The Effect of Albumin Fusion Patterns on the Production and Bioactivity of the Somatostatin-14 Fusion Protein in Pichia pastoris

Somatostatin is a natural inhibitor of growth hormone, and its analogues are clinically used for the therapy of acromegaly, gigantism, thyrotropinoma, and other carcinoid syndrome. However, natural somatostatin is limited for clinical usage because of its short half-life in vivo. Albumin fusion technology was used to construct long-acting fusion proteins, and Pichia pastoris was used as an expression system. Three fusion proteins, (somatostatin (SS)14)₂-human serum albumin (HSA), (SS14)₃-HSA, and HSA-(SS14)₃, were constructed with different fusion copies of somatostatin-14 and fusion orientations. The expression level of (SS14)₃-HSA and HSA-(SS14)₃ was much lower than (SS14)₂-HSA due to the additional fusion of the somatostatin-14 molecule. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry revealed that severe degradation occurred in the fermentation process. Similar to the standard of somatostatin-14, all three fusion proteins were able to inhibit growth hormone secretion in the blood, with (SS14)₂-HSA being the most effective one. On the whole, (SS14)₂-HSA was the most effective protein in both production level and bioactivity, and increasing the number of small protein copies fused to HSA may not be a suitable method to improve the protein bioactivity.     

固定床煤贫氧燃烧有机气体排放特性的GC-MS研究

在设计的可移动式固定床上对神木煤在煤颗粒尺寸为3～5mm、烟气在炉膛内的停留时间为1.76s、过量空气系数为0.4和燃烧温度分别为1100、1400和1600 K条件下进行了燃烧实验。采用气相色谱质谱联用仪(GC-MS)测试分析了烟气中有机气体的排放特性。结果显示,随着炉膛温度的升高,烟气中饱和脂肪烃的含量减少了42.98%,芳香烃含量增加了50.84%。这是由于存在的氧或含氧基团与部分饱和脂肪烃反应生成了二氧化碳和水,而芳香烃由于其氧化能力较差,在氧量不足时不容易发生氧化反应所致。     

Syntheses, crystal structures and properties of two nickel(II) coordination polymers constructed from 5-(isonicotinamido)isophthalic acid

Two Ni(II) metal–organic frameworks, [Ni(INAIP)(DMF)]·0.5DMF and [Ni(INAIP)(H₂O)]·2H₂O, have been synthesized by the reaction of 5-(isonicotinamido)isophthalic acid (H₂INAIP) with NiSO₄·6H₂O using different reaction solvents. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis indicates that [Ni(INAIP)(DMF)]·0.5DMF has a twofold interpenetrated three-dimensional (3D) framework with sra topology, while [Ni(INAIP)(H₂O)]·2H₂O has a two-dimensional (2D) network structure with a 4-connected (4³·6³) topology. In addition, the magnetic and adsorption properties of the complexes were explored.     

Influence of different divalent metal ions on the properties of alginate microcapsules and microencapsulated cells

Different divalent metal ions (Ba²⁺, Sr²⁺, Ca²⁺, Zn²⁺) were selected as crosslinkers. The mechanical properties, cytocompatibility, histocompatibility, cell proliferation and long-term cultivation were investigated. The resulting microcapsules had good sphericity, smooth surface and particle size distribution of 300–400 μm. Sr²⁺ microcapsules exhibited a better mechanical strength. The molecular weights cut-off of all membranes were between 24 and 67 kDa. All microcapsules had no cytotoxicity. After intraperitoneal transplantation, the recovered microcapsules still maintained good mechanical strength and morphology with no fibrosis or macrophage aggregation phenomena. The microencapsulated PC12 cells showed no significant variation after recultivation following microcapsule breaking. The cell activity sequence of different microcapsules after 72 h was as follows: bare control cell >Sr²⁺ > Ca²⁺ > Ba²⁺ > Zn²⁺. After 9 weeks’ in vitro culture, the cell survival rate was higher than 80 %. This paper will be of scientific interests for the basic research and clinical application of alginate/chitosan microcapsules embedded with drugs or cells.     

