Search results for " surface"
showing 10 items of 2838 documents
Mice lacking Plexin-B3 display normal CNS morphology and behaviour
2009
Semaphorins and their receptors, plexins, have emerged as important regulators of a multitude of biological processes. Plexin-B3 has been shown to be selectively expressed in postnatal oligodendrocytes. In contrast to the well-characterized Plexin-A family and the Plexin-B family members Plexin-B1 and -B2, no data are available on the functional role of Plexin-B3 in the central nervous system in vivo. Here we have elucidated the functional significance of Plexin-B3 by generating and analyzing constitutive knock-out mice. Plexin-B3-deficient mice were found to be viable and fertile. A systematic histological analysis revealed no morphological defects in the brain or spinal cord of mutant ani…
Assessment of Postharvest Dehydration Kinetics and Skin Mechanical Properties of “Muscat of Alexandria” Grapes by Response Surface Methodology
2016
The dipping of berries in a dilute solution of sodium hydroxide during a short time was evaluated as pretreatment undertaken prior to convective dehydration of wine grapes. The impact of the sodium hydroxide content and dipping time on weight loss (WL) at different dehydration times was thoroughly assessed using central composite design (CCD) and response surface methodology (RSM). Furthermore, the effects of these two variables were also investigated on the skin mechanical properties of dehydrated grapes. The effect of these two pretreatment factors on the dehydration kinetics and skin hardness was satisfactorily fitted to regression models. The berry pretreatment with low sodium hydroxide…
Effects of temperature, pH and sugar concentration on the growth parameters of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, S. kudriavzevii and their interspecific hybr…
2008
The effects of temperature, pH and sugar concentration (50% glucose + 50% fructose) on the growth parameters of Saccharomyces cerevisiae T73, S. kudriavzevii IFO 1802T and the hybrid strain S. cerevisiae × S. kudriavzevii W27 were studied by means of response surface methodology based in a central composite circumscribed design. Lag phase could not be properly modelled in the wine model system, where yeasts started the fermentation in few hours after inoculation. In the case of the maximum specific growth rate (μ max), the temperature was the most important variable for three yeasts, although the effects of sugar concentration (in T73 and W27) and pH (W27 and 1802) were also significan…
Comparison of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation and separate hydrolysis and fermentation processes for butanol production from rice straw
2020
Abstract Rice straw (RS) is one of the lignocellulosic wastes with the highest global production. The main objective of this study was to maximise the butanol production by Clostridium beijerinckii DSM 6422 from RS pretreated by microwave-assisted hydrothermolysis. Two different fermentation strategies were compared: separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF, two-step process) and simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF, one-step process). In parallel, the variables that significantly affected the butanol production were screened by using fractional factorial designs. Butanol concentration and productivity at 48 h were, respectively, 8% and 173% higher in SSF than in SHF. A one-…
A novel cholinergic-specific antigen (Chol-2) in mammalian brain.
1993
Three new antisera have been raised in sheep against cholinergic electromotor presynaptic plasma membranes prepared from the electric organs of the electric ray, Torpedo marmorata. They all recognized one or more cholinergic-specific antigens in the mammalian nervous system by the following criteria: they sensitized the cholinergic subpopulation of rat-brain synaptosomes--and only this subpopulation--to lysis by the complement system and, in an immunocytochemical study, selectively stained choline acetyltransferase-positive cholinergic neurons in the rat spinal cord. However, two of the three antisera failed to recognize Chol-1 alpha and -beta, two closely related minor gangliosides already…
Influence of barium and cerium oxides on alumina supported Pd catalysts for hydrocarbon combustion
2002
Abstract The effects of baria and ceria additions to alumina-supported palladium catalysts have been investigated. Two series of binary Al 2 O 3 –BaO and ternary oxides Al 2 O 3 –CeO 2 –BaO were prepared using a sol–gel method and then characterized, after high-temperature treatments, by XRD, BET, TG, TEM and EDXS analyses. The influence of baria and ceria on the thermal stability and morphology of the supports was examined. A baria content of 12 wt.% appears the most effective for alumina stabilization. Palladium catalysts were prepared by impregnation method using Pd(NH 3 ) 4 (NO 3 ) 2 and were characterized by XRD and TEM. The catalysts showed high activity in the total oxidation of meth…
Enzymatic effects on reactant and transition states. The case of chalcone isomerase.
2007
Chalcone isomerase catalyzes the transformation of chalcone to naringerin as a part of flavonoid biosynthetic pathways. The global reaction takes place through a conformational change of the substrate followed by chemical reaction, being thus an excellent example to analyze current theories about enzyme catalysis. We here present a detailed theoretical study of the enzymatic action on the conformational pre-equilibria and on the chemical steps for two different substrates of this enzyme. Free-energy profiles are obtained in terms of potentials of mean force using hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics potentials. The role of the enzyme becomes clear when compared to the counterpart eq…
Negative-pressure cavitation coupled with aqueous two-phase extraction and enrichment of flavonoids and stilbenes from the pigeon pea leaves and the …
2015
Abstract An efficient extraction method, negative-pressure cavitation coupled with aqueous two-phase extraction (NPC-ATPE), was developed to simultaneously extract and enrich flavonoids and stilbenes from pigeon pea leaves. The main bioactive compounds, cajaninstilbene acid (CSA), longistyline C (LLC), pinostrobin (PI) and pinostrobin chalcone (PIC) were chosen as target compounds. The extraction conditions were optimized using central composite design combined with response surface methodology. The optimized conditions were: concentration of (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 21% (w/w), concentration of ethanol 23% (w/w) and temperature 30 °C, negative pressure −0.06 MPa, extraction time 30 min and the liquid…
The effect of the fused-ring substituent on anthracene chalcones: crystal structural and DFT studies of 1-(anthracen-9-yl)-3-(naphthalen-2-yl)prop-2-…
2018
Two new anthracene chalcones, namely 1-(anthracen-9-yl)-3-(naphthalen-2-yl)prop-2-en-1-one and 1-(anthracen-9-yl)-3-(pyren-1-yl)prop-2-en-1-one, have been successfully synthesized and the effect of the different fused ring substituent system attached to the anthracene chalcone derivative investigated. These compounds show a very narrow band gap due to the large p-conjugated systems, making them promising candidates as optoelectronic materials. Hirshfeld surface analysis has been carried out to show the contribution of intermolecular contacts and weak interactions to supramolecular stabilization.
Nanocarriers for antioxidant resveratrol: formulation approach, vesicle self-assembly and stability evaluation.
2013
In this work we studied various nanoformulations of resveratrol in phospholipid vesicles. Conventional phophatidylcholine liposomes were prepared and characterized in parallel with PEVs (Penetration Enhancer-containing Vesicles) obtained by adding one of eight selected amphiphilic penetration enhancers (PEs; 0.2% w/v; HLB range 1-16) to the composition. All vesicles were around 100 nm, negatively charged (∼-30 mV) and able to incorporate resveratrol in good yields (>74%). The structure and the lamellar self-organization of the vesicles were investigated by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Small and Wide Angle X-ray Scattering (SWAXS). These analyses showed that the lamellarity of …