Copper Binding and Oligomerization Studies of the Metal Resistance Determinant CrdA from Helicobacter pylori

Within this research, the CrdA protein from Helicobacter pylori (HpCrdA), a putative copper-binding protein important for the survival of bacterium, was biophysically characterized in a solution, and its binding affinity toward copper was experimentally determined. Incubation of HpCrdA with Cu(II) ions favors the formation of the monomeric species in the solution. The modeled HpCrdA structure shows a conserved methionine-rich region, a potential binding site for Cu(I), as in the structures of similar copper-binding proteins, CopC and PcoC, from Pseudomonas syringae and from Escherichia coli, respectively. Within the conserved amino acid motif, HpCrdA contains two additional methionines and two glutamic acid residues (MMXEMPGMXXMXEM) in comparison to CopC and PcoC but lacks the canonical Cu(II) binding site (two His) since the sequence has no His residues. The methionine-rich site is in a flexible loop and can adopt different geometries for the two copper oxidation states. It could bind copper in both oxidation states (I and II), but with different binding affinities, micromolar was found for Cu(II), and less than nanomolar is proposed for Cu(I). Considering that CrdA is a periplasmic protein involved in chaperoning copper export and delivery in the H. pylori cell and that the affinity of the interaction corresponds to a middle or strong metal–protein interaction depending on the copper oxidation state, we conclude that the interaction also occurs in vivo and is physiologically relevant for H. pylori.     

Surface anchoring,polarization fields and memory states in polymer dispersed liquid crystals

We have investigated the formation and development of memory states in polymer dispersed liquid crystals induced by the application of a strong electric field. Both the optical transmittance and polarization field have been followed as functions of time. We have been able to distinguish between the contributions to the memory states arising from the surface anchoring of the liquid crystal at the droplet interface and from the electrical reorientation of the mesogenic molecules. The dependence of both residual transmittance and polarization field on temperature is reported and a simple model is proposed.     

Field Study on Mobility and Persistence of Linuron and Monolinuron in Agricultural Soil

Abstract

A field site equipped with suction cup lysimeters was installed at Treviglio (BG) to assess the migration capacity of the herbicides linuron and monolinuron from topsoil to groundwater and to verify the appearance of their relevant transformation products in soil and water samples. A constant hydraulic head was applied in order to develop water saturation conditions in the upper layers. KCl was used as a tracer to evaluate water infiltration velocity through the vertical soil profile. The constant hydraulic head accelerated infiltration rates, while herbicide concentrations reached maximum contamination because soil adsorption capacity was underdeveloped. The results indicated two main processes of pesticide transport: firstly transport due mainly to water infiltration through macropores; secondly the transport driven by matrix flow. Linuron was found to be the most mobile herbicide, while chloroanilines were found to be the major transformation products of the herbicides considered.     

Chemical shift anisotropy amplification

A new NMR experiment which allows a measurement of the chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) tensor under magic angle spinning (MAS) is described. This correlates a fast MAS spectrum in the omega2 dimension with a sideband pattern in omega1 in which the intensities mimic those for a sample spinning at a fraction of the rate omega r/N, and these sidebands result from an amplification by a factor N of the modulation caused by the CSA. Standard methods can be used to extract the principal tensor components from the omega1 sideband patterns, and the nature of the experiment is such that the use of a large number of t1 increments can be avoided without compromising the resolution of different chemical sites. The new experiment is useful for accurately measuring narrow shift anisotropies.     

Breaking of permutation symmetry and diagonal group action: Nielsen model and the standard model as low-energy limit

We point out that, on the basis of a theorem by L. Michel, every model based on the symmetryG ... G has a generic low-energy limit the breaking to diagonal action, i.e., toG. This applies in particular to the proposal by Nielsen to consider such a model withG the standard model group.     

Analytical theory of gamma-encoded double-quantum recoupling sequences in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance

Many important double-quantum recoupling techniques in solid-state NMR are classified as being gamma-encoded. This means that the phase of the double-quantum effective Hamiltonian, but not its amplitude, depends on the third Euler angle defining the orientation of the molecular spin system in the frame of the magic-angle-spinning rotor. In this paper, we provide closed analytical solutions for the dependence of the powder-average double-quantum-filtered signal on the recoupling times, within the average Hamiltonian approximation for gamma-encoded pulse sequences. The validity of the analytical solutions is tested by numerical simulations. The internuclear distance in a (13)C(2)-labelled retinal is estimated by fitting the analytical curves to experimental double-quantum data.     

Parity of the weak Fréedericksz transition

The European Physical Journal E - Motivated by the recent experimental findings by Kumar et al. (Phys. Rev. E., 82, 011701 (2010)) in which the inverse Fréedericksz transition is observed, we...     

Optimizing ICA in fMRI using information on spatial regularities of the sources

Spatial independent component analysis (ICA) is a well-established technique for multivariate analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. It blindly extracts spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity from functional measurements by seeking for sources that are maximally independent. Additional information on one or more sources (e.g., spatial regularity) is often available; however, it is not considered while looking for independent components. In the present work, we propose a new ICA algorithm based on the optimization of an objective function that accounts for both independence and other information on the sources or on the mixing model in a very general fashion. In particular, we apply this approach to fMRI data analysis and illustrate, by means of simulations, how inclusion of a spatial regularity term helps to recover the sources more effectively than with conventional ICA. The improvement is especially evident in high noise situations. Furthermore we employ the same approach on data sets from a complex mental imagery experiment, showing that consistency and physiological plausibility of relatively weak components are improved.     

Superheating of silicon nanocrystals observed by Raman spectroscopy

In the Raman spectra of silicon nanocrystals a new anomalous component was detected. Close to the usual first order Raman peak situated for a bulk crystal at 521 cm⁻¹ at room temperature, two peaks arise shifting towards lower energy and demonstrating a huge temperature increase, as measured by the ratio of the Stokes/anti-Stokes peak intensities. This behavior is dependent on the laser power and on the morphology of the nanocrystals. We can exclude, however, confinement effects, although surface enhanced phonon modes could be responsible of such superheating. Alternative explanations are also suggested and discussed.