CHEMISTRY: Catalytic Obstacle Race

Diffusion of Case: An obstacle race?

Chemistry. Newcomer heats up the race for practical fuel cells.

mechanism for localized changes to a single set of nerve terminals,” Kandel says. Still, one mystery remained. Because most typical proteins degrade within hours, it was unclear how CPEB could maintain changes within the nerve terminal that last many years, as some memories do. But then Si noticed that one end of CPEB carries a sequence that resembles one found in prions. Prions are proteins th...

Surface and Catalytic Chemistry of Small Hydrocarbons on Oxidized Molybdenum

It is shown that model oxides grown on metallic substrates catalyze propylene metathesis to form ethylene and butene with an activity that mimics that of supported catalysts for reaction below ∼650 K. Another reaction regime is found for olefin metathesis above ∼650 K, where the reaction proceeds with a much higher activation energy of ∼60 kcal/mol. Unfortunately, alkenes do not react to any de...

Catalytic antibodies: a new window on protein chemistry.

Catalytic antibodies have created a new dimension in protein chemistry. In these studies it is particularly valuable to investigate systems for which natural enzymic catalysts are unknown. At Strathclyde we have examined several ways of preparing homochiral building blocks for organic synthesis. Antibodies that catalyse the Diels-Alder reaction have been characterized. The target reaction was t...

Spliceosomal snRNAs Mg2+-Dependent Chemistry at the Catalytic Core?

Since the discovery of self-splicing RNAs, it has been suspected that the snRNAs are the catalytic components of the spliceosome. Recent evidence supports both the catalytic potential of the spliceosomal snRNAs and their resemblance to elements of group II introns.