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Pharmaceutical residues discharged through insufficiently treated or untreated wastewater enter aquatic environments, where they may adversely impact organisms such as aquatic invertebrates. Ozonation, an advanced wastewater treatment technique, has been successfully implemented to enhance the removal of a broad range of pharmaceuticals, however diverse byproducts and transformation products that

The Forward Physics Facility (FPF) is a proposal to create a cavern with the space and infrastructure to support a suite of far-forward experiments at the Large Hadron Collider during the High Luminosity era. Located along the beam collision axis and shielded from the interaction point by at least 100 m of concrete and rock, the FPF will house experiments that will detect particles outside the acc

Uncharacterized side activities of enzymes can have significant negative effects on reaction products and yields. Hence, their identification and characterization is crucial for the development of successful reaction systems. Here, we report the presence of feruloyl esterase activity in CtXyn5A from Acetivibrio thermocellus besides its well-known arabinoxylanase activity for the first time. Both r

Background: Bark beetles are major pests of conifer forests, and their behavior is primarily mediated via olfaction. Targeting the odorant receptors (ORs) may thus provide avenues towards improved pest control. Such an approach requires information on the function of ORs and their interactions with ligands, which is also essential for understanding the functional evolution of these receptors. Henc

Uncharacterized side activities of enzymes can have significant effects on reaction products and yields. Hence, their identification and characterization are crucial for the development of successful reaction systems. Here, we report the presence of feruloyl esterase activity in CtXyn5A from Acetivibrio thermocellus, besides its well-known arabinoxylanase activity, for the first time. Activity ana

Low-energy-electron-diffraction (LEED), scanning-tunneling-microscopy (STM), and photoelectron-spectroscopy measurements have been performed on the ordered submonolayer surface reconstructions of Yb on Si(111). Two of these reconstructions, namely, 3×1 and 2×1, have been studied in detail. STM and LEED revealed that what was considered to be the 3×1 reconstruction is actually a 3×2 reconstruction.

Lysostaphin is a bacteriolytic enzyme targeting peptidoglycan, the essential component of the bacterial cell envelope. It displays a very potent and specific activity toward staphylococci, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Lysostaphin causes rapid cell lysis and disrupts biofilms, and is therefore a therapeutic agent of choice to eradicate staphylococcal infections. The C-term

Self-replication of amyloid fibrils via secondary nucleation is an intriguing physicochemical phenomenon in which existing fibrils catalyze the formation of their own copies. The molecular events behind this fibril surface-mediated process remain largely inaccessible to current structural and imaging techniques. Using statistical mechanics, computer modeling, and chemical kinetics, we show that th

M1 aminopeptidases comprise a large family of biologically important zinc enzymes. We show that peptide turnover by the M1 prototype, leukotriene A4 hydrolase/aminopeptidase, involves a shift in substrate position associated with exchange of zinc coordinating groups, while maintaining the overall coordination geometry. The transition state is stabilized by residues conserved among M1 members and i

Nitric oxide (NO) can modulate both tumor growth and antitumor immune responses. In order to elucidate the mechanism of curative therapeutic immunization with IFNgamma-producing glioma cells, we examined the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in tissue sections from immunized animals. There was a significantly enhanced iNOS expression both intratumorally and at the immunization s

Leukotriene ( LT) A(4) hydrolase is a bifunctional zinc metalloenzyme, which converts LTA(4) into the neutrophil chemoattractant LTB4 and also exhibits an anion-dependent aminopeptidase activity. In the x-ray crystal structure of LTA(4) hydrolase, Arg(563) and Lys(565) are found at the entrance of the active center. Here we report that replacement of Arg(563), but not Lys(565), leads to complete a

The maximum light use efficiency (LUE = gross primary production (GPP)/absorbed photosynthetic photon flux density (aPPFD)) of plant canopies has been reported to vary spatially and some of this variation has previously been attributed to plant species differences. The canopy nitrogen concentration [N] can potentially explain some of this spatial variation. However, the current paradigm of the N-e