Macroporous resin microbeads of methyl methacrylate-divinyl benzene copolymer were synthesized by radical suspension polymerization of acrolein with divinylbenzene in the presence of a pore-creating agent, petroleum ether. The microbeads had a large specific surface area and large pores covered the entire surface of the resin. This macroporous polymer carrier was aminated by hydrazine hydrate t...

We have investigated the energy landscape of the bacterial photosynthetic peripheral light-harvesting complex LH2 of purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas acidophila by monitoring sequences of fluorescence spectra of single LH2 assemblies, at room temperature, with different excitation intensities as well as at elevated temperatures, utilizing a confocal microscope. The fluorescence peak wavelength...

The B800-820, or LH3, complex is a spectroscopic variant of the B800-850 LH2 peripheral light-harvesting complex. LH3 is synthesized by some species and strains of purple bacteria when growing under what are generally classed as "stressed" conditions, such as low intensity illumination and/or low temperature (<30 degrees C). The apoproteins in these complexes modify the absorption properties of...

1. A dye-linked alcohol dehydrogenase was purified 60-fold from extracts of Rhodopseudomonas acidophila 10050 grown aerobically on ethanol. 2. The properties of this enzyme were identical with those of the alcohol dehydrogenase synthesized by this organism during growth on methanol anaerobically in the light, and they are judged to be the same enzyme. 3. The enzyme gave a single protein band, c...

Using the bacteriochlorophyll a (Bchl) cofactors as intrinsic probes to monitor changes in membrane protein structure, we investigate the response to high-pressure of the LH2 complexes from the photosynthetic bacteria Rhodobacter sphaeroides 2.4.1 and Rhodopseudomonas acidophila 10050. By FT-Raman spectroscopy, we demonstrate that high pressure does not induce significant distortion of the prot...

BACKGROUND Routine blood tests are an integral part of clinical medicine and in interpreting blood test results clinicians have two broad options. (1) Dichotomise the blood tests into normal/abnormal or (2) use the actual values and overlook the reference values. We refer to these as the "binary" and the "non-binary" strategy respectively. We investigate which strategy is better at predicting t...

Uphill energy transfer in the LH2-containing purple bacteria Rhodopseudomonas acidophila, Rhodopseudomonas palustris, Rhodobacter sphaeroides, Chromatium vinosum and Chromatium purpuratum was studied by stationary fluorescence spectroscopy at room temperature upon selective excitation of the B800 pigments of LH2 and the B880 pigments of LH1 at 803 nm and 900 nm, respectively. The resulting fluo...