Converting lignocellulosics to simple sugars for second generation bioethanol is complicated due to biomass recalcitrance, and it requires a pretreatment stage prior to enzymatic hydrolysis. In this study, native, pretreated (acid and alkaline) and partially hydrolyzed poplar and switchgrass were characterized by using Simons’ staining for cellulose accessibility, GPC for degree of polymerizati...

It was shown previously that the anticancerous cytotoxic oxygenated triterpenes, cucurbitacin E (Cuc E) and its deacetylated form, cucurbitacin I (Cuc I), interacted differently with human serum albumin. In this study, the biochemical stability of Cuc E was investigated in vitro by reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography. The hydrolysis rate in acidic and alkaline solutions, and in...

Previous studies defined easy and difficult to hydrolyze fractions of hemicellulose that may result from bonds among cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. To understand how such bonds affect hydrolysis, Populus trichocarpa × Populus deltoides, holocellulose isolated from P. trichocarpa × P. deltoides and birchwood xylan were subjected to hydrothermal flow-through pretreatment. Samples were char...

Alkaline hydrolysis of RDX (hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine), as one of the most promising methods for nitrocompound remediation, was investigated computationally at the PCM(Pauling)/M06-2X/6-311++G(d,p) level of theory. Computational simulation shows that RDX hydrolysis is a highly exothermic multistep process involving initial deprotonation and nitrite elimination, cycle cleavage, fur...

The effects of various substrates and alternative substrates on the hydrolytic activity of beef heart mitochondrial ATPase was examined. It was found that ATP and ADP are competitive inhibitors of ITP hydrolysis, and that in the presence of either ATP or ADP, ITP hydrolysis showed positive cooperativity. IDP inhibited ITP hydrolysis and caused positive cooperativity. When ITP was present during...

Consumption of kiwifruit is reported to relieve symptoms of functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorder. The effect may be related to the proteases in kiwifruit. This in vitro study aimed to measure protein hydrolysis due to kiwifruit protease under gastric and duodenal conditions. A sequence of experiments incubated meat protein, with and without kiwifruit, with varying concentrations of pepsin ...

Aminoacridines have a long history in the drug and dye industries and display a wide range of biological and physical properties. Despite the historical relevance of 9-aminoacridines, there have been few studies investigating their stability. 9-Aminoacridines are known to hydrolyze at the C9-N15 bond, yielding acridones. In this study, the pH-dependent hydrolysis rates of a series of 9-substitu...

This study determined whether the time-dependent decline in the rate of ATP hydrolysis by actomyosin ATPase during sustained isometric force can occur in the absence of a time-dependent decline in regulatory myosin light chain (rMLC) phosphorylation in Triton X-100-permeabilized canine tracheal smooth muscle. Maximal activation with 10 μM Ca2+ induced sustained increases in isometric force, sti...

The herpes simplex virus type 1 UL42 DNA polymerase processivity factor interacts physically with UL9 and enhances its ability to unwind short, partially duplex DNA. In this report, ATP hydrolysis during translocation of UL9 on single-stranded (ss) or partially duplex DNA was examined in the presence and absence of UL42 to determine the effect of UL42 on the catalytic function of UL9. Our studi...

The polymerization of actin filaments is coupled to the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which involves both the cleavage of ATP and the release of inorganic phosphate. We describe hydrolysis by a reduced two-state model with a cooperative cleavage mechanism, where the cleavage rate depends on the state of the neighboring actin protomer in a filament. We obtain theoretical prediction...