Influence of surfactant and lipid chain length on the solubilisation of phosphatidylcholine vesicles by micelles comprised of polyoxyethylene sorbitan monoesters

Photon correlation spectroscopy and freeze-fracture electron microscopy have been used to determine the ability of a range of micelle-forming, polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monoesters (Tweens) to solubilise vesicles prepared from phosphatidylcholines of different acyl chain lengths and degrees of saturation with a view to rationalising (in terms of their membrane toxicity) which of the micelle-forming surfactants to use as drug delivery vehicles. The phosphatidylcholines used were dimyristoyl-, dipalmitoyl-, distearoyl- and dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC, DPPC, DSPC and DOPC, respectively) while the nonionic polyoxyethylene sorbitan monoesters studied were polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monolaurate (Tween 20), a 9:1 weight ratio mixture of polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monopalmitate and monostearate (Tween 40), a 1:1 weight ratio mixture of polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monopalmitate and monostearate (Tween 60), and polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monooleate (Tween 80). The ability of the Tween micelles to solubilise phospholipid vesicles was found to depend both upon the length of the surfactant acyl chain and the length of the acyl chains of the phospholipid comprising the vesicle. Vesicles composed of long saturated diacyl chain phospholipids, namely DSPC and DPPC, were the most resistant to solubilisation, while those prepared from the shorter acyl chained DMPC were more readily solubilised. In terms of their solubilisation behaviour, vesicles made from phospholipids containing long, unsaturated acyl chains, namely DOPC behaved more akin to those vesicles prepared from DMPC. None of the Tween surfactants were effective at solubilising vesicles prepared from DPPC or DSPC. In contrast, there were clear differences in the ability of the various surfactants to solubilise vesicles prepared from DMPC and DOPC, in that micelles formed from Tween 20 were the most effective solubilising agent while those formed by Tween 60 were the least effective. As a consequence of these observations it was considered that Tween 60 was the surfactant least likely to cause membrane damage in vivo and, therefore, is the most suitable surfactant for use as a micellar drug delivery vehicle.     

Three-dimensional structure of Saccharomyces cerevisiae inorganic pyrophosphatase complexed with cobalt and phosphate ions

Crystals of Saccharomyces cerevisiae inorganic pyrophosphatase suitable for X-ray diffraction study were grown by cocrystallization of the enzyme with cobalt chloride and imidodiphosphate. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a metal-dependent enzyme which catalyzes hydrolysis of inorganic pyrophosphate to orthophosphate. The three-dimensional structure of this enzyme was solved by the molecular-replacement method and refined at 1.8 Å resolution to an R factor of 19.5%. Cobalt and phosphate ions were revealed in the active centers of both identical subunits (A and B) of the pyrophosphatase molecule. In subunit B, a water molecule was found between two cobalt ions. It is believed that this water molecule acts as an attacking nucleophile in the enzymatic cleavage of the pyrophosphate bond. It was demonstrated that cobalt ions and a phosphate group occupy only part of the potential binding sites (two chemically identical and crystallographically independent subunits have different binding sites). The arrangement of ligands and the structure of the nucleophile-binding site are discussed in relation to the mechanism of action of the enzyme and the nature of the metal activator.     

A grid‐free upwind relaxation scheme for inviscid compressible flows

A new grid‐free upwind relaxation scheme for simulating inviscid compressible flows is presented in this paper. The non‐linear conservation equations are converted to linear convection equations with non‐linear source terms by using a relaxation system and its interpretation as a discrete Boltzmann equation. A splitting method is used to separate the convection and relaxation parts. Least squares upwinding is used for discretizing the convection equations, thus developing a grid‐free scheme which can operate on any arbitrary distribution of points. The scheme is grid free in the sense that it works on any arbitrary distribution of points and it does not require any topological information like elements, faces, edges, etc. This method is tested on some standard test cases. To explore the power of the grid‐free scheme, solution‐based adaptation of points is done and the results are presented, which demonstrate the efficiency of the new grid‐free scheme. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energetics of an adiabatically-loaded excited anharmonic oscillator

The dependence of the energy characteristics on an adiabatically slowly increasing external force is determined analytically for an anharmonic oscillator. The analytical results are confirmed by a numerical calculation. The nature of the force dependences of the energy characteristics are determined and discussed. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 39, 153–157 (January 1997)     

New Classes of Toda Soliton Solutions

We provide a detailed investigation of limits of N–soliton solutions of the Toda lattice as N tends to infinity. Our principal results yield new classes of Toda solutions including, in particular, new kinds of soliton–like (i.e., reflectionless) solutions. As a byproduct we solve an inverse spectral problem for one–dimensional Jacobi operators and explicitly construct tri–diagonal matrices that yield a purely absolutely continuous spectrum in (-1,1) and give rise to an eigenvalue spectrum that includes any prescribed countable and bounded subset of . Received: 16 October 1995/Accepted: 23 July 1996     

Shell effects in the symmetric-modal fission of pre-actinide nuclei

Mass distributions of fragments in the low-energy fission of nuclei from ¹⁸⁷Ir to ²¹³At have been analysed. This analysis has shown that shell effects in symmetric-mode fragment mass yields from the fission of pre-actinide nuclei could be described if one assumes the existence of two strongly deformed neutron shells in the arising fragments with neutron numbers N₁ ≈ 52 and N₂ ≈ 68. A new method has been proposed for quantitatively describing the mass distributions of the symmetric fission mode for pre-actinides with A ≈ 180–220.     

On nonspecular “total internal reflection” of powerful electromagnetic waves

It is shown that the nonstable character of nonlinear interaction of a system of waves similar to that resulting from double stimulated Brillouin scattering is retained upon the oblique incidence of a powerful electromagnetic wave on a layer of supercritical plasma. In this case we have nonlinear back reflection from a layer of supercritical plasma. The threshold intensity of the pump wave is greater than that in the case of subcritical plasma for TE polarization waves but can markedly decrease for waves polarized in the incidence plane. Instability is possible only for a layer of finite thickness.Radiophysical Research Institute, Nizhny Novgorod. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 38, Nos. 3–4, pp. 298–303, March–April, 1995.     

Solution of the Problem of Convecitve Heat Exchange for A Two-Dimensional Body in A Low-Prandtl-Number Fluid Flow

It is shown that the exact solution of the problem of convective heat exchange in a low-Prandtl-number fluid flow (Pr ? 1) can be obtained for a two-dimensional body of arbitrary shape provided that the conformal mapping relating the body contour with a circle is known. By way of example, the Joukowsky airfoil is considered.     

On finite convolutions of singular distributions and a “singular analog” of the Jessen-Wintner theorem

We study the fractal properties of a convolution of two Cantor distributions. By using the method of characteristic functions, we establish sufficient conditions for the singularity of the convolution of an arbitrary finite number of distributions of random variables with independent s-adic digits. We disprove the hypothesis on the validity of a “singular analog” of the Jessen-Wintner theorem for anomalously fractal distributions. Translated from Ukrainskii Matematicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 50, No. 8, pp. 1082–1088, August, 1998. The present work was partially supported by the International Soros Program of Educational Support in Exact Sciences (grant No. APU 061086).