scholarly journals Davydov solitons in polypeptides

The experimental evidence for self-trapping of amide-I (CO stretching) vibrational energy in crystalline acetanilide (a model protein) is reviewed and related to A. S. Davydov’s theory of solitons as a mechanism for energy storage and transport in protein. Particular attention is paid to the construction of quantum states that contain N amide-I vibrational quanta. It is noted that the ´ N = 2’ state is almost exactly resonant with the free energy that is released upon hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate.

Nature ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 184 (4703) ◽  
pp. 1925-1927 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. R. ATKINSON ◽  
ELEANOR JCHNSON ◽  
R. K. MORTON

1959 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Benzinger ◽  
C. Kitzinger ◽  
R. Hems ◽  
K. Burton

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (08) ◽  
pp. 1850050 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiuhan Luo ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
Junping Xiao ◽  
Chunhui Yin ◽  
Yahui He ◽  
...  

Sulfonylureas are an important group of herbicides widely used for a range of weeds and grasses control particularly in cereals. However, some of them tend to persist for years in environments. Hydrolysis is the primary pathway for their degradation. To understand the hydrolysis behavior of sulfonylurea herbicides, the hydrolysis mechanism of metsulfuron-methyl, a typical sulfonylurea, was investigated using density functional theory (DFT) at the B3LYP/6-31[Formula: see text]G(d,p) level. The hydrolysis of metsulfuron-methyl resembles nucleophilic substitution by a water molecule attacking the carbonyl group from aryl side (pathway a) or from heterocycle side (pathway b). In the direct hydrolysis, the carbonyl group is directly attacked by one water molecule to form benzene sulfonamide or heterocyclic amine; the free energy barrier is about 52–58[Formula: see text]kcal[Formula: see text]mol[Formula: see text]. In the autocatalytic hydrolysis, with the second water molecule acting as a catalyst, the free energy barrier, which is about 43–45[Formula: see text]kcal[Formula: see text]mol[Formula: see text], is remarkably reduced by about 11[Formula: see text]kcal[Formula: see text]mol[Formula: see text]. It is obvious that water molecules play a significant catalytic role during the hydrolysis of sulfonylureas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Aaron Morgan ◽  
Sarah LeGresley ◽  
Christopher Fischer

The packaging of the eukaryotic genome into chromatin regulates the storage of genetic information, including the access of the cell’s DNA metabolism machinery. Indeed, since the processes of DNA replication, translation, and repair require access to the underlying DNA, several mechanisms, both active and passive, have evolved by which chromatin structure can be regulated and modified. One mechanism relies upon the function of chromatin remodeling enzymes which couple the free energy obtained from the binding and hydrolysis of ATP to the mechanical work of repositioning and rearranging nucleosomes. Here, we review recent work on the nucleosome mobilization activity of this essential family of molecular machines.


In a recent paper a new enzymic relation is recorded. For the enzymic hydrolysis of salicin—by the enzyme which Gabriel Bertrand and the author have named salicinase —it is found that, in an action of fixed duration, the temperature of greatest activity of the ferment is always the same, whatever the dilutions of substrate and of enzyme adopted for the determination. In other words, the duration of the action being constant, the optimum tem­perature of the ferment is independent of the concentration both of the substrate and of the enzyme. The observation is suggestive: if true of one enzyme it may be true of all, and possibly becomes the enunciation of a general law. Herein, for the moment, lies its main interest. In the present paper further experimental evidence for this hypothesis in given, in the case of another hydrolytic enzyme, the maltase of Aspergillus oryzæ (taka-diastase).


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