84 research outputs found
Design of Copolymeric Materials
We devise a method for designing materials that will have some desired
structural characteristics. We apply it to multiblock copolymers that have two
different types of monomers, A and B. We show how to determine what sequence of
A's and B's should be synthesised in order to give a particular structure and
morphology. %For example in a melt of such %polymers, one may wish to engineer
a body-centered %cubic structure. Using this method in conjunction with the
theory of microphase separation developed by Leibler, we show it is possible to
efficiently search for a desired morphology. The method is quite general and
can be extended to design isolated heteropolymers, such as proteins, with
desired structural characteristics. We show that by making certain
approximations to the exact algorithm, a method recently proposed by
Shakhnovich and Gutin is obtained. The problems with this method are discussed
and we propose an improved approximate algorithm that is computationally
efficient.Comment: 15 pages latex 2.09 and psfig, 1 postscript figure
Design of Force Fields from Data at Finite Temperature
We investigate the problem of how to obtain the force field between atoms of
an experimentally determined structure. We show how this problem can be
efficiently solved, even at finite temperature, where the position of the atoms
differs substantially from the ground state. We apply our method to systems
modeling proteins and demonstrate that the correct potentials can be recovered
even in the presence of thermal noise.Comment: 10 pages, 1 postcript figure, Late
Monte Carlo Procedure for Protein Design
A new method for sequence optimization in protein models is presented. The
approach, which has inherited its basic philosophy from recent work by Deutsch
and Kurosky [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 323 (1996)] by maximizing conditional
probabilities rather than minimizing energy functions, is based upon a novel
and very efficient multisequence Monte Carlo scheme. By construction, the
method ensures that the designed sequences represent good folders
thermodynamically. A bootstrap procedure for the sequence space search is
devised making very large chains feasible. The algorithm is successfully
explored on the two-dimensional HP model with chain lengths N=16, 18 and 32.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX, 4 Postscript figures; minor change
Design Equation: A Novel Approach to Heteropolymer Design
A novel approach to heteropolymer design is proposed. It is based on the
criterion by Kurosky and Deutsch, with which the probability of a target
conformation in a conformation space is maximized at low but finite
temperature. The key feature of the proposed approach is the use of soft spins
(fuzzy monomers) that leads to a design equation, which is an analog of the
Boltzmann machine learning equation in the design problem. We implement an
algorithm based on the design equation for the generalized HP model on the
3x3x3 cubic lattice and check its performance.Comment: 7 pages, 3 tables, 1 figures, uses jpsj.sty, jpsjbs1.sty, epsf.sty,
Submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp
FcγRIIb Inhibits Allergic Lung Inflammation in a Murine Model of Allergic Asthma
Allergic asthma is characterized by airway eosinophilia, increased mucin production and allergen-specific IgE. Fc gamma receptor IIb (FcγRIIb), an inhibitory IgG receptor, has recently emerged as a negative regulator of allergic diseases like anaphylaxis and allergic rhinitis. However, no studies to date have evaluated its role in allergic asthma. Our main objective was to study the role of FcγRIIb in allergic lung inflammation. We used a murine model of allergic airway inflammation. Inflammation was quantified by BAL inflammatory cells and airway mucin production. FcγRIIb expression was measured by qPCR and flow cytometry and the cytokines were quantified by ELISA. Compared to wild type animals, FcγRIIb deficient mice mount a vigorous allergic lung inflammation characterized by increased bronchoalveolar lavage fluid cellularity, eosinophilia and mucin content upon ragweed extract (RWE) challenge. RWE challenge in sensitized mice upregulated FcγRIIb in the lungs. Disruption of IFN-γ gene abrogated this upregulation. Treatment of naïve mice with the Th1-inducing agent CpG DNA increased FcγRIIb expression in the lungs. Furthermore, treatment of sensitized mice with CpG DNA prior to RWE challenge induced greater upregulation of FcγRIIb than RWE challenge alone. These observations indicated that RWE challenge upregulated FcγRIIb in the lungs by IFN-γ- and Th1-dependent mechanisms. RWE challenge upregulated FcγRIIb on pulmonary CD14+/MHC II+ mononuclear cells and CD11c+ cells. FcγRIIb deficient mice also exhibited an exaggerated RWE-specific IgE response upon sensitization when compared to wild type mice. We propose that FcγRIIb physiologically regulates allergic airway inflammation by two mechanisms: 1) allergen challenge mediates upregulation of FcγRIIb on pulmonary CD14+/MHC II+ mononuclear cells and CD11c+ cells by an IFN-γ dependent mechanism; and 2) by attenuating the allergen specific IgE response during sensitization. Thus, stimulating FcγRIIb may be a therapeutic strategy in allergic airway disorders
Analysis of a Panel of 48 Cytokines in BAL Fluids Specifically Identifies IL-8 Levels as the Only Cytokine that Distinguishes Controlled Asthma from Uncontrolled Asthma, and Correlates Inversely with FEV1
We sought to identify cells and cytokines in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids that distinguish asthma from healthy control subjects and those that distinguish controlled asthma from uncontrolled asthma. Following informed consent, 36 human subjects were recruited for this study. These included 11 healthy control subjects, 15 subjects with controlled asthma with FEV1≥80% predicted and 10 subjects with uncontrolled asthma with FEV1 2.4%) were a higher BAL fluid IL-8 levels, and a lower FEV1 in the latter group. By contrast, compared to eosinophil-normal asthma (eosinophils≤0.3%), eosinophil-high asthma (eosinophils>0.3%) had higher levels of IL-5, IL-13, IL-16, and PDGF-bb, but same neutrophil percentage, IL-8, and FEV1. Our results identify neutrophils and IL-8 are the only inflammatory components in BAL fluids that distinguish controlled asthma from uncontrolled asthma, and both correlate inversely with FEV1
Receptor-Mediated Gonadotropin Action in Ovary
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65826/1/j.1432-1033.1979.tb12873.x.pd
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