Search results for "Random coil"

2017

Proteins containing glutamine repeats (polyQ) are known to be structurally unstable. Abnormal expansion of polyQ in some proteins exceeding a certain threshold leads to neurodegenerative disease, a symptom of which are protein aggregates. This has led to extensive research of the structure of polyQ stretches. However, the accumulation of contradictory results suggests that protein context might be of importance. Here we aimed to evaluate the structural context of polyQ regions in proteins by analysing the secondary structure of polyQ proteins and their homologs. The results revealed that the secondary structure in polyQ vicinity is predominantly random coil or helix. Importantly, the region…

The effect of a membrane-mimicking environment on the interactions of Cu2+ with an amyloidogenic fragment of chicken prion protein

2017

Prion proteins (PrP) from different species have the ability to tightly bind Cu2+ ions. Copper coordination sites are located in the disordered and flexible N-terminal region which contains several His anchoring sites. Among them, two His residues are found in the so called amyloidogenic PrP region which is believed to play a key role in the process leading to oligomer and fibril formation. Both chicken and human amyloidogenic regions have a hydrophobic C-terminal region rich in Ala and Val amino acids. Recent findings revealed that this domain undergoes random coil to α-helix structuring upon interaction with membrane models. This interaction might strongly impact metal binding abilities e…

Neue vorstellungen über statistische fadenknäuel

1967

In Losung liegen synthetische Fadenmolekule im allgemeinen als Knauel vor. Diese Aussage stellt jedoch noch keine sehr genaue Information uber die Gestalt eines Fadenmolekuls dar. Hierzu bedarf es einer Systematik der verschiedenen Knaueltypen. Die Aufstellung einer solchen Systematik ist ein rein geometrisches Problem. Zunachst wird zwischen irrflugartigen und nicht-irrflugartigen Knaueln unterschieden. Ein irrflugartiges Knauel ist ein solches, bei dem die relative Orientierung zweier Fadenelemente zueinander zufallig ist, wenn die Entfernung zwischen den beiden Fadenelementen – langs des Fadens gemessen – hinreichend gros ist. Beispiele fur irrflugartige Knauel sind das KUHNsche Segmentm…

A Classical Synthesis of the Collagen-like Peptides with the Sequence Z(GlyProPro)nOBut and their characterization with circular dichroism and ultrac…

1975

Oligopeptides with the sequence Z(GlyProPro)nOBut (n = 3–7) were synthesized along a clasical pathway. Generally long fragments were condensed in order to allow an easy separation of the products from the reactants. It is established by molecular weight determination and measurements of circular dichroism that the peptides form the collagen-like triple helix in methanol and that they assume the random coil conformation in dilute acetic acid. The circular dichroism spectra agree reasonably well with the corresponding spectra for (ProProGly)10 which was obtained by solid phase synthesis in another laboratory.

Titration of poly(dA-dT) · poly(dA-dT) in solution at variable NaCl concentration

2004

CD and uv absorption data showed that high molecular weight poly(dA-dT) . poly(dA-dT), at 298 K, undergoes an acid-induced transition from B-double helix to random coil in NaCl solutions of different concentrations, ranging from 0.005 to 0.600M. Similarly, titration of the polynucleotide with a strong base causes duplex-to-single strands transition. The base- and acid-induced transitions were both reversible by back-titration (with an acid or, respectively, with a base): the apparent pKa were the same in both directions. However, the number of protons per titratable site (adenine N1) required to reach half-denaturation was in great excess over the stoichiometric value; to a much larger exte…

1981

The interaction of poly(L-glutamic acid) with 3,6-dioxaoctamethylenediamine was studied by circular dichroism spectroscopy under different conditions. In aqueous solution at pH 5,6 and in aqueous 1,4-dioxane (30–50 vol.-%) at pH 7,3 the conformation of poly(L-glutamic acid) was completely changed from α-helical to random coil in the presence of an excess of the diamine.

Structure of diblock copolymers in supercritical carbon dioxide and critical micellization pressure

1999

This paper reports a small angle neutron scattering investigation of micelle formation by fluorocarbon-hydrocarbon block copolymers in supercritical ${\mathrm{CO}}_{2}{(\mathrm{s}\mathrm{c}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}_{2})$ at 65 \ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}C. A sharp unimer-micelle transition is obtained due to the tuning of the solvating ability of ${\mathrm{s}\mathrm{c}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ by profiling pressure, so that the block copolymer, in a semidilute solution, finds ${\mathrm{s}\mathrm{c}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ a good solvent at high pressure and a poor solvent at low pressure. At high pressure the copolymer is in a monomeric state…

Untersuchungen zu den orientierungs- und dichtefluktuationen in amorphen polymeren mit hilfe der lichtstreuung

1976

Es wurden mit einem Lichtstreuphotometer die Orientierungs- und Dichtefluktuationen in den amorphen Polymeren «Polycarbonat» (Poly(oxycarbonyloxy-1,4-phenylenisopropyliden-1,4-phenylen)) und Polystyrol in Abhangigkeit von der Temperatur untersucht. Ferner fuhrten wir erganzende Messungen an Oligomeren des Polystyrols und an der flussig-kristallinen Verbindung 4-Butyl-N-(p-methoxybenzyliden)anilin (MBBA) in der isotropen Phase durch. Aus der Hohe der depolarisierten Lichtstreuung ergab sich, das eine Orientierungskorrelation, wie sie fur einige Bundelmodelle vorgeschlagen wurde, nicht auftritt. Besonders detaillierte Aussagen konnten fur Polystyrol gemacht werden. Die depolarisierte Lichtstr…

1983

The neutron scattering from mixtures of deuterated and undeuterated poly(ethylene oxide), (D-PEO, H-PEO), in the small angle and intermediate angle region has been measured in the melt. We found no indications of a molecular segregation. The value of molecular weight evaluated agreed with that obtained by other methods. For a sample with a molar mass of 120000 g/mol the radius of gyration 〈rw2〉1/2 was found to be 13,6 nm, which corresponds to a characteristic ratio of C = 6,9. The form factor of a single chain can be described by the Debye equation for a random coil with the same unperturbed dimensions. Our results are compared with rotational isomeric state calculations and measurements in…

Monte Carlo Simulation of Polymeric Materials — Still a Challenge?

1992

Monte Carlo simulation of polymeric materials is difficult, since they exhibit nontrivial structure over many different length scales, from the bond length (∼1A) to the radius of the random coil (∼102A) and still larger collective length scales, and similarly, motions occur on very different time scales. Hence it is a nontrivial problem to devise suitable coarse-grained models which capture the essential physics and are accessible to simulation.