This paper reports on the study of the interactions between ascorbic acid (AA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) in aqueous solution as well as in films (BSA/AA films) prepared by the layer-by-layer technique. Regarding to solution studies, a hyperchromism (in the range of ultraviolet) was found as a function of AA concentration, which suggested the formation of aggregates from AA and BSA. Binding...

A tetraphenylethene (TPE) group that exhibits aggregation-induced emission is incorporated into the ligand of a Eu(III) complex (TPEEu) to sensitize the excited state of Eu(III). In steady-state measurements, TPEEu exhibits weak luminescence when dissolved in aqueous solutions even at a high concentration level, but emits strong fluorescence of TPE and phosphorescence of Eu(III) upon binding wi...

An expeditious and accurate simplification of Stone and Scallan's solute exclusion technique was developed, thereby avoiding several sources of experimental error coupled with the determination of cellulose pore volume. Using this method, it is shown that cellulolytic enzymes do not enter into the micropores of five studied celluloses. These results suggestes that hydrolysis occurs initially at...

A method for solubilization of pristine fullerene (C(60)) in water was proposed by directly using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a "solubilizer" by means of the unfolding mechanism. C(60) aqueous solution with a small distribution size, excellent dispersion stability and high dispersion concentration was obtained without the use of derivatization and organic solvent.

Conjugates of bovine serum albumin with progesterone, deoxycorticosterone, and estrone have now been synthesized as an extension of a program to prepare and characterize steroid-protein conjugates with the ultimate purpose of testing their ability to stimulate the formation of antihormonal antibodies (1). The steroid derivatives which were coupled to albumin are shown in Fig. 1. The synthetic a...

Dielectric and conductivity measurements are reported for bovine serum albumin as a function of hydration. Strong evidence is found for the existence of mobile charges whose short- and long-range hopping motion strongly depends on the physical state of the protein-bound water. These charges are considered to be protons. Insights into the nature of the electrical properties of protein-methylglyo...

The first example of an all-organic oligofluorene truxene based distributed feedback laser for the detection of a specific protein-small molecule interaction is reported. The protein avidin was detected down to 1 μg mL(-1) using our biotin-labelled biosensor platform. This interaction was both selective and reversible when biotin was replaced with desthiobiotin. Avidin detection was not perturb...

Backgrounds: Subclinical ketosis can cause greater economic loss due to a lack of clinical symptoms. Objectives: The present study was aimed to design a chemical method for measuring serum ketone bodies in the affected subclinical cows. Methods: Acetoacetate concentrations were measured using a nitroprusside reaction and b-hydroxy butyric acid (BHBA) which was oxidized to acetoacetate using nan...

During antibiotic drug development, media are frequently spiked with either serum/plasma or protein supplements to evaluate the effect of protein binding. Usually, previously reported serum or plasma protein binding values are applied in the analysis. The aim of this study was to evaluate this approach by experimentally measuring free, unbound concentrations for antibiotics with reportedly high...

The domain III of bovine serum albumin containing residues 377-582 of the protein sequence was isolated and its behaviour in acid solution was studied. The fragment was found to undergo structural transformations over the pH range 3.5-4.5 known to cause N-F transition in serum albumin. On the other hand, an albumin fragment that was devoid of domain III was unable to exhibit such a transition. ...