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PubMed2001

Reaction rates of oxygen with hemoglobin measured by non-equilibrium facilitated oxygen diffusion through hemoglobin solutions.

The purpose of this study was to verify the concept of non-equilibrium facilitated oxygen diffusion. This work succeeds our previous study, where facilitated oxygen diffusion by hemoglobin was measured at conditions of chemical equilibrium, and which yielded diffusion coefficients of hemoglobin and of oxygen. In the present work chemical non-equilibrium was induced using very thin diffusion layers. As a result, facilitation was decreased as predicted by theory. Thus, this work presents the first experimental demonstration of non-equilibrium facilitated oxygen diffusion. In addition, association and dissociation rate parameters of the reaction between oxygen and bovine and human hemoglobin were calculated and the effect of the homotropic and heterotropic interactions on each rate parameter was demonstrated. The results indicate that the homotropic interaction--which leads to increasing oxygen affinity with increasing oxygenation--is predominantly due to an increase in the association rate. The heterotropic interaction--which leads to decreasing oxygen affinity by anionic ligands--appears to be effected in two ways. Cl- increases the dissociation rate. In contrast, 2,3-diphosphoglycerate decreases the association rate.

2,3-Diphosphoglycerate↗
PubMed2005

ETHY. A theory of fruit climacteric ethylene emission.

A theory of fruit climacteric ethylene emission was developed and used as the basis of a simulation model called ETHY. According to the theory, the biosynthetic pathway of ethylene is supplied by ATP and is regulated by 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) synthase and ACC oxidase. The conjugation of ACC with malonate to form MACC was taken into account as a way to decrease the availability of ACC. Because of the seasonal increase of fruit volume, the dilution of biochemical compounds used in ETHY was taken into account. Finally, the ethylene diffusion across the skin was considered. The theory took into account the effect of temperature and O(2) and CO(2) internal concentrations on ethylene. The model was applied to peach (Prunus persica) fruit over 3 years, several leaf:fruit ratios, and irrigation conditions. An adequate ethylene increase was predicted without considering any increase in respiration during the ripening period, which suggests that the respiratory climacteric may not be required for ripening. Another important result of this study is the high sensitivity of ETHY to the parameters involved in the calculation of ACC oxidase and ACC synthase activities, ATP production, and skin surface and permeability. ETHY was also highly sensitive to changes in fruit growth and temperature.

Adenosine Triphosphate↗
PubMed2000

NMR relaxation in tissues with weak magnetic inhomogeneities.

A theory is presented for describing the effect on the transverse NMR relaxation rate of microscopic spatial inhomogeneities in the static magnetic field. The theory applies when the inhomogeneities are weak in magnitude and the nuclear spins diffuse a significant distance in comparison with a length scale characterizing the inhomogeneities. It is shown that the relaxation rate is determined by a temporal correlation function and depends quadratically on the magnitude of the inhomogeneities. For the case of unrestricted diffusion, a simple algebraic approximation for the temporal correlation function is derived. The theory is illustrated by applying it to a model of randomly distributed magnetized spheres. The theory is also used to fit experimental data for the dependence of the relaxation rate on the interecho time for a Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill pulse sequence. The experimental systems considered are in vitro red blood cell suspensions and samples of human gray matter and rat liver. Magn Reson Med 44:144-156, 2000.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Application of Bogolyubov's theory of weakly nonideal Bose gases to the A+A, A+B, B+B reaction-diffusion system.

