Tracing Lysozyme-Lipid Interactions with Long-Wavelength Squaraine Dyes

The applicability of the two newly commercial available squaraine labels Square-670-NHS and Seta-635-NHS to exploring protein-lipid interactions has been evaluated. The labels were conjugated to lysozyme (Lz) (squaraine-lysozyme conjugates below referred to as Square-670-Lz and Seta-635-Lz), a structurally well-characterized small globular protein displaying the ability to interact both, electrostatically and hydrophobically with lipids. The lipid component of the model systems was represented by lipid vesicles composed of zwitterionic lipids egg yolk phosphatidylcholine (PC) and 1-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (SOPC), and their mixtures with anionic lipids either beef heart cardiolipin (CL) or 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoglycerol (POPG), respectively. Fluorescence intensity of Square-670-Lz was found to decrease upon association with lipid bilayer, while the fluorescence intensity of Seta-635-Lz displayed more complex behavior depending on lipid-to-protein molar ratio. Covalent coupling of squaraine labels to lysozyme exerts different influence on the properties of dye-protein conjugate. It was suggested that Square-670-NHS covalent attachment to Lz molecule enhances protein propensity for self-association, while squaraine label Seta-635-NHS is sensitive to different modes of lysozyme-lipid interactions—within the L:P range 6–11, when hydrophobic protein-lipid interactions are predominant, an aggregation of membrane-bound protein molecules takes place, thereby decreasing the fluorescence intensity of Seta-635-Lz. At higher L:P values (from 22 to 148) when electrostatic interactions are enhanced fluorescence intensity of Seta-635-Lz increases with increasing lipid concentrations.     

有散射微粒染料的光辐射

当染料溶液中存在强散射微粒时，激光激励能产生强的窄光谱宽度的辐射，这种效应与增益区的长度有关，光子和散射颗粒的多次弹性散射可以增大有效增益长度。     

New Method for Covalent Fluorescent Biomolecule Labeling with Hemicyanine Dye

Fluorescent chromophore, alkylamino-(tetra-hydronaphthalenylidene)- benzothiazolium derivatives (HBTN dyes), are proposed as covalent labels for proteins via aliphatic amino groups. Spectral-luminescent properties of 3-methyl-2-{(E)-[7-(methylamino)-4,4a,5,6-tetra-hydronaphthalen-2(3H)-ylidene]methyl}-1,3-benzothiazol-3-ium chloride (HBTN, R=Me) and its predecessor, 2-[(E)-(7-methoxy-4,4a,5,6-tetrahydronaphthalen-2(3H)-ylidene)methyl]-3-methyl-1,3-benzothia-zol-3-ium chloride (ABTN), are studied for free dyes and in the presence of DNA and BSA. Considerable spectral-luminescent changes accompany the transformation of ABTN into HBTN that allows monitoring conjugation reaction. In presence of DNA and BSA the HBTN increases its emission in 15 and 4 times respectively and becomes strongly fluorescent. The conditions for labeling are developed and a model conjugate of HBTN dye with BSA is synthesized. It was shown that using of HBTN dye as a fluorescent label allows detection by eye of about 3 μg/band of BSA on polyacrylamide gel upon UV-irradiation.     

Absorption and Emission Properties of a New Two-photon Absorption Dye

The emission properties of a newly synthesized organic two-photon absorption dye, trans-4-[p-(N-ethyl-N-ethylamino)-styryl]-N-methyl-pyridinium tetraphenylborate, have been investigated. When pumped by infrared pulses from a picosecond Nd∶YAG laser, the dye exhibits intense upconverted fluorescence and strong superradiance properties. For comparison, the one-photon induced fluorescence and superradiance are also measured. The one- and two-photon excited fluorescent lifetimes are 86 and 64 ps, respectively. The maximum efficiency of the dye is measured to be 1.97% and the upconversion efficiencies at different pump wavelengths have also been investigated by the optical parametric amplifier.     

5,9-Diaminodibenzo[a,j]phenoxazinium Chloride: A Rediscovered Efficient Long Wavelength Fluorescent Dye

We have evaluated the chemical, photophysical and photostability properties of 5,9-diaminodibenzo[a,j]phenoxazinium chloride, 3, and its bis-5,9-ethylamino analogue, 4, with the goal of determining if they have characteristics that are compatible with the requirements of a useful fluorescent probe. In order to gauge the potential utility of these fluorophores in biological and non-biological applications, these data were compared to those obtained for Oxazine 118, 1, and Cresyl Violet, 2, two well known fluorescent dyes that differ in molecular structure from the title dye 3 by having two or one fewer benzo moieties fused to a generic oxazine ring structure, respectively. The findings of this investigation show that 3, as well as bis-ethylamino analogue, 4, have fluorescent lifetimes, quantum yields and photostabilities that compare favorably with the lower order benchmark fluorophores 1 and 2. Moreover, both dibenzo dyes have the highly desirable properties of absorbing and emitting further in the red and far red /near infrared spectral region, respectively, than do their less conjugated analogues. Taken together, these results suggest that 3 constitutes an archetype upon which a new class of long wavelength fluororescent reporters might be based.     

