MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry of a combinatorial peptide library: effect of matrix composition on signal suppression

The effect of matrix composition on signal suppression caused by a dominant compound under MALDI ionization was studied using the combinatorial TQTXT pentapeptide library as a model system. The peptide library is composed of 19 components with all proteinogenic amino acids except cysteine in position X. From these compounds, only the Arg peptide (TQTRT) was detected with sufficient intensity in the MALDI-TOF mass spectrum under typical MALDI conditions (CCA matrix). The analysis of a set of compounds utilized as different matrix components, additives and a cationizing agent revealed that the composition of the matrix is a critical point in signal suppression. Highly improved ion yields were achieved by using a CCA/DHB mixture as a matrix. The addition of K(+) as a cationizing agent to the CCA matrix resulted in MALDI-TOF mass spectra with relative ion intensities very similar to those obtained by electrospray ionization.     

Density of weighted wavelet frames

If ψ ∈ L²(R), Λ is a discrete subset of the affine groupA =R ⁺ ×R, and w: Λ →R ⁺ is a weight function, then the weighted wavelet system generated by ψ, Λ, and w is . In this article we define lower and upper weighted densities D _w ⁻ (Λ) and D _w ⁺ (Λ) of Λ with respect to the geometry of the affine group, and prove that there exist necessary conditions on a weighted wavelet system in order that it possesses frame bounds. Specifically, we prove that if W(ψ, Λ, w) possesses an upper frame bound, then the upper weighted density is finite. Furthermore, for the unweighted case w = 1, we prove that if W(ψ, Λ, 1) possesses a lower frame bound and D _w ⁺ (Λ⁻¹) < ∞, then the lower density is strictly positive. We apply these results to oversampled affine systems (which include the classical affine and the quasi-affine systems as special cases), to co-affine wavelet systems, and to systems consisting only of dilations, obtaining some new results relating density to the frame properties of these systems.     

Inducible gene inactivation in neurons of the adult mouse forebrain

Background  

The analysis of the role of genes in important brain functions like learning, memory and synaptic plasticity requires gene inactivation at the adult stage to exclude developmental effects, adaptive changes or even lethality. In order to achieve temporally controlled somatic mutagenesis, the Cre/loxP-recombination system has been complemented with the tamoxifen-inducible fusion protein consisting of Cre recombinase and the mutated ligand binding domain of the human estrogen receptor (CreER^T2). To induce recombination of conditional alleles in neurons of the adult forebrain, we generated a bacterial artificial chromosome-derived transgene expressing the CreER^T2 fusion protein under control of the regulatory elements of the CaMKIIα gene (CaMKCreER^T2 transgene).     

Microlocal Analysis of the Geometric Separation Problem

Image data are often composed of two or more geometrically distinct constituents; in galaxy catalogs, for instance, one sees a mixture of pointlike structures (galaxy superclusters) and curvelike structures (filaments). It would be ideal to process a single image and extract two geometrically “pure” images, each one containing features from only one of the two geometric constituents. This seems to be a seriously underdetermined problem but recent empirical work achieved highly persuasive separations. We present a theoretical analysis showing that accurate geometric separation of point and curve singularities can be achieved by minimizing the ?₁ norm of the representing coefficients in two geometrically complementary frames: wavelets and curvelets. Driving our analysis is a specific property of the ideal (but unachievable) representation where each content type is expanded in the frame best adapted to it. This ideal representation has the property that important coefficients are clustered geometrically in phase space, and that at fine scales, there is very little coherence between a cluster of elements in one frame expansion and individual elements in the complementary frame. We formally introduce notions of cluster coherence and clustered sparsity and use this machinery to show that the underdetermined systems of linear equations can be stably solved by ?₁ minimization; microlocal phase space helps organize the calculations that cluster coherence requires. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Copper-induced oligomerization of peptides: a model study

In this work, copper-binding of the tetraglycine peptide (Gly-Gly-Gly-Gly) was studied by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. Experiments were performed under alkaline conditions, in the presence of ethanolamine (pH 10.95). We observed that the presence of copper(II) ions induces the aggregation of the peptide and the formation of copper-bound complexes with higher molecular mass is favored, such as the oligomer complexes [3M+2Cu-3H](+) and [4M+3Cu-5H](+). At 1:1 peptide-copper(II) ion ratio, the singly charged [3M+2Cu-3H](+) oligomer complex is the base peak in the mass spectrum. Metal ion-induced oligomer-ization of neurotoxic peptides is well known in the literature; however, there are very few examples in which such oligomerization was directly observed by mass spectrometry. Our results show that application of short peptides can be useful to study the -mechanism of metal ion binding and metal ion-induced oligomerization of peptides.