Modulation of physico-chemical properties of bovine β-casein by nonenzymatic glycation associated with enzymatic dephosphorylation

A major bovine casein fraction, β-casein was chemically glycated and/or enzymatically dephosphorylated. Ten glucose and nine lactose moieties were attached while all phosphate groups were removed. Glycation shifted the pI to acidic pH range and decreased the solubility at acidic pHs while dephosphorylation shifted the pI to neutral pH range and increased the solubility at acidic pHs. Dephosphorylation led to longer retention time measured using the reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and affected UV-spectra of β-casein which suggested structural changes. Glycation did not affect these properties. Both modifications decreased the calcium sensitivity of β-casein, making it to keep αS1-casein in solution in the presence of Ca2+

Local modes, phonons, and mass transport in solid 4^4He

We propose a model to treat the local motion of atoms in solid $^{4}$He as a local mode. In this model, the solid is assumed to be described by the Self Consistent Harmonic approximation, combined with an array of local modes. We show that in the bcc phase the atomic local motion is highly directional and correlated, while in the hcp phase there is no such correlation. The correlated motion in the bcc phase leads to a strong hybridization of the local modes with the T$_{1}(110)$ phonon branch, which becomes much softer than that obtained through a Self Consistent Harmonic calculation, in agreement with experiment. In addition we predict a high energy excitation branch which is important for self-diffusion. Both the hybridization and the presence of a high energy branch are a consequence of the correlation, and appear only in the bcc phase. We suggest that the local modes can play the role in mass transport usually attributed to point defects (vacancies). Our approach offers a more overall consistent picture than obtained using vacancies as the predominant point defect. In particular, we show that our approach resolves the long standing controversy regarding the contribution of point defects to the specific heat of solid $^{4}$He.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Peptides with Potential Cardioprotective Effects Derived from Dry-Cured Ham Byproducts

"This document is the unedited Author s version of a Submitted Work that was subsequently accepted for publication in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.8b05888"[EN] The interest in using food byproducts as a source of bioactive peptides has increased significantly in the recent years. The goal of this work was to determine the presence and stability of peptides showing angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE-I), endothelin-converting enzyme (ECE), dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPP-IV), and platelet-activating factor-acetylhydrolase (PAF-AH) inhibitory activity derived from dry-cured ham bones, which could exert cardiovascular health benefits. ACE-I and DPP-IV inhibitory peptides were stable against heating typically used in Mediterranean household cooking methods and also to in vitro digestion. PAF-AH inhibitory activity significantly increased following simulated gastrointestinal digestion whereas ECE inhibitory significantly decreased (P < 0.05). The mass spectrometry analysis revealed a notable degradation of hemoglobin-derived peptides after simulated digestion, and the release of a large number of dipeptides that may have contributed to the observed bioactivities. These results suggest that natural peptides from Spanish dry-cured ham bones could contribute to a positive impact on cardiovascular health.This study was funded by the Emerging Research Group Grant from Generalitat Valenciana in Spain (GV/2015/138). A Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral contract to L.M. is acknowledged. Proteomic analysis was performed in the proteomics facility of SCSIE University of Valencia that belongs to ProteoRed, PRB2-ISCIII, supported by grant PT13/0001.Gallego-Ibáñez, M.; Mora Soler, L.; Hayes, M.; Reig Riera, MM.; Toldrá Vilardell, F. (2019). Peptides with Potential Cardioprotective Effects Derived from Dry-Cured Ham Byproducts. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 67(4):1115-1126. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.8b05888S1115112667

Long-range antiferromagnetic order in the S=1 chain compound LiVGe2O6

The phase transition in the compound LiVGe2O6 has been proposed as a unique example of a spin-Peierls transition in an S=1 antiferromagnetic chain. We report neutron and x-ray diffraction measurements of LiVGe2O6 above and below the phase transition at T=24 K. No evidence is seen for any structural distortion associated with the transition. The neutron results indicate that the low temperature state is antiferromagnetic, driven by ferromagnetic interchain couplings.Comment: 4 pages, 4 ps figures, REVTEX, submitted to PR

Damping of spin waves and singularity of the longitudinal modes in the dipolar critical regime of the Heisenberg-ferromagnet EuS

By inelastic scattering of polarized neutrons near the (200)-Bragg reflection, the susceptibilities and linewidths of the spin waves and the longitudinal spin fluctuations were determined separately. By aligning the momentum transfers q perpendicular to both \delta S_sw and the spontaneous magnetization M_s, we explored the statics and dynamics of these modes with transverse polarizations with respect to q. In the dipolar critical regime, where the inverse correlation length kappa_z(T) and q are smaller than the dipolar wavenumber q_d, we observe:(i) the static susceptibility of \delta S_sw^T(q) displays the Goldstone divergence while for \delta S_z^T(q) the Ornstein-Zernicke shape fits the data with a possible indication of a thermal(mass-)renormalization at the smallest q-values, i.e. we find indications for the predicted 1/q divergence of the longitudinal susceptibility; (ii) the spin wave dispersion as predicted by the Holstein-Primakoff theory revealing q_d=0.23(1)\AA^{-1}in good agreement with previous work in the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic regime of EuS; (iii) within experimental error, the (Lorentzian) linewidths of both modes turn out to be identical with respect to the q^2-variation, the temperature independence and the absolute magnitude. Due to the linear dispersion of the spin waves they remain underdamped for q<q_d. These central results differ significantly from the well known exchange dominated critical dynamics, but are quantitatively explained in terms of dynamical scaling and existing data for T>=T_C. The available mode-mode coupling theory, which takes the dipolar interactions fully into account, describes the gross features of the linewidths but not all details of the T- and q-dependencies. PACS: 68.35.Rh, 75.40.GbComment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Pressure-dependence of electron-phonon coupling and the superconducting phase in hcp Fe - a linear response study

