Search results for "Molecules"

1,1-Dichloroethane: a molecular crystal structure without van der Waals contacts?

2008

Isochoric and isobaric freezing of 1,1-dichloroethane, CH3CHCl2, mp = 176.19 K, yielded the orthorhombic structure, space group Pnma, with the fully ordered molecules, in the staggered conformation, located on mirror planes. The CH3CHCl2 ambient-pressure (0.1 MPa) structures were determined at 160 and 100 K, whereas the 295 K high-pressure structures were determined at 0.59 and 1.51 GPa. At 0.1 MPa, all intermolecular distances are considerably longer than the sums of the van der Waals radii, and only a pressure of about 1.5 GPa squeezed the Cl···Cl and Cl···H contacts to distances commensurate with these sums. The exceptionally large difference between the melting points of isomeric 1,1- a…

Surface anchoring on liquid crystalline polymer brushes

2002

We present a Monte Carlo study of the surface anchoring of a nematic fluid on swollen layers of grafted liquid crystalline chain molecules. The liquid crystalline particles are modeled by soft repulsive ellipsoids, and the chains are made of the same particles. An appropriately modified version of the configurational bias Monte Carlo algorithm is introduced, which removes and redistributes chain bonds rather than whole monomers. With this algorithm, a wide range of grafting densities could be studied. The substrate is chosen such that it favors a planar orientation (parallel to the surface). Depending on the grafting density, we find three anchoring regimes: planar, tilted, and perpendicula…

Human neuroglobin: crystals and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis

2002

Neuroglobin, a recently discovered member of the haemoglobin superfamily, is primarily expressed in the brain of humans and other vertebrates, where it has been proposed to enhance O(2) supply in response to hypoxia or ischaemia, protecting the neuron from hypoxic injury. Neuroglobin is the first example of a vertebrate haemoglobin in which a hexacoordinate haem geometry has been detected. A triple mutant (replacing three Cys residues) of human neuroglobin (151 amino acids) has been expressed in Escherichia coli, purified and crystallized in two crystal forms, the best of which diffracts to 1.95 A resolution using synchrotron radiation. The crystals belong to space group P2(1), with unit-ce…

Enzymatic and Metabolic Studies on Isolated Nuclei

1957

Publisher Summary In protein synthesis it is important to distinguish between the net synthesis of protein, as measured by an increased amount of protein nitrogen or by the formation of proteins with specific biological properties, such as enzymatically and immunologically active proteins, and exchange reactions, which may be observed in isotope experiments and, which reflect the replacement of an amino acid in a protein molecule with one from its environment. Incorporation of an amino acid into a protein can occur only during net synthesis; both types of reaction occur in similar systems. In true synthesis of protein it is usually difficult to obtain synthesis of a specific entity, especia…

Studying the role of protein dynamics in an SN2 enzyme reaction using free-energy surfaces and solvent coordinates

2013

Conformational changes are known to be able to drive an enzyme through its catalytic cycle, allowing, for example, substrate binding or product release. However, the influence of protein motions on the chemical step is a controversial issue. One proposal is that the simple equilibrium fluctuations incorporated into transition-state theory are insufficient to account for the catalytic effect of enzymes and that protein motions should be treated dynamically. Here, we propose the use of free-energy surfaces, obtained as a function of both a chemical coordinate and an environmental coordinate, as an efficient way to elucidate the role of protein structure and motions during the reaction. We sho…

Fullerene-Containing Polymers: An Overview

2009

Preface for the Forum on Molecular Magnetism: The Role of Inorganic Chemistry

2009

Molecular magnetism is a rapidly expanding field of research whose central theme is the design and study of magnetic molecules and materials with tunable properties. In the early stages of the field, which began to take shape in the 1980s, much of the effort was directed at the pursuit of molecule-based magnetic solids that order at high temperatures. These materials are basically of two types: those based on tetracyanoethylene (TCNE) and those based on cyanide. As the field rapidly evolved over the past two decades, exciting new challenges appeared on the horizon, including the use of building block approaches for the preparation of complex multifunctional magnetic materials, the fabricati…

Interaction in POSS-poly(ethylene-co-acrylic acid) nanocomposites

2013

Use of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) in polymer-based nanocomposites is promising for the design of high-performance materials for several applications. In this study, nanocomposites based on ethylene-acrylic acid (EAA) copolymer and POSS molecules were prepared by melt mixing. In particular, partial cage POSS with different pendent organic groups was used to investigate the interaction between the –OH groups of POSS and the acrylic functionalities of the matrix. All nanocomposites were characterized by mechanical, rheological, thermal and spectroscopic analyses. In addition, PE-POSS compounds were prepared under the same processing conditions for sake of comparison. The POSS …

Calculation of the Phase Behavior of Lipids

1998

The self-assembly of monoacyl lipids in solution is studied employing a model in which the lipid's hydrocarbon tail is described within the Rotational Isomeric State framework and is attached to a simple hydrophilic head. Mean-field theory is employed, and the necessary partition function of a single lipid is obtained via a partial enumeration over a large sample of molecular conformations. The influence of the lipid architecture on the transition between the lamellar and inverted-hexagonal phases is calculated, and qualitative agreement with experiment is found.

Influence of polymer flexibility on nanoparticle dynamics in semidilute solutions

2018

The hierarchical structure and dynamics of polymer solutions control the transport of nanoparticles (NPs) through them. Here, we perform multi-particle collision dynamics simulations of solutions of semiflexible polymer chains with tunable persistence length lp to investigate the effect of chain stiffness on NP transport. The NPs exhibit two distinct dynamical regimes - subdiffusion on short time scales and diffusion on long time scales. The long-time NP diffusivities are compared with predictions from the Stokes-Einstein relation (SER), mode-coupling theory (MCT), and a recent polymer coupling theory (PCT). Increasing deviations from the SER as the polymer chains become more rigid (i.e. as…