Human Hsp70 Disaggregase reverses Parkinson’s-linked α-Synuclein Amyloid Fibrils

Intracellular amyloid fibrils linked to neurodegenerative disease typically accumulate in an age-related manner, suggesting inherent cellular capacity for counteracting amyloid formation in early life. Metazoan molecular chaperones assist native folding and block polymerization of amyloidogenic proteins, preempting amyloid fibril formation. Chaperone capacity for amyloid disassembly, however, is unclear. Here, we show that a specific combination of human Hsp70 disaggregase-associated chaperone components efficiently disassembles α-synuclein amyloid fibrils characteristic of Parkinson’s disease in vitro. Specifically, the Hsc70 chaperone, the class B J-protein DNAJB1, and an Hsp110 family nucleotide exchange factor (NEF) provide ATP-dependent activity that disassembles amyloids within minutes via combined fibril fragmentation and depolymerization. This ultimately generates non-toxic α-synuclein monomers. Concerted, rapid interaction cycles of all three chaperone components with fibrils generate the power stroke required for disassembly. This identifies a powerful human Hsp70 disaggregase activity that efficiently disassembles amyloid fibrils and points to crucial yet undefined biology underlying amyloid-based diseases

Impact of Impure Gas on CO2 Capture from Flue Gas Using Carbon Nanotubes: A Molecular Simulation Study

We used a grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation to study the influence of impurities including water vapor, SO2, and O2 in the flue gas on the adsorption of CO2/N2 mixture in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carboxyl doped CNT arrays. In the presence of single impure gas, SO2 yielded the most inhibitions on CO2 adsorption, while the influence of water only occurred at low pressure limit (0.1 bar), where a one-dimensional chain of hydrogen-bonded molecules was formed. Further, O2 was found to hardly affect the adsorption and separation of CO2. With three impurities in flue gas, SO2 still played a major role to suppress the adsorption of CO2 by reducing the adsorption amount significantly. This was mainly because SO2 had a stronger interaction with carbon walls in comparison with CO2. The presence of three impurities in flue gas enhanced the adsorption complexity due to the interactions between different species. Modified by hydrophilic carboxyl groups, a large amount of H2O occupied the adsorption space outside the tube in the carbon nanotube arrays, and SO2 produced competitive adsorption for CO2 in the tube. Both of the two effects inhibited the adsorption of CO2, but improved the selectivity of CO2/N2, and the competition between the two determined the adsorption distribution of CO2 inside and outside the tube. In addition, it was found that (7, 7) CNT always maintained the best CO2/N2 adsorption and separation performance in the presence of impurity gas, for both the cases of single CNT and CNT array

Effect of stabilizer on the morphology of Au@TiO2 spheres: a combined experimental and theoretical study

In this study, two different particle sizes of Au nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized using two different stabilizers, and then two different morphologies Au@TiO2 hollow spheres were obtained when the corresponding Au NPs solutions were added to the TiF4 ethanol-water solution under hydrothermal condition. The computational simulation is employed to provide the fundamental support to explain why different stabilizers yield different sizes of Au NPs, and the main cause for the experimental observation is contributed by the different interactive forces between Au and stabilizer molecules. The experimental strategy adopted different stabilizer in this work is expected to be generally applicable for the synthesis of many other types of micro-nanostructured materials.</p

Special Issue on “Transport of Fluids in Nanoporous Materials”

Understanding the transport behavior of fluid molecules in confined spaces is central to the design of innovative processes involving porous materials and is indispensable to the correlation of process behavior with the material structure and properties typically used for structural characterizations such as pore dimension, surface texture, and tortuosity. [...

Hybrid Momentum Compensation Control by Using Arms for Bipedal Dynamic Walking

Biped robots swing their legs alternately to achieve highly dynamic walking, which is the basic ability required for them to perform tasks. However, swinging of the swinging leg in the air will disturb the interaction between the supporting leg and the ground and affect the upper body&rsquo;s balance during dynamic walking. To allow the robot to use its own intrinsic motion characteristics to maintain stable movement like a human when its lower limbs are affected by unknown disturbances during dynamic walking, the ability to use its arms to resist disturbances is essential. This article presents a hybrid momentum compensation control method for torque-controlled biped robots to adapt to unknown disturbances during dynamic walking. First, a hybrid angular momentum and linear momentum regulator is designed to compensate for the disturbance caused by the swinging leg. Second, based on real-time dynamic state changes of the legs, a mixed-momentum quadratic programming controller is designed to realize stable dynamic walking. The proposed method allows the force-controlled robot to maintain its balance while walking down an unknown platform, and it maintains good straightness in the forward direction of dynamic motion. The proposed method&rsquo;s effectiveness is verified experimentally on the BHR-B2 force-controlled biped robot platform

The Influence of Cation Treatments on the Pervaporation Dehydration of NaA Zeolite Membranes Prepared on Hollow Fibers