Theoretical methods for dealing with diffusion-controlled reactions inevitably rely on some kind of approximation, and to find the one that works on a particular problem is not always easy. Here the approximation used by Bogolyubov to study a weakly nonideal Bose gas, referred to as the weakly nonideal Bose gas approximation (WBGA), is applied in the analysis of three reaction-diffusion models: (i) A+A-->Ø, (ii) A+B-->Ø, and (iii) A+A,B+B,A+B-->Ø (the ABBA model). Two types of WBGA are considered, the simpler WBGA-I and the more complicated WBGA-II. All models are defined on the lattice to facilitate comparison with computer experiment (simulation). It is found that the WBGA describes the A+B reaction well, it reproduces the correct d/4 density decay exponent. However, it fails in the case of the A+A reaction and the ABBA model. (To cure the deficiency of WBGA in dealing with the A+A model, a hybrid of the WBGA and Kirkwood superposition approximations is suggested.) It is shown that the WBGA-I is identical to the dressed-tree calculation suggested by Lee [J. Phys. A 27, 2633 (1994)], and that the dressed-tree calculation does not lead to the d/2 density decay exponent when applied to the A+A reaction, as normally believed, but it predicts the d/4 decay exponent. Last, the usage of the small n(0) approximation suggested by Mattis and Glasser [Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 979 (1998)] is questioned if used beyond the A+B reaction-diffusion model.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2001

Dynamics of supercooled water in configuration space.

We study the potential energy surface (PES) sampled by a liquid modeled via the widely studied extended simple point charge (SPC/E) model for water. We characterize the curvature of the PES by calculating the instantaneous normal mode (INM) spectrum for a wide range of densities and temperatures. We discuss the information contained in the INM density of states, which requires additional processing to be unambiguously associated with the long-time dynamics. For the SPC/E model, we find that the slowing down of the dynamics in the supercooled region-where the ideal mode coupling theory has been used to describe the dynamics-is controlled by the reduction in the number of directions in configuration space that allow a structural change. We find that the fraction f(dw) of the double-well directions in configuration space determines the value of the diffusion constant D, thereby relating a property of the PES to a macroscopic dynamic quantity; specifically, it appears that square root D is approximately linear in f(dw). Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that, at the mode coupling crossover temperature, dynamical processes based on the free exploration of configuration space vanish, and processes requiring activation dominate. Hence, the reduction of the number of directions allowing free exploration of configuration space is the mechanism of diffusion implicitly implemented in the ideal mode coupling theory. Additionally, we find a direct relationship between the number of basins sampled by the system and the number of free directions. In this picture, diffusion appears to be related to geometrical properties of the PES, and to be entropic in origin.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1993

A theoretical study of rotational diffusion models for rod-shaped viruses. The influence of motion on 31P nuclear magnetic resonance lineshapes and transversal relaxation.

Information about the interaction between nucleic acids and coat proteins in intact virus particles may be obtained by studying the restricted backbone dynamics of the incapsulated nucleic acids using 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. In this article, simulations are carried out to investigate how reorientation of a rod-shaped virus particle as a whole and isolated nucleic acid motions within the virion influence the 31P NMR lineshape and transversal relaxation dominated by the phosphorus chemical shift anisotropy. Two opposite cases are considered on a theoretical level. First, isotropic rotational diffusion is used as a model for mobile nucleic acids that are loosely or partially bound to the protein coat. The effect of this type of diffusion on lineshape and transversal relaxation is calculated by solving the stochastic Liouville equation by an expansion in spherical functions. Next, uniaxial rotational diffusion is assumed to represent the mobility of phosphorus in a virion that rotates as a rigid rod about its length axis. This type of diffusion is approximated by an exchange process among discrete sites. As turns out from these simulations, the amplitude and the frequency of the motion can only be unequivocally determined from experimental data by a combined analysis of the lineshape and the transversal relaxation. In the fast motional region both the isotropic and the uniaxial diffusion model predict the same transversal relaxation as the Redfield theory. For very slow motion, transversal relaxation resembles the nonexponential relaxation as observed for water molecules undergoing translational diffusion in a magnetic field gradient. In this frequency region T2e is inversely proportional to the cube root of the diffusion coefficient. In addition to the isotropic and uniaxial diffusion models, a third model is presented, in which fast restricted nucleic acid backbone motions dominating the lineshape are superimposed on a slow rotation of the virion about its length axis, dominating transversal relaxation. In an accompanying article the models are applied to the 31P NMR results obtained for bacteriophage M13 and tobacco mosaic virus.

