1,810 research outputs found
Amino acid racemization reveals differential protein turnover in osteoarthritic articular and meniscal cartilages
INTRODUCTION: Certain amino acids within proteins have been reported to change from the L form to the D form over time. This process is known as racemization and is most likely to occur in long-lived low-turnover tissues such as normal cartilage. We hypothesized that diseased tissue, as found in an osteoarthritic (OA) joint, would have increased turnover reflected by a decrease in the racemized amino acid content. METHODS: Using high-performance liquid chromatography methods, we quantified the L and D forms of amino acids reported to racemize in vivo on a biological timescale: alanine, aspartate (Asp), asparagine (Asn), glutamate, glutamine, isoleucine, leucine (Leu), and serine (Ser). Furthermore, using a metabolically inactive control material (tooth dentin) and a control material with normal metabolism (normal articular cartilage), we developed an age adjustment in order to make inferences about the state of protein turnover in cartilage and meniscus. RESULTS: In the metabolically inactive control material (n = 25, ages 13 to 80 years) and the normal metabolizing control material (n = 19, ages 17 to 83 years), only Asp + Asn (Asx), Ser, and Leu showed a significant change (increase) in racemization with age (P < 0.01). The age-adjusted proportions of racemized to total amino acid (D/D+L expressed as a percentage of the control material) for Asx, Ser, and Leu when compared with the normal articular cartilage control were 97%, 74%, and 73% in OA meniscal cartilage and 97%, 70%, and 78% in OA articular cartilage. We also observed lower amino acid content in OA articular and meniscal cartilages compared with normal articular cartilage as well as a loss of total amino acids with age in the OA meniscal but not the OA articular cartilage. CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate comparable anabolic responses for non-lesioned OA articular cartilage and OA meniscal cartilage but an excess of catabolism over anabolism for the meniscal cartilage
Novel synovial fluid recovery method allows for quantification of a marker of arthritis in mice
SummaryObjectiveWe evaluated three methodologies – a calcium sodium alginate compound (CSAC), polyacrylate beads (PABs), and Whatman paper recovery (WPR) – for the ability to recover synovial fluid (SF) from mouse knees in a manner that facilitated biochemical marker analysis.MethodsPilot testing of each of these recovery vehicles was conducted using small volumes of waste human SF. CSAC emerged as the method of choice, and was used to recover and quantify SF from the knees of C57BL/6 mice (n=12), six of which were given left knee articular fractures. SF concentrations of cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.ResultsThe mean concentration ratio [(COMPleft knee)/(COMPright knee)] was higher in the mice subjected to articular fracture when compared to the non-fracture mice (P=0.026). The mean total COMP ratio (taking into account the quantitative recovery of SF) best discriminated between fracture and non-fracture knees (P=0.004).ConclusionsOur results provide the first direct evidence of accelerated joint tissue turnover in a mouse model responding to acute joint injury. These data strongly suggest that mouse SF recovery is feasible and that biomarker analysis of collected SF samples can augment traditional histological analyses in mouse models of arthritis
Re-parameterization Invariance in Fractional Flux Periodicity
We analyze a common feature of a nontrivial fractional flux periodicity in
two-dimensional systems. We demonstrate that an addition of fractional flux can
be absorbed into re-parameterization of quantum numbers. For an exact
fractional periodicity, all the electronic states undergo the
re-parameterization, whereas for an approximate periodicity valid in a large
system, only the states near the Fermi level are involved in the
re-parameterization.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, minor changes, final version to appear in J. Phys.
Soc. Jp
Exact non-equilibrium current from the partition function for impurity transport problems
We study the partition functions of quantum impurity problems in the domain
of complex applied bias for its relation to the non-equilibrium current
suggested by Fendley, Lesage and Saleur (cond-mat/9510055). The problem is
reformulated as a certain generalization of the linear response theory that
accomodates an additional complex variable. It is shown that the mentioned
relation holds in a rather generic case in the linear response limit, or under
certain condition out of equilibrium. This condition is trivially satisfied by
the quadratic Hamiltonians and is rather restrictive for the interacting
models. An example is given when the condition is violated.Comment: 10 pages, RevTex. Final extended versio
Spin-twist driven persistent current in a strongly correlated two-dimensional electron system: a manifestation of the gauge field
A persistent current, coupled with the spin state, of purely many-body origin
is shown to exist in Nagaoka's ferromagnetic state in two dimensions (2D). This
we regard as a manifestation of a gauge field, which comes from the surrounding
spin configuration and acts on the hole motion, being coupled to the
Aharonov-Bohm flux. This provides an example where the electron-electron
interaction exerts a profound effect involving the spins in clean
two-dimensional lattice systems in sharp contrast to continuum or spinless
fermion systems.Comment: 11 pages, typeset using Revtex 3.0, Phys. Rev. B in press, 2 figures
available upon request at [email protected]
Quasiparticle States around a Nonmagnetic Impurity in D-Density-Wave State of High- Cuprates
Recently Chakravarty {\em et al.} proposed an ordered -density wave (DDW)
state as an explanation of the pseudogap phase in underdoped high-temperature
cuprates. We study the competition between the DDW and superconducting ordering
based on an effective mean-field Hamiltonian. We are mainly concerned with the
effect of the DDW ordering on the electronic state around a single nonmagnetic
impurity. We find that a single subgap resonance peak appears in the local
density of state around the impurity. In the unitary limit, the position of
this resonance peak is always located at with respect to the Fermi
energy. This result is dramatically different from the case of the pure
superconducting state for which the impurity resonant energy is approximately
pinned at the Fermi level. This can be used to probe the existence of the DDW
ordering in cuprates.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Topological quenching of the tunnel splitting for a particle in a double-well potential on a planar loop
The motion of a particle along a one-dimensional closed curve in a plane is considered. The only restriction on the shape of the loop is that it must be invariant under a twofold rotation about an axis perpendicular to the plane of motion. Along the curve a symmetric double-well potential is present leading to a twofold degeneracy of the classical ground state. In quantum mechanics, this degeneracy is lifted: the energies of the ground state and the first excited state are separated from each other by a slight difference ¿E, the tunnel splitting. Although a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the loop does not influence the classical motion of the charged particle, the quantum-mechanical separation of levels turns out to be a function of its strength B. The dependence of ¿E on the field B is oscillatory: for specific discrete values Bn the splitting drops to zero, indicating a twofold degeneracy of the ground state. This result is obtained within the path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics; in particular, the semiclassical instanton method is used. The origin of the quenched splitting is intuitively obvious: it is due to the fact that the configuration space of the system is not simply connected, thus allowing for destructive interference of quantum-mechanical amplitudes. From an abstract point of view this phenomenon can be traced back to the existence of a topological term in the Lagrangian and a nonsimply connected configuration space. In principle, it should be possible to observe the splitting in appropriately fabricated mesoscopic rings consisting of normally conducting metal
Impurity induced resonant state in a pseudogap state of a high temperature superconductor
We predict a resonance impurity state generated by the substitution of one Cu
atom with a nonmagnetic atom, such as Zn, in the pseudogap state of a high-T_c
superconductor. The precise microscopic origin of the pseudogap is not
important for this state to be formed, in particular this resonance will be
present even in the absence of superconducting fluctuations in the normal
state. In the presence of superconducting fluctuations, we predict the
existence of a counterpart impurity peak on a symmetric bias.
The nature of impurity resonance is similar to the previously studied
resonance in the d-wave superconducting state.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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