Colchicine.tubulin complex (CD) inhibits microtubule assembly. We examined this inhibition under conditions where spontaneous nucleation was suppressed and assembly was restricted to an elongation polymerization. We found that CD inhibited assembly by a mechanism which preserved the ability of microtubule ends to add tubulin. This observation is inconsistent with the end-poisoning model which r...

The amphiphilic block copolymers are composed of various combinations of hydrophilic and hydrophobic block unimers. The variation in unimer ratio alters the surface as well as micelle-forming properties of the block copolymers. These nanoscopic micelles have the ability to encapsulate hydrophobic compounds and act as potential drug carrier. MePEG-PCL copolymers with various block lengths were s...

Ethylene-norbornene copolymers were synthesized with a homogeneous catalyst system based on bis(imino) pyridine iron with the addition of diethyl zinc (DEZ) as alkyd transfer agent to promote immortal copolymerization. The addition of DEZ did not influence the catalytic activity in copolymerization with 7.5 mmol of norbornene (NB), but in the reactions with 70 mmol, the comonomer promoted an in...

in this work, new biodegradable abcba type pentablock copolymers with different mole ratio of l-lactide and ppdo-b-peg-b-ppdo triblock copolymer were synthesized and characterized. in the first step, ppdo-b-peg-b-ppdo triblock copolymer was synthesized via a ring-opening polymerization of p-dioxanone (pdo) monomer with poly (ethylene glycol) (peg) using stannous octoate (sn(oct)2) as the cataly...

poly(styrene-co-butyl acrylate)/clay nanocomposites were synthesized via in situ atom transfer radical polymerization using activators generated by electron transfer in the presence of a montmorillonite ion-exchanged with mixed surfactants of dodecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide and vinyl trimethyl ammonium chloride. the living nature of polymerization is confrmed by occurrence of narrow molecula...

ReceiVed January 17, 2008 ReVised Manuscript ReceiVed February 21, 2008 Introduction. In recent years, much attention is paid to the synthesis of copolymers with different compositions and chain architectures, such as linear, grafted, comb-shaped, star-shaped, hyperbranched, and dendrimeric chains with the purpose to establish architecture-property relationships in bulk and in solution. Of thes...

Bioengineered spider silk block copolymers were studied to understand the effect of protein chain length and sequence chemistry on the formation of secondary structure and materials assembly. Using a combination of in vitro protein design and assembly studies, we demonstrate that silk block copolymers possessing multiple repetitive units self-assemble into lamellar microstructures. Additionally...

The static scattering properties of cyclic diblock copolymers in solution are studied. The case of a symmetric diblock in a solvent satisfying the optical theta condition is considered in details. The results show substantial differences with respect to linear diblock copolymers. The additional entropic interaction in cyclic chains induces a decrease of the scattering intensity and a shift of t...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND Microwave irradiation as an alternative heat source is now a well-known method in synthetic chemistry. Microwave heating has emerged as a powerful technique to promote a variety of chemical reactions, offering reduced pollution, low cost and offer high yields together with simplicity in processing and handling. On the other hand, copolymers containing both hydrophilic a...