9,289 research outputs found
Draft crystal structure of the vault shell at 9-A resolution.
Vaults are the largest known cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein structures and may function in innate immunity. The vault shell self-assembles from 96 copies of major vault protein and encapsulates two other proteins and a small RNA. We crystallized rat liver vaults and several recombinant vaults, all among the largest non-icosahedral particles to have been crystallized. The best crystals thus far were formed from empty vaults built from a cysteine-tag construct of major vault protein (termed cpMVP vaults), diffracting to about 9-A resolution. The asymmetric unit contains a half vault of molecular mass 4.65 MDa. X-ray phasing was initiated by molecular replacement, using density from cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Phases were improved by density modification, including concentric 24- and 48-fold rotational symmetry averaging. From this, the continuous cryo-EM electron density separated into domain-like blocks. A draft atomic model of cpMVP was fit to this improved density from 15 domain models. Three domains were adapted from a nuclear magnetic resonance substructure. Nine domain models originated in ab initio tertiary structure prediction. Three C-terminal domains were built by fitting poly-alanine to the electron density. Locations of loops in this model provide sites to test vault functions and to exploit vaults as nanocapsules
Ground State Spin Structure of Strongly Interacting Disordered 1D Hubbard Model
We study the influence of on-site disorder on the magnetic properties of the
ground state of the infinite U 1D Hubbard model. We find that the ground state
is not ferromagnetic. This is analyzed in terms of the algebraic structure of
the spin dependence of the Hamiltonian. A simple explanation is derived for the
1/N periodicity in the persistent current for this model.Comment: 3 pages, no figure
Hindrance of heavy-ion fusion due to nuclear incompressibility
We propose a new mechanism to explain the unexpected steep falloff of fusion
cross sections at energies far below the Coulomb barrier. The saturation
properties of nuclear matter are causing a hindrance to large overlap of the
reacting nuclei and consequently a sensitive change of the nuclear potential
inside the barrier. We report in this letter a good agreement with the data of
coupled-channels calculation for the {64}Ni+{64}Ni combination using the
double-folding potential with M3Y-Reid effective N-N forces supplemented with a
repulsive core that reproduces the nuclear incompressibility for total overlap.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Projection of two biphoton qutrits onto a maximally entangled state
Bell state measurements, in which two quantum bits are projected onto a
maximally entangled state, are an essential component of quantum information
science. We propose and experimentally demonstrate the projection of two
quantum systems with three states (qutrits) onto a generalized maximally
entangled state. Each qutrit is represented by the polarization of a pair of
indistinguishable photons - a biphoton. The projection is a joint measurement
on both biphotons using standard linear optics elements. This demonstration
enables the realization of quantum information protocols with qutrits, such as
teleportation and entanglement swapping.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, published versio
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