Fluorescent behavior of B-phycoerythrin in microemulsions of aerosol OT/water/isooctane

Taking advantage of its unusual fluorescent properties, the incorporation of B-phycoerythrin (B-PE) in aerosol OT (AOT, sodium bis-(2-ethylhexyl) sulphosuccinate)/water/isooctane microemulsions was investigated by following their steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence as a function of the water-to-surfactant molar ratio, w(0). The fluorescent intensity at 575 nm increased continuously with increasing water content, saturating at a w(0) around 35 and staying practically constant at w(0)> or =40. The steady-state anisotropy showed an initial increase with increasing water content until w(0)=23 and then decreased strongly, staying practically constant when w(0)> or =40. The values of the fluorescent parameters, anisotropy and fluorescent intensity, were unchanged when the water content of the system increased in the range between w(0)=40 to 50. This implies the effective incorporation of B-PE in the microemulsion droplets with w(0)> or =40, as well as the equilibrium of the dispersion at these water/surfactant ratios, since higher water content does not affect the main surrounding microenvironment of the protein. The overall incorporation in the microemulsion droplets caused minor spectroscopic changes with respect to biliprotein in aqueous solution of 20 mM sodium phosphate buffer, pH 7.0, such as a blue absorption shift of 3 nm and an emission shift of 1.5 nm, as well as a slight increase in excitation anisotropy spectrum mainly caused by a decrease in protein mobility. Therefore, there are no important interactions between the chromophores and the AOT sulfonate head groups. Emission intensity decays followed complex kinetics in both aqueous and dispersion media. The stability with time and temperature of the biliprotein in the microemulsion was higher than in the aqueous solution. All the results can be explained in terms of B-PE inclusion in the water droplets of AOT microemulsions where the protein has similar configuration and conformation to that in aqueous solution but with the chromophores more protected.     

Fluorescence-labelled DNA probes to detect complementary sequences in homogeneous media

Sensitive, safe and easy-to-use probes for the detection of nucleic acids are urgently called for. To this end we are in the process of developing a fluorescence-based technique to work in homogeneous assay media. We have examined pyrene and fluorescein as fluorescent labels for natural DNA probes. A fraction of the cytosine residues of a single-stranded cDNA was randomly labelled with either pyrene or fluorescein using the bisulfite-catalyzed diamine reaction. Both fluorophores showed fluorescence quenching when the labelled probe was hybridized with its complementary strand and we describe the changes in steady-state fluorescence intensity that occurred upon hybridization. Our results demonstrate that pyrene quenching is more efficient than fluorescein quenching and thus pyrene-labelled probes are more sensitive for detecting and quantifying DNA from natural sources.     

Three-state 2',7'-difluorofluorescein excited-state proton transfer reactions in moderately acidic and very acidic media

2',7'-Difluorofluorescein (Oregon Green 488, OG488) is a novel fluorescein dye derivative which presents important advantages for improving the fluorimetric applications in the biomedical and biochemical sciences. In aqueous solution it displays four prototropic forms, namely cation (C), neutral (N), monoanion (M), and dianion (D). In previous works, we found (J. Phys. Chem. A 2005, 109, 734-747, 2840-2846) that OG488 undergoes excited-state proton transfer reactions, which may affect the results from applications using this dye. We established that the excited-state proton transfer (ESPT) reactions between neutral, monoanionic, and dianionic forms of OG488 are promoted by acetate buffer, and we characterized the ground and excited species involved. We also solved the kinetics of the prototropic reactions using global compartmental analysis. In the present paper, we extend our study on the ESPT reactions of OG488 to acidic media, in which only the three prototropic species cation, neutral, and monoanion coexist. We have solved the kinetics of the three-state ESPT reaction by means of global three-compartmental analysis of a fluorescence decay surface in moderately acidic media (pH between 1.1 and 3.0), recovering the kinetic and spectral parameters of this three-state system. This system is one of the most complex solved to date, due to the strong overlap of the absorption and emission spectra of the neutral and monoanionic forms of OG488. We also found that the cation behaves as "super" photoacid, showing a very high deprotonation rate constant (1.04 x 10(11) s(-1)) and an enhanced acidity. Therefore, we also carried out experiments at very high perchloric acid concentrations, dealing with some other effects which become noteworthy at these [H(+)]. The presence of xanthylium cation quenching due to "free" water molecules, and the reduction in the amount of water clusters acting as proton acceptors, are processes which alter notably the time course of the excited-species in this high [H(+)] range.     

