Development of a method for environmentally friendly chemical peptide synthesis in water using water-dispersible amino acid nanoparticles

Due to the vast importance of peptides in biological processes, there is an escalating need for synthetic peptides to be used in a wide variety of applications. However, the consumption of organic solvent is extremely large in chemical peptide syntheses because of the multiple condensation steps in organic solvents. That is, the current synthesis method is not environmentally friendly. From the viewpoint of green sustainable chemistry, we focused on developing an organic solvent-free synthetic method using water, an environmentally friendly solvent. Here we described in-water synthesis technology using water-dispersible protected amino acids

DNA-viivakoodaus elintarvikkeiden aitoustutkimuksissa

Opinnäytetyön tarkoituksena oli ottaa käyttöön ja validoida DNA-viivakoodaus-menetelmä Elintarviketurvallisuusvirasto Eviralle. DNA-viivakoodaus oli alun perin ekologisiin tutkimuksiin kehitelty menetelmä, mutta pian siitä huomattiin olevan hyötyä myös muilla tutkimusalueilla, kuten elintarvikkeiden aitoustutkimuksissa. Elintarvikepetoksia ja etenkin mereneläviin kohdistuvia väärennöksiä paljastuu yhä enemmän maailmalla. Suomessa näitä väärennöksiä ei ole kovinkaan paljoa tutkittu aikaisemmin. DNA-viivakoodaus-menetelmä perustuu siihen, että genomista on valittu alue, jossa lajin sisällä emäsjärjestys vaihtelee mahdollisimman vähän ja eri lajien välillä suuresti. Lajit voidaan erottaa toisistaan viivakoodialueen sekvenssien perusteella. Eläinlajeilla käytetään usein mitokondriaalisen DNA:n sytokromi c oksidaasi 1 -geeniä (CO1) ja kasveilla kloroplastin maturaasi K (matK)- ja ribuloosi bisfosfaatti karboksylaasi iso alayksikkö (rbcL) -geenejä. Opinnäytetyön laboratorio-osuus suoritettiin pääosin Yhdysvaltain elintarvike- ja lääkevirasto FDA:n laatiman työohjeen mukaisesti. Kalanäytteestä eristettiin DNA, josta monistettiin PCR:llä tietty nukleotidijakso. PCR-tuote puhdistettiin ja sekvensoitiin. Sekvensoinnin tulokset käsiteltiin bioinformatiikan työkaluin ja saatuja sekvenssejä verrattiin sekvenssitietokantoihin, jolloin saatiin selville näytteen kalalaji. Menetelmän käyttöönotto onnistui hyvin. DNA-eristys onnistui, mikäli näytemäärä ei ollut liian suuri. Erilaiset matriisit, kuten savustettu tai suolattu kala, eivät aiheuttaneet ongelmia. Poikkeuksena olivat ainoastaan liian prosessoidut tuotteet, kuten öljyyn säilötty purkkikala. Työssä käytetyt alukkeet toimivat usealle lajille, ja lajintunnistus onnistui vähintään sukutasolle asti. Alustavien tutkimusten perusteella samat alukkeet ja menetelmä soveltuvat myös eläinlajien määritykseen.The purpose of this Bachelor’s thesis was to implement and validate a DNA barcoding method for Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira. DNA barcoding method was originally developed for ecological studies, but soon it was found to be useful in other areas of research as well, such as food authenticity studies. Increasing amount of food frauds, especially seafood forgeries have been found around the world. In Finland, these forgeries have not been studied intensively until recently. DNA barcoding method is based on analysis of a selected area in the genome. The selected genome area should have as little sequence variety as possible within a species and as much as possible between different species. Species can be identified by the sequences of the barcode region. The cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene (CO1) from mitochondrial DNA is often used with animal identification, and maturase K (matK) and ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase large chain (rbcL) genes from the chloroplast are used when researching plants. The laboratory work in this thesis was carried out mainly in accordance with the standard operating procedure made by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration FDA. The DNA was extracted from the fish sample, and a specific nucleotide sequence was amplified from the DNA. The PCR product was purified and sequenced. The results of the sequencing were processed with bioinformatics tools, and the gained sequences were compared to sequence databases to identify the species of the fish sample. The implementation of this method was successful. DNA extraction succeeded if the sample was not too large. Different matrices, such as smoked or salted fish, did not cause problems. The only exceptions were too far processed products, such as fish canned in oil. The primers used in this thesis were functional in many species and the identification of the species was successful until the family level at least. On the bases of the preliminary studies, the same primers and method are also suitable for the identification of several animal species

Development of dynamic deployment simulation of thin composite layer for shape morphing structure

[21st International Conference on Composite Materials] August 20-25, 2017; Xi'an, ChinaThe present study attempted to develop a numerical method to deal with deployment dynamics of a thin composite layer for shape morphing structures, including space deployable structure based on shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs). We utilized a three-layer model based on finite element analysis using shell elements in order to model a thin composite layer. The three-layer model could deal with the difference between tension and bending properties of the thin composite layer.Employing this approach, we also attempted to model our deployment experiment. We observed and simulated the deployment dynamics when one end of the hemispherically curved composite layer was released. When the appropriate bending modulus was used for modeling the composites, the simulated dynamics was almost similar to the experimental results. Therefore, we concluded that the proposed simulation can reproduce the deployment dynamics of a thin composite layer well

Eigenmode excitation of Alfven ion cyclotron instability

科研費報告書収録論文(課題番号:07558072・基盤研究(A)(2)・H7～H9/研究代表者:犬竹, 正明/高密度プラズマ源を用いた電磁流体工学試験装置の開発