利用电压敏感荧光染料测定贝体中的麻痹性贝毒

麻痹性贝毒(paralytic shellfish poisoning, PSP)是分布最广、危害最大的赤潮毒素,可阻断钠离子通道从而抑制动作电位的形成导致动物体中毒。以膀胱癌移行细胞T24为实验材料,采用电压敏感荧光染料bis-oxonol,根据PSP毒素GTX2,3对藜芦定诱导细胞去极化的抑制作用,建立了一种麻痹性贝毒电压敏感荧光染料检测法。实验结果显示,在2～100 ng·mL-1范围内,PSP毒素GTX2,3可显著改变培养体系的荧光强度,GTX浓度与荧光强度之间存在很好的线性关系。市售贝类PSP毒素检测结果表明,此方法测定结果与小鼠法基本一致,但灵敏度更高,说明根据GTX浓度与荧光强度之间的线性关系可实现对样品中PSP毒素的快速检测。利用电压敏感荧光染料测定贝体中的麻痹性贝毒是一种非常有潜力的贝毒快速筛查方法。     

Absorption and Emission Properties of a New Two-photon Absorption Dye

1　Ｉｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎ　　Ｔｗｏ ｐｈｏｔｏｎａｂｓｏｒｐｔｉｏｎ (ＴＰＡ )ｉｓａｎｉｍｐｏｒｔａｎｔｎｏｎｌｉｎｅａｒａｂｓｏｒｐｔｉｏｎｐｒｏｃｅｓｓｉｎｂｏｔｈｂａｓｉｃａｎｄａｐｐｌｉｅｄｒｅｓｅａｒｃｈｅｓ.Ｆｏｒｍａｎｙｙｅａｒｓ,ｄｕｅｔｏｔｈｅｒｅｌａｔｉｖｅｌｙｓｍａｌｌＴＰＡｃｒｏｓｓ ｓｅｃｔｉｏｎｓｏｆｍｏｓｔｍａｔｅｒｉａｌｓ,ｔｗｏ ｐｈｏｔｏｎｐｒｏｃｅｓｓｅｓｗｅｒｅｆｏｕｎｄｌｉｍｉｔｅｄａｐｐｌｉｃａｔｉｏｎｓ.Ｌａｔｅｌｙ ,ｇｒｅａｔｐｒｏｇｒｅｓｓｅｓｈａｖ…     

Large Deviation Techniques Applied to Systems with Long-Range Interactions

We discuss a method to solve models with long-range interactions in the microcanonical and canonical ensemble. The method closely follows the one introduced by R.S. Ellis, Physica D 133:106 (1999), which uses large deviation techniques. We show how it can be adapted to obtain the solution of a large class of simple models, which can show ensemble inequivalence. The model Hamiltonian can have both discrete (Ising, Potts) and continuous (HMF, Free Electron Laser) state variables. This latter extension gives access to the comparison with dynamics and to the study of non-equilibrium effects. We treat both infinite range and slowly decreasing interactions and, in particular, we present the solution of the α-Ising model in one-dimension with 0 ⩽ α < 1.     

新型水溶性花菁双嵌染料荧光测定蛋白质的研究

基于蛋白质对双嵌花菁染料具有良好的荧光增强作用,以新型水溶性碳菁染1,1’-丙磺酸-3,3,3’,3’-四甲基吲哚三次甲基碳菁-5,5’-二磺酸钾为荧光探针,建立了一种新的蛋白质荧光检测体系。实验考察了探针的荧光特征、浓度、缓冲体系pH、盐浓度和乙醇有机试剂等参数对体系荧光的影响。当pH2.0,花菁染料最大荧光激发波长为548 nm,发射波长为562 nm,血清蛋白与探针作用随着探针浓度的增加而加强,荧光增强值逐渐上升;当探针浓度为1.00×10-6mol·L-1时,牛血清蛋白BSA和人血清蛋白HSA对花菁探针荧光增强作用最为明显,体系荧光强度与蛋白质浓度成良好的线性关系,BSA和HSA线性响应浓度范围分别为0.20～15.00μg·mL-1和0.20～12.00μg·mL-1, 检测限(3σ/K)为0.01μg·mL-1。测定了血清蛋白BSA的合成样品,当BSA浓度为4.00,6.00,8.00μg·mL-1时,回收率为94.5%～103.3%。     

