It is well known that the osmotic pressure of protein solutions deviates from ideal behavior at high concentrations. Our lab previously developed a free-solvent model for osmotic pressure that provides excellent prediction of the osmotic pressure for protein solutions at moderate ionic strength using only physically-realizable parameters. The model assumes that the hydrated proteins behave idea...

osmotic dehydration under discontinuous reduced pressure is one of the new methods of preparation fruits and vegetable processing with in view of good health. processing of foods at high temperatures used to cook them can cause the formation of carcinogenic substances like acrylamide, and this risk remains even if the trans-fat is removed. the low temperatures employed in this method resulted i...

Background: Following the expansion of human infertility, different procedures have been utilized for separation of normal sperm during ICSI (Intra cytoplasmic sperm injection). Hypo-osmotic swelling test (HOST) is one of the tests which have been introduced for assessment of integrity of sperm membrane when confronted with hypo osmotic condition. This test may also reflect intracellular organe...

Successful zygote formation during yeast mating requires cell fusion of the two haploid mating partners. To ensure that cells do not lyse as they remodel their cell wall, the fusion event is both temporally and spatially regulated: the cell wall is degraded only after cell-cell contact and only in the region of cell-cell contact. To understand how cell fusion is regulated, we identified mutants...

We investigate how a small polar molecule, urea, can act to protect a phospholipid bilayer system against osmotic stress. Osmotic stress can be caused by a dry environment, by freezing, or by exposure to aqueous systems with high osmotic pressure due to solutes like in saline water. A large number of organisms regularly experience osmotic stress, and it is a common response to produce small pol...