Bacteriophages↗
PubMed2002

Reflectivity and energy balance in pulsed-laser deposition experiments from mono- and bi-atomic targets.

Reflectivity and complete energy balance from the planar targets of aluminum, copper, nickel, and molybdenum have been measured using a Nd: glass laser (lambda=1060 nm,tau=5 ns) in the low intensity regime of laser plasma interaction as a function of focal spot size. The magnitude of partition of total incident laser energy into different channels is observed to decrease as the focal spot size increases. It is further observed that the magnitude of partition of the incident energy into these channels, in general, decreases as the atomic number increases for any given focal spot size, although, the reflectivity component of the partitioned energy increases with focal spot size for any given element. The reflectivities of copper and tungsten and their alloy were measured separately. The reflectivity from the alloy plasma was reduced by a factor of 6 compared to either element separately. This observation confirms the recent theory that in the multiion plasma the ion acoustic waves are additionally damped due to additional Joule, thermal diffusion, and viscous terms in the modified ion-fluid theory of the ion acoustic waves in a multiion species plasma.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1987

Lateral diffusion in an archipelago. The effect of mobile obstacles.

Lateral diffusion of mobile proteins and lipids (tracers) in a membrane is hindered by the presence of proteins (obstacles) in the membrane. If the obstacles are immobile, their effect may be described by percolation theory, which states that the long-range diffusion constant of the tracers goes to zero when the area fraction of obstacles is greater than the percolation threshold. If the obstacles are themselves mobile, the diffusion constant of the tracers depends on the area fraction of obstacles and the relative jump rate of tracers and obstacles. This paper presents Monte Carlo calculations of diffusion constants on square and triangular lattices as a function of the concentration of obstacles and the relative jump rate. The diffusion constant for particles of various sizes is also obtained. Calculated values of the concentration-dependent diffusion constant are compared with observed values for gramicidin and bacteriorhodopsin. The effect of the proteins as inert obstacles is significant, but other factors, such as protein-protein interactions and perturbation of lipid viscosity by proteins, are of comparable importance. Potential applications include the diffusion of proteins at high concentrations (such as rhodopsin in rod outer segments), the modulation of diffusion by release of membrane proteins from cytoskeletal attachment, and the diffusion of mobile redox carriers in mitochondria, chloroplasts, and endoplasmic reticulum.

Cell Membrane↗
PubMed2006

Field theories and exact stochastic equations for interacting particle systems.

We consider the dynamics of interacting particles with reaction and diffusion. Starting from the underlying discrete stochastic jump process we derive a general field theory describing the dynamics of the density field, which we relate to an exact stochastic equation on the density field. We show how our field theory maps onto the original Doi-Peliti formalism, allowing us to clarify further the issue of the "imaginary" Langevin noise that appears in the context of reaction-diffusion processes. Our procedure applies to a wide class of problems and is related to large deviation functional techniques developed recently to describe fluctuations of nonequilibrium systems in the hydrodynamic limit.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Gate-controlled spin-orbit quantum interference effects in lateral transport.

In situ control of spin-orbit coupling in coherent transport using a clean GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas is realized, leading to a gate-tunable crossover from weak localization to antilocalization. The necessary theory of 2D magnetotransport in the presence of spin-orbit coupling beyond the diffusive approximation is developed and used to analyze experimental data. With this theory the Rashba contribution and linear and cubic Dresselhaus contributions to spin-orbit coupling are separately estimated, allowing the angular dependence of spin-orbit precession to be extracted at various gate voltages.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1997

[Nursing theories--friends or foes? Student nurses' perspective].

Nursing researchers consider nursing theories too theoretical and complicated to apply in practice. In this study student nurses in their last term are being interviewed about their ideas of nursing theories. A lot of different views emerged. The conclusion to make from this study is that a frequent presentation both practical and theoretical is required in order to make theories more accessible to nursing students. It is also important that different kinds of theories are exposed to give the students the possibility to find the theory most suited for the personality. This also gives the student the advantage to choose the essence from each theory. This is a way to establish a natural relationship between students and nursing theories and thereby the students will find easier ways to apply nursing theories in different nursing actions.

Attitude↗
PubMed1987

Lipid fluidity and membrane protein dynamics.

Membrane fluidity plays an important role in cellular functions. Membrane proteins are mobile in the lipid fluid environment; lateral diffusion of membrane proteins is slower than expected by theory, due to both the effect of protein crowding in the membrane and to constraints from the aqueous matrix. A major aspect of diffusion is in macromolecular associations: reduction of dimensionality for membrane diffusion facilitates collisional encounters, as those concerned with receptor-mediated signal transduction and with electron transfer chains. In mitochondrial electron transfer, diffusional control is prevented by the excess of collisional encounters between fast-diffusing ubiquinone and the respiratory complexes. Another aspect of dynamics of membrane proteins is their conformational flexibility. Lipids may induce the optimal conformation for catalytic activity. Breaks in Arrhenius plots of membrane-bound enzymes may be related to lipid fluidity: the break could occur when a limiting viscosity is reached for catalytic activity. Viscosity can affect protein conformational changes by inhibiting thermal fluctuations to the inner core of the protein molecule.

Diffusion↗
PubMed1981

Water transport and ion-water interaction in the gramicidin channel.

The diffuse permeability and the diffusion coefficient of water (Dw) in the gramicidin channel is determined from the osmotic water permeability of the channel and "single file" pore theory. Dw is about 7% of the self-diffusion coefficient of bulk water. The diffusion coefficient of a single water molecule alone in the channel is also determined and is about equal to the value in bulk water. This provides an estimate of the mobility of water on the channel walls in the absence of water-water interaction. Since the gramicidin channel walls should be representative of uncharged polar protein surfaces, this result provides direct evidence that the presence of a cation in the channel reduces the hydraulic water permeability by a factor ranging from 60 for Tl+ to 5 for Na+. The diffusion coefficient of a cation (Dc) in the channel is estimated and compared with Dw. For Na+ it is found that Dc approximately equal to Dw, which implies that the movement of the row of water molecules through the channel determines the local mobility of Na+. Thus, it seems that short range ion-wall interactions are not important in determining the channel conductance for Na+. In contrast, for Li+, local ion-wall interactions probably do limit the conductance.

Gramicidin↗
PubMed1975

Magnetic resonance spectra of membranes.

A number of electron and nuclear magnetic resonance studies of model membranes, and biological membranes, involve time-dependent magnetic interactions diffusion relative to one another. The two-dimensional character of this motion can have a special, large effect on magnetic resonance line shapes, and relaxation rates, because of the long-time tail of the correlation function for magnetic interactions modulated by this motion. Equations are given for the specific case in which nuclear relaxation rates are enhanced due to dipolar interactions with membrane-bound spin labels. An experimental study of spin-label-enhanced 13-C nuclear relaxation in unsonicated dispersions of phosphatidylcholine is accounted for with this theory, together with the previously reported lipid diffusion constant of D congruent to 2 times 10- minus 8 cm-2/sec. Our analysis of previously reported 1-H and 13-C nuclear relaxation rates in small phospholipid vesicles produced by sonication suggests that the rate of lateral diffusion in these small vesicles may be significantly larger than 10- minus 8 cm-2/sec.

Carbon Isotopes↗
PubMed2004

Depletion interactions in model microemulsions.

