Living cells contain diverse biopolymers, creating a heterogeneous crowding environment, the impact of which on RNA folding is poorly understood. Here, we have used single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer to monitor tertiary structure formation of the hairpin ribozyme as a model to probe the effects of polyethylene glycol and yeast cell extract as crowding agents. As expected, po...

The clinical application of dihydroartemisinin (DHA) has been hampered due to its poor water-solubility. To overcome this hurdle, we devised a novel polymer-drug conjugate, multiarm polyethylene glycol-dihydroartemisinin (PEG-DHA), made by linking DHA with multiarm polyethylene glycol. Herein, we investigated PEG-DHA on chemical structure, hydrolysis, solubility, hemolysis, cell cytotoxicity in...

A series of binuclear nickel/palladium catalysts C4-C7 with conjugated α-diimine ligands were designed, prepared and fully characterized. The binuclear nickel complexes C6 and C7 were activated by modified methylalumoxanes (MMAO) to generate highly active ethylene polymerization catalysts with activities up to 1050 kg [mol (Ni) h](-1). The activity of C7 is twice that of the mononuclear analogu...

in this article, the crystallization of polyethylene is investigated by the modified weighted density approximation. also, a direct correlation function of polyethylene based on the rism theory is used. the free energy of a polyethylene is calculated using the density functional theory. the crystallization and also the solid and liquid densities of polyethylene are calculated and compared with ...

Particles of linear polyethylene (M(n) = (2-3) x 10(3) g x mol(-)(1); M(w)/M(n) = 2-4) obtained by catalytic emulsion polymerization of ethylene possess a nonspherical, lentil-like shape with an average aspect ratio of ca. 10 and diameters from 30 to >300 nm, as determined by TEM and AFM. The particle structure results from a stacking of the lamellae along the one shorter axis of the lentils (i...

The microhardness, H, of carbon black–polycarbonate and carbon black– low-density polyethylene composites was investigated. Two types of microadditives with different average particle sizes were employed. It has been shown that the morphology of the polymeric matrix conspicuously influences the hardness dependence of the composites with volume concentration of filler, f. The microhardness of th...

A method for the large-scale fabrication of patterned organic nanowire (NW) arrays is demonstrated by the use of laser interference patterning (LIP) in conjunction with inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching. The NW arrays can be fabricated after a short ICP etching of periodic patterns produced through LIP. Arrays of NWs have been fabricated in UV-absorbent polymers, such as PET (polyethylen...

The effects of vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) treatment on surface chemical composition morphology and albumin adsorption for low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) were investigated. The attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectra and contact angle measurements indicated the formation of oxygen-containing polar groups and double bonds under...