Dicarboxylic acids and hydroxy fatty acids in different species of fungi

Secondary metabolites of fungi can be responsible for allergies; therefore, the identification of compounds produced by these organisms is very important. Fungi produce large amounts of secondary metabolites, which belong to groups of chemicals such as: dicarboxylic acids, hydroxy acids, alcohols, hydrocarbons, esters, fatty acids, sterols, amino acids and mycotoxins. The presence of all these compounds in human proximity contributes to many diseases. Therefore, the aim of the study was a qualitative and quantitative analysis of hydroxy and dicarboxylic acids produced by fungi occurring in student hostel in Poland, in the province of Pomerania. The following species of fungi were subjected to extraction: Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus candidus, Rhizopus sp., Geotrichum candidum, and Penicillium chrysogenum. A mixture of ethyl acetate and methanol was used for the extraction. The obtained extracts were further analyzed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS). In all samples of fungi, the presence of a total of 22 acids, including 13 dicarboxylic and 9 hydroxy acids, was confirmed. Most acids (17 different acids) were identified in A. fumigatus. Only 10 acids were identified in the mycelium of G. candidum and A. niger. Acids which were identified in all samples of the mycelium were 22-hydroxydocosanoic acid, 24-hydroxytetracosanoic acid and adipic acid. The most abundant compounds were 22-hydroxydocosanoic acid in A. fumigatus, A. candidus, Rhizopus sp., G. candidum and P. chrysogenum, and succinic acid in A. niger. More experiments are needed to understand the physiological role of hydroxy and dicarboxylic acids. We hope that our results are an important contribution to further studies on the human health.     

On the continuity of superposition operators in the space of functions of bounded variation

In the paper we present results on the continuity of nonlinear superposition operators acting in the space of functions of bounded variation in the sense of Jordan. It is shown that the continuity of an autonomous superposition operator is automatically guaranteed if the acting condition is met. We also give a simple proof of the fact that a nonautonomous superposition operator generated by a continuously differentiable function is uniformly continuous on bounded sets. Moreover, we present necessary and sufficient conditions for the continuity of a superposition operator (autonomous or nonautonomous) in a general setting. Thus, we give the answers to two basic open problems mentioned in the monograph (Appell et al. in Bounded variation and around, series in nonlinear analysis and application, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2014).     

Mouse thymidylate synthase does not show the inactive conformation,observed for the human enzyme

Crystal structures of mouse thymidylate synthase (mTS) in complexes with (1) sulfate anion, (2) 2′-deoxyuridine 5′-monophosphate (dUMP) and (3) 5-fluoro-dUMP (FdUMP) and N ^5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate (meTHF) have been determined and deposited in Protein Data Bank under the accession codes 3IHI, 4E5O and 5FCT, respectively. The structures show a strong overall similarity to the corresponding structures of rat and human thymidylate synthases (rTS and hTS, respectively). Unlike with hTS, whose unliganded and liganded forms assume different conformations (“inactive” and “active,” respectively) in the loop 181–197, in each of the three mTS structures, the loop 175–191, homologous to hTS loop 181–197, populates the active conformer, with catalytic Cys 189 buried in the active site and directed toward C(6) of the pyrimidine ring of dUMP/FdUMP, pointing to protein’s inability to adopt the inactive conformation. The binary structures of either dUMP- or sulfate-bound mTS, showing the enzyme with open active site and extended C-terminus, differ from the structure of the mTS–5-FdUMP–meTHF ternary complex, with the active site closed and C-terminus folded inward, thus covering the active site cleft. Another difference pertains to the conformation of the Arg44 side chain in the active site-flanking loop 41–47, forming strong hydrogen bonds with the dUMP/FdUMP phosphate moiety in each of the two liganded mTS structures, but turning away from the active site entrance and loosing the possibility of H-bonding with sulfate in the sulfate-bound mTS structure.     

Banach-Mazur Distances and Projections on Random Subgaussian Polytopes

We consider polytopes in that are generated by N vectors in whose coordinates are independent subgaussian random variables. (A particular case of such polytopes are symmetric random polytopes generated by N independent vertices of the unit cube.) We show that for a random pair of such polytopes the Banach-Mazur distance between them is essentially of a maximal order n. This result is an analogue of the well-known Gluskin's result for spherical vectors. We also study the norms of projections on such polytopes and prove an analogue of Gluskin's and Szarek's results on basis constants. The proofs are based on a version of "small ball" estimates for linear images of random subgaussian vectors.     

Approximation of the Hausdorff distance by the distance of continuous surjections

The aim of this paper is to answer the following question: let (X,?) and (Y,d) be metric spaces, let A,B⊂Y be continuous images of the space X and let be a fixed continuous surjection. When is the inequality

     

Signal-to-noise ratio comparison of phased-array vs. implantable coil for rat spinal cord MRI

The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance and practicality issues of a four-element phased-array coil and an implantable coil system were compared for rat spinal cord magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 7 T. MRI scans of the rat spinal cord at T10 were acquired from eight rats over a 3 week period using both coil systems, with and without laminectomy. The results demonstrate that both the phased array and the implantable coil systems are feasible options for rat spinal cord imaging at 7 T, with both systems providing adequate SNR for 100-mum spatial resolution at reasonable imaging times. The implantable coils provided significantly higher SNR, as compared to the phased array (average SNR gain of 5.3x between the laminectomy groups and 2.5x between the nonlaminectomy groups). The implantable coil system should be used if maximal SNR is critical, whereas the phased array is a good choice for its ease of use and lesser invasiveness.     

Net charge and electrophoretic mobility of lysozyme charge ladders in solutions of nonionic surfactant

We report on the electrophoretic mobility and on the thermal diffusion of lysozyme proteins dissolved in aqueous solutions of a nonionic surfactant (C12E6) at a wide range of concentrations of the surfactant (0-20% by weight). We want to estimate the influence of a dense network of elongated micelles of C12E6 on the effective charge of the proteins as observed in the capillary electrophoresis experiments. The possible mechanism leading to the change in the effective charge of protein could involve the deformation of the cloud of counterions around the protein when it squeezes through the narrow (of the order of a protein diameter) aqueous channels formed in the solution of elongated micelles. The combination of independent measurements of the electrophoretic mobility of a family of modified proteins (lysozyme charge ladder [Colton et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1997, 119, 12701]), of the microviscosity of the solutions of surfactant (obtained via fluorescence correlation spectroscopy), and of the hydrodynamic radius of the proteins (photon correlation spectroscopy) allow us to conclude that the effective charge of the proteins is not affected by the presence of surfactant, even at high concentrations.     

Theoretical Raman and infrared spectra, and vibrational assignment for para-halogenoanilines: DFT study

The theoretical IR and Raman spectra of para-halogenoanilines, 4-XC(6)H(4)NH(2) (X=F, Cl and Br) were calculated by using the density functional B3LYP method with the 6-311++G(df,pd) basis set. The theoretical spectra show very good agreement with experiment. The rigorous normal coordinate analyses have been performed, and the detailed vibrational assignment has been made on the basis of the calculated potential energy distributions (PEDs). Several ambiguities and contradictions in the previously reported vibrational assignments have been clarified. The "marker bands" and the effects of the halogen substituent on the characteristic aniline bands in the IR and Raman spectra are discussed.