Thermodynamic study of transthyretin association (wild‐type and senile forms) with heparan sulfate proteoglycan: pH effect and implication of the reactive histidine residue

The tetramer destabilization of transthyretin into monomers and its fibrillation are phenomena leading to amyloid deposition. Heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG) has been found in all amyloid deposits. A chromatographic approach was developed to compare binding parameters between wild‐type transthyretin (wtTTR) and an amyloidogenic transthyretin (sTTR). Results showed a greater affinity of sTTR for HSPG at pH 7.4 compared with wtTTR owing to the monomeric form of sTTR. Analysis of the thermodynamic parameters showed that van der Waals interactions were involved at the complex interface for both transthyretin forms. For sTTR, results from the plot representing the number of protons exchanged vs pH showed that the binding mechanism was pH‐dependent with a critical value at a pH 6.5. This observation was due to the protonation of a histidine residue as an imidazolium cation, which was not accessible when TTR was in its tetrameric structure. At pH >6.5, dehydration at the binding interface and several contacts between nonpolar groups of sTTR and HSPG were also coupled to binding for an optimal hydrogen‐bond network. At pH <6.5, the protonation of the His residue from sTTR monomer when pH decreased broke the hydrogen‐bond network, leading to its destabilization and thus producing slight conformational changes in the sTTR monomer structure. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A competitive optimization approach for data clustering and orthogonal non-negative matrix factorization

4OR - Partitioning a given data-set into subsets based on similarity among the data is called clustering. Clustering is a major task in data mining and machine learning having many applications...     

Investigation of hypersonic nozzle flow uniformity using NO fluorescence

Planar laser-induced fluorescence visualisation is used to investigate nonuniformities in the flow of a hypersonic conical nozzle. Possible causes for the nonuniformity are outlined and investigated, and the problem is shown to be due to a small step at the nozzle throat. Entrainment of cold boundary layer gas is postulated as the cause of the signal nonuniformity. PACS 47.80.Jk, 47.40.Ki, 47.60.+i     

Density of states in a mesoscopic SNS junction

The semiclassical theory of proximity effects predicts a gap E _g～?D/L ² in the excitation spectrum of a long diffusive superconductor/normal-metal/superconductor (SNS) junction. Mesoscopic fluctuations lead to anomalously localized states in the normal part of the junction.As a result, a nonzero, yet exponentially small, density of states (DOS) appears at energies below E _g. In the framework of the supermatrix nonlinear σ model, these prelocalized states are due to the instanton configurations with broken supersymmetry. The exact result for the DOS near the semiclassical threshold is found, provided the dimensionless conductance of the normal part G _N is large. The case of poorly transparent interfaces between the normal and superconductive regions is also considered. In this limit, the total number of subgap states may be large.     

129Xe NMR study of the homogeneity and the size distribution of small sodium metal particles in NaY zeolite

NaY zeolite samples loaded with sodium metal by vapor phase deposition have been investigated using¹²⁹Xe NMR spectroscopy. At low sodium concentration, the¹²⁹Xe NMR spectrum showed three resonance lines which clearly indicate the existence of distinct domains in the zeolite sample. Such an observation suggests that the diffusion of the xenon atoms into each domain only occurs with respect to the NMR time scale (2.9 ms). As the sodium concentration increases, observation of a single broad line indicate a macroscopic homogenization of the system. The shift of this line is explained in part due to a paramagnetic interaction between the xenon atoms and the unpaired electrons of particles containing an odd number of sodium atoms. The linewidth is due to the distribution of the local magnetic fields partially averaged by the rapid motion of the xenon atoms and to the statistical distribution of the sodium particles in the supercage cavities. The paramagnetic interaction vanishes with the oxidation of the sample leading to a narrowing and a shift of the line to higher magnetic fields.     

Spectra and Transport in Almost Periodic Dimers

We study spectral properties of discrete Schrödinger operators with potentials obtained via dimerization of a class of aperiodic sequences. It is shown that both the nature of the autocorrelation measure of a regular sequence and the presence of generic (full probability) singular continuous spectrum in the hull of primitive and palindromic (four block substitution) potentials are robust under dimerization. Generic results also hold for circle potentials. We illustrate these results with numerical studies of the quantum mean square displacement as a function of time. The numerical techniques provide a very fast algorithm for the time evolution of wave packets.     

Formation of a two-dimensional periodic structure of local melting regions on a silicon surface upon pulsed light irradiation

The first results regarding the formation of a two-dimensional periodic structure of local melting regions on a silicon surface upon pulsed light irradiation are presented. The conditions are established, and the mechanism of the formation of such structures is discussed. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 67, 97–99 (December 1997)