The amyloid-like fibril is a biomolecular nanowire template of very high stability. Here we describe the coordination of a conjugated polyelectrolyte, poly(thiophene acetic acid) (PTAA), to bovine insulin fibrils with widths of < 10 nm and lengths of up to more than 10 mu m. Fibrils complexed with PTAA are aligned on surfaces through molecular combing and transfer printing. Single-molecule spectro

Background: Female urinary incontinence is a prevalent condition, but only about one-third of women seek treatment. Objectives: To describe the health care provision for women with urinary incontinence from a European perspective, selecting France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom as examples, and to investigate whether specific barriers for treatment exist. Methods: Available health

An important tool for studying standard finitely presented algebras is the Ufnarovski graph. In this paper we extend the use of the Ufnarovski graph to automaton algebras, introducing the generalized Ufnarovski graph. As an application, we show how this construction can be used to test Noetherianity of automaton algebras.

The interactions between herbivorous insects and their host plants have been central in generating diversification in both groups. We used a community of four yucca moth species, monophagous on the host plant Hesperoyucca whipplei (Agavaceae), to examine how the type of interaction and where insects feed within a plant influence phylogeographic structure of herbivorous insects. These four species

Inactivation of the perlecan gene leads to perinatal lethal chondrodysplasia. The similarity to the phenotypes of the Col2A1 knock-out and the disproportionate micromelia mutation suggests perlecan involvement in cartilage collagen matrix assembly. We now present a mechanism for the defect in collagen type II fibril assembly by perlecan-null chondrocytes. Cartilage perlecan is a heparin sulfate or

The production of polyamines has been shown to be an effective target for a drug against the West African form of sleeping sickness caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. T. brucei belongs to the group of protozoan parasites classed as trypanosomatids. Parasitic species of this group are the causative agents of various tropical diseases besides African sleeping sickness, e.g. Chagas' disease (Try

The Streptomyces rubiginosus xylA gene was cloned and expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. No xylose isomerase activity could be detected. The produced xylose isomerase protein was insoluble and could only be recovered from cell lysates by extraction with the detergent sodium dodecyl-sulfate. In contrast, expression of the xylA gene from Thermus thermophilus in the same host strain resulted in s

Clinical islet transplantation is currently being explored as a treatment for persons with type 1 diabetes and hypoglycaemia unawareness. Although 'proof-of-principle' has been established in recent clinical studies, the procedure suffers from low efficacy. At the time of transplantation, the isolated islets are allowed to embolise the liver after injection in the portal vein, a procedure that is

Total normothermic venoarterial bypass was established in 6 healthy pigs over a period of 18 hours. A heparin-coated closed extracorporeal system was used and no heparin was administered systemically. During the bypass period the main pulmonary artery was occluded and the heart was maintained in a beating state. All the animals maintained stable hemodynamics and normal blood gases during the entir

The polygyny threshold model was introduced in the 1960s in order to explain why females in some species choose to mate vith already mated males. Since then, a number of complementary or alternative hypotheses have been suggested. By using a hierarchical testing approach Searcy and Yasukawa (1989) organised the models that proposed to explain the maintenance of territorial polygyny. Here, I point

The effects of aging on the total number and size of fibers, and the proportion and distribution of type 1 (slow twitch) and type 2 (fast twitch) fibers were studied in cross sections (15 mu thick) of autopsied whole m. vastus lateralis from two age groups. Each group consisted of six, previously physically healthy males (mean age 72 +/- 1 years and 30 +/- 6 years, respectively). The size of the m

An experimental design was used to optimize plasmid purification from an alkaline lysate of Escherichia coli cells using PEG-sodium citrate aqueous two-phase systems (ATIPS), and to evaluate the influence of pH, PEG molecular weight, tie line length, phase volume ratio, and lysate load. To build the mathematical model and minimize the number of experiments for the design parameters, response surfa

We construct a connected finite loop space of rank 66 and dimension 1254 whose rational cohomology is not isomorphic as a graded vector space to the rational cohomology of any compact Lie group, hence providing a counterexample to a classical conjecture. Aided by machine calculation we verify that our counterexample is minimal, i.e., that any finite loop space of rank less than 66 is in fact ratio

Background: More sevoflurane was recently found to be required to prevent movement in response to surgical incision in anaesthetized patients subjected to electro-acupuncture (EA) than to sham procedures. The present study was designed to compare differences in movement, dilatation of the pupils, divergence of the eye axes and activity of auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) between patients given an

In this study, we assessed the proliferative response of peripheral blood mononuclear leukocytes (PBML) from 33 children/young adolescents with chronic dyspepsia, to H. pylori LPS in the presence and absence of IL-2 as a T cell growth factor. A rapid urease test (RUT) and a presence of Helicobacter-like organisms (HLO) in the biopsy specimens allowed us to distinguish RUT/HLO-positive (17/33) and

There were three objectives of this study: to investigate possible specificity in the association between specific cardiac defects and chromosomal anomalies; to evaluate ways of categorizing cardiac defects into larger groups with epidemiological similarities that could indicate similarities in etiology or pathogenesis; and to analyze the relationship between specific cardiac defects and diabetes.

Most of the decisive molecular events in biology take place at the protein-water interface. The dynamical properties of the hydration layer are therefore of fundamental importance. To characterize the dynamical heterogeneity and rotational activation energy in the hydration layer, we measured the 17O spin relaxation rate in dilute solutions of three proteins in a wide temperature range extending d