Adoption of beta structure by the inactivating "ball" peptide of the Shaker B potassium channel

The conformation of the inactivating peptide of the Shaker B K+ channel (ShB peptide) and that of a noninactivating mutant (ShBL7E peptide) have been studied. Under all experimental conditions explored, the mutant peptide remains in a predominantly nonordered conformation. On the contrary, the inactivating ShB peptide has a great tendency to adopt a highly stable beta structure, particularly when challenged "in vitro" by anionic phospholipid vesicles. Because the putative peptide binding elements at the inner mouth of the channel comprise a ring of anionic residues and a hydrophobic pocket, we hypothesize that the conformational restrictions imposed on the ShB peptide by its interaction with the anionic lipid vesicles could partly imitate those imposed by the above ion channel elements. Thus, we propose that adoption of beta structure by the inactivating peptide may also occur during channel inactivation. Moreover, the difficulties encountered by the noninactivating ShBL7E peptide mutant to adopt beta structure and the observation that trypsin hydrolysis of the ShB peptide prevent both structure formation and channel inactivation lend further support to the hypothesis that adoption of beta structure by the inactivating peptide in a hydrophobic environment is important in determining channel blockade.     

Targeted Nanoparticle Thermometry: A Method to Measure Local Temperature at the Nanoscale Point Where Water Vapor Nucleation Occurs

An optical nanothermometer technique based on laser trapping, moving and targeted attaching an erbium oxide nanoparticle cluster is developed to measure the local temperature. The authors apply this new nanoscale temperature measuring technique (limited by the size of the nanoparticles) to measure the temperature of vapor nucleation in water. Vapor nucleation is observed after superheating water above the boiling point for degassed and nondegassed water. The average nucleation temperature for water without gas is 560 K but this temperature is lowered by 100 K when gas is introduced into the water. The authors are able to measure the temperature inside the bubble during bubble formation and find that the temperature inside the bubble spikes to over 1000 K because the heat source (optically‐heated nanorods) is no longer connected to liquid water and heat dissipation is greatly reduced.     

Electrophysiological assessment of primary cortical neurons genetically engineered using iron oxide nanoparticles

The development of safe technologies to genetically modify neurons is of great interest in regenerative neurology,for both translational and basic science applications.Such approaches have conventionally been heavily reliant on viral transduction methods,which have safety and production limitations.Magnetofection (magnet-assisted gene transfer using iron oxide nanoparticles as vectors) has emerged as a highly promising non-viral alternative for safe and reproducible genetic modification of neurons.Despite the high potential of this technology,there is an important gap in our knowledge of the safety of this approach,namely,whether it alters neuronal function in adverse ways,such as by altering neuronal excitability and signaling.We have investigated the effects of magnetofection in primary cortical neurons by examining neuronal excitability using the whole cell patch clamp technique.We found no evidence that magnetofection alters the voltage-dependent sodium and potassium ionic currents that underpin excitability.Our study provides important new data supporting magnetofection as a safe technology for bioengineering of neuronal cell populations.     

A semantic based Web page classification strategy using multi-layered domain ontology

World Wide Web is a continuously growing giant, and within the next few years, Web contents will surely increase tremendously. Hence, there is a great requirement to have algorithms that could accurately classify Web pages. Automatic Web page classification is significantly different from traditional text classification because of the presence of additional information, provided by the HTML structure. Recently, several techniques have been arisen from combinations of artificial intelligence and statistical approaches. However, it is not a simple matter to find an optimal classification technique for Web pages. This paper introduces a novel strategy for vertical Web page classification, which is called Classification using Multi-layered Domain Ontology (CMDO). It employs several Web mining techniques, and depends mainly on proposed multi-layered domain ontology. In order to promote the classification accuracy, CMDO implies a distiller to reject pages related to other domains. CMDO also employs a novel classification technique, which is called Graph Based Classification (GBC). The proposed GBC has pioneering features that other techniques do not have, such as outlier rejection and pruning. Experimental results have shown that CMDO outperforms recent techniques as it introduces better precision, recall, and classification accuracy.     

Improvement of dielectric,optical, and photocatalytic properties of rare earth (Y) substituted Co−Mg nanoferrites

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - The dielectric, optical and photocatalytic properties of yttrium (Y) substituted cobalt?magnesium (Co0.7Mg0.3YxFe2-xO4) (labeled as...     

Association Mechanism and Conformational Changes in Trypsin on Its Interaction with Atrazine: A Multi- Spectroscopic and Biochemical Study with Computational Approach

Atrazine (ATR) is a herbicide globally used to eliminate undesired weeds. Herbicide usage leads to various adverse effects on human health and the environment. The primary source of herbicides in humans is the food laced with the herbicides. The ATR binding to trypsin (TYP) was investigated in this study to explore its binding potential and toxicity. In vitro interaction of ATR with TYP was studied using multi-spectroscopic methods, molecular docking, and enzyme kinetics to explore the mechanism of binding for the TYP-ATR system. The TYP-ATR complex revealed binding constants (10³ M⁻¹), suggesting a moderate binding. The free energy for the TYP-ATR complexes was negative, suggesting a spontaneous interaction. Thermodynamic parameters enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) obtained positive values for the TYP-ATR system suggesting hydrophobic interactions in the binding process. Micro-environmental and conformational changes in TYP molecules were induced on interaction with ATR. Reduced catalytic activity of TYP was observed after interaction with ATR owing to the changes in the secondary structure of the TYP.     

HLA-E-bound peptides influence recognition by inhibitory and triggering CD94/NKG2 receptors: preferential response to an HLA-G-derived nonamer

The HLA-E class Ib molecule constitutes a major ligand for the lectin-like CD94/NKG2 natural killer (NK) cell receptors. Specific HLA class I leader sequence-derived nonapeptides bind to endogenous HLA-E molecules in the HLA-defective cell line 721.221, inducing HLA-E surface expression, and promote CD94/NKG2A-mediated recognition. We compared the ability of NK clones which expressed either inhibitory or activating CD94/NKG2 receptors to recognize HLA-E molecules on the surface of 721.221 cells loaded with a panel of synthetic nonamers derived from the leader sequences of most HLA class I molecules. Our results support the notion that the primary structure of the HLA-E-bound peptides influences CD94/ NKG2-mediated recognition, beyond their ability to stabilize surface HLA-E. Further, CD94/ NKG2A+ NK clones appeared more sensitive to the interaction with most HLA-E-peptide complexes than did effector cells expressing the activating CD94/NKG2C receptor. However, a significant exception to this pattern was HLA-E loaded with the HLA-G-derived nonamer. This complex triggered cytotoxicity very efficiently over a wide range of peptide concentrations, suggesting that the HLA-E/G-nonamer complex interacts with the CD94/NKG2 triggering receptor with a significantly higher affinity. These results raise the possibility that CD94/NKG2-mediated recognition of HLA-E expressed on extravillous cytotrophoblasts plays an important role in maternal-fetal cellular interactions.