188 research outputs found
Identification of an envelope mutation (env-10) resulting in increased antibiotic susceptibility and pyocin resistance in a clinical isolate of Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
A mutation (env-10) conferring increased susceptibility to drugs, dyes, and detergents was detected in a clinical isolate of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. In certain strains, env-10 also affected susceptibility to pyocins. This mutation was phenotypically similar to but genotypically distinct from previously described env mutations
Induced Anticlinic Ordering and Nanophase Segregation of Bow-Shaped Molecules in a Smectic Solvent
Recent experiments indicate that doping low concentrations of bent-core
molecules into calamitic smectic solvents can induce anticlinic and biaxial
smectic phases. We have carried out Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of mixtures of
rodlike molecules (hard spherocylinders with length/breadth ratio ) and bow- or banana-shaped molecules (hard spherocylinder dimers
with length/breadth ratio or 2.5 and opening angle ) to
probe the molecular-scale organization and phase behavior of rod/banana
mixtures. We find that a low concentration (3%) of dimers
induces anticlinic (SmC) ordering in an untilted smectic (SmA) phase for
. For smaller , half of each bow-shaped
molecule is nanophase segregated between smectic layers, and the smectic layers
are untilted. For , no tilted phases are induced. However,
with decreasing we observe a sharp transition from {\sl intralamellar}
nanophase segregation (bow-shaped molecules segregated within smectic layers)
to {\sl interlamellar} nanophase segregation (bow-shaped molecules concentrated
between smectic layers) near . These results demonstrate that
purely entropic effects can lead to surprisingly complex behavior in rod/banana
mixtures.Comment: 5 pages Revtex, 7 postscript figure
Symmetries and Elasticity of Nematic Gels
A nematic liquid-crystal gel is a macroscopically homogeneous elastic medium
with the rotational symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal. In this paper, we
develop a general approach to the study of these gels that incorporates all
underlying symmetries. After reviewing traditional elasticity and clarifying
the role of broken rotational symmetries in both the reference space of points
in the undistorted medium and the target space into which these points are
mapped, we explore the unusual properties of nematic gels from a number of
perspectives. We show how symmetries of nematic gels formed via spontaneous
symmetry breaking from an isotropic gel enforce soft elastic response
characterized by the vanishing of a shear modulus and the vanishing of stress
up to a critical value of strain along certain directions. We also study the
phase transition from isotropic to nematic gels. In addition to being fully
consistent with approaches to nematic gels based on rubber elasticity, our
description has the important advantages of being independent of a microscopic
model, of emphasizing and clarifying the role of broken symmetries in
determining elastic response, and of permitting easy incorporation of spatial
variations, thermal fluctuations, and gel heterogeneity, thereby allowing a
full statistical-mechanical treatment of these novel materials.Comment: 21 pages, 4 eps figure
Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation and free energy exploration of copper(I) complexation by chloride and bisulfide in hydrothermal fluids
Abstract not availableYuan Mei, David M. Sherman, Weihua Liu, Joël Brugge
Identification of the methyltransferase targeting C2499 in Deinococcus radiodurans 23S ribosomal RNA
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