scholarly journals Delineation of the third antigenic site of lysozyme by application of a novel ‘surface-simulation’ synthetic approach directly linking the conformationally adjacent residues forming the site

1976 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
C L Lee ◽  
M Z Atassi

We have previously shown that an antigenic site in native lysozyme resides around the disulphide bridge 30-115 and incorporates Lys-33 and Lys-116 and one or both of Tyr-20 and Tyr-23. These residues fall in an imaginary line circumscribing part of the surface of the molecule and passing through the spatially adjacent residues Tyr-20, Arg-21, Tyr-23, Lys-116, Asn-113, Arg-114, Phe-34 and Lys-33. The identity of the site was confirmed by demonstrating that the synthetic peptide Tyr-Arg-Tyr-Gly-Lys-Asn-Arg-Gly-Phe-Lys (which does not exist in lysozyme but simulates a surface region of it), and an analogue in which glycine replaced Tyr-23, possessed remarkable immuno-chemical reactivity that accounted entirely for the expected reactivity of the site in native lysozyme. Tyr-23 is not part of the site, and its contribution was satisfied by a glycine spacer. The novel approach presents a powerful technique for the delineation of antigenic (and other binding) sites in native proteins and confirms that these need not always comprise residues in direct peptide linkage.

1977 ◽  
Vol 167 (3) ◽  
pp. 571-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ching-Li Lee ◽  
M. Zouhair Atassi

1. Previous reports from this laboratory have shown that both Lys-33 and Lys-116 are parts of an antigenic site in native lysozyme. Similar studies of tyrosine derivatives indicated that one or both of Tyr-20 and Tyr-23 are located in or very close to an antigenic site in lysozyme. The site, which was located around the disulphide bridge 30–115, was recently shown unequivocally to include the residues Tyr-20, Arg-21, Lys-116, Asn-113, Arg-114, Phe-34 and Lys-33. This was confirmed by the ‘surface-simulation’ synthetic approach that we have recently developed, in which the foregoing eight surface residues were directly linked via peptide bonds, with intervening spacers where appropriate, into a single peptide. The peptide does not exist in native lysozyme, but simulates a surface region of it. 2. In the present work several surface-simulation peptides were synthesized representing various parts of the region, to determine the minimum structural feature that retains full antigenic reactivity and to investigate if the spatially constructed antigenic site has a preferred direction. 3. The peptide Lys-Asn-Arg-Gly-Phe-Lys exhibited a remarkable inhibitory activity towards the immune reaction of lysozyme and accounted entirely for the maximum expected reactivity of the site in the native protein (i.e. about one-third of the total lysozyme reactivity). An immunoadsorbent of the peptide bound about one-third of the total antibody to lysozyme. 4. The residues Tyr-20 and Arg-21 are not part of the site. The previously reported immunochemical effect observed on nitration of Tyr-20 was due to a deleterious ionic effect exerted by the modified tyrosine residue on the adjacent Lys-96, which is in an entirely different antigenic site of lysozyme. Thus the modification of Tyr-20 impairs the reactivity of an adjacent antigenic site, even though the residue itself is not part of a site. The conformational and immunochemical implications of this finding are discussed. 5. The antigenic site therefore comprises the five spatially adjacent residues Lys-116, Asn-113, Arg-114, Phe-34, Lys-33. The antigenic site exhibited a preferred direction (Lys-116 to Lys-33), since the reverse surface-simulation synthetic sequence was immunochemically inefficient. The site describes a line which circumscribes part [2.1nm in C(α)–C(α) distance from Lys-116 to Lys-33] of the surface of the molecule.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Gallagher ◽  
Bas Verplanken ◽  
Ian Walker

Social norms have been shown to be an effective behaviour change mechanism across diverse behaviours, demonstrated from classical studies to more recent behaviour change research. Much of this research has focused on environmentally impactful actions. Social norms are typically utilised for behaviour change in social contexts, which facilitates the important element of the behaviour being visible to the referent group. This ensures that behaviours can be learned through observation and that deviations from the acceptable behaviour can be easily sanctioned or approved by the referent group. There has been little focus on how effective social norms are in private or non-social contexts, despite a multitude of environmentally impactful behaviours occurring in the home, for example. The current study took the novel approach to explore if private behaviours are important in the context of normative influence, and if the lack of a referent groups results in inaccurate normative perceptions and misguided behaviours. Findings demonstrated variance in normative perceptions of private behaviours, and that these misperceptions may influence behaviour. These behaviours are deemed to be more environmentally harmful, and respondents are less comfortable with these behaviours being visible to others, than non-private behaviours. The research reveals the importance of focusing on private behaviours, which have been largely overlooked in the normative influence literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 674
Author(s):  
Marianna Koctúrová ◽  
Jozef Juhár

With the ever-progressing development in the field of computational and analytical science the last decade has seen a big improvement in the accuracy of electroencephalography (EEG) technology. Studies try to examine possibilities to use high dimensional EEG data as a source for Brain to Computer Interface. Applications of EEG Brain to computer interface vary from emotion recognition, simple computer/device control, speech recognition up to Intelligent Prosthesis. Our research presented in this paper was focused on the study of the problematic speech activity detection using EEG data. The novel approach used in this research involved the use visual stimuli, such as reading and colour naming, and signals of speech activity detectable by EEG technology. Our proposed solution is based on a shallow Feed-Forward Artificial Neural Network with only 100 hidden neurons. Standard features such as signal energy, standard deviation, RMS, skewness, kurtosis were calculated from the original signal from 16 EEG electrodes. The novel approach in the field of Brain to computer interface applications was utilised to calculated additional set of features from the minimum phase signal. Our experimental results demonstrated F1 score of 86.80% and 83.69% speech detection accuracy based on the analysis of EEG signal from single subject and cross-subject models respectively. The importance of these results lies in the novel utilisation of the mobile device to record the nerve signals which can serve as the stepping stone for the transfer of Brain to computer interface technology from technology from a controlled environment to the real-life conditions.


