Stability of DNA containing a structural water mimic in an A-T rich sequence

We describe here the synthesis and properties of A-T rich DNA containing covalently bound water mimics located in the DNA minor groove.     

Palladium(II) and platinum(II) bind strongly to an engineered blue copper protein

Studies of palladium(II) and platinum(II) binding to well-characterized proteins contribute to understanding the influence of these metals in the environment and body. The well-characterized apoprotein of azurin has a soft-metal binding site that may be exposed to solvent by mutation of a coordinating His-117 residue to glycine (H117G). Palladium(II) and platinum(II) form strong 1:1 adducts with the apo form of H117G azurin. A combination of UV-vis, circular dichroism, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry techniques suggests that the metal binds specifically at His-46 and Cys-112 of the protein.     

Comments on the analytical solutions of the sticky hard rod model

The result that follows by taking the Percus-Yevick (PY) approximation from the exact analysis of the sticky hard rod model is shown to differ from that previously obtained by Tago, Y., and Katsura, S., 1975, Can. J. Phys. 53, 2587, and the correct PY compressibility and virial equations of state are given. It is also shown that Born-Green theory yields the exact solution for the sticky hard rod fluid.     

Allene-alkyne cross-coupling for stereoselective synthesis of substituted 1,4-dienes and cross-conjugated trienes

Titanium-mediated cross-coupling of allenic alcohols with alkynes has been investigated. Divergent reaction pathways were discovered that provide either stereodefined 1,4-dienes or substituted cross-conjugated trienes. In short, allene substitution plays a critical role in the determination of reaction pathway.     

Explicit integration of the full symmetric Toda hierarchy and the sorting property

We give an explicit formula for the solution to the initial-value problem of the full symmetric Toda hierarchy. The formula is obtained by the orthogonalization procedure of Szegö, and is also interpreted as a consequence of the QR factorization method of Symes. The sorting property of the dynamics is also proved for the case of a generic symmetric matrix in the sense described in the text, and generalizations of tridagonal formulae are given for the case of matrices with 2M+1 nonzero diagonals.