Electronic Transport Properties of the Ising Quantum Hall Ferromagnet in a Si Quantum Well

Magnetotransport properties are investigated for a high mobility Si two dimensional electron systems in the vicinity of a Landau level crossing point. At low temperatures, the resistance peak having a strong anisotropy shows large hysteresis which is attributed to Ising quantum Hall ferromagnetism. The peak is split into two peaks in the paramagnetic regime. A mean field calculation for the peak positions indicates that electron scattering is strong when the pseudospin is partially polarized. We also study the current-voltage characteristics which exhibit a wide voltage plateau.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Computational study on the roles of amino acid residues in the active site formation mechanism of blue-light photoreceptors

To examine the functional roles of the active site methionine (M-site) and glutamic acid (E-site) residues of blue-light photoreceptors, we performed in silico mutation at the M-site in a systematic manner and focused on the hydrogen bonding between the E-site and the substrate: the cyclobutane–pyrimidine dimer (CPD). Fragment molecular orbital calculations with electron correlations demonstrated that substitution of the M-site methionine with either alanine or glutamine always destabilizes the interaction energy between the E-site and the CPD by more than 12.0 kcal/mol, indicating that the methionine and glutamic acid residues cooperatively facilitate the enzymatic reaction in the active site

Electron Transfer Pathways of Cyclobutane Pyrimidine Dimer Photolyase Revisited

The photoinduced electron transfer (ET) reaction of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD) photolyase plays an essential role in its DNA repair reaction, and the molecular mechanism of the ET reaction has attracted a large number of experimental and theoretical studies. We investigated the quantum mechanical nature of their ET reactions, characterized by multiple ET pathways of the CPD photolyase derived from Anacystis nidulans. Using the generalized Mulliken–Hush (GMH) method and the bridge green function (GF) methods, we estimated the electronic coupling matrix element, <i>T</i>_DA, to be 36 ± 30 cm^–1 from the donor (FADH^–) to the acceptor (CPD). The estimated ET time was 386 ps, in good agreement with the experimental value (250 ps) in the literature. Furthermore, we performed the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and <i>ab initio</i> molecular orbital (MO) calculations, and explored the electron tunneling pathway. We examined 20 different structures during the MD trajectory and quantitatively evaluated the electron tunneling currents for each of them. As a result, we demonstrated that the ET route via Asn349 was the dominant pathway among the five major routes via (Adenine/Asn349), (Adenine/Glu283), (Adenine/Glu283/Asn349/Met353), (Met353/Asn349), and (Asn349), indicating that Asn349 is an essential amino acid residue in the ET reaction

Porphyromonas gingivalis gingipains-mediated degradation of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 leads to delayed wound healing responses in human endothelial cells

Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), a serine protease inhibitor, is constitutively produced by endothelial cells and plays a vital role in maintaining vascular homeostasis. Chronic periodontitis is an inflammatory disease characterized by bleeding of periodontal tissues that support the tooth. In this study, we aimed to determine the role of PAI-1 produced by endothelial cells in response to infections caused by the primary periodontal pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis. We demonstrated that P. gingivalis infection resulted in significantly reduced PAI-1 levels in human endothelial cells. This reduction in PAI-1 levels could be attributed to the proteolysis of PAI-1 by P. gingivalis proteinases, especially lysine-specific gingipain-K (Kgp). We demonstrated the roles of these degradative enzymes in the endothelial cells using a Kgp-specific inhibitor and P. gingivalis gingipain-null mutants, in which the lack of the proteinases resulted in the absence of PAI-1 degradation. The degradation of PAI-1 by P. gingivalis induced a delayed wound healing response in endothelial cell layers via the low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein. Our results collectively suggested that the proteolysis of PAI-1 in endothelial cells by gingipains of P. gingivalis might lead to the deregulation of endothelial homeostasis, thereby contributing to the permeabilization and dysfunction of the vascular endothelial barrier