637 research outputs found
Universal magnetic and structural behaviors in the iron arsenides
Commonalities among the order parameters of the ubiquitous antiferromagnetism
present in the parent compounds of the iron arsenide high temperature
superconductors are explored. Additionally, comparison is made between the well
established two-dimensional Heisenberg-Ising magnet, KNiF and iron
arsenide systems residing at a critical point whose structural and magnetic
phase transitions coincide. In particular, analysis is presented regarding two
distinct classes of phase transition behavior reflected in the development of
antiferromagnetic and structural order in the three main classes of iron
arsenide superconductors. Two distinct universality classes are mirrored in
their magnetic phase transitions which empirically are determined by the
proximity of the coupled structural and magnetic phase transitions in these
materials.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Antiferromagnetic Critical Fluctuations in BaFeAs
Magnetic correlations near the magneto-structural phase transition in the
bilayer iron pnictide parent compound, BaFeAs, are measured. In close
proximity to the antiferromagnetic phase transition in BaFeAs, a
crossover to three dimensional critical behavior is anticipated and has been
preliminarily observed. Here we report complementary measurements of
two-dimensional magnetic fluctuations over a broad temperature range about
T. The potential role of two-dimensional critical fluctuations in the
magnetic phase behavior of BaFeAs and their evolution near the
anticipated crossover to three dimensional critical behavior and long-range
order are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures; Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Nitrosative damage to free and zinc-bound cysteine thiols underlies nitric oxide toxicity in wild-type Borrelia burgdorferi
Borrelia burgdorferi encounters potentially harmful reactive nitrogen species (RNS) throughout its infective cycle. In this study, diethylamine NONOate (DEA/NO) was used to characterize the lethal effects of RNS on B. burgdorferi. RNS produce a variety of DNA lesions in a broad spectrum of microbial pathogens; however, levels of the DNA deamination product, deoxyinosine, and the numbers of apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites were identical in DNA isolated from untreated and DEA/NO-treated B. burgdorferi cells. Strains with mutations in the nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway genes uvrC or uvrB treated with DEA/NO had significantly higher spontaneous mutation frequencies, increased numbers of AP sites in DNA and reduced survival compared with wild-type controls. Polyunsaturated fatty acids in B. burgdorferi cell membranes, which are susceptible to peroxidation by reactive oxygen species (ROS), were not sensitive to RNS-mediated lipid peroxidation. However, treatment of B. burgdorferi cells with DEA/NO resulted in nitrosative damage to several proteins, including the zinc-dependent glycolytic enzyme fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (BB0445), the Borrelia oxidative stress regulator (BosR) and neutrophil-activating protein (NapA). Collectively, these data suggested that nitrosative damage to proteins harbouring free or zinc-bound cysteine thiols, rather than DNA or membrane lipids underlies RNS toxicity in wild-type B. burgdorferi
Heat capacity study of BaFeAs: effects of annealing
Heat-capacity, X-ray diffraction, and resistivity measurements on a
high-quality BaFeAs sample show an evolution of the
magneto-structural transition with successive annealing periods. After a 30-day
anneal the resistivity in the (ab) plane decreases by more than an order of
magnitude, to 12 cm, with a residual resistance ratio 36; the
heat-capacity anomaly at the transition sharpens, to an overall width of less
than K, and shifts from 135.4 to 140.2 K. The heat-capacity anomaly in both the
as-grown sample and after the 30-day anneal shows a hysteresis of 0.15 K,
and is unchanged in a magnetic field H = 14 T. The X-ray and
heat-capacity data combined suggest that there is a first order jump in the
structural order parameter. The entropy of the transition is reported
The Nucleotide Excision Repair Pathway Protects Borrelia burgdorferi from Nitrosative Stress in Ixodes scapularis Ticks
The Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi encounters a wide range of environmental conditions as it cycles between ticks of the genus Ixodes and its various mammalian hosts. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are potent antimicrobial molecules generated during the innate immune response to infection, however, it is unclear whether ROS and RNS pose a significant challenge to B. burgdorferi in vivo. In this study, we screened a library of B. burgdorferi strains with mutations in DNA repair genes for increased susceptibility to ROS or RNS in vitro. Strains with mutations in the methyl-directed mismatch repair (MMR) gene mutS1 are hypersensitive to killing by ROS, while strains lacking the nucleotide excision repair (NER) gene uvrB show increased susceptibility to both ROS and RNS. Therefore, mutS1-deficient and uvrB-deficient strains were compared for their ability to complete their infectious cycle in Swiss Webster mice and I. scapularis ticks to help identify sites of oxidative and nitrosative stresses encountered by B. burgdorferi in vivo. Both mutS1¬ and uvrB were dispensable for infection of mice, while uvrB promoted the survival of spirochetes in I. scapularis ticks. The decreased survival of uvrB-deficient B. burgdorferi was associated with the generation of RNS in I. scapularis midguts and salivary glands during feeding. Collectively, these data suggest that B. burgdorferi must withstand cytotoxic levels of RNS produced during infection of I. scapularis ticks