2',7'-Difluorofluorescein excited-state proton reactions: correlation between time-resolved emission and steady-state fluorescence intensity

The presence of excited-state buffer-mediated proton exchange reactions influences the steady-state fluorescence signals from dyes in solution. Since biomolecules in general have some chemical groups that can act as proton acceptors/donors and are usually dissolved in buffer solutions which can also behave as appropriate proton acceptors/donors, the excited-state proton exchange reactions may result in distorted steady-state fluorescence signals. In a previous paper (J. Phys. Chem. A 2005, 109, 734-747), we evaluated kinetic and other pertinent parameters for the excited-state proton reactions of the prototropic forms of 2',7'-difluorofluorescein (Oregon Green 488, OG488), recording a fluorescence decay surface at different pH values and acetate buffer concentrations, analyzed by means of global compartmental analysis. In this article we use the rate constants and the corrected pre-exponential factors from the previously recorded fluorescence decay traces to simulate the decay times and associated pre-exponentials at different acetate buffer concentrations and constant pH and compare these theoretically calculated values with new experimental data. We also calculate the steady-state fluorescence intensity vs pH and vs acetate buffer concentration (at constant pH) and compare these calculated emission values with the experimental data previously published. The agreement between the experimental and simulated data is excellent.     

Forward-backward asymmetries of lepton pairs in events with a large-transverse-momentum jet at hadron colliders

We discuss forward-backward charge asymmetries for lepton-pair production in association with a large-transverse-momentum jet at hadron colliders. The lepton charge asymmetry relative to the jet direction A(j)(FB) gives a new determination of the effective weak mixing angle sin((2)theta(lept)(eff)(M(2)(Z)) with a statistical precision after cuts of approximately 10(-3) (8x10(-3)) at LHC (Tevatron). This is to be compared with the current uncertainty at LEP and SLD from the asymmetries alone, 2x10(-4). The identification of b jets also allows for the measurement of the bottom-quark-Z asymmetry A(b)(FB) at hadron colliders, the resulting statistical precision for sin((2)theta(lept)(eff)(M(2)(Z)) being approximately 9x10(-4) (2x10(-2) at Tevatron), also lower than the reported precision at e(+)e(-) colliders, 3x10(-4).     

A Note on Variable Exponent Hörmander Spaces

In this paper we introduce the variable exponent Hörmander spaces and we study some of their properties. In particular, it is shown that ${{(\mathcal{B}_{p_{(\cdot)}}^{c}(\Omega))^{\prime}}}$ is isomorphic to ${{\mathcal{B}^{loc}_{\widetilde{p^\prime(\cdot)}(\Omega)}}}$ (Ω open set in ${{\mathbb{R}^n, p? > 1}}$ and the Hardy–Littlewood maximal operator M is bounded in ${L_p(\cdot))}$ extending a Hörmander’s result to our context. As a consequence, a number of results on sequence space representations of variable exponent Hörmander spaces are given.     

Synthesis of a fluorescent xanthenic derivative useful for labeling amine residues

The 2,5-dioxopyrrolidin-1-yl-4-(3-hydroxy-6-oxo-6H-xanthen-9-yl)-3-methylbenzoate has been synthesized as an amine-reactive derivative able to yield stable covalently labeled biopolymers. The new derivative has been used to label polyribocytidilic acid (5'), poly(C), amine residues. TG-II-poly(C) exhibits monoexponential decay at the physiological pH range. In addition, both steady-state fluorescence intensity and fluorescence decay are also sensitive to solution pH. The large decrease in steady-state fluorescence upon hybridization allows it to be used as a nucleic acid probe in a homogeneous assay format. In summary, we report an efficient synthesis to obtain labeled RNA from commercially available materials in excellent yields.     

On some iterated weighted spaces

It is proved that the Hörmander and spaces (Ω₁⊂Rn, Ω₂⊂Rm open sets, 1?p<∞, ki Beurling-Björck weights, k=k₁⊗k₂) are isomorphic whereas the iterated spaces and are not if 1<p≠q<∞. A similar result for weighted Lp-spaces of entire analytic functions is also obtained. Finally a result on iterated Besov spaces is given: and are not isomorphic when 1<q≠2<∞.     

Improvement deoxyribo nucleic acid spots classification in polyacrylamide [correction of polyacrilamide] gel images using photometric normalization algorithms

A comparative study of four enhancement algorithms traditionally used in computer vision for photometric normalization of images affected by illumination changes is presented in this paper. We experimented with the performance of these approaches to reduce the low frequency multiplicative noise that is produced as a result of a non-homogeneity illumination or a non-homogeneity developed chemical process in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis images for the purpose of automatic classification of deoxyribo nucleic acid (DNA). The algorithms are tested on a database and their results are compared in a system for feature extraction and DNA classification.