Entanglement Entropy Signature of Quantum Phase Transitions in a Multiple Spin Interactions Model

Through the Jordan-Wigner transformation, the entanglement entropy and ground state phase diagrams of exactly solvable spin model with alternating and multiple spin exchange interactions are investigated by means of Green's function theory. In the absence of four-spin interactions, the ground state presents plentiful quantum phases due to the multiple spin interactions and magnetic fields. It is shown that the two-site entanglement entropy is a good indicator of quantum phase transition (QPT). In addition, the alternating interactions can destroy the magnetization plateau and wash out the spin-gap of low-lying excitations. However, in the presence of four-spin interactions, apart from the second order QPTs, the system manifests the first order QPT at the tricritical point and an additional new phase called ``spin waves', which is due to the collapse of the continuous tower-like low-lying excitations modulated by the four-spin interactions for large three-spin couplings.     

Spectroscopic Investigation on the Binding of a Cyanine Dye with Transferrin

Transferrin (Tf) can control the level of free iron as iron‐binding blood plasma glycoprotein in biological fluids. Tf has been exploited in the recent years on account of the potential function as a drug carrier targeting to tumor cells. Cyanine dyes have been widely studied as photosensitizers. The binding mechanism of Tf with 3, 3′‐di(3‐sulfopropyl)‐4, 5, 4′, 5′‐dibenzo‐9‐ethyl‐thiacarbocyanine triethylammonium salt (ETC) was characterized at varying pHs and temperatures by fluorescence, UV‐Vis absorption, circular dichroism (CD), and molecular modeling methods. The results showed that the static fluorescence quenching occurred between Tf and ETC. It was found that ETC bound strongly with Tf with an intrinsic binding constant (K_a), in the order of 10⁷ m ^?1. The thermodynamic parameters demonstrated that van der Waals force or hydrogen bonds were the major binding force. The binding of ETC‐Tf caused the secondary conformational change of Tf with increasing the α‐helix content in Tf, which was confirmed by the results of spectroscopic experiments. Molecular modeling revealed that ETC bound residues located in the N‐lobe of Tf by van der Waals force and induced local structural changes of Tf. This study may provide the theoretical foundations for ETC as a probe to label Tf, which is further beneficial to the Tf‐targeted drugs in vivo. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Color-Flavor Locked Strangelets in a New Quark Model with Linear Confinement and Coulomb-Type Interactions

The color-flavor locked (CFL) strangelets have been investigated in a new quark model with linear confinement and one-gluon-exchange interactions. Considering Coulomb energy, we have studied the properties of three kinds of CFL strangelets, namely, positively charged, negatively charged and nearly neutral CFL strangelets. It is found that the one-gluon-exchange effect lowers the energy of a strangelet considerably and thus makes it much more stable than without considering the effect. The charge of a positive strangelet is larger than 0.15A^2/3 with A being the baryon number, but smaller than that in bag model. The charge of a negatively charged or nearly neutral CFL strangelet is nearly proportional to A^1/3.     

New Electroweak Model Without a Higgs Particle

A new unified electroweak model is proposed in this paper. In this unified electroweak model, Higgsmechanism is not used, so no Higgs particle exists in the model. In order to keep the masses of intermediate gaugebosons non-zero, two sets of gauge fields will be introduced. In order to introduce symmetry breaking and to help tointroduce the masses of all fields, a vacuum potential is needed. Except for those terms concerning Higgs particle, thefundamental dynamical properties of this model are similar to those of the standard model. And in a proper limit, thismodel will approximately return to the standard model. The purpose of this paper is not to say that the Higgs particledoes not exist in Nature, it is only to prove that, without a Higgs particle, we can also set up a unified electroweak modelwhich is consistent with present experiments.     

Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices with Higher-Order Interactions

The higher-order interactions of Bose-Einstein condensate in multi-dimensional optical lattices are discussed both analytically and numerically.It is demonstrated that the effects of the higher-order atomic interactions on the sound speed and the stabilities of Bloch waves strongly depend on the lattice strength.In the presence of higher-order effects,tighter and high-dimensional lattices are confirmed to be two positive factors for maintaining the system's energetic stability,and the dynamical instability of Bloch waves can take place simultaneously with the energetic instability.In addition,we find that the higher-order interactions exhibit a long-range behavior and the long-lived coherent Bloch oscillations in a tilted optical lattice exist.Our results provide an effective way to probe the higher-order interactions in optical lattices.     