Spin waves and magnetic exchange interactions in the spin ladder compound RbFeSe
We report an inelastic neutron scattering study of the spin waves of the
one-dimensional antiferromagnetic spin ladder compound RbFeSe. The
results reveal that the products, 's, of the spin and the magnetic
exchange interactions 's along the antiferromagnetic (leg) direction and the
ferromagnetic (rung) direction are comparable with those for the stripe ordered
phase of the parent compounds of the iron-based superconductors. The
universality of the 's implies nearly universal spin wave dynamics and the
irrelevance of the fermiology for the existence of the stripe antiferromagnetic
order among various Fe-based materials.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
The nature of the magnetic and structural phase transitions in BaFeAs
We present the results of an investigation of both the magnetic and
structural phase transitions in a high quality single crystalline sample of the
undoped, iron pnictide compound BaFeAs. Both phase transitions are
characterized via neutron diffraction measurements which reveal simultaneous,
continuous magnetic and structural orderings with no evidence of hysteresis,
consistent with a single second order phase transition. The onset of long-range
antiferromagnetic order can be described by a simple power law dependence
with ; a
value near the expected for a two-dimensional Ising system.
Biquadratic coupling between the structural and magnetic order parameters is
also inferred along with evidence of three-dimensional critical scattering in
this system.Comment: New figure and discussion added. Length: 11 pages, 7 figure
Imidazole as a Small Molecule Analogue in Two-Component Signal Transduction
In two-component signal transduction systems (TCSs), responses to stimuli are mediated through phosphotransfer between protein components. Canonical TCSs use His → Asp phosphotransfer in which phosphoryl groups are transferred from a conserved His on a sensory histidine kinase (HK) to a conserved Asp on a response regulator (RR). RRs contain the catalytic core of His → Asp phosphotransfer, evidenced by the ability of RRs to autophosphorylate with small molecule analogs of phospho-His proteins. Phosphorelays are a more complex variation of TCSs that additionally utilize Asp → His phosphotransfer through the use of an additional component, the histidine-containing phosphotransfer domain (Hpt), which reacts with RRs both as phosphodonors and phosphoacceptors. Here we show that imidazole has features of a rudimentary Hpt. Imidazole acted as a nucleophile and attacked phosphorylated RRs (RR-P) to produce monophosphoimidazole (MPI) and unphosphorylated RR. Phosphotransfer from RR-P to imidazole required the intact RR active site, indicating that the RR provided the core catalytic machinery for Asp → His phosphotransfer. Imidazole functioned in an artificial phosphorelay to transfer phosphoryl groups between unrelated RRs. The X-ray crystal structure of an activated RR•imidazole complex showed imidazole oriented in the RR active site similarly to the His of an Hpt. Imidazole interacted with RR non-conserved active site residues, which influenced the relative reactivity of RR-P with imidazole versus water. Rate constants for reaction of imidazole or MPI with chimeric RRs suggested that the RR active site contributes to the kinetic preferences exhibited by the YPD1 Hpt
Adaptive response and enlargement of dynamic range
Many membrane channels and receptors exhibit adaptive, or desensitized,
response to a strong sustained input stimulus, often supported by protein
activity-dependent inactivation. Adaptive response is thought to be related to
various cellular functions such as homeostasis and enlargement of dynamic range
by background compensation. Here we study the quantitative relation between
adaptive response and background compensation within a modeling framework. We
show that any particular type of adaptive response is neither sufficient nor
necessary for adaptive enlargement of dynamic range. In particular a precise
adaptive response, where system activity is maintained at a constant level at
steady state, does not ensure a large dynamic range neither in input signal nor
in system output. A general mechanism for input dynamic range enlargement can
come about from the activity-dependent modulation of protein responsiveness by
multiple biochemical modification, regardless of the type of adaptive response
it induces. Therefore hierarchical biochemical processes such as methylation
and phosphorylation are natural candidates to induce this property in signaling
systems.Comment: Corrected typos, minor text revision
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