The devolatilisation step of coal is a vital stage in both air-coal and oxy-coal combustion and there is interest in whether methods of estimating the reaction parameters are similar for both cases. A network pyrolysis model, the FG-DVC (Functional Group-Depolymerisation Vaporisation Cross-linking) code was employed to evaluate the effect of temperature (1273-1773 K) and heating rate (10-10 K/s...

A simple and accurate capillary electrophoresis (CE) method was developed to simultaneously separate and quantify heparin, chondroitin sulfate and hyaluronic acid. The relative standard deviations (intra-day) of migration time, peak height and peak area for heparin, chondroitin sulfate and hyaluronic acid were lower than 1.11, 5.45 and 2.82%, respectively. The limits of detection of heparin, ch...

Angiogenin (ANG), a member of the RNase superfamily (also known as RNase 5) has neurotrophic, neuroprotective and angiogenic activities. Recently it has also been shown to be important in stem cell homeostasis. Mutations in ANG are associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Fronto-temporal dementia (FTD). ANG is a secreted protein which is taken u...

The p21 activated kinase (Pak) family of protein kinases are involved in many cellular functions like re-organisation of the cytoskeleton, transcriptional control, cell division, and survival. These pleiotropic actions are reflected in a plethora of known interacting proteins and phosphorylation substrates. Yet, the integration of a single Pak protein into signalling pathways controlling a part...

Arabinoxylan (AX) has a major impact on the functional properties of wheat bran, and it has been shown that technological properties of bran can be improved by using endoxylanases. Enzymatic treatments are typically conducted at high water content. However, in industrial applications, low water content may be advantageous, especially when targeting dry end products. The aim of the study was to ...

Osteoclast maturation is accompanied by changes in podosome patterning, resulting in the formation of a peripheral belt, which requires an intact microtubule network. Here, we report that by inhibiting Rho, the podosome belt is maintained at the cell periphery despite depolymerisation of microtubules by nocodazole. Rho inhibition was correlated to the increase in microtubule stabilisation and m...

Pedin, a peptide of 13 amino acids, stimulates foot formation in hydra, one of the simplest metazoan animals. Here, we show that the corresponding transcripts are 3.8 kb in size encoding a precursor protein with a size of about 110 kDa, which contains 13 copies of the peptide. Interestingly, the deduced amino acid sequence of the precursor comprises 27 copies of a beta-thymosin-like repeat doma...

Terrestrial plants produce extracellular aliphatic biopolyesters that modify cell walls of specific tissues. Epidermal cells synthesize cutin, a polyester of glycerol and modified fatty acids that constitutes the framework of the cuticle that covers aerial plant surfaces. Suberin is a related lipid polyester that is deposited on the cell walls of certain tissues, including the root endodermis a...

An adaptation of the Feulgen procedure to visualise DNA at the ultrastructural level, using osmium ammine instead of Schiff reagent, was applied to ultrathin sections of rabbit epididymal spermatozoa, known to display increasing chromatin compaction as they progress through the epididymis. In contrast with the somatic cell nuclei of the epididymal epithelium, which display classical staining, t...

Microtubules (MTs) are central to the organisation of the eukaryotic intracellular space and are involved in the control of cell morphology. For these purposes, MT polymerisation dynamics are tightly regulated. Using automated image analysis software, we investigate the spatial dependence of MT dynamics in interphase fission yeast cells with unprecedented statistical accuracy. We find that MT c...