Self-assembly behavior of a mixture system containing rod-coil block copolymers and rigid homopolymers was investigated by using Brownian dynamics simulations. The morphologies of formed hierarchical self-assemblies were found to be dependent on the Lennard-Jones (LJ) interaction εRR between rod blocks, lengths of rod and coil blocks in copolymer, and mixture ratio of block copolymers to homopo...

The conformational equilibrium between 310and -helical structure has been studied via high-resolution NMR spectroscopy by Millhauser and coworkers using the MW peptide Ac-AMAAKAWAAKA AAARA-NH2. Their 750-MHz nuclear Overhauser effect spectroscopy (NOESY) spectra were interpreted to reflect appreciable populations of 310-helix throughout the peptide, with the greatest contribution at the N and C...

The only molecules that are currently known to fold into unique three-dimensional conformations and perform sophisticated functions are biological polymers - proteins and some RNA molecules. Our aim is to create a nonbiological sequence-specific polymer that folds in aqueous solution. Toward that end, we synthesized sequence-specific 30mer, 45mer, and 60mer peptoid oligomers (N-substituted glyc...

We previously determined the crystal structures of 1-Cys type selenoprotein MsrA from Clostridium oremlandii (CoMsrA). The overall structure of CoMsrA is unusual, consisting of two domains, the N-terminal catalytic domain and the C-terminal distinct helical domain which is absent from other known MsrA structures. Deletion of the helical domain almost completely abolishes the catalytic activity ...

Properties of a simple model of polypeptide chains were studied by the means of the Monte Carlo method. The chains were built on the (310) hybrid lattice. The residues interacted with long-range potential. There were two kinds of residues: hydrophobic and hydrophilic forming a typical helical pattern -HHPPHPP-. Short range potential was used to prefer helical conformations of the chain. It was ...

The seven-helical bundle of rhodopsin and other G-protein coupled receptors undergoes structural rearrangements as the transmembrane receptor protein is activated. These structural changes are known to involve tilting and bending of various transmembrane helices. However, the cause and effect relationship among structural events leading to a cytoplasmic crevasse for G-protein binding is less we...

Heptapeptides containing residues with terminal olefin-derivatized side chains (3 and 4) have been treated with ruthenium alkylidene 1 and undergone facile ring-closing olefin metathesis (RCM) to give 21- and 23-membered macrocyclic peptides (5 and 6). The primary structures of peptides 3 and 4 were based upon a previously studied heptapeptide (2), which was shown to adopt a predominantly 3(10)...

A general secondary structure is proposed for the 5S RNA of prokaryotic ribosomes, based on helical energy filtering calculations. We have considered all secondary structures that are common to 17 different prokaryotic 5S RNAs and for each 5S sequence calculated the (global) minimum energy secondary structure (300,000 common structures are possible for each sequence). The 17 different minimum e...

Drag reduction of an object is the major concern in many engineering applications. Experimental studies have been carried out on circular cylinder with helical grooves in a subsonic wind tunnel. Different cases of helical grooves with different pitches, helical groove angles and number of starts of helical groove on circular cylinder are tested. Experimental results show the drag coefficient is...