Address correspondence to Laura Machesky, Department of Biochemistry, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. Tel: 44-121414-2504. Fax: 44-121-414-3982. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] T HE actin cytoskeleton of a eukaryotic cell is central to locomotion, phagocytosis, contractility, shape changes, cytokinesis and maintenance of polarity. The mechanisms throug...

Glow discharge polymerization is not well understood due to the rapid/complex reaction at the plasma/gas precursor interface. Plasma reaction in a submerged condition allows post-plasma-polymerization, leading to further polymer growth and thus a stable structure. Electron collision with acetonitrile at the interface initiates the formation of radical monomers, which undergoes further rearrange...

The pseudo-octahedral molybdenum benzylidyne complex [TolC≡Mo(ONO)(OR)]·KOR (R = CCH3(CF3)2) 1, featuring a stabilizing ONO pincer ligand, initiates the controlled living polymerization of strained dibenzocyclooctynes at T > 60 °C to give high molecular weight polymers with exceptionally low polydispersities (PDI ∼ 1.02). Kinetic analyses reveal that the growing polymer chain attached to the pr...

Does cytosolic pressure facilitate f-actin polymerization to push the leading edge of a cell forward during self-propelled motion? AFM force-distance (f-d) curves obtained from lamellipodia of live cells often exhibit a signal from which the tension, bending modulus, elastic modulus and thickness in the membrane-cortex complex can be estimated close to the contact point. These measurements perm...

In this paper, we present a tandem anionic-radical approach for synthesizing hypergrafted polymers. We prepared 4-(N,N-diphenylamino)methylstyrene (DPAMS) as a new radical-based inimer. Linear PDPAMS was prepared through anionic polymerization. Hypergrafted PDPAMS was synthesized through the self-condensing vinyl polymerization of DPAMS with linear PDPAMS. The linear backbone of PDPAMS, which i...

Endosomes in yeast have been hypothesized to move through the cytoplasm by the momentum gained after actin polymerization has driven endosome abscision from the plasma membrane. Alternatively, after abscission, ongoing actin polymerization on endosomes could power transport. Here, we tested these hypotheses by showing that the Arp2/3 complex activation domain (WCA) of Las17 (Wiskott-Aldrich syn...

Replicative DNA polymerases present an intrinsic proofreading activity during which the DNA primer chain is transferred between the polymerization and exonuclease sites of the protein. The dynamics of this primer transfer reaction during active polymerization remain poorly understood. Here we describe a single-molecule mechanical method to investigate the conformational dynamics of the intramol...

Polyacrylamide gel (PAG) dosimeters show considerable promise as three-dimensional dosimeters for the verification of complex dose distributions associated with conformal therapy. However, the potential of PAG dosimeters has not yet been borne out in clinical practice and it is apparent that basic investigations of these dosimeters are still required. The polymerization reactions in PAG dosimet...

Optimal control of polymerization reactors is of immense interest due to necessity of operating these reactors optimally to produce a polymer product with desired quality characteristics. In the past, various classical methods have been reported for optimal control of polymerization reactors. However, stochastic and evolutionary optimization methods are found effective in solving complex optimi...

Actin, nucleation-promoting factors (NPFs), and the actin-related protein 2/3 complex (Arp2/3) are key elements of the cellular actin polymerization machinery. With nuclear actin polymerization implicated in ever-expanding biological processes and the discovery of the nuclear import mechanisms of actin and NPFs, determining Arp2/3 nucleo-cytoplasmic shuttling mechanism is important for understa...