The Helical Fusion group (Helical Co., Ltd. in Japan and USA, Inc.) is developing a 50 MWe-class steady-state helical fusion reactor, which kind of stellarator called heliotron composed two continuous coils similar to the large device operated without plasma current. HESTIA plays role pilot plant. first-of-a-kind power plant that would follow will be 100 reactor. After more than one year operat...

Chemo- and phototaxis systems in bacteria and archaea serve as models for more complex signal transduction mechanisms in higher eukaryotes. Previous studies of the cytoplasmic fragment of the phototaxis transducer (pHtrII-cyt) from the halophilic archaeon Natronomonas pharaonis showed that it takes the shape of a monomeric or dimeric rod under low or high salt conditions, respectively. CD spect...

Transient UV resonance Raman measurements excited within the amide pi --> pi transitions of a 21 unit alpha-helical peptide has for the first time determined a lower bound for the unfolding rate of the last alpha-helical turn to form a fully random coil peptide. A 3 ns T-jump is generated with 1.9 microm laser pulses, which are absorbed by water. Subsequent 3 ns 204 nm UV pulses excite the amid...

XRCC4 (X-ray cross-complementation group 4) and XLF (XRCC4-like factor) are two essential interacting proteins in the human NHEJ (non-homologous end-joining) pathway that repairs DNA DSBs (double-strand breaks). The individual crystal structures show that the dimeric proteins are homologues with protomers containing head domains and helical coiled-coil tails related by approximate two-fold symm...

The alpha-helix to beta-sheet transition (α-β transition) is a universal deformation mechanism in alpha-helix rich protein materials such as wool, hair, hoof, and cellular proteins. Through a combination of molecular and theoretical modeling, we examine the behavior of alpha-helical coiled-coil proteins with varying lengths under stretch. We find that the occurrence of the α-β transition is con...

This study focused on investigating the impact of α-Al2O3 nanoparticles heat transfer in shell and helical coiled tube exchangers. The objective was to analyze influence various geometrical characteristics, specifically coil pitch, Nusselt numbers both sides using a combination numerical simulations experimental methods. working fluid for hot side water. research encompassed an examination fric...

Toxins and viruses often initiate their attacks by binding to specific proteins on the surfaces of target cells. Bacterial toxins (e.g. bacteriocins) and viruses (bacteriophages) targeting Gram-negative bacteria typically bind to outer membrane proteins. Bacterial E-colicins target Escherichia coli by binding to the outer membrane cobalamin transporter BtuB. Colicins are tripartite molecules po...

The last two decades have seen an explosion of research activity in the area of self-assembled polymeric and supramolecular materials. Self-assembly schemes rely on an often delicate balance between competing repulsive and attractive forces between structural elements. In traditional coil-coil block copolymers, microphase separated structures are dictated by the balance of immiscibility between...

A large number of tropomyosin (Tm) isoforms function as gatekeepers of the actin filament, controlling the spatiotemporal access of actin-binding proteins to specialized actin networks. Residues ∼40-80 vary significantly among Tm isoforms, but the impact of sequence variation on Tm structure and interactions with actin is poorly understood, because structural studies have focused on skeletal mu...