NaA zeolite membrane is an ideal hydrophilic candidate for organic dehydrations; however, its instability in salt solutions limits its application in industries as the membrane intactness was greatly affected due to the replacement of cation ions. In order to explore the relationship between the structural variation and the cation types, the obtained NaA zeolite membranes were treated by various monovalent and divalent cations like Ag+, K+, Li+, NH4+, Zn2+, Mg2+, Ba2+ and Ca2+. The obtained membranes were subsequently characterized by contact angle, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), pervaporation (PV), and vapor permeation (VP). The results showed that all of the hydrophilicities of the exchanged membrane were reduced, and the membrane performance varied with cation charges and sizes. For the monovalent cations, the membrane performance was largely determined by the cation sizes, where the membrane remained intact. On the contrary, for the divalent cation treatments, the membrane separation was generally reduced due to the presence of cation vacancies, resulting in some unbalanced stresses between the dispersive interaction and electrostatic forces, thereby damaging the membrane intactness. In the end, a set of gas permeation experiments were conducted for the two selected cation-treated membranes (K+ and Ag+) using H2, CO2, N2 and CH4, and a much higher decreasing percentage (90% for K+) occurred in comparison with the permeation drop (10%) in the PV dehydration, suggesting that the vaporization resistance of phase changing for the PV process was more influential than the water vapor transport in the pore channel

Understanding the diffusional tortuosity of porous materials: an effective medium theory perspective

The interpretation of experimental data on transport in porous materials is often based on the use of a single representative pore size, overlooking effects of the pore size distribution (PSD) and pore network connectivity, and fitting a tortuosity into which all such uncertainties are consigned. Using literature data on the diffusion of N-2, Xe and i-C4H10 in mesoporous Shell silica spheres, we demonstrate that the tortuosity depends on the choice of the representative pore radius as well as gas species. Both the Knudsen model and the Oscillator model considering dispersive fluid solid interactions, developed in this laboratory, are found to adequately interpret the data in conjunction with effective medium theory (EMT) by fitting a network coordination number instead of tortuosity. This insensitivity to model is due to the large mean mesopore radius of 7.4 nm for this silica; however, the Oscillator model is found to yield a value of the coordination number closer to the range of values expected for this material. Using the EMT we demonstrate that the tortuosity is dependent on temperature and diffusing species, because of differences in temperature dependence between the conductance at the representative pore radius and the true conductance which depends on the network connectivity and PSD. In the slip flow regime, which is obtained at large pore size, we show that the superposition of Knudsen and viscous mechanisms leads to temperature and species dependence of tortuosity, because or the different pore size dependence of the two contributions. This leads to different limiting tortuosities and PSD dependence in the Knudsen and viscous flow regimes. These critical aspects are largely unappreciated in the literature, and even systematic variations of tortuosity with temperature or diffusing species usually overlooked, often leading to misrepresentation of the underlying mechanism. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve

Molecular Simulation Study on the Microscopic Structure and Mechanical Property of Defect-Containing sI Methane Hydrate

The study of changes in the related mechanical property and microscopic structure of methane hydrate during the decomposition process are of vital significance to its exploitation and comprehensive utilization. This paper had employed the molecular dynamics (MD) method to investigate the influence of defects on the microscopic structure and mechanical property of the sI methane hydrate system, and to discover the mechanical property for the defect-containing hydrate system to maintain its brittle materials. Moreover, the stress-strain curve of each system was analyzed, and it was discovered that the presence of certain defects in the methane hydrate could promote its mechanical property; however, the system mechanical property would be reduced when the defects had reached a certain degree (particle deletion rate of 9.02% in this study). Besides, the microscopic structures of the sI methane hydrate before and after failure were analyzed using the F3 order parameter value method, and it was found that the F3 order parameters near the crack would be subject to great fluctuations at the time of failure of the hydrate structure. The phenomenon and conclusions drawn in this study provide a basis for the study of the microscopic structure and mechanical characteristics of methane hydrate

Design of a Redundant Manipulator for Playing Table Tennis towards Human-Like Stroke Patterns

This study investigates the design of a 7-DOF humanoid manipulator capable of playing table tennis with human-like stroke patterns. The manipulator system includes a redundant arm, real-time stereo vision system, and a distributed motion control system. First, the size, weight, workspace, and motion capability of the designed arm are similar to those of a human's arm. The forward and inverse kinematics, and the Jacobian matrix of the redundant manipulator are formulated. Next, a distributed motion control system is designed. The ball trajectory prediction method is proposed. Then, a human-inspired optimization method based on Jacobian pseudoinverse and the comfort of the arm posture for stroke pattern trajectory is proposed to achieve human-like stroke patterns and decrease the counterforce exerted on the manipulator. Finally, the validity of the proposed system and methods is demonstrated via human-like stroke pattern experiments