A recent experiment by Shimizu et al. has provided evidence of a superconducting phase in hcp Fe under pressure. To study the pressure-dependence of this superconducting phase we have calculated the phonon frequencies and the electron-phonon coupling in hcp Fe as a function of the lattice parameter, using the linear response (LR) scheme and the full potential linear muffin-tin orbital (FP-LMTO) method. Calculated phonon spectra and the Eliashberg functions $\alpha^2 F$ indicate that conventional s-wave electron-phonon coupling can definitely account for the appearance of the superconducting phase in hcp Fe. However, the observed change in the transition temperature with increasing pressure is far too rapid compared with the calculated results. For comparison with the linear response results, we have computed the electron-phonon coupling also by using the rigid muffin-tin (RMT) approximation. From both the LR and the RMT results it appears that electron-phonon interaction alone cannot explain the small range of volume over which superconductivity is observed. It is shown that ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations as well as scattering from magnetic impurities (spin-ordered clusters) can account for the observed values of the transition temperatures but cannot substantially improve the agreeemnt between the calculated and observed presure/volume range of the superconducting phase. A simplified treatment of p-wave pairing leads to extremely small ($\leq 10^{-2}$ K) transition temperatures. Thus our calculations seem to rule out both $s$- and $p$- wave superconductivity in hcp Fe.Comment: 12 pages, submitted to PR

Large-scale mapping of bioactive peptides in structural and sequence space

Health-enhancing potential bioactive peptide (BP) has driven an interest in food proteins as well as in the development of predictive methods. Research in this area has been especially active to use them as components in functional foods. Apparently, BPs do not have a given biological function in the containing proteins and they do not evolve under independent evolutionary constraints. In this work we performed a large-scale mapping of BPs in sequence and structural space. Using well curated BP deposited in BIOPEP database, we searched for exact matches in non-redundant sequences databases. Proteins containing BPs, were used in fold-recognition methods to predict the corresponding folds and BPs occurrences were mapped. We found that fold distribution of BP occurrences possibly reflects sequence relative abundance in databases. However, we also found that proteins with 5 or more than 5 BP in their sequences correspond to well populated protein folds, called superfolds. Also, we found that in well populated superfamilies, BPs tend to adopt similar locations in the protein fold, suggesting the existence of hotspots. We think that our results could contribute to the development of new bioinformatics pipeline to improve BP detection.Fil: Nardo, Agustina Estefania. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimentos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimentos. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimentos; ArgentinaFil: Añon, Maria Cristina. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimentos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimentos. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimentos; ArgentinaFil: Parisi, Gustavo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Observation of a new excitation in bcc solid 4He by inelastic neutron scattering

We report neutron scattering measurements of the phonons in bcc solid 4He. In general, only 3 accoustic phonon branches should exist in a monoatomic cubic crystal. In addition to these phonon branches, we found a new ''optic-like'' mode along the [110] direction. One possible interpretation of this new mode is in terms of localized excitations unique to a quantum solid.Comment: Text and 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Danger- and pathogen-associated molecular patterns recognition by pattern-recognition receptors and ion channels of the transient receptor potential family triggers the inflammasome activation in immune cells and sensory neurons.

An increasing number of studies show that the activation of the innate immune system and inflammatory mechanisms play an important role in the pathogenesis of numerous diseases. The innate immune system is present in almost all multicellular organisms and its activation occurs in response to pathogens or tissue injury via pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) that recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) or danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). Intracellular pathways, linking immune and inflammatory response to ion channel expression and function, have been recently identified. Among ion channels, the transient receptor potential (TRP) channels are a major family of non-selective cation-permeable channels that function as polymodal cellular sensors involved in many physiological and pathological processes.In this review, we summarize current knowledge of interactions between immune cells and PRRs and ion channels of TRP families with PAMPs and DAMPs to provide new insights into the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases. TRP channels have been found to interfere with innate immunity via both nuclear factor-kB and procaspase-1 activation to generate the mature caspase-1 that cleaves pro-interleukin-1ß cytokine into the mature interleukin-1ß.Sensory neurons are also adapted to recognize dangers by virtue of their sensitivity to intense mechanical, thermal and irritant chemical stimuli. As immune cells, they possess many of the same molecular recognition pathways for danger. Thus, they express PRRs including Toll-like receptors 3, 4, 7, and 9, and stimulation by Toll-like receptor ligands leads to induction of inward currents and sensitization in TRPs. In addition, the expression of inflammasomes in neurons and the involvement of TRPs in central nervous system diseases strongly support a role of TRPs in inflammasome-mediated neurodegenerative pathologies. This field is still at its beginning and further studies may be required.Overall, these studies highlight the therapeutic potential of targeting the inflammasomes in proinflammatory, autoinflammatory and metabolic disorders associated with undesirable activation of the inflammasome by using specific TRP antagonists, anti-human TRP monoclonal antibody or different molecules able to abrogate the TRP channel-mediated inflammatory signals