Yeast Mitochondrial ADP/ATP Carriers Are Monomeric in Detergents as Demonstrated by Differential Affinity Purification

Most mitochondrial carriers carry out equimolar exchange of substrates and they are believed widely to exist as homo-dimers. Here we show by differential tagging that the yeast mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier AAC2 is a monomer in mild detergents. Carriers with and without six-histidine or hemagglutinin tags were co-expressed in defined molar ratios in yeast mitochondrial membranes. Their specific transport activity was unaffected by tagging or by co-expression. The co-expressed carriers were extracted from the membranes with mild detergents and purified rapidly by affinity chromatography. All of the untagged carriers were in the flow-through of the affinity column, whereas all of the tagged carriers bound to the column and were eluted subsequently, showing that stable dimers, consisting of associated tagged and untagged carriers, were not present. The specific inhibitors carboxyatractyloside and bongkrekic acid and the substrates ADP, ATP and ADP plus ATP were added during the experiments to determine whether lack of association might have been caused by carriers being prevented from cycling through the various states in the transport cycle where dimers might form. All of the protein was accounted for, but stable dimers were not detected in any of these conditions, showing that yeast ADP/ATP carriers are monomeric in detergents in agreement with their hydrodynamic properties and with their structure. Since strong interactions between monomers were not observed in any part of the transport cycle, it is highly unlikely that the carriers function cooperatively. Therefore, transport mechanisms need to be considered in which the carrier is operational as a monomer

Particle motion and stain removal during simulated abrasive tooth cleaning

Stain removal from teeth is important both to prevent decay and for appearance. This is usually achieved using a filament-based toothbrush with a toothpaste consisting of abrasive particles in a carrier fluid. This work has been carried out to examine how these abrasive particles interact with the filaments and cause material removal from a stain layer on the surface of a tooth. It is important to understand this mechanism as while maximum cleaning efficiency is required, this must not be accompanied by damage to the enamel or dentine substrate. In this work simple abrasive scratch tests were used to investigate stain removal mechanism of two abrasive particles commonly used in tooth cleaning, silica and perlite. Silica particles are granular in shape and very different to perlite particles, which are flat and have thicknesses many times smaller than their width. Initially visualisation studies were carried out with perlite particles to study how they are entrained into a filament/counterface contact. Results were compared with previous studies using silica. Reciprocating scratch tests were then run to study how many filaments have a particle trapped at one moment and are involved in the cleaning process. Stain removal tests were then carried out in a similar manner to establish cleaning rates with the two particle types. Perlite particles were found to be less abrasive than silica. This was because of their shape and how they were entrained into the filament contacts and loaded against a counterface. With both particles subsurface damage during stain removal was found to be minimal. A simple model was built to predict stain removal rates with silica particles, which gave results that correlated well with the experimental data

Proceedings of the Visayas-Wide Conference on Community-Based Coastal Resources Management and Fisheries Co-management

Coastal zone management, Fishery management, Popular participation, Visayas, Philippines,

Early stage morphology of quench condensed Ag, Pb and Pb/Ag hybrid films

Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) has been used to study the morphology of Ag, Pb and Pb/Ag bilayer films fabricated by quench condensation of the elements onto cold (T=77K), inert and atomically flat Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) substrates. All films are thinner than 10 nm and show a granular structure that is consistent with earlier studies of QC films. The average lateral diameter, $\bar {2r}$, of the Ag grains, however, depends on whether the Ag is deposited directly on HOPG ($\bar {2r}$ = 13 nm) or on a Pb film consisting of a single layer of Pb grains ($\bar {2r}$ = 26.8 nm). In addition, the critical thickness for electrical conduction ($d_{G}$) of Pb/Ag films on inert glass substrates is substantially larger than for pure Ag films. These results are evidence that the structure of the underlying substrate exerts an influence on the size of the grains in QC films. We propose a qualitative explanation for this previously unencountered phenomenon.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures and one tabl

Theoretical study of incoherent phi photoproduction on a deuteron target

We study the photoproduction of phi mesons in deuteron, paying attention to the modification of the cross section from bound protons to the free ones with the aim of comparing with recent results at LEPS. For this purpose we take into account Fermi motion in single scattering and rescattering of the phi to account for phi absorption on a second nucleon as well as the rescattering of the proton. We find that the contribution of the double scattering is much smaller than the typical cross section of gamma p to phi p in free space, which implies a very small screening of the phi production in deuteron. The contribution from the proton rescattering, on the other hand, is found to be not negligible compared to the cross section of gamma p to phi p in free space, and leads to a moderate reduction of the phi photoproduction cross section on a deuteron at forward angles if LEPS set up is taken into account. The Fermi motion allows contribution of the single scattering in regions forbidden by phase space in the free case. In particular, we find that for momentum transferred squared close to the maximum value, the Fermi motion changes drastically the shape of d sigma / dt, to the point that the ratio of this cross section to the free one becomes very sensitive to the precise value of t chosen, or the size of the bin used in an experimental analysis. Hence, this particular region of t does not seem the most indicated to find effects of a possible phi absorption in the deuteron. This reaction is studied theoretically as a function of t and the effect of the experimental angular cuts at LEPS is also discussed, providing guidelines for future experimental analyses of the reaction.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figure

Measurement of the Neutron Spin Structure Function g1ng_1^n with a Polarized ^3He Target

Results are reported from the HERMES experiment at HERA on a measurement of the neutron spin structure function $g_1^n(x,Q^2)$ in deep inelastic scattering using 27.5 GeV longitudinally polarized positrons incident on a polarized $^3$He internal gas target. The data cover the kinematic range $0.023<x<0.6$ and $1 (GeV/c)^2 < Q^2 <15 (GeV/c)^2$. The integral $\int_{0.023}^{0.6} g_1^n(x) dx$ evaluated at a fixed $Q^2$ of $2.5 (GeV/c)^2$ is $-0.034\pm 0.013(stat.)\pm 0.005(syst.)$. Assuming Regge behavior at low $x$, the first moment $\Gamma_1^n=\int_0^1 g_1^n(x) dx$ is $-0.037\pm 0.013(stat.)\pm 0.005(syst.)\pm 0.006(extrapol.)$.Comment: 4 pages TEX, text available at http://www.krl.caltech.edu/preprints/OAP.htm

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter