Detection of a pH-dependent conformational change in azurin by time-resolved phosphorescence

Azurin, a blue copper protein from the bacterial species Pseudomonas aeruginosa, contains a single tryptophan residue. Previous fluorescence measurements indicate that this residue is highly constrained and unusually inaccessible to water. In the apoprotein this residue also possesses a long-lived room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP), the nonexponential decay of which can be resolved into two major components associated with lifetimes of 417 and 592 ms, which likely originate from at least two conformations of the protein. The relative weights of these two decay components change with pH in good correlation with a change in protonation of His-35, which has been studied in Cu(II) azurin. Interestingly, the structural changes characterized in earlier work have little effect on the fluorescence decay and appear to occur away from the tryptophan residue. However, in the present work, the two RTP lifetimes suggest conformations with different structural rigidities in the vicinity of the tryptophan residue. The active conformation that predominates below a pH of 5.6 has the shorter lifetime and is less rigid. Phosphorescence decays of several metal derivatives of azurin were also measured and revealed strong similarities to that of apoazurin, indicating that the structural constraints upon the metal-binding site are imposed predominately by the protein

Comment on "Long-range electrostatic interactions between like-charged colloids: Steric and confinement effects"

In a recent study [Phys. Rev. E 60, 6530 (1999)], Trizac and Raimbault showed that the effective pair interaction between like charged colloids immersed in a cylindrically confined electrolyte remains repulsive even when the size of the micro-ions or the finite longitudinal extension of the confining cylinder are taken into account. Contrary to their claim, we argue that the case of finite longitudinal confinement doesn't always generate repulsive interactions and to illustrate this point we also provide a simple example.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E 200

Geometric Integration of Hamiltonian Systems Perturbed by Rayleigh Damping

Explicit and semi-explicit geometric integration schemes for dissipative perturbations of Hamiltonian systems are analyzed. The dissipation is characterized by a small parameter $\epsilon$, and the schemes under study preserve the symplectic structure in the case $\epsilon=0$. In the case $0<\epsilon\ll 1$ the energy dissipation rate is shown to be asymptotically correct by backward error analysis. Theoretical results on monotone decrease of the modified Hamiltonian function for small enough step sizes are given. Further, an analysis proving near conservation of relative equilibria for small enough step sizes is conducted. Numerical examples, verifying the analyses, are given for a planar pendulum and an elastic 3--D pendulum. The results are superior in comparison with a conventional explicit Runge-Kutta method of the same order

The Origin of (90) Antiope From Component-Resolved Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

The origin of the similary-sized binary asteroid (90) Antiope remains an unsolved puzzle. To constrain the origin of this unique double system, we recorded individual spectra of the components using SPIFFI, a near-infrared integral field spectrograph fed by SINFONI, an adaptive optics module available on VLT-UT4. Using our previously published orbital model, we requested telescope time when the separation of the components of (90) Antiope was larger than 0.087", to minimize the contamination between components, during the February 2009 opposition. Several multi-spectral data-cubes in J band (SNR=40) and H+K band (SNR=100) were recorded in three epochs and revealed the two components of (90) Antiope. After developing a specific photometric extraction method and running an error analysis by Monte-Carlo simulations, we successfully extracted reliable spectra of both components from 1.1 to 2.4 um taken on the night of February 21, 2009. These spectra do not display any significant absorption features due to mafic mineral, ices, or organics, and their slopes are in agreement with both components being C- or Cb- type asteroids. Their constant flux ratio indicates that both components' surface reflectances are quite similar, with a 1-sigma variation of 7%. By comparison with 2MASS J, H, K color distribution of observed Themis family members, we conclude that both bodies were most likely formed at the same time and from the same material. The similarly-sized system could indeed be the result of the breakup of a rubble-pile proto-Antiope into two equal-sized bodies, but other scenarios of formation implying a common origin should also be considered.Comment: 46 pages, 1 table, 11 figures accepted for publication to Icaru

Inclusive quasielastic scattering of polarized electrons from polarized nuclei

The inclusive quasielastic response functions that appear in the scattering of polarized electrons from polarized nuclei are computed and analyzed for several closed-shell-minus-one nuclei with special attention paid to 39K. Results are presented using two models for the ejected nucleon --- when described by a distorted wave in the continuum shell model or by a plane wave in PWIA with on- and off-shell nucleons. Relativistic effects in kinematics and in the electromagnetic current have been incorporated throughout. Specifically, the recently obtained expansion of the electromagnetic current in powers only of the struck nucleon's momentum is employed for the on-shell current and the effects of the first-order terms (spin-orbit and convection) are compared with the zeroth-order (charge and magnetization) contributions. The use of polarized inclusive quasielastic electron scattering as a tool for determining near-valence nucleon momentum distributions is discussed.Comment: 51 LaTeX pages, 14 Postscript figure

Effect of intersubband scattering on weak localization in 2D systems

The theory of weak localization is generalized for multilevel 2D systems taking into account intersubband scattering. It is shown that weak intersubband scattering which is negligible in a classical transport, affects strongly the weak-localization correction to conductivity. The anomalous magnetoresistance is calculated in the whole range of classically low magnetic fields. This correction to conductivity is shown to depend strongly on the ratios of occupied level concentrations. It is demonstrated that at relatively low population of the excited subband, it is necessary to use the present theory because the high-field limit asimptotics is shown to be achieved only in classical magnetic fields.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures. Accepted to Phys. Rev. B 6