Pretreatment of Hardwood and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Miscanthus</Emphasis> with <Emphasis Type="Italic">Trametes versicolor</Emphasis> for Bioenergy Conversion and Densification Strategies

Gaucher disease, which is caused by deficiency of glucocerebrosidase (GCD), is currently treated by enzyme replacement therapy. Plant-based systems produce glycoproteins and can be combined with targeting strategies to generate proteins with terminal mannose structures for macrophage uptake. However, the gliding step for the purification is essential since the produced protein still exists inside cells. In the case of rice-amylase 1A (RAmy1A) secretion signal peptide, GCD protein is secreted outside of cells and simplifies the purification step. Here, an established cell line was confirmed as having fundamental characteristics of growth and production. GCD from transgenic calli was examined by Western blot analysis and compared with that from Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Calli expressing high levels of GCD were used to establish suspension cell lines. Growth and production characteristics were investigated in suspension cell cultures. Production of GCD in suspension cultures was confirmed upon induction for 12–24 h. The amount of GCD in medium increased until 60–84 h and decreased thereafter. Purification of GCD was performed in three steps (ion exchange, hydrophobic interaction, and size exclusion chromatography) and verified. Purified GCD was able to hydrolyze the synthetic substrate. Thus, a rice expression system could be a suitable alternative to GCD expression in mammalian cells.     

Crack propagation in wedged double cantilevered beam specimens

A closed form analytical solution of crack propagation in double cantilevered beam specimens opened at a constant rate has been found. Hamilton's principle for non-conservative systems was applied to describe the crack motion, under the assumption of a Bernoulli-Euler beam. The criterion of crack propagation is a critical bending moment at the crack tip. The calculations of beam motion take into account wave effects in the Bernoulli-Euler theory of elastic beams. The beam shape during the crack motion is found with a similarity transformation and expressed by Fresnel integrals. The boundary conditions satisfied are the fixed ones of zero bending moment and constant beam opening rate at the load end of the specimen and the moving ones of zero deflection and zero slope of the deflected beam at the tip of the moving crack. The fracture represents a moving critical bending moment. The analytical results show that the specific fracture surface energy is a unique function of the ratio of the crack length squared to the time subsequent to loading and this is computed from the recorded time-dependence of the crack length.     

Preparation and characterization of reagents for epitestosterone radioimmunoassay

The preparation of reagents, suitable for radioimmunoassay of 17-hydroxy-4-androsten-3-one /epitestosterone/ in body fluids is described. It includes a simplified synthesis of the immunogen, epitestosterone-3-/O-carboxymethyl/oxime coupled to bovine serumalbumin, its characterization and preparation of the radioligand [¹²⁵I] iodohistaminyl derivative of epitestosterone. The assay protocol for epitestosterone detection in urine avoiding extraction is described and the reliability criteria of the method are given.     

Ion plated indium oxide : infrared and optical study

The high optical transparency of ion plated indium oxide combined with their mechanical hardness and good environmental stability have opened up numerous applications in the line of sophisticated optoelectronic devices. Indium is evaporated at a low oxygen pressure on to an ordinary glass substrate mounted under the cathode and biased by a r.f. generator at 13,6 M Hz. Infrared spectra are recorded in the range 5000–200 cm^?1 by A.T.R. and reflexion-absorption spectroscopy, and show between 800 and 200 cm^?1 bands due to stretching and bending modes predicted by a factor group analysis. A tentative assignment is made of the highest frequency. Last U.V. and visible spectra are discussed.     

Alcaloides steroidiques—LII Alcaloides du buxus balearica Willd.: Cycloprotobuxine-D, buxamine-E, buxaminol-E, N-isobutyryl-baleabuxidine-F, N-benzoyl-baleabuxidine-F, baleabuxoxazine-C, N-isobutyryl-baleabuxidienine-F, N-benzoyl-baleabuxidienine-F, N-isobutyryl-baleabuxaline-F

The following alkaloides have been extracted from the leaves of Buxus balearica Willd.: cyclomicrophylline-B, cycloprotobuxines A, C and D, baleabuxine (N-isobutyryl-baleabuxine-F), buxamine-E and buxaminol-E (already reported), N-isobutyryl- and N-benzoyl-baleabuxidine-F, baleabuxoxazine-C, N-isobutyryl- and N-benzoyl-baleabuxidienine-F, N-isobutyryl-baleabuxaline-F, the structures of which are proposed. The stereochemistry of baleabuxidines and baleabuxoxazines is established on the base of chemical correlations between these two groups and cyclomicrophyllines.     

Role of the ubiquitin proteasome system in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder. Although a subject of intense research, the etiology of PD remains poorly understood. Recently, several lines of evidence have implicated an intimate link between aberrations in the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) and PD pathogenesis. Derangements of the UPS, which normally functions as a type of protein degradation machinery, lead to alterations in protein homeostasis that could conceivably promote the toxic accumulation of proteins detrimental to neuronal survival. Not surprisingly, various cellular and animal models of PD that are based on direct disruption of UPS function reproduce the most prominent features of PD. Although persuasive, new developments in the past few years have in fact raised serious questions about the link between the UPS and PD. Here I review current thoughts and controversies about their relationship and discuss whether strategies aimed at mitigating UPS dysfunction could represent rational ways to intervene in the disease. Publication history: Republished from Current BioData's Targeted Proteins database (TPdb; http://www.targetedproteinsdb.com).     

Static charged spheres with anisotropic pressure in general relativity

We report a generalization of our earlier formalism [Pramana, 54, 663 (1998)] to obtain exact solutions of Einstein-Maxwell’s equations for static spheres filled with a charged fluid having anisotropic pressure and of null conductivity. Defining new variables: w=(4π/3)(ρ+ε)r ², u=4πξr ², v _r=4πp _r r ², v _⊥=4πp _⊥ r ²[ρ, ξ(=−(1/2)F ₁₄ F ¹⁴), p _r, p _⊥ being respectively the energy densities of matter and electrostatic fields, radial and transverse fluid pressures whereas ε denotes the eigenvalue of the conformal Weyl tensor and interpreted as the energy density of the free gravitational field], we have recast Einstein’s field equations into a form easy to integrate. Since the system is underdetermined we make the following assumptions to solve the field equations (i) u=v _r=(a ²/2κ)r ⁿ⁺², v _⊥=k ₁ v _r, w=k ₂ v _r; a ², n(>0), k ₁, k ₂ being constants with κ=((k ₁+2)/3+k ₂) and (ii) w+u=(b ²/2)r ⁿ⁺², u=v _r, v _⊥−v _r=k, with b and k as constants. In both cases the field equations are integrated completely. The first solution is regular in the metric as well as physical variables for all values of n>0. Even though the second solution contains terms like k/r ² since Q(0)=0 it is argued that the pressure anisotropy, caused by the electric flux near the centre, can be made to vanish reducing it to the generalized Cooperstock-de la Cruz solution given in [14]. The interior solutions are shown to match with the exterior Reissner-Nordstrom solution over a fixed boundary. Dedicated to Prof. F A E Pirani.     

A short range many-body potential for modelling bcc metals

The problem considered is the fitting of a many-body interaction potential to bulk crystal data. A parameterisation of the potential is assumed which is based on physical considerations. The free parameters are determined by using global optimization to perform a least squares fit, to a large number of crystal properties. This has been achieved for body centered cubic (bcc) materials. The approach adopted here fits the bcc crystal structure, as the preferred minimum energy configuration for tungsten, and also fits the dimer energetics and the elastic properties of crystalline tungsten.