18 kDa microtubule-associated protein: identification as a new light chain (LC-3) of microtubule-associated protein 1 (MAP-1)

AbstractSDS gel electrophoresis of microtubule proteins obtained from bovine brain by polymerization cycles revealed a new protein of 18 kDa. This protein was copolymerized with tubulin and its stoichiometry to tubulin remained constant for at least 5 cycles of assembly. Moreover, this protein remained bound to microtubules stabilized with 10 μM taxol and pelleted through a 4 M glycerol cushion. The same 18 kDa protein was found in a purified preparation of the high molecular mass microtubule-associated protein 1 (MAP-1). The 18 kDa protein copurified with the MAP-1 heavy chains during column chromatography on phosphocellulose, DEAE-cellulose, hydroxyapatite and Bio-Gel A-15m. Incubation of the MAP-1 preparation with a mouse monoclonal antibody to the light chain 1 (LC-1) of MAP-1 and with a second precipitating antibody (a rabbit antibody to mouse IgG) immunoprecipitated from the solution all the known components of MAP-1 (heavy chains, LC-1, LC-2), as well as the 18 kDa protein. Immunoblotting showed, however, that this antibody does not interact directly with the 18 kDa protein. These results indicate that the 18 kDa protein forms a complex with all other components of MAP-1. This polypeptide, therefore, is a new light chain (LC-3) of M AP-1

Angle-susceptible sensing metasurface in terahertz regime

Trabajo presentado a la 3rd International Conference "Terahertz and Microwave Radiation: Generation, Detection and Applications (TERA 2018)", celebrada en Rusia del 22 al 25 de octubre de 2018Nowadays thin-film coatings and structures are widely used in advanced industrial and scientific ap-plications that makes the tasks of thin-film sensing highly demanded in practice. Last decade, stimulated by progress in terahertz (THz) instrumentation, a keen interest has been attracted to the THz spectral range to develop its potential for detecting and measuring properties of thin films. The THz radiation can be an alternative to visible and IR waves when examining optically opaque coatings. Meanwhile, due to a rela-tively large wavelength λ, the conventional spectro-scopic methods (TDS-, FDS-, FTIR-, BWO-based) are ill-suited for direct characterization of films with the thickness d of about 2−4 orders of magnitude smaller than λ. This problem can be solved with met-amaterials, in particular, with plasmonic metasurfaces (PMSs) [1–5]. The plasmonic resonance exhibits a high sensitivity of its spectral response to the dielec-tric environment due to a strong field localization what makes possible measuring of analyte layers sat-isfying d << λ condition. The traditional approach of THz thin-film sensing with PMSs is based on detecting a frequency shift of the resonance when the analyte is deposited onto the PMS. In this work, we present the idea to substitute THz spectral measurements for tracking the PMS re-sponse at a fixed wavelength upon changing the incidence angle θ of the exciting THz beam. This concept works well for the PMS with a narrowband resonance sensitive to θ. The results of the numerical investigations and experimental study of such PMS designed as a single-layer array of hexagon-shaped annular slots (Fig. 1) with angle-susceptible resonant transmission near 0.85 THz are presented.The work is partially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project #17-32-80039)

Labyrinth absorber based on metageometries metasurface for fungi detection

In this paper a labyrinth metasurface based in the new paradigm of metageometries is designed to operate in the Terahertz (THz) band as a biosensor. First, a numerical study is carried out to study the performance of the metasurface as a refractometer when working in two different configurations: transmission and reflection. Then, its performance as a fungi detector is evaluated and a comparison with other devices is performed, showing that the sensitivity and Figure of Merit (FOM) can be enhanced by the use of these kind of devices, in comparison with the classical approach of metaatoms. Particularly, the designed structure is able to detect 5 fungi elements arbitrarily distributed on the unit cell, which is equivalent to a concentration of 0.004/μm 2 , improving the results available in the literature by a factor of more than 4.Work funded by project (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE)

Formal concept analysis for evaluating intrinsic dimension of a natural language

Some results of a computational experiment for determining the intrinsic dimension of linguistic varieties for the Bengali and Russian languages are presented. At the same time, both sets of words and sets of bigrams in these languages were considered separately. The method used to solve this problem was based on formal concept analysis algorithms. It was found that the intrinsic dimensions of these languages are significantly less than the dimensions used in popular neural network models in natural language processing.Comment: Preprint, 10th International Conference on Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence (PReMI 2023

Activation of myosin V–based motility and F-actin–dependent network formation of endoplasmic reticulum during mitosis

It is widely believed that microtubule- and F-actin–based transport of cytoplasmic organelles and membrane fusion is down-regulated during mitosis. Here we show that during the transition of Xenopus egg extracts from interphase to metaphase myosin V–driven movement of small globular vesicles along F-actin is strongly inhibited. In contrast, the movement of ER and ER network formation on F-actin is up-regulated in metaphase extracts. Our data demonstrate that myosin V–driven motility of distinct organelles is differently controlled during the cell cycle and suggest an active role of F-actin in partitioning, positioning, and membrane fusion of the ER during cell division

THz sensing with anomalous extraordinary optical transmission hole arrays

Subwavelength hole array (HA) metasurfaces support the so-called extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) resonance that has already been exploited for sensing. In this work, we demonstrate the superior performance of a different resonant regime of HA metasurfaces called anomalous EOT, by doing a thorough numerical and experimental study of its ability in thin-film label-free sensing applications in the terahertz (THz) band. A comprehensive analysis using both the regular and anomalous EOT resonances is done by depositing thin layers of dielectric analyte slabs of different thicknesses on the structures in different scenarios. We carry out a detailed comparison and demonstrate that the best sensing performance is achieved when the structure operates in the anomalous EOT resonance and the analyte is deposited on the non-patterned side of the metasurface, improving by a factor between 2 and 3 the results of the EOT resonance in any of the considered scenarios. This can be explained by the comparatively narrower linewidth of the anomalous EOT resonance. The results presented expand the reach of subwavelength HAs for sensing applications by considering the anomalous EOT regime that is usually overlooked in the literature.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad with European Union Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) funds, grant number TEC2014-51902-C2-2-R. The work was partially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project No. 17-32-80039, experimental study; Project No. 18-29-20066, technological implementation)