Structural Cues for Understanding eEF1A2 Moonlighting

Spontaneous mutations in the EEF1A2 gene cause epilepsy and severe neurological disabilities in children. The crystal structure of eEF1A2 protein purified from rabbit skeletal muscle reveals a post-translationally modified dimer that provides information about the sites of interaction with numerous binding partners, including itself, and maps these mutations onto the dimer and tetramer interfaces. The spatial locations of the side chain carboxylates of Glu301 and Glu374, to which phosphatidylethanolamine is uniquely attached via an amide bond, define the anchoring points of eEF1A2 to cellular membranes and interorganellar membrane contact sites. Additional bioinformatic and molecular modeling results provide novel structural insight into the demonstrated binding of eEF1A2 to SH3 domains, the common MAPK docking groove, filamentous actin, and phosphatidylinositol-4 kinase IIIβ. In this new light, the role of eEF1A2 as an ancient, multifaceted, and articulated G protein at the crossroads of autophagy, oncogenesis and viral replication appears very distant from the “canonical” one of delivering aminoacyl-tRNAs to the ribosome that has dominated the scene and much of the thinking for many decades.     

Mast Cell Chymase and Kidney Disease

A sizable part (~2%) of the human genome encodes for proteases. They are involved in many physiological processes, such as development, reproduction and inflammation, but also play a role in pathology. Mast cells (MC) contain a variety of MC specific proteases, the expression of which may differ between various MC subtypes. Amongst these proteases, chymase represents up to 25% of the total proteins in the MC and is released from cytoplasmic granules upon activation. Once secreted, it cleaves the targets in the local tissue environment, but may also act in lymph nodes infiltrated by MC, or systemically, when reaching the circulation during an inflammatory response. MC have been recognized as important components in the development of kidney disease. Based on this observation, MC chymase has gained interest following the discovery that it contributes to the angiotensin-converting enzyme’s independent generation of angiotensin II, an important inflammatory mediator in the development of kidney disease. Hence, progress regarding its role has been made based on studies using inhibitors but also on mice deficient in MC protease 4 (mMCP-4), the functional murine counterpart of human chymase. In this review, we discuss the role and actions of chymase in kidney disease. While initially believed to contribute to pathogenesis, the accumulated data favor a more subtle view, indicating that chymase may also have beneficial actions.     

Real‐time monitoring by proton relaxometry of radical polymerization reactions of acrylamide in aqueous solution

The potential of time‐domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD‐NMR) for the real‐time monitoring of solution radical polymerizations is demonstrated. A model system composed of a redox‐pair initiator system, acrylamide as monomer and water as solvent was investigated. A second‐generation continuous wave free precession technique was employed to measure the longitudinal relaxation time constant (T₁) of the samples throughout the polymerization reactions. This parameter was shown to be sensitive to the reactant feed free‐radical enhancement of the water molecule relaxation time, making it a good probe to monitor monomer conversion in real time in an automated, non‐destructive fashion. It was found that the T₁ value was better than the transverse relaxation time constant (T₂) for describing the evolution of the polymerization reactions, due to its greater sensitivity to paramagnetic effects. The TD‐NMR signal variation observed was linked to the formation, propagation and termination steps of the radical polymerization kinetics scheme. These first results may contribute to the application of real‐time monitoring of radical polymerization reactions employing low‐cost and robust TD‐NMR spectrometers. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry     

Solar light-driven reduction of crystal violet by a composite of g-C3N4, β-Ag2Se, γ-Fe2O3 and graphite

Abstract

In this work, a new g-C₃N₄-based Z-scheme with γ-Fe₂O₃ and β-Ag₂Se both n-type semiconductors, and graphite to favor electron exchange is presented. The composite material was studied by XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis, TEM, XPS, TGA, DSC and TOF-SIMS, and the ability of this photocatalytic system to act as a photo-reductant was assessed using crystal violet (CV⁺) dye. Solar light driven photo-reduction of CV⁺ in the presence of tri-sodium citrate evidenced a synergistic enhancement of the activity of the composite toward reduction, with ～20 times higher conversion rates per unit of surface area than those of g-C₃N₄. Photo-oxidation experiments under Xe lamp irradiation in the presence of H₂O₂ also showed that the AgFeCN composite featured a higher activity (～8×) than g-C₃N₄. This Z-scheme may deserve further study as a photo-reductant to obtain hydrogen or hydrogenated compounds. Moreover, the use of CV⁺ may represent a facile procedure that can aid in the selection of new photocatalysts to be used in hydrogen production.     

A distributed energy system integrating SOFC-MGT with mid-and-low temperature solar thermochemical hydrogen fuel production

Solar thermochemical hydrogen production with energy level upgraded from solar thermal to chemical energy shows great potential. By integrating mid-and-low temperature solar thermochemistry and solid oxide fuel cells, in this paper, a new distributed energy system combining power, cooling, and heating is proposed and analyzed from thermodynamic, energy and exergy viewpoints. Different from the high temperature solar thermochemistry (above 1073.15 K), the mid-and-low temperature solar thermochemistry utilizes concentrated solar thermal (473.15–573.15 K) to drive methanol decomposition reaction, reducing irreversible heat collection loss. The produced hydrogen-rich fuel is converted into power through solid oxide fuel cells and micro gas turbines successively, realizing the cascaded utilization of fuel and solar energy. Numerical simulation is conducted to investigate the system thermodynamic performances under design and off-design conditions. Promising results reveal that solar-to-hydrogen and net solar-to-electricity efficiencies reach 66.26% and 40.93%, respectively. With the solar thermochemical conversion and hydrogen-rich fuel cascade utilization, the system exergy and overall energy efficiencies reach 59.76% and 80.74%, respectively. This research may provide a pathway for efficient hydrogen-rich fuel production and power generation.     

Stimuli-Responsive Nanocomposite Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

The complex tissue-specific physiology that is orchestrated from the nano- to the macroscale, in conjugation with the dynamic biophysical/biochemical stimuli underlying biological processes, has inspired the design of sophisticated hydrogels and nanoparticle systems exhibiting stimuli-responsive features. Recently, hydrogels and nanoparticles have been combined in advanced nanocomposite hybrid platforms expanding their range of biomedical applications. The ease and flexibility of attaining modular nanocomposite hydrogel constructs by selecting different classes of nanomaterials/hydrogels, or tuning nanoparticle-hydrogel physicochemical interactions widely expands the range of attainable properties to levels beyond those of traditional platforms. This review showcases the intrinsic ability of hybrid constructs to react to external or internal/physiological stimuli in the scope of developing sophisticated and intelligent systems with application-oriented features. Moreover, nanoparticle-hydrogel platforms are overviewed in the context of encoding stimuli-responsive cascades that recapitulate signaling interplays present in native biosystems. Collectively, recent breakthroughs in the design of stimuli-responsive nanocomposite hydrogels improve their potential for operating as advanced systems in different biomedical applications that benefit from tailored single or multi-responsiveness.