Sequences with constant number of return words

An infinite word has the property R _m if every factor has exactly m return words. Vuillon showed that R ₂ characterizes Sturmian words. We prove that a word satisfies R _m if its complexity function is (m ? 1)n + 1 and if it contains no weak bispecial factor. These conditions are necessary for m = 3, whereas for m = 4 the complexity function need not be 3n + 1. A new class of words satisfying R _m is given.     

Cellulose liquefaction in acidified ethylene glycol

Wood pulp cellulose was used in a study of its catalyzed liquefaction in the presence of ethylene glycol, p-toluene sulfonic acid monohydrate or sulphuric acid being the catalysts. For this study, microcrystalline cellulose, Whatman filter paper no. 1 and cotton linters with molar masses of 76,000, 699,000 and 1,910,000 g mol⁻¹, respectively were used. This liquefaction was studied by gravimetric determinations, by X-ray diffraction analysis of the residual cellulose and by monitoring of the molar mass decrease over different time intervals, using size-exclusion chromatography. The disordered regions, even of cellulose with the highest molar mass degraded in the initial minute of liquefaction. However, the highly ordered cellulose regions remained relatively stable for a longer time. None the less, partial degradation of the highly ordered regions of the cellulose was achieved.     

Hole Migration in Telomere-Based Oligonucleotide Anions and G-Quadruplexes

Vacuum ultraviolet photoionization of a gas-phase oligonucleotide anion leads to the formation of a valence hole. This hole migrates towards an energetically favorable site where it can weaken bonds and ultimately lead to bond cleavage. We have studied Vacuum UV photoionization of deprotonated oligonucleotides containing the human telomere sequence dTTAGGG and G-quadruplex structures consisting of four dTGGGGT single strands, stabilized by NH₄⁺ counter ions. The oligonucleotide and G-quadruplex anions were confined in a radiofrequency ion trap, interfaced with a synchrotron beamline and the photofragmentation was studied using time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Oligonucleotide 12-mers containing the 5'-TTAGGG sequence were found to predominantly break in the GGG region, whereas no selective bond cleavage region was observed for the reversed 5'-GGGATT sequence. For G-quadruplex structures, fragmentation was quenched and mostly non-dissociative single and double electron removal was observed.     

Between species diversity of Hypericum perforatum and H. maculatum by the content of bioactive compounds

The objective of present study was to establish and compare the contents of secondary metabolites of two Hypericum species, H. perforatum and H. maculatum, native to Lithuania, and to evaluate factors predetermining their variation with some practical implications for utilization and conservation. The HPLC analysis of the ethanolic extracts of the studied species showed some regularity in their composition. Both species contained chlorogenic acid, hyperoside, quercitrin, quercetin and hypericin. The presence of rutin and hyperforin was observed only in H. perforatum. The quantitative analysis showed higher content of quercitrin in H. perforatum, than in H. maculatum, whereas the differences in the contents of quercetin, hypericin and chlorogenic acid were not statistically significant between the species. H. maculatum contained a significantly higher content of hyperoside than H. perforatum. The data on phytochemical analysis suggest almost equivalent use of both H. perforatum and H. maculatum extracts in the food industry, cosmetics and pharmaceutics.     

Switching the Inhibitor-Enzyme Recognition Profile via Chimeric Carbonic Anhydrase XII

A key part of the optimization of small molecules in pharmaceutical inhibitor development is to vary the molecular design to enhance complementarity of chemical features of the compound with the positioning of amino acids in the active site of a target enzyme. Typically this involves iterations of synthesis, to modify the compound, and biophysical assay, to assess the outcomes. Selective targeting of the anti-cancer carbonic anhydrase isoform XII (CA XII), this process is challenging because the overall fold is very similar across the twelve CA isoforms. To enhance drug development for CA XII we used a reverse engineering approach where mutation of the key six amino acids in the active site of human CA XII into the CA II isoform was performed to provide a protein chimera (chCA XII) which is amenable to structure-based compound optimization. Through determination of structural detail and affinity measurement of the interaction with over 60 compounds we observed that the compounds that bound CA XII more strongly than CA II, switched their preference and bound more strongly to the engineered chimera, chCA XII, based on CA II, but containing the 6 key amino acids from CA XII, behaved as CA XII in its compound recognition profile. The structures of the compounds in the chimeric active site also resembled those determined for complexes with CA XII, hence validating this protein engineering approach in the development of new inhibitors.     

Sparsely intersecting perfect matchings in cubic graphs

In 1971, Fulkerson made a conjecture that every bridgeless cubic graph contains a family of six perfect matchings such that each edge belongs to exactly two of them; equivalently, such that no three of the matchings have an edge in common. In 1994, Fan and Raspaud proposed a weaker conjecture which requires only three perfect matchings with no edge in common. In this paper we discuss these and other related conjectures and make a step towards Fulkerson’s conjecture by proving the following result: Every bridgeless cubic graph which has a 2-factor with at most two odd circuits contains three perfect matchings with no edge in common.     

Comparison of Glassy Carbon and Copper Microparticles as a Renewable Working Electrode Material for Amperometric Determination of Amino Acids Using Flow Through Detector

Flow‐through detector with renewable working material based on glassy carbon or copper microparticles was used for flow injection determination of tyrosine by direct oxidation and phenylalanine via the complexation reaction with copper ions, respectively. Copper‐based detector allows the determination of electrochemically inactive amino acid, but the detection conditions are limited and fabrication and handling of the detector are more demanding. Low working potential, applied for the detection on copper microparticles, makes the determination very selective. Moreover, low baseline noise compensates lower sensitivity of copper‐based detector, enabling to reach quantification limit 4.7×10^?6 mol L^?1, in comparison with quantification limit 1.6×10^?6 mol L^?1 obtained for tyrosine on carbon‐based detector.