Post combustion CO capture with calcium and lithium hydroxide.

A small-scale plant was built for measuring the ability of solid sorbents towards the capture of carbon dioxide (CO) in exhaust flue gas from an internal combustion engine. The investigated sorbents were calcium and lithium hydroxides. Both sorbents are low cost and used in the breathing gas purification systems.

Matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation of β-glucosidase from a dopa/quinone target.

β-glucosidase (BG) plays a key role in determining the efficiency of the enzymatic complex cellulase for the degradation of cellulose into sugars. It hydrolyses the cellobiose, an inhibitor of the enzymatic complex. Therefore, the immobilization of BG is a great challenge for the industrial application of cellulases.

Frozen Microemulsions for MAPLE Immobilization of Lipase.

lipase (CRL) was deposited by matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) in order to immobilize the enzyme with a preserved native conformation, which ensures its catalytic functionality. For this purpose, the composition of the MAPLE target was optimized by adding the oil phase pentane to a water solution of the amino acid 3-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-2-methyl-l-alanine (m-DOPA), giving a target formed by a frozen water-lipase-pentane microemulsion. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to investigate the structure of MAPLE deposited lipase films.

Inception of Acetic Acid/Water Cluster Growth in Molecular Beams.

The influence of carboxylic acids on water nucleation in the gas phase has been explored in the supersonic expansion of water vapour mixed with acetic acid (AcA) at various concentrations. The sodium-doping method has been used to detect clusters produced in supersonic expansions by using UV photoionisation. The mass spectra obtained at lower acid concentrations show well-detected Na(+) -AcA(H2O)n and Na(+)-AcA2 (H2O)n clusters up to 200 Da and, in the best cooling expansions, emerging Na(+)-AcAm (H2O)n signals at higher masses and unresolved signals that extend beyond m/e values >1000 Da.

New mimetic peptides of the kinase-inhibitory region (KIR) of SOCS1 through focused peptide libraries.

SOCS (suppressor of cytokine signalling) proteins are negative-feedback regulators of the JAK (Janus kinase)/STAT (signal transducer and activator of transcription) pathway. Their expression levels are low under physiological conditions, but they are up-regulated in response to cytokine stimulation in many immune and inflammatory processes. Overexpression of SOCS1 in keratinocyte clones abrogates the IFNγ (interferon γ)-induced expression of many pro-inflammatory genes and the release of related chemokines by blocking the JAK/STAT pathway.

Confirmatory analysis of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in bovine milk by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection.

HPLC with fluorescence detection is considered for confirmatory analysis of group B veterinary drugs by the European Union legislation. A procedure for confirming the presence of anti-inflammatory non-steroidal drug (NSAID) residues in bovine milk by reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection is herein described. The native fluorescence of nine drugs belonging to different NSAID sub-classes, namely flurbiprofen, carprofen, naproxen, vedaprofen, 5-hydroxy-flunixin, niflumic acid, mefenamic acid, meclofenamic acid and tolfenamic acid, allowed for detection in bovine milk down to 0.

Past and future perspectives of synthetic peptide libraries.

Combinatorial preparation and HTS of arrays of compounds have increased the speed of drug discovery. A strong impulse in this field has come by the introduction of the solid phase synthesis method that, through automation and miniaturization, has paved the way to the preparation of large collections of compounds in compact and trackable formats. Due to the well established synthetic procedures, peptides have been largely used to develop the basic concepts of combinatorial chemistry and peptide libraries are still successfully employed in screening programs.

dabPNA: design, synthesis, and DNA binding studies.

In continuing our research efforts for developing new oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN)-like drugs and diagnostics, we designed diaminobutyric peptide nucleic acids (dabPNAs), nucleopeptides characterized by a diaminobutyric-based building block that is an isomer of the aminoethylglycyl PNA (aegPNA) unit and the acyclic modification of the aminoprolyl PNA (ampPNA) monomer. In this work we present the solid phase synthesis of a dabPNA oligomer and of two aegPNAs containing a single dabPNA unit. A study relative to their binding ability towards DNA is also reported even in comparison with the well known aegPNAs.

Synthetic peptides mimicking the interleukin-6/gp130 interaction: a two-helix bundle system. Design and conformational studies.

The objective of our study was to mimic in a typical reductionist approach the molecular interactions observed at the interface between the gp130 receptor and interleukin-6 during formation of their complex. A peptide system obtained by reproducing some of the interleukin-6/gp130 molecular interactions into a two-helix bundle structure was investigated. The solution conformational features of this system were determined by CD and NMR techniques.