379 research outputs found
Eosinophils adhesion assay as a tool for phenotypic drug screening - The pharmacology of 1,3,5 – Triazine and 1H-indole like derivatives against the human histamine H4 receptor
Histamine is a pleiotropic biogenic amine, having affinity towards four distinct histamine receptors. The existing pharmacological studies suggest the usefulness of histamine H4 receptor ligands in the treatment of many inflammatory and immunomodulatory diseases, including allergic rhinitis, asthma, atopic dermatitis, colitis or pruritus. Up to date, several potent histamine H4 receptor ligands were developed, none of which was registered as a drug yet. In this study, a series of potent indole-like and triazine derivatives were tested, in radioligand displacement and functional assays at histamine H4 receptor, as well as in human eosinophils adhesion assay to endothelium. For selected compounds permeability, cytotoxicity, metabolic and in vivo studies were conducted. Adhesion assay differentiated the activity of different groups of compounds with a known affinity towards the histamine H4 receptor. Most of the tested compounds downregulated the number of adherent cells. However, adhesion assay revealed additional properties of tested compounds that had not been detected in radioligand displacement and aequorin-based functional assays. Furthermore, for some tested compounds, these abnormal effects were confirmed during the in vivo studies. In conclusion, eosinophils adhesion assay uncovered pharmacological activity of histamine H4 receptor ligands that has been later confirmed in vivo, underscoring the value of well-suited cell-based phenotypic screening approach in drug discovery
Quasi-fission reactions as a probe of nuclear viscosity
Fission fragment mass and angular distributions were measured from the
^{64}Ni+^{197}Au reaction at 418 MeV and 383 MeV incident energy. A detailed
data analysis was performed, using the one-body dissipation theory implemented
in the code HICOL. The effect of the window and the wall friction on the
experimental observables was investigated. Friction stronger than one-body was
also considered. The mass and angular distributions were consistent with
one-body dissipation. An evaporation code DIFHEAT coupled to HICOL was
developed in order to predict reaction time scales required to describe
available data on pre-scission neutron multiplicities. The multiplicity data
were again consistent with one-body dissipation. The cross-sections for touch,
capture and quasi-fission were also obtained.Comment: 25 pages REVTeX, 3 tables, 13 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev
Crystal structure and directed evolution of specificity of NlaIV restriction endonuclease
Specificity engineering is challenging, and particularly difficult for enzymes that have the catalytic machinery and specificity determinants in close proximity. Restriction endonucleases have been used as a paradigm for protein engineering, but successful cases are rare. Here, we present the results of a directed evolution approach to the engineering of a dimeric, blunt end cutting restriction enzyme NlaIV (GGN/NCC). Based on the remote similarity to EcoRV endonuclease, regions for random mutagenesis and in vitro evolution were chosen. The obtained variants cleaved target sites with an up to 100-fold kcat/KM preference for AT or TA (GGW/WCC) over GC or CG (GGS/SCC) in the central dinucleotide step, compared to the only ~17-fold preference of the wild-type enzyme. To understand the basis of the increased specificity, we determined the crystal structure of NlaIV. Despite the presence of DNA in the crystallization mix, the enzyme crystallized in the free form. We therefore constructed a computational model of the NlaIV-DNA complex. According to the model, the mutagenesis of the regions that were in the proximity of DNA did not lead to the desired specificity change, which was instead conveyed in an indirect manner by substitutions in the more distant regions
Cross Section Limits for the Pb(Kr,n)118 Reaction
In April-May, 2001, the previously reported experiment to synthesize element
118 using the Pb(Kr,n)118 reaction was repeated. No
events corresponding to the synthesis of element 118 were observed with a total
beam dose of 2.6 x 10 ions. The simple upper limit cross sections (1
event) were 0.9 and 0.6 pb for evaporation residue magnetic rigidities of 2.00
and 2.12 , respectively. A more detailed cross section calculation,
accounting for an assumed narrow excitation function, the energy loss of the
beam in traversing the target and the uncertainty in the magnetic rigidity of
the Z=118 recoils is also presented. Re-analysis of the primary data files from
the 1999 experiment showed the reported element 118 events are not in the
original data. The current results put constraints on the production cross
section for synthesis of very heavy nuclei in cold fusion reactions.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to EPJ
