BACKGROUND The tear film lipid layer is formed from lipids secreted by meibomian glands of the eyelid. After initial analyses of these lipids we concluded that an understanding of the function of the various classes of lipids in a normal lipid layer could only be understood after detailed investigations of both polar and nonpolar lipids of the meibomian gland. METHODS Meibomian gland secretio...

The growth of horizontal nanowires (NWs) guided by epitaxial and graphoepitaxial relations with the substrate is becoming increasingly attractive owing to the possibility of controlling their position, direction, and crystallographic orientation. In guided NWs, as opposed to the extensively characterized vertically grown NWs, there is an increasing need for understanding the relation between st...

To determine the function of the wabG gene in the biosynthesis of the core lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Klebsiella pneumoniae, we constructed wabG nonpolar mutants. Data obtained from the comparative chemical and structural analysis of LPS samples obtained from the wild type, the mutant strain, and the complemented mutant demonstrated that the wabG gene is involved in attachment to alpha-L-glyce...

The comprehensive metabolomic analyses using eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells are an effective way to identify biomarkers or biochemical pathways which can then be used to characterize disease states, differences between cell lines or inducers of cellular stress responses. One of the most commonly used extraction methods for comprehensive metabolomics is the Bligh and Dyer method (BD) which sep...

The increase of aqueous solubility of nonpolar compounds upon cooling and the cold denaturation of proteins are established experimental facts. Both phenomena have been hypothesized to be related to restructuring of the hydrogen bond network of water around small nonpolar solutes or hydrophobic amino acid side chains. However, an underlying physical mechanism has yet to be identified. We assume...

We report an enthalpic factor involved in determining helix propensities of nonpolar amino acids. Thermal unfolding curves of the five 13-residue peptides, Ac-KA4XA4KGY-NH2 (X = Ala, Leu, Ile, Val, Gly), have been measured by using CD in water/trifluoroethanol (TFE) mixtures. The peptide helix contents show that the rank order of helix propensities changes with temperature: although Ala has the...