Alkoxide-based precursors for direct drawing of metal oxide micro- and nanofibres.

The invention of electrospinning has solved the problem of producing micro- and nanoscaled metal oxide fibres in bulk quantities. However, until now no methods have been available for preparing a single nanofibre of a metal oxide. In this work, the direct drawing method was successfully applied to produce metal oxide (SnO, TiO, ZrO, HfO and CeO) fibres with a high aspect ratio (up to 10 000) and a diameter as small as 200 nm.

Metabolic compartmentation - a system level property of muscle cells: real problems of diffusion in living cells.

Problems of quantitative investigation of intracellular diffusion and compartmentation of metabolites are analyzed. Principal controversies in recently published analyses of these problems for the living cells are discussed. It is shown that the formal theoretical analysis of diffusion of metabolites based on Fick's equation and using fixed diffusion coefficients for diluted homogenous aqueous solutions, but applied for biological systems in vivo without any comparison with experimental results, may lead to misleading conclusions, which are contradictory to most biological observations.

Regulation of mitochondrial respiration in heart cells analyzed by reaction-diffusion model of energy transfer.

The purpose of this study is to investigate theoretically which intracellular factors may be important for regulation of mitochondrial respiration in working heart cells in vivo. We have developed a model that describes quantitatively the published experimental data on dependence of the rate of oxygen consumption and metabolic state of working isolated perfused rat heart on workload over its physiological range (Williamson JR, Ford G, Illingworth J, Safer B. Circ Res 38, Suppl I, I39-I51, 1976).

Developmental changes in regulation of mitochondrial respiration by ADP and creatine in rat heart in vivo.

In saponin-skinned muscle fibers from adult rat heart and m. soleus the apparent affinity of the mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation system for ADP (Km = 200-400 microM) is much lower than in isolated mitochondria (Km = 10-20 microM). This suggests a limited permeability of the outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM) to adenine nucleotides in slow-twitch muscle cells.

Role of the creatine/phosphocreatine system in the regulation of mitochondrial respiration.

The mechanism of metabolic regulation of mitochondrial respiration in cardiac muscle cells was studied experimentally in the permeabilized heart fibres of mice and by computer modelling in silico. The experiments showed that the rate of mitochondrial respiration could be controlled by local production of ADP by mitochondrial creatine kinase in the intermembrane space of mitochondria. The spatially inhomogenous reaction-diffusion model of compartmentalized energy transfer was used to analyse which metabolite level in cytoplasm may be important for regulation of respiration.

Control of cellular respiration in vivo by mitochondrial outer membrane and by creatine kinase. A new speculative hypothesis: possible involvement of mitochondrial-cytoskeleton interactions.

The current problems of regulation of myocardial energy metabolism and oxidative phosphorylation in vivo are considered. With this purpose, retarded diffusion of ADP in cardiomyocytes was studied by analysis of elevated apparent Km for this substrate in regulation of respiration of saponin-skinned cardiac fibers, as compared to isolated mitochondria. Recently published data showing the importance of the outer mitochondrial membrane were compared with new experimental results on the proteolysis of skinned fibers and tissue homogenates.