Pep M24 [Beachey, E. H., Sayer, J. M. & Kang, A. H. (1978) Proc....Full Text Available
Proteins with a high propensity to aggregate can be largely prevented from doing so with surprisingly small changes to their primary structure. By using a combination of rational design and quantitative measurements of aggregation rates, we show that adding a single charge in specific "gatekeeper" regions is sufficient to change the timescale for amyloid fibril growth from minutes to weeks, thereby dramatically reducing the efficiency of this process.
Background: Markers of protein-energy wasting (PEW) and inflammation are common in chronic kidney disease (CKD) and are among the strongest predictors of mortality in dialysis patients.Objective:...Full Text Available
FSD-1, a designed small ultrafast folder with a ββα fold, has been actively studied in the last few years as a model system for studying protein folding mechanisms and for testing...Full Text Available
BackgroundUsing a transcriptional profiling approach, we recently identified myeloid-related protein-8/14 (MRP-8/14) to be expressed by platelets during acute MI....Full Text Available
The positive control function of the bacterial enhancer-binding protein NtrC resides in its central domain, which is highly conserved among activators of ς54 holoenzyme. Previous...Full Text Available
The CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β (C/EBPβ) is required for adipocyte differentiation and maturation. We have studied the role of the transcription factor, C/EBPβ,...Full Text Available
The yeast phosphatidylinositol transfer protein (Sec14p) is required for biogenesis of Golgi-derived transport vesicles and cell viability, and this essential Sec14p requirement is abrogated by inactivation...Full Text Available
Despite intensive efforts, the intracellular signaling pathways that mediate apoptosis remain unclear. The human B lymphoma cell line, B104, possesses characteristics that make it an attractive model...Full Text Available
The immunolocalization of the low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) and its ligand alpha 2-Macroglobulin (α2M) was examined in tissues from human donor...Full Text Available
The NSP5 protein is required for viroplasm formation during rotavirus infection and is hyperphosphorylated into 32- to 35-kDa isoforms. Earlier studies reported that NSP5 is not hyperphosphorylated...Full Text Available
The H-D exchange reaction has been measured with the D2-H2O system, for Rhodobacter capsulatus JP91, which lacks the hupSL-encoded hydrogenase, and R. capsulatus BSE16, which lacks the HupUV proteins....Full Text Available
We have used intramolecular cross-linking, MS, and sequence threading to rapidly identify the fold of a model protein, bovine basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-2. Its tertiary structure was probed...Full Text Available
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) nonstructural protein 5B (NS5B), the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), is a tail-anchored protein with a highly conserved C-terminal transmembrane domain (TMD) that...Full Text Available
Among important candidates for babesial vaccines are apical complex proteins, including rhoptry-associated protein 1 (RAP-1) from Babesia bovis and B. bigemina, which...Full Text Available
The interactions of the hydrophobic pulmonary surfactant proteins SP-B and SP-C with 1,2-dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine in mixed, spread monolayer films have been studied in situ at the air/water interface...Full Text Available
DescriptionThe plant enzyme polyphenol oxidase (PPO) has been demonstrated to reduce both proteolysis and lipolysis during the ensiling of red clover. The purpose of this work is to explore the potential for exploiting this beneficial trait in other dietary regimes for grazing ruminants. These studies will focus on the development of new strategies for forage management and livestock feeding by increasing the efficiency of feed protein-N utilisation and reducing saturated fatty acid production by ruminan [continued...
The continuous bioprocessing of simulated steam-stripped sulfite pulp mill evaporator condensates using Candida utilis to produce single cell protein has been studied. At 32 degrees C, processing can be conducted at space velocities of up to 0.43 hr/sup -1/ with over 90% removal of acetic acid present at an initial concentration of 2 g/liter. (Refs. 16).
Viral protein 40 (VP40) of Ebola virus appears equivalent to matrix proteins of other viruses, yet little is known about its role in the viral life cycle. To elucidate the functions of VP40, we investigated...Full Text Available
Bovine paratuberculosis is caused by infection of young calves with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis. In some of the chronically infected cows the long asymptomatic...Full Text Available
An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to compare Brucella melitensis major outer membrane proteins (MOMP) and whole-cell heat-killed antigens (HK) in measuring antibrucella immunoglobulin G...Full Text Available
The protein binding of diazepam (D) and its major active metabolite N-desmethyl diazepam (DD) was investigated in vitro in the serum of 14 mothers at birth, 21 foetuses at birth, in 100 neonates between...Full Text Available
1 The decreased binding of drugs and dyes to plasma proteins from male and female rats with acute renal failure has been investigated using equilibrium dialysis at 37 degrees C. 2 Acute renal failure...Full Text Available
Fission yeast S. pombe is assumed to be a good model for cloning of human DNA repair genes, because human gene is normally expressed in S. pombe and has a very similar protein sequence to yeast protein. We have tried to elucidate the DNA repair mechanisms of S. pombe as a model system for those of mammals. (J.P.N.)
Intact rat fat cell exposed to 12.5 ..mu..M (..gamma..-32P)ATP incorporate label into specific proteins within minutes. By solubilizing the reaction mixture with SDS which bypasses the subcellular fractionation steps, the labeled proteins can be identified in autoradiographs of SDS-PAGE gels. The most prominently labeled protein has an M/sub r/ of 42,000. Localization of this component to the cell surface can be made on the basis of inhibition of phosphorylation by addition of a protein derived from the rat brain with protein kinase inhibitory property, susceptibility of the phosphorylated protein to the tryptic digestion, inhibition of phosphorylation of this protein after brief exposure to melittin. To rule out the possibility that the cell surface protein might be a mitochondrial contaminant from broken cells, /sup ...
HMGA2 is a DNA minor-groove binding protein. We previously demonstrated that HMGA2 binds to AT-rich DNA with very high binding affinity where the binding of HMGA2 to poly(dA-dT)2 is enthalpy-driven...Full Text Available
Background: Hypertriglyceridemia is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Variation in the apolipoprotein A5 (APOA5) and glucokinase regulatory protein (GCKR)...Full Text Available
Temperature-sensitive mutants defective in 60S ribosomal subunit protein L16 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were isolated through hydroxylamine mutagenesis of the RPL16B gene and plasmid shuffling. Two...Full Text Available
Histone-beta-galactosidase protein fusions were used to identify the domain of yeast histone 2B, which targets this protein to the nucleus. Amino acids 28 to 33 in H2B were required for nuclear localization...Full Text Available
Ribosomal protein L 10 from the livers of trout, hen, and rat was found to be the main target for 2-nitro-4-azidobenzoyl-Phe-tRNA in affinity labelling experiments. Therefore, despite somewhat different electrophoretic mobilities, this protein seems to be involved in the organization of the peptidyl transferase centre in ribosomes of various vertebrates. (author).
Epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulates adenylyl cyclase in the heart via activation of the stimulatory GTP-binding protein Gs. Therefore, employing peptides corresponding to regions in the cytosolic...Full Text Available
1-Naphthylphthalamic acid (NPA) is a specific inhibitor of polar auxin transport that blocks carrier-mediated auxin efflux from plant cells. To allow identification of the NPA receptor thought to be...Full Text Available