MicA is a small non-coding RNA that regulates ompA mRNA translation in Escherichia coli. MicA has an inhibitory function, base pairing to the translation initiation region of target mRNAs through short sequences of complementarity, blocking their ribosome-binding sites. The MicA structure contains two stem loops, which impede its interaction with target mRNAs, and it is thought that the RNA cha...

Lunasin and Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor (BBI) are two soybean peptides to which health-promoting properties have been attributed. Concentrations of these peptides were determined in skim fractions produced by enzyme-assisted aqueous extraction processing (EAEP) of extruded full-fat soybean flakes (an alternative to extracting oil from soybeans with hexane) and compared with similar extracts ...

Based on a tight-binding model and a recursive Green's function technique, spin-depentent ballistic transport through tinny graphene sheets (flakes) is studied. The main interest is focussed on: electrical conductivity, giant magnetoresistance (GMR) and shot noise. It is shown that when graphene flakes are sandwiched between two ferromagnetic electrodes, the resulting GMR coefficient may be qui...

Photonic crystals (PCs) have been traditionally produced on rigid substrates. Here, we report the development of free-standing onedimensional (1D) slanted PC flakes. A single pulse of a 5 ns Nd:YAG laser (λ = 532 nm, 350 mJ) was used to organize silver nanoparticles (10−50 nm) into multilayer gratings embedded in ∼10 μm poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylateco-methacrylic acid) hydrogel films. The 1D...

The electronic shell structure of triangular, hexagonal and round graphene quantum dots (flakes) near the Fermi level has been studied using a tight-binding method. The results show that close to the Fermi level the shell structure of a triangular flake is that of free massless particles, and that triangles with an armchair edge show an additional sequence of levels (“ghost states”). These leve...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the clinical significance of the expression of MHC class I chain-related gene A (MICA) in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and explore the relationship between MICA expression and the efficacy of cytokine-induced killer cell (CIK) therapy for treating advanced non-small cell lung cancer. METHODS We obtained data on 222 patients with advanced non-small...

The human MICA (MHC I-related chain A) gene, encoding a ligand for the NKG2D (NKG2-D type II integral membrane protein) receptor, is highly polymorphic. A group of MICA alleles, named MICA 5.1 (prototype, MICA*008), produce a truncated protein due to a nucleotide insertion in the transmembrane domain. These alleles are very frequent in all of the human populations studied and they have differen...

A novel wet-chemical method for the preparation of silver flakes was studied. The well-defined particles were prepared by directly adding FeSO4 solution into AgNO3 solution containing citric acid at an agitation speed of 150 r/min at room temperature. The products were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results show that particles are irregular ...

Graphene oxide (GO) flakes of different sizes were prepared and dispersed in isotropic and nematic (anisotropic) fluid media. The dielectric relaxation behaviour of GO-dispersions was examined for a wide temperature (25-60 (o)C) and frequency range (100 Hz-2 MHz). The mixtures containing GO flakes exhibited varying dielectric relaxation processes, depending on the size of the flakes and the ela...

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) converts the organic compounds to electricity. The higher cost of the cathode catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is one of the major limitations in the technology. Therefore, the study endeavored to introduce a novel cathode catalyst i.e. porous Co3O4 flakes for ORR in MFCs. The flakes exhibited the micropore surface area of 1.0372 m2/g. The MFC with cobalt o...