Alpha-crystallin, a multimeric protein present in the eye lens, is known to have chaperone-like activity in preventing the aggregation of enzymes and other crystallins. We have studied the chaperone-like activity of this protein towards the aggregation of insulin B chain, induced by reducing the interchain disulphide bond with dithiothreitol. At room temperature, there is no detectable protecti...

Hub proteins are proteins that maintain promiscuous molecular recognition. Because they are reported to play essential roles in cellular control, there has been a special interest in the study of their structural and functional properties, yet the mechanisms by which they evolve to maintain functional interactions are poorly understood. By combining biophysical simulations of coarse-grained pro...

Elastin is a self-assembling protein of the extracellular matrix that provides tissues with elastic extensibility and recoil. The monomeric precursor, tropoelastin, is highly hydrophobic yet remains substantially disordered and flexible in solution, due in large part to a high combined threshold of proline and glycine residues within hydrophobic sequences. In fact, proline-poor elastin-like seq...

Bacterial biodegradation of hydrocarbons, an important process for environmental remediation, requires the passage of hydrophobic substrates across the cell membrane. Here, we report crystal structures of two outer membrane proteins, Pseudomonas putida TodX and Ralstonia pickettii TbuX, which have been implicated in hydrocarbon transport and are part of a subfamily of the FadL fatty acid transp...

Although butterfly wings and water strider legs have an anti-wetting property, their working conditions are quite different. Water striders, for example, live in a wet environment and their legs need to support their weight and bear the high pressure during motion. In this work, we have focused on the importance of the surface geometrical structures in determining their performance. We have app...

the produced liquid water in cathode catalyst layer (ccl) has significant effect on the operation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (pemfc). to investigate this effect, the transport of oxygen in ccl in the presence of immiscible liquid water is studied applying a two-dimensional pore scale model. the ccl was reconstructed as an agglomerated system. to explore the wettability effects, diffe...

the objective of this work was to develop and evaluate the levofloxacin hemihydrate floating formulations (f1-f9). selection of optimized batch was done by model dependent approach and novel mathematical approach. f1-f9 batches were prepared by direct compression method using gelucire 43/01 (hydrophobic) and hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (hydrophilic) polymer in different ratios. the floating ta...

curcumin (cur) is the active curcuminoid with many physiological, biochemical, and pharmacological properties. solubility and stability of cur is the limiting factors for realizing its therapeutic potential. bovine β-casein is an abundant milk protein that is highly amphiphilic and self-assembles into stable micellar nanoparticles in aqueous solution. β-casein nanoparticle can solubilize cur mo...

losartan potassium is a well known orally active non-peptide angiotensin ii receptor antagonist. losartan potassium and its principle active metabolites block the vasoconstrictor and aldosterone secreting effect of angiotensin ii by selectively blocking the binding of angiotensin ii to at1 receptors. the drug is reported to promote the decrease in ventricular hypertrophy, salt and water excreti...