Investigation of Entry Region Turbulent Flows of Non-Gray Gases

The entrance region turbulent flow between parallel planes has been investigated numerically. Variation of fluid properties with temperature has been considered. Monte Carlo simulation has been used with a narrow band non-gray model to investigate radiative transfer. The effects of radiative transfer and variable properties have been separately and systematically considered. Representative results are included for carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. For the conditions considered, the results show that the variable properties exert a stronger influence compared to radiative transfer alone.     

Chemical Physics in Living Cells-using Light to Visualize and Control Intracellular Signal Transduction?

Cells are crowded microenvironments filled with macromolecules undergoing constant physical and chemical interactions. The physicochemical makeup of the cells affects various cellular responses, determines cell-cell interactions and influences cell decisions. Chemical and physical properties differ between cells and within cells. Moreover, these properties are subject to dynamic changes in response to environmental signals, which often demand adjustments in the chemical or physical states of intracellular molecules. Indeed, cellular responses such as gene expression rely on the faithful relay of information from the outside to the inside of the cell, a process termed signal transduction. The signal often traverses a complex path across subcellular spaces with variable physical chemistry, sometimes even influencing it. Understanding the molecular states of such signaling molecules and their intracellular environments is vital to our understanding of the cell. Exploring such intricate spaces is possible today largely because of experimental and theoretical tools. Here, we focus on one tool that is commonly used in chemical physics studies-light. We summarize recent work which uses light to both visualize the cellular environment and also control intracellular processes along the axis of signal transduction. We highlight recent accomplishments in optical microscopy and optogenetics, an emerging experimental strategy which utilizes light to control the molecular processes in live cells. We believe that optogenetics lends unprecedented spatiotemporal precision to the manipulation of physicochemical properties in biological contexts. We hope to use this work to demonstrate new opportunities for chemical physicists who are interested in pursuing biological and biomedical questions.     

A simple spectrophotometric determination of some chlorobenzoquinones with morpholine, thiomorpholine and piperazine

A spectrophotometric method for the determination of 2,5-dichloro-, 2,6-dichloro- and 2,3,5,6-tetrachloro-1,4-benzoquinones is based on the yellow products of their reaction with morpholine, thiomorpholine and piperazine in chloroform.     

Pentopyranosyl Oligonucleotide Systems. Communication No. 13

Among the members of a family of diastereoisomeric pentopyranosyl‐(4′→2′)‐oligonucleotide systems derived from D ‐ribose, D ‐xylose, L ‐lyxose, and L ‐arabinose, the α‐arabinopyranosyl system shows by far the strongest Watson? Crick base pairing. The system is, in fact, one of the strongest oligonucleotide‐type base‐pairing systems known. It undergoes efficient cross‐pairing with all the other members of the pentopyranosyl family, but not with RNA and DNA. The paper describes the synthesis and pairing of the properties of α‐L ‐arabinopyranosyl‐(4′→2′)‐oligonucleotides.     

Probing the interaction of HTI-286 with tubulin using a stilbene analogue

HTI-286 is a synthetic analogue of the natural product hemiasterlin. HTI-286 is a potent antitumor agent that induces tubulin oligomerization. To investigate the binding stoichiometry and the binding site during this ligand-induced tubulin association, we synthesized an analogue of HTI-286 containing the chromophore stilbene. Using the distinct absorbance of the stilbene analogue, we determined the amounts of inhibitors bound to different tubulin oligomers by analytical ultracentrifugation. Herein we describe our findings based on these experiments. At the ratio of inhibitor to protein equal to or greater than 1, the stilbene analogue induces oligomerization of tubulin to a ring structure. The binding stoichiometry in the ring is one inhibitor per tubulin monomer (defined as an alpha/beta-heterodimer). At the ratio of inhibitor to protein less than 1, tubulin forms multiple intermediates, with the binding stoichiometry less than one inhibitor per tubulin monomer for all intermediates. The stable complex between the inhibitor and tubulin monomer was not detected under our experimental conditions. The binding site of the stilbene analogue does not overlap with the classic tubulin-binding agent, colchicine.