Experimental results from host–guest complexes for the design of effectors in biological systems and of enzyme analogous catalysts

Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Schneider ◽  
Frank Eblinger ◽  
Joachim Sartorius ◽  
Jörg Rammo
Gels ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Matan Mussel ◽  
Peter J. Basser ◽  
Ferenc Horkay

Incremental changes in ionic composition, solvent quality, and temperature can lead to reversible and abrupt structural changes in many synthetic and biopolymer systems. In the biological milieu, this nonlinear response is believed to play an important functional role in various biological systems, including DNA condensation, cell secretion, water flow in xylem of plants, cell resting potential, and formation of membraneless organelles. While these systems are markedly different from one another, a physicochemical framework that treats them as polyelectrolytes, provides a means to interpret experimental results and make in silico predictions. This article summarizes experimental results made on ion-induced volume phase transition in a polyelectrolyte model gel (sodium polyacrylate) and observations on the above-mentioned biological systems indicating the existence of a steep response.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorien Benda ◽  
Benjamin Doistau ◽  
Caroline Rossi-Gendron ◽  
Lise-Marie Chamoreau ◽  
Bernold Hasenknopf ◽  
...  

AbstractAllosteric regulation is exploited by biological systems to regulate the activity and/or selectivity of enzymatic reactions but remains a challenge for artificial catalysts. Here we report switchable terpy(Zn-salphen)2 molecular tweezers and their metal-dependent allosteric regulation of the acetylation of pyridinemethanol isomers. Zinc-salphen moieties can both act as a Lewis acid to activate the anhydride reagents and provide a binding site for pyridinemethanol substrates. The tweezers’ conformation can be reversibly switched between an open and a closed form by a metal ion stimulus. Both states offer distinct catalytic profiles, with closed tweezers showing superior catalytic activity towards ortho substrates, while open tweezers presenting higher rate for the acetylation of meta and para substrates. This notable substrate dependent allosteric response is rationalized by a combination of experimental results and calculations supporting a bimetallic reaction in the closed form for ortho substrate and an inhibition of the cavity for meta and para substrates.


Author(s):  
Juan López-Sauceda ◽  
Jose Gerardo Carrillo Gonzalez ◽  
Carlos Ortega Laurel ◽  
Philipp von Bülow ◽  
Carmen Mejia

Based on a measuring system to determine levels of spatial organization in 2D polygons (homogeneous or heterogeneous partition of defined areas) lying on principles of regularity, we propose the entropy term linked to the concept of “information”, from the “information theory field”, in order to obtain an information measurement regarding a quantity of or amount of information in the architecture of complex 2D biological organizations. The term “quantity” does not refer to the amount of data (size), but to the probability of a geometrical basic pattern within a set of possible statistical configurations regarding levels of homogeneity and heterogeneity. It is this notion of information that is important in information theory, and measures of information in units of bits, what we propose to use for measuring quantities of organization in the architecture of complex geometrical systems. Two complex systems are tested, biological and non biological in order to obtain experimental results, which are verified with the evaluation criteria “entropy”. Experimental results show that the lowest levels of information and entropy, in addition with low rates of heterogeneity and high rates of homogeneity are particular features of geometrical organizations in biological systems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gouri Patil ◽  
Ambarish Ghosh

Artificially designed self-propelled objects can allow studying active matter phenomena with great detail that is not possible in natural, e.g. biological systems. Here, we show experimental results on helical shaped, magnetically actuated, reciprocal swimmers, where the degree of randomness in the reciprocal sequence plays an important role in determining their effective motility. Here, for the first time we show the results at high activity levels where the degree of randomness is further affected by the presence of the surface, which in turn results in a non-monotonic increase of motility as a function of magnetic drive. It will be interesting to extend these studies to denser systems where the swimmers can interact with each other through hydrodynamic forces.


1988 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 357-360
Author(s):  
J.C. Gauthier ◽  
J.P. Geindre ◽  
P. Monier ◽  
C. Chenais-Popovics ◽  
N. Tragin ◽  
...  

