Microbial evasion of the immune system: structural modifications of enterobactin impair siderocalin recognition

The mammalian protein siderocalin binds and inactivates the ferric complex of the bacterial siderophore enterobactin with a Kd value similar to that of the bacterial receptor FepA. However, microorganisms can evade this immune response by structural modifications of the siderophore. The binding of siderophores by siderocalin relies in part on electrostatic interactions and does not depend greatly on what metal is in the complex. It is also sterically limited by the rigid conformation of the protein calyx; methylation of the three catecholate rings of enterobactin hinders siderocalin recognition. The siderocalin binding has been probed for a series of enterobactin analogues in order to investigate in detail the specificity of siderocalin recognition.     

Ionization of aqueous benzoic acid: Conductance and thermodynamics

Molar conductances of dilute aqueous benzoic acid solutions are presented for temperatures from 5 to 80°C. The data have been analyzed to give acid dissociation constants as well as ΔH ^o, ΔS ^o, and ΔC _p ^o for the ionization process and the limiting conductance of the benzoate ion. The conductance-viscosity product changes less than 4% over the temperature range, indicating that the interaction of the benzoate ion with the solvent changes little if at all with increasing temperature. The pK _a(m) vs.T data show that ΔH ^o decreases quadratically while ΔC _p ^o increases linearly withT although, over the 75°C range, ΔC _p ^o increases only about 6 cal-mole^?1 deg^?1 around an average of ?37 cal-mole^?1deg^?1. The acid dissociation constants as derived from the conductance-molal concentration analysis show an average uncertainty of about 0.1% and are fitted to within about 0.01% by the equation $$p{\text{K}}_{\text{a}} (m) = - 75.5422 + 3136.34/T + 28.7965 log T - 6.8139 {\text{x}} 10^{ - 3{\text{T}}} $$ whereT is the absolute temperature.     

Gauge invariance of the spin-other-orbit contribution to the g-tensors of electron paramagnetic resonance

The spin-other-orbit (SOO) contribution to the g-tensor (DeltagSOO) of electron paramagnetic resonance arises due to the interaction of electron-spin magnetic moment with the magnetic field produced by the orbital motion of other electrons. A similar mechanism is responsible for the leading term in nuclear magnetic-shielding tensors sigma. We demonstrate that analogous to sigma, paramagnetic DeltagSOO contribution exhibits a pronounced dependence on the choice of the magnetic-field gauge. The gauge corrections to DeltagSOO are similar in magnitude, and opposite in sign, to the paramagnetic SOO term. We calculate gauge-invariant DeltagSOO values using gauge-including atomic orbitals and density-functional theory. For organic radicals, complete gauge-invariant DeltagSOO values typically amount to less than 500 parts per million (ppm), and are small compared to other g-tensor contributions. For the first-row transition-metal compounds, DeltagSOO may contribute several thousand ppm to the g-tensor, but are negligible compared to the remaining deviations from experiment. With popular choices for the magnetic-field gauge, the individual gauge-variant contributions may be an order of magnitude higher, and do not provide a reliable estimation of DeltagSOO.     

Synthesis and Mechanical Properties of sub 5-μm PolyUiO-66 Thin Films on Gold Surfaces

Metal-organic framework (MOF) thin films currently lack the mechanical stability needed for electronic device applications. Polymer-based metal-organic frameworks (polyMOFs) have been suggested to provide mechanical advantages over MOFs, however, the mechanical properties of polyMOFs have not yet been characterized. In this work, we developed a method to synthesize continuous sub-5 μm polyUiO-66(Zr) films on Au substrates, which allowed us to undertake initial mechanical property investigations. Comparisons between polyUiO-66 and UiO-66 thin films determined polyUiO-66 thin films exhibit a lower modulus but similar hardness to UiO-66 thin films. The initial mechanical characterization indicates that further development is needed to leverage the mechanical property advantages of polyMOFs over MOFs. Additionally, the demonstration in this work of a continuous surface-supported polyUiO-66 thin film enables utilization of this emerging class of polyMOF materials in sensors and devices applications.     

Infinite sums of unstable Adams operations and cobordism

The elements of the ring of bidegree (0, 0) additive unstable operations in complex K-theory can be described explicitly as certain infinite sums of Adams operations. Here we show how to make sense of the same expressions for complex cobordism MU, thus identifying the “Adams subring” of the corresponding ring of cobordism operations. We prove that the Adams subring is the centre of the ring of bidegree (0, 0) additive unstable cobordism operations.For an odd prime p, the analogous result in the p-local split setting is also proved.