Electroactivity of Nonconjugated Proteins and Peptides. Towards Electroanalysis of All Proteins

Present proteomics and biomedicine require sensitive analytical methods for all proteins. Recent progress in electrochemical analysis of peptides and proteins based on their intrinsic electroactivity is reviewed. Tyrosine and/or tryptophan‐containing proteins are oxidizable at carbon electrodes. At mercury electrodes all peptides and proteins (about 13 peptides and >25 proteins were tested) produce chronopotentiometric peak H at nanomolar concentrations. This peak is sensitive to changes in protein structure. Microliter sample volumes are sufficient for the analysis. Electrochemical methods can be used in studies of nucleic acid‐protein interactions and can be applied in biomedicine. Examples of such applications in neurogenerative diseases and cancer are presented.     

MALDI-TOF MS和电子光谱技术研究海兔肝铁蛋白亚基电离和释放铁动力学特性

选用肽质量指纹谱(peptide mass fingerprint,PMF)技术鉴定质谱纯海兔肝铁蛋白(liver ferritin ofAplysia,ALF)。来源于基质辅助激光解吸电离飞行时间质谱(MALDI-TOF MS)仪中的激光和基质芥子酸协同解吸海兔肝铁蛋白(ALF)为带双电荷、单电荷[M H] 和二聚体的亚基离子,并可供质谱分析。ALF亚基的质荷比m/z分别为9784.03[M 2H]2 、19678.42[M H] 和39387.80[2M H] ,其中亚基分子量[M H] 略小于鲨鱼肝铁蛋白(liver ferritin of shark,SLF)。在弱碱介质(pH8.0)条件下,电子光谱技术研究指出,抗坏血酸以1/2级反应方式参与ALF释放铁全过程,同时又使ALF以一级反应动力学方式释放铁,呈现两种不同的速率。推测这一异常现象可能与ALF含低铁量、亚基调节能力和海兔的进化地位有关。     

MECHANICS AND THE EVOLUTION AND FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY OF CONCHOSTRACAN CARAPACE MECHANICS AND THE EVOLUTION AND FUNCTIONAL MORPHOLOGY OF CONCHOSTRACAN CARAPACE

Conchostracans, with a laterally compressed body enclosed between two symmetric valves, live swimming in fresh or brackish water. The carapace valve has a number of growth bands with various sculptures. The general trend of sculptural evolution is from smooth to punctate-minute polygon-medium reticulation-large reticulation, while these punctate, polygonal and various reticulate patterns may separately develop into various radial ridges. The development of sculpture can be well explained by mechanical principle. Functional morphology of carapace is discussed in the light of mechanics in this paper.     

Theoretical prediction on vibrational spectra of [Ar...Ar-H]<Superscript>+</Superscript>

Centrosymmetric linear [Ar-H-Ar]⁺ and asymmetric linear [Ar---Ar-H]⁺ are two stable configurations of [Ar₂H]⁺. Based on the global potential energy surface of [Ar₂H]⁺ provided by our group recently, we calculated the vibrational spectra of [Ar---Ar-H]⁺ with total angular momentum J = 0 by time-dependent quantum mechanical method, and the influence of quantum tunneling effect on vibrational spectra was found. With the help of the observation on the eigenstate functions and the modified potential energy surface, assignments were made to the spectra. The strong coupling between the excited bending mode of [Ar-H-Ar]⁺ and the vibrational states of [Ar---Ar-H]⁺ was discussed.     

Voltammetric Behavior of Osmium‐Labeled DNA at Mercury Meniscus‐Modified Solid Amalgam Electrodes. Detecting DNA Hybridization

The complex of osmium tetroxide with 2,2′‐bipyridine has been utilized as a probe of DNA structure and an electroactive marker of DNA in DNA hybridization sensors. It produces several voltammetric signals, the most negative of them has been observed only at mercury electrodes. This signal is of catalytic nature affording a high sensitivity of DNA determination. The catalytic current due to evolution of hydrogen in voltammetry of DNA modified by complex of osmium tetroxide with 2,2′‐bipyridine (DNA‐Os,bipy) was studied. Solid amalgam electrodes (modified with mercury menisci) of silver (m‐AgSAE), copper (m‐CuSAE), gold, and of combined bismuth and silver, were used as possible substitutes for mercury electrodes. Besides the hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE), the catalytic current was observed only on m‐AgSAE and m‐CuSAE. Electrodes of gold and bismuth amalgams did not give the catalytic current. The detection limit of DNA‐Os,bipy on HMDE was 0.1 ng mL^?1 (RSD=2.3 %, N=11), and on m‐AgSAE 0.2 ng mL^?1 (RSD=3.1%, N=11). The m‐AgSAE was successfully applied as a detection electrode in double‐surface DNA hybridization experiments offering highly specific discrimination between complementary (target) and nonspecific DNAs, as well as determination of the length of a repetitive DNA sequence. The m‐AgSAE has proved a convenient alternative to the HMDE or carbon electrodes used for similar purposes in previous work.     

