Ab initio study of beryllium-decorated fullerenes for hydrogen storage

We have found that a beryllium (Be) atom on nanostructured materials with H2 molecules generates a Kubas-like dihydrogen complex [H. Lee et al. arXiv:1002.2247v1 (2010)]. Here, we investigate the feasibility of Be-decorated fullerenes for hydrogen storage using ab initio calculations. We find that the aggregation of Be atoms on pristine fullerenes is energetically preferred, resulting in the dissociation of the dihydrogen. In contrast, for boron (B)-doped fullerenes, Be atoms prefer to be individually attached to B sites of the fullerenes, and a maximum of one H2 molecule binds to each Be atom in a form of dihydrogen with a binding energy of ~0.3 eV. Our results show that individual dispersed Be-decorated B-doped fullerenes can serve as a room-temperature hydrogen storage medium.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in Journal of Applied Physic

A threading approach to protein structure prediction: studies on TNF-like molecules, Rev proteins, and protein kinases

The main focus of this dissertation is the application of the threading approach to specific biological problems. The threading scheme developed in our group targets incorporating important structural features necessary for detecting structural similarity between the target sequence and the template structure. This enables us to use our threading method to solve problems for which sequence-based methods are not very much useful. We applied our threading method to predict the three-dimensional structures of lentivirus (EIAV, HIV-1, FIV, SIV) Rev proteins. Predicted structures of Rev proteins suggest that they share a structural similarity among themselves (four-helix bundle). Also, the threading approach has been utilized for screening for potential TNF-like molecules in Arabidopsis. The threading approach identified 35 potential TNF-like proteins in Arabidopsis, six of which are particularly interesting to be tested for the receptor kinase ligand activity. Threading method has also been used to identify potentially new protein kinases, which are not included in the protein kinase data base of C. elegans and Arabidopis. We identified eleven potentially new protein kinases and an additional protein worth investigating for protein kinase activity in C. elegans. Further, we identified ten potentially new protein kinases and additional four proteins worth investigating for the protein kinase activity in Arabidopsis