Energy Landscape of Aptamer/Protein Complexes Studied by Single‐Molecule Force Spectroscopy

Aptamers are single‐stranded nucleic acid molecules selected in vitro to bind to a variety of target molecules. Aptamers bound to proteins are emerging as a new class of molecules that rival commonly used antibodies in both therapeutic and diagnostic applications. With the increasing application of aptamers as molecular probes for protein recognition, it is important to understand the molecular mechanism of aptamer–protein interaction. Recently, we developed a method of using atomic force microscopy (AFM) to study the single‐molecule rupture force of aptamer/protein complexes. In this work, we investigate further the unbinding dynamics of aptamer/protein complexes and their dissociation‐energy landscape by AFM. The dependence of single‐molecule force on the AFM loading rate was plotted for three aptamer/protein complexes and their dissociation rate constants, and other parameters characterizing their dissociation pathways were obtained. Furthermore, the single‐molecule force spectra of three aptamer/protein complexes were compared to those of the corresponding antibody/protein complexes in the same loading‐rate range. The results revealed two activation barriers and one intermediate state in the unbinding process of aptamer/protein complexes, which is different from the energy landscape of antibody/protein complexes. The results provide new information for the study of aptamer–protein interaction at the molecular level.     

Structures and stability of N7+ and N7− clusters

Ab initio molecular orbital theory and density functional theory have been used to study nine isomers of N₇ ionic clusters with low spin at the HF/6-31G*, MP2/6-31G*, B3LYP/6-31G*, and B3LYP/6-311(+)G* levels of theory. All stationary points are examined with harmonic vibrational frequency analyses. Four N₇ ⁺ isomers and five N₇ ⁻ isomers are determined to be local minima or very close to the minima on their potential-energy hypersurfaces, respectively. For N₇ ⁺ and N₇ ⁻, the energetically low lying isomers are open-chain structures (C _{2 v} and C _{2 v} or C₂). The results are very similar to those of other known odd-number nitrogen ions, such as N₅ ⁺, N₉ ⁺, and N₉ ⁻, for which the open-chain structures are also the global minima. This research suggests that the N₇ ionic clusters are likely to be stable and to be potential high-energy-density materials if they could be synthesized. Received: 16 July 2001 / Accepted: 8 October 2001 / Published online: 21 January 2002     

Synthesis of functional microcapsules containing suspensions responsive to electric fields

A sort of functional microcapsules, which contain a suspension responsive to electric fields, is prepared by in situ polymerization of urea and formaldehyde. The suspension is made up of pigment phthalocyanine green (PPG) and tetrachloroethylene. In order to solve the particles' separation from the suspension during the microencapsulation and to obtain microcapsules applying to electronic ink display, the dispersibility of the particles, the contact angles between the particles and the tetrachloroethylene, and the influences of different emulsifiers on the microencapsulation are investigated. It is found that the dispersion extent and lipophilicity of the PPG particles are improved due to their surface modification with octadecylamine. The contact angles between the modified PPG particles and the tetrachloroethylene increase, and the PPG particles modified with 2 wt% octadecylamine have the best affinity for tetrachloroethylene. The interfacial tension between C(2)Cl(4) and H(2)O with urea-formaldehyde prepolymer descends from 43 to 35 mN/m, which indicates that the polymer has certain surface activity. However, water-soluble emulsifiers have an important influence during the microencapsulation because they can absorb on the surfaces of internal phase and prevent the resin of urea-formaldehyde from depositing there. From the SEM images of shell surface and cross section, the microcapsules have relatively smooth surfaces and the average thickness is about 4.5 mum. When the microcapsules are prepared with agitation rates of 1000 and 600 rpm, the mean diameters of the obtained microcapsules are 11 and 155 mum, respectively. The particles in the capsules move toward positive electrode with a responsive time of several hundred milliseconds while providing an electric field.     

Gleichverteilung und Quadratwurzelschnecke

A new proof of a theorem of W. Neiss is given that the rays of the Quadratwurzelschnecke are uniformly distributed mod 2 . The exact order of the discrepancy of the sequence is determined. Multidimensional generalizations of this sequence are also considered. It is shown that the Quadratwurzelschnecke is something like a roulette.

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Mit 2 Abbildungen

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Herrn Prof. R. M. Redheffer in Freundschaft zum 60. Geburtstag gewidmet     

Der quadratfreie Kern der Eulerschen φ-Funktion

It is shown by a simple induction that any square-free natural number is the square-free kernel of Euler's -function of infinitely many natural numbers. Furthermore every square-free natural number >1 is the square-free kernel of Euler's -function of infinitely many square-numbers.     