Catalytic Asymmetric Construction of Quaternary α‐Amino Acid Containing Pyrrolidines through 1,3‐Dipolar Cycloaddition of Azomethine Ylides to α‐Aminoacrylates

The first catalytic enantioselective 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides to α‐aminoacrylate catalyzed by a AgOAc/ferrocenyl oxazolinylphosphine (FOXAP) system was developed, which exhibits excellent exo‐ and enantioselectivity (92–99 % ee). This process provides efficient access to useful 4‐aminopyrrolidine‐2,4‐dicarboxylic acid (APDC)‐like compounds containing a unique quaternary α‐amino acid unit.     

超声波辅助木质素磺酸钠烷基化合成表面活性剂

以木质素磺酸钠(LS)和1-溴十二烷为原料,吡啶为催化剂,在碱性醇水混合溶液中,利用超声波辅助烷基化反应制备生物基表面活性剂.通过GPC,UV,FTIR和1H-NMR对木质素磺酸钠及其直接烷基化产物(ALS)、超声烷基化产物(UALS)进行结构表征,结果表明超声活化使木质素磺酸钠的分子量从154200下降到106000,酚羟基的含量从0.65%提高到1.55%,活化效率达139%.1H-NMR谱中甲氧基的峰面积占总面积的比值由超声前的36.0%下降到超声后的21.0%.烷基化反应位点是LS的酚羟基,超声波活化烷基化效率明显高于直接烷基化效率.1%质量浓度的UALS的表面张力为28.2 mN/m,相同质量浓度的ALS和LS的表面张力分别为34.1 mN/m和41.5 mN/m.UALS的临界胶束浓度(CMC)是5×10-2g/L,比LS的低近两个数量级.超声烷基化效果较直接烷基化好的原因在于超声波处理一方面提高了酚羟基的含量,一方面破坏了大分子的三维网状结构,强化了体系的传质和传热效率.     

新一代运载火箭时序仿真系统信号完整性分析

新一代运载火箭时序仿真系统具有数字电路速度快、集成度高的特点,系统要求发出多路高精度时序、时串信号以满足新一代运载火箭地面测试设备的检查与校准需求,因此信号完整性问题在系统设计中不容忽视。针对仿真系统的典型模块(USB 3.0 Super-speed差分线、FPGA外设数据走线、时钟走线)进行建模分析仿真得出PCB硬件电路设计参数,给出时序仿真系统设计信号完整性问题的抑制和解决方法,优化了板级信号质量,改善系统可靠性、工作连续性和输出精度,可有效提高新一代运载火箭测试效率和测试可靠性。     

大型砂尘风洞中砂尘浓度测量与控制方法的研究

砂尘浓度指标严重影响砂尘风洞试验效果;在大型砂尘风洞中准确的测量及有效的控制砂尘浓度是砂尘风洞设备研制中的两个关键问题;针对动态试验工况环境中浓度传感器标定的问题,分析了浓度测量时标定参数与风速和浓度的关系,使用模型树算法建立了三者之间的关系模型,以此模型来预测各种动态情况下的标定参数;针对复杂环境下浓度动态控制问题,采用专家PID算法,提出了多回路控制系统结构和专家规则;工程实践表明该测量和控制方法满足了动态试验环境的需求,取得了良好效果;模型树算法和专家PID系统能有效的解决动态工况下砂尘浓度的测量与控制问题。     

Periodic solutions for fourth-order nonlinear functional difference equations

By using the critical point method, some new criteria are obtained for the existence and multiplicity of periodic solutions for fourth-order nonlinear functional difference equations. The proof is based on the linking theorem in combination with variational technique. Recent results in the literature are generalized and significantly improved. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Additive hazards regression with random effects for clustered failure times

Additive hazards model with random effects is proposed for modelling the correlated failure time data when focus is on comparing the failure times within clusters and on estimating the correlation between failure times from the same cluster, as well as the marginal regression parameters. Our model features that, when marginalized over the random effect variable, it still enjoys the structure of the additive hazards model. We develop the estimating equations for inferring the regression parameters. The proposed estimators are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal under appropriate regularity conditions. Furthermore, the estimator of the baseline hazards function is proposed and its asymptotic properties are also established. We propose a class of diagnostic methods to assess the overall fitting adequacy of the additive hazards model with random effects. We conduct simulation studies to evaluate the finite sample behaviors of the proposed estimators in various scenarios. Analysis of the Diabetic Retinopathy Study is provided as an illustration for the proposed method.