The Relevance of Interactions in Nanoparticle Systems – Application to Particulate Thin Films

In the field of Particle Technology, processes cannot yet be designed from basic molecular understanding. Nanotechnology, however, begins to bridge this gap between molecules and particles and may thus open up new ways not only for the production and handling of particulate matter but also for the engineered design of advanced material properties. The visions and applications in nanoparticle technology cover a broad range, for instance quantum dots in information technology, refractory particles for advanced ceramics, highly active substances in pharmacy, catalysts or micro‐ and mesoporous adsorbents, to name only a few applications. Starting from the concept of product engineering, we investigate the basic preconditions for tailoring nanoparticulate properties, i.e. the control of the particle interactions. This concept is then applied to particulate thin film formation as an example of structure formation. The structure of dip‐coated samples, defined as the order of particles within the layer, was found to vary with the pH and the ion concentration adjusted in the sol bath. It was observed that the surface roughness scanned by an atomic force microscope increased with increasing electrolyte concentration. The structural evolution of the particulate network was studied by measuring the viscosity as a function of shear rate and solid concentration. Finally, the influence of coating structures on the transmission properties was determined. Especially in the case of LaCl₃ a strong dependence was observed. The results explicitly confirm a correlation between microscopic structure and macroscopic properties.     

Two Electrons with Spin-Orbit Interactions in InAs Coupled Quantum Dots

We theoretically study the spin properties of two interacting electrons confined in the IhAs parallel coupled quantum dots （CQDs） with spin-orbit interactions （SOI） by exact diagonalization method. Through the SOI induced spin mixing of the singlet and the triplet states, we show the different spin properties for the weak and strong SOI. We investigate the coherent singlet-triplet spin oscillations of the two electrons under the SOI, and demonstrate the detailed behaviors of the spin oscillations depending on the SOI strengths, the inter-dot separations and the external magnetic fields. To better understand the underlying physics of the spin dynamics, we introduce a four-level model Hamiltonian for both weak and strong SOI, and find that the SOI induced in plane effective magnetic fields can be quantitatively extracted from the two-electron excitation energy spectra.     

Specificity of Cyanine Dye L-21 Aggregation in Solutions with Nucleic Acids

Optical spectroscopy experiments were used to study the features of cyanine dye 3,3′-dimethyl-9-(2-thienyl)-thiacarbocyanine iodide (L-21) aggregation in binary solutions DMF:Tris–HCl buffer (pH = 8) containing nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). The appearance of absorption and luminescence bands associated with J-aggregates and dimers that are formed within the minor groove of DNA has been observed. The model of L-21 J-aggregate structure is proposed. It has been found that dimers are the building blocks of L-21 J-aggregates. Disorientation in dimers caused by the minor groove curvature is reason of observation of Davydov splitting in absorption spectrum of L-21 J-aggregates. In the solution containing DNA the absorption and luminescence bands of L-21 J-aggregates exhibit the specific properties that allows the dye L-21 to be used as a fluorescent probe for DNA detection.     

Electronic Excitation Energy Transfer between Different Types of Dye Molecules in a Porous Glass Matrix

The processes of electronic excitation energy transfer (EEET) between different types of dye molecules inserted into the matrix of a porous glass have been investigated. An extreme character of the dependence of the EEET efficiency on the size of pores has been revealed. The dependence of the fractal dimensionality of the distribution of dye molecules on the sizes of the pores has been determined. __________ Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 72, No. 4, pp. 446–449, July–August, 2005.     

Critical Behavior of the Gaussian Model with Periodic Interactions on Diamond—Type Hierarchical Lattices in External Magnetic Fields

The Gaussian spin model with periodic interactions on the diamond-type hierarchical lattices is constructed by generalizing that with uniform interactions on translationally invariant lattices according to a class of substitution sequences.The Gaussian distribution constants and imposed external magnetic fields are also periodic depending on the periodic characteristic of the interaction onds.The critical behaviors of this generalized Gaussian model in external magnetic fields are studied by the exact renormalization-group approach and spin rescaling method.The critical points and all the critical exponents are obtained.The critical behaviors are found to be determined by the Gaussian distribution constants and the fractal dimensions of the lattices.When all the Gaussian distribution constants are the same,the dependence of the critical exponents on the dimensions of the lattices is the same as that of the Gaussian model with uniform interactions on translationally invariant lattices.