两种胶原纤维固化单宁对La3+的吸附特性研究

以皮胶原纤维为基质,通过交联剂分别将黑荆树单宁和杨梅单宁固化在胶原纤维上制备吸附材料。实验表明,这两种吸附材料对稀土金属离子La^3＋有很好的吸附作用。在pH为4.5的条件下,当吸附剂用量为0.1 g,La^3＋初始浓度为9.952 mmol·L^-1,固化杨梅单宁的平衡吸附量为0.388 mmol·g^-1,比固化黑荆树单宁略大,其吸附平衡均符合Freundlich方程。进一步研究了固化杨梅单宁的吸附动力学、温度、pH值等对吸附平衡的影响。结果表明,温度对吸附平衡的影响不明显;pH值对吸附平衡有较大影响,在适当范围内提高pH值会增加平衡吸附量;吸附动力学可用拟二级速度方程来描述。当吸附温度为293 K时,由拟二级速率方程计算所得的平衡吸附量与实测的平衡吸附量误差在3%以内。同时固化杨梅单宁也具有良好的柱动力学特性。     

Synthesis of new tetrazene（N-N=N-N）-linked bi（1,2,4-triazole）

The reaction of 4-amino-1,2,4-triazole with sodium dichloroisocyanurate (SDCI) afforded new tetrazene(N-N=N-N)-linked bi(1.2,4-triazole) 2a in excellent yield.Increasing the molar ratio of SDCI to 4-amino-1,2,4-triazole,the chlorinated product 1,5,5′- trichloro-4,4′-azo-1,2,4-triazole (2b) was formed.These new compounds have been characterized by MS,~1H NMR,~(13)C NMR,and elemental analysis.     

Effects of Calcination Temperature on the Acidity and Catalytic Performances of HZSM-5 Zeolite Catalysts for the Catalytic Cracking of n-Butane

The acidic modulations of a series of HZSM-5 catalysts were successfully made by calcination at different treatment temperatures, i.e. 500, 600, 650, 700 and 800 ℃, respectively. The results indicated that the total acid amounts, their density and the amount of B-type acid of HZSM-5 catalysts rapidly decreased, while the amounts of L-type acid had almost no change and thus the ratio of L/B was obviously enhanced with the increase of calcination temperature (excluding 800 ℃). The catalytic performances of modified HZSM-5 catalysts for the cracking of n-butane were also investigated. The main properties of these catalysts were characterized by means of XRD, N2 adsorption at low temperature, NH3-TPD, FTIR of pyridine adsorption and BET surface area measurements. The results showed that HZSM-5 zeolite pretreated at 800 ℃ had very low catalytic activity for n-butane cracking. In the calcination temperature range of 500-700 ℃, the total selectivity to olefins, propylene and butene were increased with the increase of calcination temperature, while, the selectivity for arene decreased with the calcination temperature.The HZSM-5 zeolite calcined at 700 ℃ produced light olefins with high yield, at the reaction temperature of 650 ℃ the yields of total olefins and ethylene were 52.8% and 29.4%, respectively. Besides, the more important role is that high calcination temperature treatment improved the duration stability of HZSM-5zeolites. The effect of calcination temperature on the physico-chemical properties and catalytic performance of HZSM-5 for cracking of n-butane was explored. It was found that the calcination temperature had large effects on the surface area, crystallinity and acid properties of HZSM-5 catalyst, which further affected the catalytic performance for n-butane cracking.     

Electrochemical Behavior and Determination of Uric Acid at Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Modified Gold Electrodes

The voltammetric behavior of uric acid was studied at a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) modified gold electrode. Uric acid can effectively accumulate at this electrode and produce an anodic peak at about 0.45 V (vs. SCE) in pH 5.0 sodium acetate buffer solutions (HAc-NaAc). The experimental parameters, such as solution pH, accumulation time, and amount of SWNT, were optimized for determination. Under the optimum conditions, the anodic peak current is linear to the uric acid concentration over the range of 1.0×10⁻⁷ M to 2.5×10⁻⁵ M with a correlation coefficient of 0.998. The detection limit was 5.0×10⁻⁸ M for 60 s accumulation. The electrode could be easily regenerated and exhibited good stability. A 5.0×10⁻⁶ M uric acid solution was measured ten times using the same electrode, and the relative standard deviation of the peak current was 1.3%. This method was successfully applied to the determination of uric acid in human urine samples, and the recovery was 97–99%. The feasibility for simultaneous determination of xanthine, ascorbic acid and uric acid was discussed. These species did not interfere with each other in a certain concentration range. The influence of some surfactants on the anodic peak was also examined.