Scaling Laws and Transient Times in 3He Induced Nuclear Fission
Fission excitation functions of compound nuclei in a mass region where shell
effects are expected to be very strong are shown to scale exactly according to
the transition state prediction once these shell effects are accounted for. The
fact that no deviations from the transition state method have been observed
within the experimentally investigated excitation energy regime allows one to
assign an upper limit for the transient time of 10 zs.Comment: 7 pages, TeX type, psfig, submitted to Phys. Rev. C, also available
at http://csa5.lbl.gov/moretto/ps/he3_paper.p
Isospin-tracing: A probe of non-equilibrium in central heavy-ion collisions
Four different combinations of Ru and Zr nuclei, both
as projectile and target, were investigated at the same bombarding energy of
400 MeV using a detector. The degree of isospin mixing between
projectile and target nucleons is mapped across a large portion of the phase
space using two different isospin-tracer observables, the number of measured
protons and the yield ratio. The experimental results
show that the global equilibrium is not reached even in the most central
collisions. Quantitative measures of stopping and mixing are extracted from the
data. They are found to exhibit a quite strong sensitivity to the in-medium
(n,n) cross section used in microscopic transport calculations.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, 3 figures (ps files), submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Isospin influences on particle emission and critical phenomenon in nuclear dissociation
Features of particle emission and critical point behavior are investigated as
functions of the isospin of disassembling sources and temperature at a moderate
freeze-out density for medium-size Xe isotopes in the framework of isospin
dependent lattice gas model. Multiplicities of emitted light particles,
isotopic and isobaric ratios of light particles show the strong dependence on
the isospin of the dissociation source, but double ratios of light isotope
pairs and the critical temperature determined by the extreme values of some
critical observables are insensitive to the isospin of the systems. Values of
the power law parameter of cluster mass distribution, mean multiplicity of
intermediate mass fragments (), information entropy () and Campi's
second moment () also show a minor dependence on the isospin of Xe
isotopes at the critical point. In addition, the slopes of the average
multiplicites of the neutrons (), protons (), charged particles
(), and IMFs (), slopes of the largest fragment mass number
(), and the excitation energy per nucleon of the disassembling source
() to temperature are investigated as well as variances of the
distributions of , , , , and . It
is found that they can be taken as additional judgements to the critical
phenomena.Comment: 9 Pages, 8 figure
Identification of baryon resonances in central heavy-ion collisions at energies between 1 and 2 AGeV
The mass distributions of baryon resonances populated in near-central
collisions of Au on Au and Ni on Ni are deduced by defolding the spectra
of charged pions by a method which does not depend on a specific resonance
shape. In addition the mass distributions of resonances are obtained from the
invariant masses of pairs. With both methods the deduced mass
distributions are shifted by an average value of -60 MeV/c relative to the
mass distribution of the free resonance, the distributions
descent almost exponentially towards mass values of 2000 MeV/c^2. The observed
differences between and pairs indicate a contribution
of isospin resonances. The attempt to consistently describe the
deduced mass distributions and the reconstructed kinetic energy spectra of the
resonances leads to new insights about the freeze out conditions, i.e. to
rather low temperatures and large expansion velocities.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figures, Latex using documentstyle[12pt,a4,epsfig], to
appear in Eur. Phys. J.
The systematic study of the influence of neutron excess on the fusion cross sections using different proximity-type potentials
Using different types of proximity potentials, we have examined the trend of
variations of barrier characteristics (barrier height and its position) as well
as fusion cross sections for 50 isotopic systems including various collisions
of C, O, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Ar, Ti and Ni nuclei with condition
for compound systems. The results of our studies reveal that the relationships
between increase of barrier positions and decrease of barrier heights are both
linear with increase of ratio. Moreover, fusion cross sections also
enhance linearly with increase of this ratio.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures, 5 Table
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