Understanding the evolution of biopolymers is a key element in rationalizing their structures and functions. Simple exact models (SEMs) are well-positioned to address general principles of evolution as they permit the exhaustive enumeration of both sequence and structure (conformational) spaces. The physics-based models of the complete mapping between genotypes and phenotypes afforded by SEMs h...

Understanding the environmental factors that cause proteins to unfold from their native conformations to form biologically-inactive or denatured states represents one of the most important challenges in the biological and pharmaceutical sciences. Although it has been known for some time that proteins can be denatured by heating or cooling at high or low pressure, only semiempirical thermodynami...

Thermal oscillations of base pairs in the Peyrard-Bishop-Holstein model are simulated by stochastic fluctuations of base overlap integrals. Numerical investigation of the model is carried out for a hole transfer in G1A2G3G4 sequence which was previously studied experimentally by F. Lewis et al. A hole migration between G1 and G3G4 is determined by the matrix elements of the charge transition, b...

The primary goal of this study was to isolate hydrocarbon-degrading organisms and assess their ability to bioremediate petroleum-contaminated soil and water. Nigeria is one of the major oil producing countries and petroleum contamination is widespread in agricultural soil. Alcaligenes sp. strain 3k was isolated from a kerosene-polluted soil in Ilorin, Nigeria. We also assessed its ability to de...

The primary goal of this study was to isolate hydrocarbon-degrading organisms and assess their ability to bioremediate petroleum-contaminated soil and water. Nigeria is one of the major oil producing countries and petroleum contamination is widespread in agricultural soil. Alcaligenes sp. strain 3k was isolated from a kerosene-polluted soil in Ilorin, Nigeria. We also assessed its ability to de...

It is shown that the free

Leonid V. Gusev, Valentina V. Vasilevskaya,* Vsevolod Ju. Makeev, Pavel G. Khalatur, Alexei R. Khokhlov* Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Vavilova 28, Moscow 117823, Russia Fax: (þ7) 095 1355085; E-mail: [email protected] Physics Department, Moscow State University, Moscow 117234, Russia Department of Polymer Science, University of Ulm, Ulm D...

Biopolymers adsorb on cell and virus surfaces with great specificity. Recently, theoretical and computational studies have inquired as to whether there are any universal design strategies that nature employs in order to affect such recognition. Specifically, the efficacy of multifunctionality and quenched disorder as essential design strategies has been explored. It has been found that when ran...