A stratospheric chemical reaction controlling climatic change

It has been established from geological studies that change in the atmospheric content of carbon dioxide gas commenced about one hundred million years ago. The likely origin of this change is advanced as being the onset of the Brewer circulation caused by the rise in terrain induced by tectonic plate movement. It is demonstrated that tectonic plate movement can be affected by impacts from external bodies which penetrate the crust of the Earth. The consequences of the change in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide are proposed as first, extinctions and reductions in animal numbers, including primates, as a result of changes in body chemistry of these animals and second, a change in the rate of weathering of rocks giving rise to changes in the availability of chemicals such as calcium and potassium which are essential for plant and animal life. This latter change contributing to the extinctions and reductions in animal numbers. It is shown that the change in weathering can account for the rise to dominance of angiosperm plants. It is concluded that there were several simultaneous evolutionary environments on Earth which were a function of altitude which gave rise to a vertical variation in atmospheric content of carbon dioxide. This variation disappeared with rise of terrain and the onset of the Brewer circulation. Such changes are advanced and being much more important than any changes in temperature caused by greenhouse effects since the disappearance of atmospheric variations in carbon dioxide allowed animal migration. It is demonstrated that the conditions of extinction could be reintroduced by human activities.     

双功能型嵌入镍纳米颗粒的碳棱柱状微米棒电极用于电化学甲醇氧化助力的节能产氢

With the rapid development of human society, clean energy forms are imperative to sustain the normal operations of various mechanical and electrical facilities under a cozy environment. Hydrogen is considered among the most promising clean energy sources for the future. Recently, electrochemical water splitting has been considered as one of the most efficient approaches to harvest hydrogen energy, which generates only non-pollutant water on combustion. However, the sluggish anodic oxygen evolution reaction significantly restricts the efficiency of water splitting and requires a relatively high cell voltage to drive the electrolysis. Therefore, seeking a thermodynamically favorable anodic reaction to replace the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction by utilizing highly active bifunctional electrocatalysts for the anodic reaction and hydrogen evolution are crucial for achieving energy-efficient hydrogen production for industrial applications. Nevertheless, it is known that the oxygen evolution reaction can be replaced with other useful and thermodynamically favorable reactions to reduce the electrolysis voltage for realizing energy-efficient hydrogen production. Therefore, in this study, we present a bifunctional nickel nanoparticle-embedded carbon (Ni@C) prism-like microrod electrocatalyst synthesized via a two-step method involving the synthesis of a precursor metal-organic framework-74 and subsequent carbonization treatment for methanol oxidation and hydrogen evolution. The interfacial structure consisting of a nickel and carbon skeleton was realized via in situ carbonization. However, the dispersed nickel nanoparticles do not easily aggregate owing to the partition by the surrounding carbon as it would sufficiently expose the active Ni sites to the electrolytes, ensuring fast charge transfer between the catalyst and electrolytes by accelerating the electrochemical kinetics. In the anodic methanol oxidation, the products were detected as carbon dioxide and formate with faradaic efficiencies of 36.2% and 62.5%, respectively, at an applied potential of 1.55 V. Meanwhile, the Ni@C microrod catalyst demonstrated high activity and durability (2.7% current decay after 12 h of continuous operation) toward methanol oxidation, which demonstrates that methanol oxidation precedes oxidation under voltage forces. Notably, the bifunctional catalyst not only exhibits excellent performance toward methanol oxidation but also yields a low overpotential of 155 mV to drive 10 mA∙cm⁻² toward hydrogen evolution in 1.0 mol∙L⁻¹ KOH aqueous solution with 0.5 mol∙L⁻¹ methanol at room temperature, which guarantees the hydrogen production efficiency. More importantly, the constructed two-electrode electrolyzer produced a current density of 10 mA∙cm⁻² at a low cell voltage of 1.6 V, which decreased by 240 mV after replacing the oxygen evolution reaction with methanol oxidation.     

Two problematic human polymorphic Alu insertions

Analysis of two previously described polymorphic Alu insertions (Sb19.3 and NBC3) in world-wide human populations generated genotypic frequencies grossly in violation of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium expectations. GenBank searches at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and sequencing analyses revealed that samples homozygous for the Sb19.3 Alu insertion amplify a band indistinguishable in size to the lack of insertion amplicon, corresponding to a paralogous locus on chromosome 4. This locus displays a very similar sequence (84%) to that flanking the Sb19.3 Alu insertion located at chromosome 19. Moreover, we have determined that NBC3, a different Alu insertion, is not located in the pseudoautosomal region of the Y-chromosome, as previously reported, but in position Yq11.2. Also, the band that mimics the lack of insertion amplicon corresponds to a paralogous locus located at chromosome X with a similarity of 92% to the sequence flanking the NBC3 Alu insertion. Finally, the utilization of newly designed primers avoided amplification from the paralogous loci and allowed a reliable assignation of genotypes for both loci. Unlike previously reported, using our new primers the Y-specific locus NBC3 was found not to be polymorphic in the populations analyzed.     

Robustness of Pathwise Stability of Semilinear Perturbed Stochastic Evolution Equations

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate pathwise stability for certain Hilbert space-valued stochastic evolution equations. We are especially interested in the robustness analysis of perturbed stochastic differential equations in infinite dimensions. Sufficient conditions are established to ensure the almost surely stable decay of the given stochastic systems. Lastly, a corollary and corresponding example are studied to illustrate our theory.