ChemInform ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (17) ◽  
pp. no-no
Author(s):  
Hajime Yokoyama ◽  
Takayoshi Kubo ◽  
Yosuke Matsumura ◽  
Junichi Hosokawa ◽  
Masahiro Miyazawa ◽  
...  

Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 815
Author(s):  
Przemysław Domaszewski ◽  
Paweł Pakosz ◽  
Mariusz Konieczny ◽  
Dawid Bączkowicz ◽  
Ewa Sadowska-Krępa

Studies on muscle activation time in sport after caffeine supplementation confirmed the effectiveness of caffeine. The novel approach was to determine whether a dose of 9 mg/kg/ body mass (b.m.) of caffeine affects the changes of contraction time and the displacement of electrically stimulated muscle (gastrocnemius medialis) in professional athletes who regularly consume products rich in caffeine and do not comply with the caffeine discontinuation period requirements. The study included 40 professional male handball players (age = 23.13 ± 3.51, b.m. = 93.51 ± 15.70 kg, height 191 ± 7.72, BMI = 25.89 ± 3.10). The analysis showed that in the experimental group the values of examined parameters were significantly reduced (p ≤ 0.001) (contraction time: before = 20.60 ± 2.58 ms/ after = 18.43 ± 3.05 ms; maximal displacement: before = 2.32 ± 0.80 mm/after = 1.69 ± 0.51 mm). No significant changes were found in the placebo group. The main achievement of this research was to demonstrate that caffeine at a dose of 9 mg/kg in professional athletes who regularly consume products rich in caffeine has a direct positive effect on the mechanical activity of skeletal muscle stimulated by an electric pulse.


2001 ◽  
Vol 711 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Zelikin ◽  
Venkatram Shastri ◽  
David Lynn ◽  
Jian Farhadi ◽  
Ivan Martin ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTConductive polymers such as polypyrrole (Ppy) are potentially useful as an active interface for altering cellular processes and function. Their utilization in medically related applications however have been substantially held back by their non-degradable nature. Herein we report a novel approach to creation of bioerodible polypyrroles via modification of pyrrole beta-carbon with an ionizable moiety. It has been shown that the erosion rate of acid-bearing derivative of polypyrrole increases with pH, which is consistent with the pH dependent ionization of carboxylic acid group. The novel paradigm proposed for the creation of bioerodible polypyrroles allows for simple and efficient control over the erosion rate of the substrate independent of the polymer chain length, via the choice of the terminal ionizable group and its concentration along the polymer backbone.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1493 ◽  
pp. 91-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urs Aeberhard

ABSTRACTIn this paper, a quantum-kinetic equivalent of Shockley-Read-Hall recombination is derived within the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism for a photovoltaic system with selectively contacted extended-state absorbers and a localized deep defect state in the energy gap. The novel approach is tested on a homogeneous bulk absorber and then applied to a thin film photo-diode with large built-in field in the defect-rich absorber region. While the quantum-kinetic treatment reproduces the semi-classical characteristics for a bulk absorber in quasi-equilibrium conditions, for which the latter picture is valid, it reveals in the thin film case non-classical characteristics of recombination enhanced by tunneling into field-induced sub-gap states.


Author(s):  
Ayyoub M. Mehdizadeh ◽  
Kelvin Randhir ◽  
James F. Klausner ◽  
Nicholas AuYeung ◽  
Fotouh Al-Raqom ◽  
...  

In this study we have developed a unique method for synthesizing very reactive water splitting materials that will remain stable at temperatures as high as 1450 °C to efficiently produce clean hydrogen from concentrated solar energy. The hydrogen production for a laboratory scale reactor using a “Thermo-mechanical Stabilized Porous Structure” (TSPS) is experimentally investigated for oxidation and thermal reduction temperatures of 1200 and 1450 °C, respectively. The stability and reactivity of a 10 g TSPS over many consecutive oxidation and thermal reduction cycles for different particle size ranges has been investigated. The novel thermo-mechanical stabilization exploits sintering and controls the geometry of the matrix of particles inside the structure in a favorable manner so that the chemical reactivity of the structure remains intact. The experimental results demonstrate that this structure yields peak hydrogen production rates of 1–2 cm3/(min.gFe3O4) during the oxidation step at 1200 °C and the 30 minute thermal reduction step at 1450 ° C without noticeable degradation over many consecutive cycles. The hydrogen production rate is one of the highest yet reported in the open literature for thermochemical looping processes using thermal reduction. This novel process has strong potential for developing an enabling technology for efficient and commercially viable solar fuel production.


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