Prediction of the sigma effect in blood flow.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J L Gainer.
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The effect of aeration during cell growth on the subsequent reduction of 2-hexanone and 2-octanone by yeast cells entrapped in calcium alginate beads was studied. The reactions were conducted using 2-propanol as a sacrificial substrate to regenerate the cofactor NAD(H), and a mixture of (S)- and (R)-alcohols was produced. The use of strictly aerobic conditions when growing the cells resulted in the highest initial reaction rates, as well as the production of only a single product (i.e., the enantiomeric excess of the (S)-alcohols was 1.0). However, initial reaction rates decreased proportionally with fermentation time regardless of whether the yeast were grown aerobically or under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The data also suggest that it is the aerobic (or anaerobic) condition, rather than the cell growth phase, which is responsible for the results seen.
Several amino acids and peptides were partitioned in poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)/magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) aqueous two-phase systems. The partition coefficients measured for amino acids and peptides were proportional to the difference in PEG concentration between the phases. The partitioning data were used to calculate the relative hydrophobicities of individual amino acids, which were then used to estimate the hydrophobicities of peptides. The partition coefficients of several dipeptides were predicted from these estimated hydrophobicities. A series of peptide fragments that compose the pentapeptide leucine enkephalin was also partitioned in the PEG/MgSO4 system. Again, the partitioning depended upon the hydrophobicities of the individual exposed amino acids.
There is a need to develop methods for producing enantiomerically pure pharmaceuticals because the racemic mixtures made today will probably not be allowed in the future. Synthetic chiral catalysts are being developed for this purpose, as well as new product separation techniques. Another possible option is to use biocatalysts, such as purified enzymes or whole microbial cells, since these can result in the production of mostly a single enantiomer. This study emphasizes the use of alginate-entrapped yeast cells to catalyze the reduction of ketones as a model system. The emphasis is on the factors that might limit the reactivity of such cells, such as equilibrium conditions, substrate or product inhibition, solvent toxicity, loss of cell viability, or the degradation of intracellular levels of enzymes or cofactors. It was found that there was a progressive loss of catalytic activity of the immobilized yeast cells, which appeared to be mainly associated with a loss of cell viability and a decline of intracellular NAD(H) levels during the reaction. The other factors investigated did not have a large effect. A regeneration scheme was developed in order to replenish the intracellular NAD(H) lost during the reaction, which involved removing the biocatalyst from the reaction and supplying the cells with a nutrient source. This resulted in an increase in the NAD(H) to initial levels and also resulted in a maintenance of the ketone reduction rate over time.