Bilayer-by-bilayer antiferroelectric ordering in freely suspended films of an achiral polymer-monomer liquid crystal mixture

Thin freely suspended films of a mixture of an achiral side-chain liquid crystal polymer and its monomer have been studied with depolarized reflected light microscopy. We observe that regions with an odd number of bilayers exhibit a net spontaneous polarization in the tilt plane of the molecules, while regions with an even number of bilayers have no net polarization. These odd-even effects are direct evidence that the tilted smectic bilayers are anticlinic at the polymer backbone and synclinic at bilayer interface and confirm that the phase is bilayer-by-bilayer antiferroelectric.     

Metabolic engineering to produce sesquiterpenes in yeast

[reaction: see text] Presented here is a metabolically engineered yeast strain that produces sesquiterpenes. Epi-cedrol synthase expressed in a native yeast strain converted endogenous farnesyl pyrophosphate to 90 microg/L epi-cedrol. This system was genetically modified to increase foreign terpene yields to 370 microg/L. The best yields were obtained by overexpressing a truncated 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase in a upc2-1 mating type a background. This system allows sufficient production to characterize novel sesquiterpene synthase genes.