The prion diseases are transmissible neurodegenerative disorders linked to a pathogenic conformer (PrP(Sc)) of the normal prion protein (PrP(C)). Accumulation of PrP(Sc) occurs via a poorly defined process in which PrP(Sc) complexes with and converts endogenous PrP(C) to nascent PrP(Sc). Recent experiments have focused on the highly charged first alpha helix (H1) of PrP. It has been proposed th...

Various polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) with optimal size, tumor-targeting functionalization, or microenvironment sensitive characteristics have been designed to solve several limitations of conventional chemotherapy. Nano-sized polymeric drug carrier systems have remarkably great advantages in drug delivery and cancer therapy, which are still plagued with severe deficiencies, especially insuffic...

The twin-arginine translocase (Tat) transports folded proteins across the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane and the plant thylakoid membrane. The Tat translocation site is formed by substrate-triggered oligomerization of the protein TatA. Walther and co-workers have proposed a structural model for the TatA oligomer in which TatA monomers self-assemble using electrostatic 'charge zippers' (Cell (20...

The reversal of the sign of charge of collodion membranes (treated previously with a protein) by hydrogen ions has been discussed in a preceding paper 1 and in this paper the influence of trivalent cations on the reversal will be considered. We shall omit the discussion of the action of tetravalent cations (e.g. ThC14) since their soiutions have so high a concentration of hydrogen ions that thi...

We carried our Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) calculations for the effects of charge reversal at five exposed sites (K16E, R119E, K135E, K147E, and R154E) and charge neutralization and proton titration of the H31-D70 semi-buried salt bridge on the stability of T4 lysozyme. Instead of the widely used solvent-exclusion (SE) surface, we used the van der Waals (vdW) surface as the boundary between the prot...

due to some important applications of guanine electrode in scientific and technology research such as electro-chemical dna based biosensors, and a problem of high redox potential of guanine (0.81 v), our research study concentrates on reducing guanine redox potential by substituting cu, ag, au, ch3, c2h5 and cl on sites of 1, 2 and 9 of guanine. a 5.0% reduction of redox potential for 9-ag-guan...

We develop a theory of the low-temperature charge transfer between a superconductor and a hopping insulator. We show that the charge transfer is governed by the coherent two-electron-Cooper pair conversion process time-reversal reflection, where electrons tunnel into a superconductor from the localized states in the hopping insulator located near the interface, and calculate the corresponding i...

Substitutions of tetravalent early actinides (Th – Am) and Ce into the ceramic nuclear waste form zirconolite, CaZrTi2O7, have been analysed using hybrid Density Functional Theory in conjunction with Periodic Electrostatic Embedded Cluster Method. on to both Zr4+ Ca2+ sites were modelled, Fe3+ Al3+ used for charge balancing. The mean displacements a central region ions cluster indicated redox b...