The effects of temperature changes and polymer addition on the behavior of droplet microemulsions of nonionic surfactant, water, and decane are reported and analyzed within polymer depletion theory. Dilution viscometry and dynamic light scattering were used to confirm that these microemulsions behave essentially as hard-sphere dispersions, providing us with an ideal reference system. Addition of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) lowers the emulsification failure boundary, where excess oil is expelled, which can be qualitatively understood by an analysis of the available volume for the polymer. Sufficient addition of PEG causes a fluid-fluid phase separation in qualitative accord with experiments on mixtures of rigid colloidal hard spheres and nonadsorbing polymer. Addition of PEG or raising the temperature causes the collective diffusion coefficient D(C) to decrease. From theory, the initial linear slope of D(C) versus droplet concentration can be used to discriminate between attractions and repulsions. The measured D(C) data for the droplets in the presence of PEG are modeled using the Asakura-Oosawa theory of depletion. Fitting the theory to the measured D(C) data permits for extracting the only unknown parameter, the polymer radius of gyration. Quantitative agreement is found with literature data, demonstrating that polymer depletion occurs in the system and that the Asakura-Oosawa theory provides a faithful description of the phenomenon.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1988

Polarized fluorescence photobleaching recovery for measuring rotational diffusion in solutions and membranes.

A variation of fluorescence photobleaching recovery (FPR) suitable for measuring the rate of rotational molecular diffusion in solution and cell membranes is presented in theory and experimental practice for epi-illumination microscopy. In this technique, a brief flash of polarized laser light creates an anisotropic distribution of unbleached fluorophores which relaxes by rotational diffusion, leading to a time-dependent postbleach fluorescence. Polarized FPR (PFPR) is applicable to any time scales from seconds to microseconds. However, at fast (microsecond) time scales, a partial recovery independent of molecular orientation tends to obscure rotational effects. The theory here presents a method for overcoming this reversible photobleaching, and includes explicit results for practical geometries, fast wobble of fluorophores, and arbitrary bleaching depth. This variation of a polarized luminescence "pump-and-probe" technique is compared with prior ones and with "pump-only" time-resolved luminescence anisotropy decay methods. The technique is experimentally verified on small latex beads with a variety of diameters, common fluorophore labels, and solvent viscosities. Preliminary measurements on a protein (acetylcholine receptor) in the membrane of nondeoxygenated cells in live culture (rat myotubes) show a difference in rotational diffusion between clustered and nonclustered receptors. In most experiments, signal averaging, high laser power, and automated sample translation must be employed to achieve adequate statistical accuracy.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

High 222Rn levels, enhanced surface deposition, increased diffusion coefficient, humidity, and air change effects.

Measurements have been made of surface deposition rates for 218Po radon decay products in a small (0.283m3) aluminum test chamber for 222Rn levels from 1 to 1,600 kBq m-3. an increase in macroscopic surface deposition rate has been found to be induced by the high 222Rn concentrations. A distinct 222Rn level threshold has been found below which plateout is constant at the normal rate for ambient residential conditions. Above the threshold, an increase in plateout is observed and the transition quickly reaches a constant, higher plateout. With all environmental conditions remaining constant and varying humidity, the threshold 222Rn level decreases with increasing relative humidity. The rate of rise to the new plateau is found to increase with increasing humidity. For the constant air change rate of ACH = 0.2 h-1, the fraction of airborne 218Po lost by the enhanced plateout was consistently 0.4 +or- 0.25 for seven values of humidity from 8 to 54% RH. For a fixed RH = 40 +or- 2%, it was found that the threshold increases from 5 to 58 kBq m-3 for a change in ACH from 0 1.06 h-1. In converting the deposition data to values of diffusion coefficient D, using Crump and Seinfeld's theory, a very high D of 0.18 cm2s-1 is assumed for ambient air conditions. Results indicate an ambient D = 0.027 cm2s-1. The results may impact on research utilizing high levels in test chambers and diffusion coefficients and attached and unattached fractions, and also for cancer studies using animals with 222Rn levels as much as 10(4) times greater than ambient residential levels.

Air Pollutants, Radioactive↗