Computational Investigation of the pH Dependence of Stability of Melanosome Proteins: Implication for Melanosome formation and Disease.

Intravesicular pH plays a crucial role in melanosome maturation and function. Melanosomal pH changes during maturation from very acidic in the early stages to neutral in late stages. Neutral pH is critical for providing optimal conditions for the rate-limiting, pH-sensitive melanin-synthesizing enzyme tyrosinase (TYR).

BION-2: Predicting Positions of Non-Specifically Bound Ions on Protein Surface by a Gaussian-Based Treatment of Electrostatics.

Ions play significant roles in biological processes-they may specifically bind to a protein site or bind non-specifically on its surface. Although the role of specifically bound ions ranges from actively providing structural compactness via coordination of charge-charge interactions to numerous enzymatic activities, non-specifically surface-bound ions are also crucial to maintaining a protein's stability, responding to pH and ion concentration changes, and contributing to other biological processes. However, the experimental determination of the positions of non-specifically bound ions is not trivial, since they may have a low residential time and experience significant thermal fluctuation of their positions.

Modeling Electrostatic Force in Protein-Protein Recognition.

Electrostatic interactions are important for understanding molecular interactions, since they are long-range interactions and can guide binding partners to their correct binding positions. To investigate the role of electrostatic forces in molecular recognition, we calculated electrostatic forces between binding partners separated at various distances. The investigation was done on a large set of 275 protein complexes using recently developed DelPhiForce tool and in parallel, evaluating the total electrostatic force via electrostatic association energy.

Effective role of CaO/PO ratio on SiO-CaO-PO glass system.

In the present work, the effect of the CaO/PO ratio on the composition of sol-gel synthesized 58SiO-(19 - )PO-(23 + )CaO ( = 0, 5, 10 and 15 mol%) glass samples was studied. Further, the effect of NBO/BO ratio on hydroxy carbonated apatite layer (HCA) forming ability based on dissolution behavior in simulated body fluid (SBF) solution was also investigated. CaO/PO ratios of synthesized glass samples were 1.

Application of Region of Interest Compressed Sensing to accelerate magnetic resonance angiography.

Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA) is a group of techniques based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to image blood vessels. Compressed Sensing (CS) is a mathematical framework to reconstruct MR images from sparse data to minimize the data acquisition time. Image sparsity is the key in CS to reconstruct MR images.

Resonant orbitals in fluorinated epitaxial graphene.

Fluorinated epitaxial graphene has potential applications in organic electronics. We present the calculation results by means of first-principles density-functional-theory for various fluorination patterns. Our results indicate that semi-fluorinated graphene conformations follow the same energetic order as the corresponding hydrogenated graphene counterparts.

Supramolecular Assembly of DNA on Graphene Nanoribbons.

Graphene's adhesive and charge delocalization properties offer the opportunity for the direct study of biological molecule in the nanoscale regime. The inherent charge on DNA base pairs and the associated phosphate backbone can be probed by non-covalent interactions with graphene, which is a useful platform for the creation of anisotropic nanopatterned biological assemblies. Here, we report the graphene nanoribbon (GNR) supported anisotropic supramolecular self-assembly of single stranded adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), thymine (T), AT, and GC 20mer oligonucleotides, as well as the unique ordering of double stranded plasmid (circular) and Herring sperm (linear) DNA.

Tunable Doping in Graphene by Light-Switchable Molecules.

Noncovalent functionalization provides an effective way to modulate the electronic properties of graphene. Recent experimental work has demonstrated that hybrids of dipolar phototransductive molecules tethered to graphene are reversibly tunable in doping. We have studied the electronic structure characteristics of chromophore/graphene hybrids using dispersion-corrected density functional theory.

Band gap opening in methane intercalated graphene.

Recent experimental work has demonstrated production of quasi-free-standing graphene by methane intercalation. The intercalation weakens the coupling of adjacent graphene layers and yields Dirac fermion behaviour of monolayer graphene. We have investigated the electronic characteristics of a methane intercepted graphene bilayer under a perpendicularly applied electric field.

Primary auditory neuropathy - an enigma.

Objectives: To report audiological and neuroradiological findings in patients with primary auditory neuropathy (PAN) from a tertiary institution in south India.

Material And Methods: The auditory profiles in 24 patients were analyzed along with neurological and radiological findings.

Results: Puretone audiometry showed varied hearing acuity and configuration.

Pure word deafness in two patients with subcortical lesions.

We report two patients with pure word deafness (PWD) with tumour in the III ventricle region with obstructive hydrocephalus. A diagnosis of PWD was made in these two patients in view of impaired verbal comprehension in the presence of adequate hearing, intact acoustic stapedius reflex and well preserved environmental sound perception. Return of verbal comprehension following the radiation therapy observed is probably due to the reduction of the tumour mass and the release of thalamocortical auditory pathways from its compressive effect.