Conformational Behavior of Chemically Reactive Alanine-Rich Repetitive Protein Polymers

Conformational behavior of polymers adsorbed on nanotubes.

The importance of hydrophobic interactions in determining polymer adsorption and wrapping of carbon nanotubes is still under debate. In this work, we concentrate on the effect of short-ranged weakly attractive hydrophobic interactions between polymers and nanotubes (modeled as an infinitely long and smooth cylindrical surface), neglecting all other interactions apart for chain flexibility. Usin...

Conformational entropy of alanine versus glycine in protein denatured states.

The presence of a solvent-exposed alanine residue stabilizes a helix by 0.4-2 kcal.mol(-1) relative to glycine. Various factors have been suggested to account for the differences in helical propensity, from the higher conformational freedom of glycine sequences in the unfolded state to hydrophobic and van der Waals' stabilization of the alanine side chain in the helical state. We have performed...

Structural and functional variation within the alanine-rich repetitive domain of streptococcal antigen I/II.

Members of the antigen I/II family of cell surface proteins are highly conserved, multifunctional adhesins that mediate interactions of oral streptococci with other oral bacteria, with cell matrix proteins (e.g., type I collagen), and with salivary glycoproteins, e.g., gp340. The interaction of gp340 (formerly designated salivary agglutinin) with Streptococcus mutans requires an alanine-rich re...

Laser Micromachining of Chemically Altered Polymers

During the last decade laser processing of polymers has become an impoxtant field of applied and fundamental research. One of the most promising proposal, to use laser ablation as dry etching technique in photolithography, has not yet becume an industrial application. Many disadvantages of laser ablation, compared to conventional photolithography, are the result of the use of standard polymers....

Conformational disorder in conjugated polymers