A process for the chemical modification of Chinese fir with alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) was studied. The hydrophobicity of the resulting products was evaluated by characterization of the equilibrium moisture content, water-surface contact angle, water absorption coefficient, and antiswelling efficiency. The results indicated that when 5% AKD solution was used, the modified wood generally showed go...

The splice-site sequences of U2-type introns are highly degenerate, so many different sequences can function as U2-type splice sites. Using our new profiles based on hydrophobicity properties we pointed out specific properties for regions surrounding splice sites. We built a set T of flanking regions of genes with 1-3 introns from 21st and 22nd chromosomes extracted from GenBank to define posit...

trichomoniasis, the most widespread sexually transmitted disease is caused by trichomonas vaginalis. this parasite is site specific for the genitourinary tract and recruitment of macrophages as well as polymorphonuclear nutrophils (pmn) to the site of infection is the first line of defense as a component of non-specific resistance and immunity. in this study, balb/c mice were infected with 10 i...

To determine the effects of biophysical parameters (e.g. charge, hydrophobicity, helicity) of peptides on the mechanism of anticancer activity, we applied a single molecule technique-force spectroscopy based on atomic force microscope (AFM)-to study the interaction force at the single molecule level. The activity of the peptide and analogs against HeLa cells exhibited a strong correlation with ...

interaction of drugs with serum albumin, the most abundant protein in plasma, has a great significance in pharmaceutical sciences. it can affect the biological activity, toxicity, and pharmacokinetics of drugs and design of dosages. determination of the impact of chemical modifications of albumin and its structural changes upon interaction with drugs are very important when drugs bind with albu...

K. P. Murphy et al. (1, 2, 3) recently proposed what would appear to be a profound change in our way of thinking about hydrophobic interactions. On the basis of their elegant and careful experiments on small molecules (4) and on proteins (5), they propose that "for globular proteins hydrophobic interactions lead to destabilization" (1) and that "the hydration effect of nonpolar solutes stabiliz...

The cell surface hydrophobicity of 10 pigmented and 4 nonpigmented clinical Serratia marcescens strains was studied, based on the ability of the strains to adhere to hydrocarbons and to polystyrene. The cell surface hydrophobicity depended greatly on growth temperature; all of the strains tested were adherent following growth at 30 degrees C, whereas none was adherent following growth at 38 deg...

Considering that contacts between liquid and solid are ubiquitous in almost all energy processes, including steam turbines, oil pumping, condensers and boilers, the efficiency of energy transportation can be maximized such that the liquid-solid interaction is optimized. Texture based super-hydrophobicity, also known as the Lotus effect, has been one of the most extensively studied topics in the...

Initiation of flocculation ability of Saccharomyces cerevisiae MPY1 cells was observed at the moment the cells stop dividing because of nitrogen limitation. A shift in concentration of the limiting nutrient resulted in a corresponding shift in cell division and initiation of flocculence. Other limitations also led to initiation of flocculence, with magnesium limitation as the exception. Magnesi...