AbstractIn order to achieve a nickel-like X ray laser scheme we need a tool to determine the parameters which characterise the high-Z plasma. The aim of this work is to study gold laser plasmas and to compare experimental results to a collisional-radiative model which describes nickel-like ions. The electronic temperature and density are measured by the emission of an aluminium tracer. They are compared to the predictions of the nickel-like model for pure gold. The results show that the density and temperature can be estimated in a pure gold plasma.


Author(s):  
Henry S. Slayter

Electron microscopic methods have been applied increasingly during the past fifteen years, to problems in structural molecular biology. Used in conjunction with physical chemical methods and/or Fourier methods of analysis, they constitute powerful tools for determining sizes, shapes and modes of aggregation of biopolymers with molecular weights greater than 50, 000. However, the application of the e.m. to the determination of very fine structure approaching the limit of instrumental resolving power in biological systems has not been productive, due to various difficulties such as the destructive effects of dehydration, damage to the specimen by the electron beam, and lack of adequate and specific contrast. One of the most satisfactory methods for contrasting individual macromolecules involves the deposition of heavy metal vapor upon the specimen. We have investigated this process, and present here what we believe to be the more important considerations for optimizing it. Results of the application of these methods to several biological systems including muscle proteins, fibrinogen, ribosomes and chromatin will be discussed.


Author(s):  
Y. Harada ◽  
T. Goto ◽  
H. Koike ◽  
T. Someya

Since phase contrasts of STEM images, that is, Fresnel diffraction fringes or lattice images, manifest themselves in field emission scanning microscopy, the mechanism for image formation in the STEM mode has been investigated and compared with that in CTEM mode, resulting in the theory of reciprocity. It reveals that contrast in STEM images exhibits the same properties as contrast in CTEM images. However, it appears that the validity of the reciprocity theory, especially on the details of phase contrast, has not yet been fully proven by the experiments. In this work, we shall investigate the phase contrast images obtained in both the STEM and CTEM modes of a field emission microscope (100kV), and evaluate the validity of the reciprocity theory by comparing the experimental results.


Author(s):  
A. Ourmazd ◽  
G.R. Booker ◽  
C.J. Humphreys

A (111) phosphorus-doped Si specimen, thinned to give a TEM foil of thickness ∼ 150nm, contained a dislocation network lying on the (111) plane. The dislocation lines were along the three <211> directions and their total Burgers vectors,ḇt, were of the type , each dislocation being of edge character. TEM examination under proper weak-beam conditions seemed initially to show the standard contrast behaviour for such dislocations, indicating some dislocation segments were undissociated (contrast A), while other segments were dissociated to give two Shockley partials separated by approximately 6nm (contrast B) . A more detailed examination, however, revealed that some segments exhibited a third and anomalous contrast behaviour (contrast C), interpreted here as being due to a new dissociation not previously reported. Experimental results obtained for a dislocation along [211] with for the six <220> type reflections using (g,5g) weak-beam conditions are summarised in the table below, together with the relevant values.


Author(s):  
Scott Lordi

Vicinal Si (001) surfaces are interesting because they are good substrates for the growth of III-V semiconductors. Spots in RHEED patterns from vicinal surfaces are split due to scattering from ordered step arrays and this splitting can be used to determine the misorientation angle, using kinematic arguments. Kinematic theory is generally regarded to be inadequate for the calculation of RHEED intensities; however, only a few dynamical RHEED simulations have been attempted for vicinal surfaces. The multislice formulation of Cowley and Moodie with a recently developed edge patching method was used to calculate RHEED patterns from vicinal Si (001) surfaces. The calculated patterns are qualitatively similar to published experimental results and the positions of the split spots quantitatively agree with kinematic calculations.RHEED patterns were calculated for unreconstructed (bulk terminated) Si (001) surfaces misoriented towards [110] ,with an energy of 15 keV, at an incident angle of 36.63 mrad ([004] bragg condition), and a beam azimuth of [110] (perpendicular to the step edges) and the incident beam pointed down the step staircase.


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