Highly porous melamine-formaldehyde monoliths with controlled hierarchical porosity toward application as a metal scavenger

We report a new synthetic strategy for melamine-formaldehyde (MF) monoliths with controlled hierarchical porosity toward metal-ion scavengers. The obtained MF monoliths possessed micro-, meso- and macroporosity, which allowed efficient adsorption performance of precious metal ions in water. Applications such as recovery/removal of metal ions are expected

Study of Beam Profile Measurement at Interaction Point in International Linear Collider

At the international linear collider, measurement of the beam profile at the interaction point is a key issue to achieve high luminosity. We report a simulation study on a new beam profile monitor, called the pair monitor, which uses the hit distribution of the electron-positron pairs generated at the interaction point. We obtained measurement accuracies of 5.1%, 10.0%, and 4.0% for the horizontal, vertical, and longitudinal beam size, respectively, for 50 bunch crossings.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Protein complex prediction via verifying and reconstructing the topology of domain-domain interactions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>High-throughput methods for detecting protein-protein interactions enable us to obtain large interaction networks, and also allow us to computationally identify the associations of proteins as protein complexes. Although there are methods to extract protein complexes as sets of proteins from interaction networks, the extracted complexes may include false positives because they do not account for the structural limitations of the proteins and thus do not check that the proteins in the extracted complex can simultaneously bind to each other. In addition, there have been few searches for deeper insights into the protein complexes, such as of the topology of the protein-protein interactions or into the domain-domain interactions that mediate the protein interactions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we introduce a combinatorial approach for prediction of protein complexes focusing not only on determining member proteins in complexes but also on the DDI/PPI organization of the complexes. Our method analyzes complex candidates predicted by the existing methods. It searches for optimal combinations of domain-domain interactions in the candidates based on an assumption that the proteins in a candidate can form a true protein complex if each of the domains is used by a single protein interaction. This optimization problem was mathematically formulated and solved using binary integer linear programming. By using publicly available sets of yeast protein-protein interactions and domain-domain interactions, we succeeded in extracting protein complex candidates with an accuracy that is twice the average accuracy of the existing methods, MCL, MCODE, or clustering coefficient. Although the configuring parameters for each algorithm resulted in slightly improved precisions, our method always showed better precision for most values of the parameters.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our combinatorial approach can provide better accuracy for prediction of protein complexes and also enables to identify both direct PPIs and DDIs that mediate them in complexes.</p

Elimination of teicoplanin by adsorption to the filter membrane during haemodiafiltration: Screening experiments for linezolid, teicoplanin and vancomycin followed by in vitro haemodiafiltration models for teicoplanin

Pharmaceutical agents directed against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus can be eliminated during haemodiafiltration, not only by diffusion and ultrafiltration, but also by adsorption onto haemofilters. The latter may be affected by the binding of agents to serum albumin. The present study therefore investigated the affinity of anti-methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus agents (teicoplanin, linezolid, vancomycin) for haemofilters and the pharmacokinetic properties of teicoplanin during haemodiafiltration. Linezolid, teicoplanin and vancomycin were first screened for their in vitro affinity for three different kinds of filter membranes: polysulfone, polyacrylonitrile and polymethylmethacrylate. Only teicoplanin showed significant filter-binding activity. An in vitro haemodiafiltration circulation model was then developed that incorporated a one-litre beaker containing Krebs-Ringer\u27s bicarbonate solution with/without human albumin (0 or 3 g/dl) as an artificial plasma. Teicoplanin (initial concentration 50 μg/ml, representing the maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) resulting from a typical clinical dosage) was circulated throughout the beaker. Teicoplanin concentrations in the \u27plasma\u27 and ultrafiltrate were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. In the screening experiment, teicoplanin was predominantly adsorbed onto polysulfone and polymethylmethacrylate membranes. Furthermore, teicoplanin was primarily eliminated by adsorption onto these filters during in vitro haemodiafiltration. Albumin significantly reduced both haemodiafiltration clearance and the adsorption-dependent elimination, although there were complex but significant interactions between albumin and the filter membrane. Elimination of teicoplanin in an in vitro haemodiafiltration model was largely due to adsorption onto polysulfone and polymethylmethacrylate haemofilters. Future clinical studies should likely be designed to evaluate present recommendations of teicoplanin dosages in patients on haemodiafiltration

HBO1-MLL interaction promotes AF4/ENL/P-TEFb-mediated leukemogenesis

白血病を引き起こすタンパク質間相互作用の発見. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-08-31.Leukemic oncoproteins cause uncontrolled self-renewal of hematopoietic progenitors by aberrant gene activation, eventually causing leukemia. However, the molecular mechanism underlying aberrant gene activation remains elusive. Here, we showed that leukemic MLL fusion proteins associate with the HBO1 histone acetyltransferase (HAT) complex through their trithorax homology domain 2 (THD2) in various human cell lines. MLL proteins associated with the HBO1 complex through multiple contacts mediated mainly by the ING4/5 and PHF16 subunits in a chromatin-bound context where histone H3 lysine 4 tri-methylation marks were present. Of the many MLL fusions, MLL-ELL particularly depended on the THD2-mediated association with the HBO1 complex for leukemic transformation. The C-terminal portion of ELL provided a binding platform for multiple factors including AF4, EAF1, and p53. MLL-ELL activated gene expression in murine hematopoietic progenitors by loading an AF4/ENL/P-TEFb (AEP) complex onto the target promoters wherein the HBO1 complex promoted the association with AEP complex over EAF1 and p53. Moreover, the NUP98-HBO1 fusion protein exerted its oncogenic properties via interaction with MLL but not its intrinsic HAT activity. Thus, the interaction between the HBO1 complex and MLL is an important nexus in leukemic transformation, which may serve as a therapeutic target for drug development