In response to excessive light, the thylakoid membranes of higher plant chloroplasts show dynamic changes including the degradation and reassembly of proteins, a change in the distribution of proteins, and large-scale structural changes such as unstacking of the grana. Here, we examined the aggregation of light-harvesting chlorophyll-protein complexes and Photosystem II core subunits of spinach...

Acanthocytic red cells in patients with abetalipoproteinemia are morphologically similar to the red cells in spur cell anemia. Fluidity of membrane lipids is decreased in spur cells due to their excess cholesterol content. Acanthocyte membranes have an increased content of sphingomyelin and a decreased content of lecithin. To assess the effect of this abnormality of acanthocyte membrane lipid c...

Apical membranes of renal epithelial cells were shown to be more rigid than other plasma membranes, due in part to the abundance of sphingomyelin among their constituent phospholipids. Tight junctions play a key role in maintaining differences between the apical and the basolateral domains of the plasma membrane with respect to their lipid composition and fluidity. To evaluate the influence of ...

Experimental results obtained at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have been interpreted in terms of a strongly interacting quark gluon plasma. The strongly interacting plasma is characterized by “perfect fluidity”, i.e. a ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density that saturates a proposed lower bound. In this contribution we explore the possibility that a similar phenomenon takes pl...

In this study, we assumed that the cement paste and mortar are continuums proposed a rheological constants estimation equation can be applied to both mortar. After that, effectiveness of equations was verified using MPS analysis, confirmed in low-fluidity However, for high-fluidity mortar, actual measurement results could not reproduced well by analysis. case analysis considering thixotropy.

Background Obesity is a primary factor of lifestyle-related diseases, and the age of its onset has decreased. The reactive oxygen species (ROS), the superoxide anion, is generated in the mitochondrial electron transport chain and the damage it induces in cells may be a contributing factor to obesity-related lifestyle diseases. In the present study, the influence of the ingestion of a high-fat d...

BACKGROUND Cell membrane composition and fluidity are altered in hypertension. Previous reports suggest arachidonic acid, a metabolically active fatty acid, is increased in the membranes of hypertensive animals compared to control. This increase in unsaturated fatty acids does not explain the observed reduction in fluidity in hypertensive rats, suggesting some other factors affecting fluidity m...

Isoeugenol is an essential oil constituent of nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon. Despite isoeugenol's promising antimicrobial activity, no studies have yet investigated its mode of antibacterial action at the molecular level. The aim of this study is to clarify isoeugenol's antibacterial mode of action using the Gram-negative and Gram-positive model organisms Escherichia coli and Listeria innocua, re...

AIM Cigarette smoking is a recognized risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Platelet adhesiveness and aggregation increases as a result of smoking. Cigarette smoking modifies haemostatic parameters via thrombosis with a consequently higher rate of cardiovascular events, but smoking-induced alterations of platelet membrane fluidit...