Quantitative validation of different protein precipitation methods in proteome analysis of blood platelets

For the preparation of proteins for proteome analysis, precipitation is frequently used to concentrate proteins and to remove interfering compounds. Various methods for protein precipitation are applied, which rely on different chemical principles. This study compares the changes in the protein composition of human blood platelet extracts after precipitation with ethanol (EtOH) or trichloroacetic acid (TCA). Both methods yielded the same amount of proteins from the platelet preparations. However, the EtOH-precipitated samples had to be dialyzed because of the considerable salt content. To characterize single platelet proteins, samples were analyzed by two-dimensional fluorescence differential gel electrophoresis. More than 90% of all the spots were equally present in the EtOH- and TCA-precipitated samples. However, both precipitation methods showed a smaller correlation with nonprecipitated samples (EtOH 74.9%, TCA 79.2%). Several proteins were either reduced or relatively enriched in the precipitated samples. The proteins varied randomly in molecular weight and isoelectric point. This study shows that protein precipitation leads to specific changes in the protein composition of proteomics samples. This depends more on the specific structure of the protein than on the precipitating agent used in the experiment.     

Quality assurance system for a decomposition method as demonstrated for the Wickbold combustion technique

 A five-step model for a quality assurance system is developed for an internal quality control check. It includes the quality control of the decomposition method and the detection method as steps belonging together. The Wickbold combustion technique as decomposition method in combination with atomic absorption spectrometry was chosen. The vaporization of the elements mercury, arsenic, lead, antimony and selenium is based on combustion in an oxyhydrogen flame. To check the efficiency of the analytical system, the uncertainty of results was calculated on the basis of the "Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement". Received: 13 January 1997 · Accepted: 29 March 1997     

Photophysical aspects of single-molecule detection by two-photon excitation with consideration of sequential pulsed illumination.

An important goal in single molecule fluorescence correlation spectroscopy is the theoretical simulation of the fluorescence signal stemming from individual molecules and its autocorrelation function. The simulation approaches developed up to now are based exclusively on continuous-wave (cw) illumination and consequently on cw-excitation. However, this approximation is no longer valid in the case of two-photon excitation, for which pulsed illumination is usually employed. We present a novel theoretical model for the simulation of the fluorescence signal of single molecules and its autocorrelation function with consideration of the time dependence of the excitation flux and thus of all illumination-dependent photoprocesses: two-photon excitation, induced emission and photobleaching. Further important characteristics of our approach are the consideration of the dependence of the photobleaching rate on illumination and the low intersystem-crossing rates of the studied coumarins. Moreover, using our approach, we can predict quantitatively the effect of the laser pulse width on the fluorescence signal of a molecule, that is, the contributions of the photobleaching and saturation effects, and thus we can calculate the optimal laser pulse width. The theoretical autocorrelation functions were fitted to the experimental data, and we could ascertain a good agreement between the resulting and the expected parameters. The most important parameter is the photobleaching constant sigma, the cross section of the transition Sn<--S1, which characterises the photostability of the molecules independent of the experimental conditions. Its value is 1.7 x 10(-23) cm2 for coumarin 153 and 5 x 10(-23) cm2 for coumarin 314.     

Determination of picogram amounts of lipoxin A4 and lipoxin B4 by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection

A new method for the determination of lipoxins with electrochemical detection after high-performance liquid chromatography is described. The half-wave potentials of lipoxin A4 and lipoxin B4 at a glassy carbon electrode and a mobile phase of methanol-water (65:35 v/v) and 1 mM trifluoroacetic acid was found to be +1.14 V versus an Ag/AgCl reference electrode. The use of trifluoroacetic acid instead of sulphuric acid and lithium perchlorate led to a background current of 6-8 nA at +1.20 V. The detection limits for both lipoxins, based on a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1 were found to be 5-10 pg (15-30 fmol). The new method was applied to an extract of human polymorphonuclear granulocytes, preincubated with 15-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid and stimulated with Ca2+ ionophore A23187.     

Structural phase transitions in ‘hcp’ C70 single-crystals

The thermal expansion of vapor-grownC ₇₀ single crystals ahs been investigated using high-resolution capacitance dilatometry from 5–380 K. Measurements were made both parallel and perpendicular to the hexagonalc-axis. Three first-order phase transitions which we associate with the consecutive disordering of theC ₇₀ molecules are observed upon heating at 280 K (long-axis spinning), 300 K (long-axis precession) and 355 K (quasi-free rotation), respectively. The highest-temperature transition exhibits a very large (50 K) thermal hysteresis. Powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction show that the crystals are predominantly hexagonal-close-packed (HCP) with an idealc/a1.63 above 360 K andc/a1.84 at 295 K.     

Complete solutions of a family of quartic Thue and index form equations

Continuing the recent work of the second author, we prove that the diophantine equation

for has exactly 12 solutions except when , when it has 16 solutions. If denotes one of the zeros of , then for we also find all with .

     

Spectral-Null Codes and Null Spaces of Hadamard Submatrices

Codes of length 2 ^m over {1, -1} are defined as null spaces of certain submatrices of Hadamard matrices. It is shown that the codewords of all have an rth order spectral null at zero frequency. Establishing the connection between and the parity-check matrix of Reed-Muller codes, the minimum distance of is obtained along with upper bounds on the redundancy of . An efficient algorithm is presented for encoding unconstrained binary sequences into .     

The level structure of92Ru up to high spin values

The level structure of⁹²Ru has been studied by means of γ-ray spectroscopy. The nucleus was produced by the⁵⁸Ni(⁴⁰Ca, α2p)⁹²Ru reaction at beam energies of 147 and 187 MeV. The NORDBALL detector system including particle selection was used. A large number of new levels with excitation energies up to 11.3 MeV and spin values up to 22 or 23 units of angular momentum have been established. The level scheme is compared with recent shell model calculations using¹⁰⁰Sn as a core. Some systematics of the g ₉ ^2/?2 configuration is discussed and a strong correlation between the levels in⁹⁰Mo and⁹²Ru is found.