Olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC) have been successfully used to stimulate the growth of injured fibers and to promote functional recovery within the injured adult CNS. These cells exhibit functional properties, which are known to be involved in axonal elongation. OEC express high level of growth factors including NGF, GDNF, BDNF and NT-3, which are known to play an important role in nerve rege...

Olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC) have been successfully used to stimulate the growth of injured fibers and to promote functional recovery within the injured adult CNS. These cells exhibit functional properties, which are known to be involved in axonal elongation. OEC express high level of growth factors including NGF, GDNF, BDNF and NT-3, which are known to play an important role in nerve rege...

Quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) hybrid methods are currently the most powerful computational tools for studies of structure/function relations and catalytic sites embedded in macrobiomolecules (eg, proteins and nucleic acids). QM/MM methodologies are highly efficient since they implement quantum chemistry methods for modeling only the portion of the system involving bond-breaking/...

The essential involvement of manganese in photosynthetic water oxidation was implicit in the observation by Pirson in 1937 that plants and algae deprived of Mn in their growth medium lost the ability to evolve O2. Addition of this essential element to the growth medium resulted in the restoration of water oxidation within 30 min. There is increased interest in the study of Mn in biological chem...

The PsbP protein, an extrinsic subunit of photosystem II (PSII) in green plants, is known to induce a conformational change around the catalytic Mn4CaO5 cluster securing the binding of Ca(2+) and Cl(-) in PSII. PsbP has multiple interactions with the membrane subunits of PSII, but how these affect the structure and function of PSII requires clarification. Here, we focus on the interactions betw...

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in studies of catalytic metal clusters in metalloproteins based on Density Functional Theory (DFT) quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) hybrid methods. These methods explicitly include the perturbational influence of the surrounding protein environment on the structural/functional properties of the catalytic centers. In conjunction ...

6alpha,7beta-Dihydroxyvouacapan-17beta-oic acid (1) was isolated from Pterodon polygalaeflorus Benth. Modification of 1 yielded 6alpha-hydroxyvouacapan-7beta,17beta-lactone (2) and then 6-oxovouacapan-7beta,17beta-lactone (3). Photosynthesis inhibition by 3 was evaluated in spinach chloroplasts. The uncoupled non-cyclic electron transport rate and ATP synthesis were inhibited by 3, which behave...

Structural changes induced by radiation damage in X-ray crystallography hinder the ability to understand the structure/function relationship in chemical reactions. Serial femtosecond crystallography overcomes this problem by exposing the sample to very short and intense laser pulse leading to measurement before destruction. Here we use molecular modeling to map the radiation damage during the 1...

BiVO4 is a highly promising material for Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting photoanodes due to its narrow band gap value (~2.4 eV) and ability efficiently absorb visible light. However, the short hole migration distance, severe surface complexation, low carrier separation efficiency limit application. Therefore, in this paper, was modified by loading CoOOH cocatalyst on rare earth eleme...

Spinel zinc ferrite (ZnFe2O4, ZFO) is a potential photoanode material for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting because of its ideal bandgap (1.9–2.1 eV) and superior chemical stability in aqueous solutions. However, the low charge collection efficiency significantly hinders improvement PEC activity. Herein, we report an ultrafast effective flame activation route to e...