Structure of a nucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase (NPP) from Euphorbia characias latex characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering: clues for the general organization of plant NPPs

2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (9) ◽  
pp. 857-867
Author(s):  
Annalaura Sabatucci ◽  
Francesca Pintus ◽  
Tiziana Cabras ◽  
Federica Vincenzoni ◽  
Mauro Maccarrone ◽  
...  

Little information is available concerning the structural features of nucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterases (NPPs) of plant origin and the crystal structures of these proteins have not yet been reported. The aim of this study was to obtain insight into these aspects by carrying out a comparative analysis of the sequences of two different fragments of an NPP from the latex of the Mediterranean shrub Euphorbia characias (ELNPP) and by studying the low-resolution structure of the purified protein in solution by means of small-angle X-ray scattering. This is the first structure of a plant NPP in solution that has been reported to date. It is shown that the ELNPP sequence is highly conserved in many other plant species. Of note, the catalytic domains of these plant NPPs have the same highly conserved PDE-domain organization as mammalian NPPs. Moreover, ELNPP is a dimer in solution and this oligomerization state is likely to be common to other plant enzymes.

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (S1) ◽  
pp. S47-S53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Sommariva ◽  
Milen Gateshki ◽  
Jan-André Gertenbach ◽  
Joerg Bolze ◽  
Uwe König ◽  
...  

X-ray diffraction and scattering on a single multipurpose X-ray platform have been used to probe the structure, composition, and thermal behavior of TiO2 nanoparticles ranging in size from 1 to 10 nm. Ambient and non-ambient Bragg diffraction, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), as well as total scattering and pair-distribution function (PDF) analysis are combined to obtain a comprehensive picture of the samples. At these ultrasmall particle-size dimensions, SAXS and PDF prove powerful in distinguishing the salient features of the materials, in particular the size distribution of the primary particles (SAXS) and the identification of the TiO2 polymorphs (PDF). Structural features determined by X-ray scattering techniques are corroborated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The elemental make-up of the materials has been measured using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis.


Author(s):  
Susana Ríos ◽  
Christopher M. Martin ◽  
Karl R. Whittle

AbstractNanoscale structural features of amorphous zircon and pyrochlore produced by self-irradiation induced amorphization have been characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). Electron density fluctuations were observed in the untreated samples and studied as a function of annealing temperature (up to 1300 °C). In untreated zircon, density fluctuations were found to have a characteristic length-scale of approximately 1 nanometer diameter. A clear scattering maximum develops at ∼3 nm


Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (14) ◽  
pp. 3225
Author(s):  
Stavros X. Drakopoulos ◽  
Oreste Tarallo ◽  
Linlin Guan ◽  
Ignacio Martin-Fabiani ◽  
Sara Ronca

The term disentangled refers to polymers with fewer entanglements in the amorphous regions, a metastable condition that can significantly affect the material’s properties and processing behavior. The lower entanglement density in ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (dis-UHMWPE) facilitates the solid-state processability into uniaxially-oriented specimens reaching very high draw ratios and crystallinities. In this study, Au/dis-UHMWPE nanocomposites were formulated and processed at variable draw ratios. Polarized light microscopy suggests gold nanoparticles are oriented in arrays following the drawing of polymer chains. The structural features, upon orientation, are studied by means of Raman spectroscopy, wide- and small-angle X-ray scattering, and near-infrared spectrophotometry. Crystallinity is found to increase by 15%, as calculated by wide-angle X-ray scattering. The change in optical absorbance in the visible spectrum indicates that, with orientation, the average size of gold aggregates increases, supported quantitatively by small-angle X-ray scattering. Since the gold nanoparticles are expected to be found within amorphous chain segments, the aforementioned findings are attributed to the increase of crystallinity and thus the decrease of available (amorphous) space.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 308-314
Author(s):  
Mengmeng Tan ◽  
Natsuki Takahashi ◽  
Shota Fujii ◽  
Kazuo Sakurai ◽  
Kosuke Kusamori ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
V. V. Egorov ◽  
A. A. Shaldzhyan ◽  
A. N. Gorshkov ◽  
Ya. A. Zabrodskaya ◽  
D. V. Lebedev ◽  
...  

1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 1437-1446 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. Rodrigues ◽  
A. B. Brennan ◽  
C. Betrabet ◽  
B. Wang ◽  
G. L. Wilkes

2002 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Wess ◽  
I. Alberts ◽  
J. Hiller ◽  
M. Drakopoulos ◽  
A.T. Chamberlain ◽  
...  

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