Search results for "Note"
showing 10 items of 10709 documents
Localization and Characterization of Ferritin in Demospongiae: A Possible Role on Spiculogenesis
2014
Iron, as inorganic ion or as oxide, is widely used by biological systems in a myriad of biological functions (e.g., enzymatic, gene activation and/or regulation). In particular, marine organisms containing silica structures—diatoms and sponges—grow preferentially in the presence of iron. Using primary sponge cell culture from S. domuncula–primmorphs—as an in vitro model to study the Demospongiae spiculogenesis, we found the presence of agglomerates 50 nm in diameter exclusively inside sponge specialized cells called sclerocytes. A clear phase/material separation is observed between the agglomerates and the initial stages of intracellular spicule formation. STEM-HRTEM-EDX analysis of the agg…
Silicateins - A Novel Paradigm in Bioinorganic Chemistry: Enzymatic Synthesis of Inorganic Polymeric Silica
2013
The inorganic matrix of the siliceous skeletal elements of sponges, that is, spicules, is formed of amorphous biosilica. Until a decade ago, it remained unclear how the hard biosilica monoliths of the spicules are formed in sponges that live in a silica-poor (<50 mu m) aquatic environment. The following two discoveries caused a paradigm shift and allowed an elucidation of the processes underlying spicule formation; first the discovery that in the spicules only one major protein, silicatein, exists and second, that this protein displays a bio-catalytical, enzymatic function. These findings caused a paradigm shift, since silicatein is the first enzyme that catalyzes the formation of an inorga…
Circumferential spicule growth by pericellular silica deposition in the hexactinellid sponge Monorhaphis chuni.
2011
SUMMARY The giant basal spicule of the hexactinellid sponge Monorhaphis chuni represents the longest natural siliceous structure on Earth. This spicule is composed of concentrically arranged lamellae that are approximately 10 μm thick. In the present study, we investigated the formation of outer lamellae on a cellular level using microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. It is shown that the formation of an outermost lamella begins with the association of cell clusters with the surface of the thickening and/or growing spicule. The cells release silica for controlled formation of a lamella. The pericellular (silica) material fuses to a delimited and textured layer of silica with depressions …
The silicatein propeptide acts as inhibitor/modulator of self-organization during spicule axial filament formation.
2013
Silicateins are crucial enzymes that are involved in formation of the inorganic biosilica scaffold of the spicular skeleton of siliceous sponges. We show that silicatein acquires its structure-guiding and enzymatically active state by processing of silicatein from pro-silicatein to the mature enzyme. A recombinant propeptide (PROP) of silicatein from the siliceous demosponge Suberites domuncula was prepared, and antibodies were raised against the peptide. In sponge tissue, these antibodies reacted with both surface structures and the central region of the spicules. Using phage display expression, spicule-binding 12-mer peptides were identified that are rich in histidine residues. In the pre…
Self-organization and nanostructural control in thin film heterojunctions.
2013
In spite of more than two-decades of studies of molecular self-assembly, the achievement of low cost, easy-to-implement and multi-parameter bottom-up approaches to address the supramolecular morphology in three-dimensional (3D) systems is still missing. In the particular case of molecular thin films, the 3D nanoscale morphology and function are crucial for both fundamental and applied research. Here we show how it is possible to tune the 3D film structure (domain size, branching, etc.) of thin film heterojunctions with nanoscale accuracy together with the modulation of their optoelectronic properties by employing an easy two-step approach. At first we prepared multi-planar heterojunctions w…
Path to Overcome Material and Fundamental Obstacles in Spin Valves Based on MoS2 and Other Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides
2019
The recent introduction of two-dimensional materials into magnetic tunnel junctions (2D MTJs) offers very promising properties for spintronics, such as atomically defined interfaces, spin filtering, perpendicular anisotropy, and modulation of spin-orbit torque. Nevertheless, the difficulty of integrating exfoliated 2D materials into spintronic devices has limited exploration. Here the authors find a fabrication process leading to superior performance in MTJs based on transition-metal dichalcogenides, and further suggest a path to alleviate basic issues of technology and physics for 2D MTJs.
Magnetic susceptibility of multiferroics and chemical ordering
2017
Magnetic susceptibility of two types of perovskite compounds A(Fe0.5M0.5)O3 A=Ba,Sr with M=Nb and Sb differing in the degree of chemical ordering was studied between 2 and 380 K. In the low temperature region, these compounds exhibit antiferromagnetic and spin-glass transition at T = 16−30 K. For the ordered compounds (M = Sb) the inverse susceptibility depends on T linearly up to the highest temperatures used. This enables the determination of the Weiss temperature θ and effective moment of the Fe3+ ion expressed by a number of Bohr magnetons, peff. In contrast to it, the compounds with M = Nb are characterized by a higher degree of the glassines and by a concave character of the inverse s…
Certain doping concentrations caused half-metallic graphene
2017
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21173096).
Spin forbidden chemical reactions of transition metal compounds. New ideas and new computational challenges.
2003
International audience; Many reactions of transition metal compounds involve a change in spin. These reactions may proceed faster, slower—or at the same rate as—otherwise equivalent processes in which spin is conserved. For example, ligand substitution in [CpMo(Cl)2(PR3)2] is faster than expected, whereas addition of dinitrogen to [Cp*Mo(Cl)(PMe3)2] is slow. Spin-forbidden oxidative addition of ethylene to [Cp*Ir(PMe3)] occurs competitively with ligand association. To explain these observations, we discuss the shape of the different potential energy surfaces (PESs) involved, and the energy of the minimum energy crossing points (MECPs) between them. This computational approach is of great he…
Inside Cover: Bidirectional Chemo-Switching of Spin State in a Microporous Framework (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 26/2009)
2009
Bidirectional chemo-switching of magnetism occurs in a microporous coordination polymer containing spin-crossover subunits, as described by M. Ohba, J. A. Real, S. Kitagawa, and co-workers in their Communication on page 4767 ff. In situ magnetic measurements reveal that most guest molecules transform the framework spin state from diamagnetic low spin (red) to paramagnetic high spin (yellow), whereas the guest CS2 stabilizes the low-spin state. These induced spin states are retained as a memory effect after the release of the guest.