Calcium alginate: A new approach in the artificial culturing of insects,applied toSpodoptera littoralis (Boisduval)

Résumé La réaction entre l'alginate de soude et les ions de calcium a été utilisée dans la préparation à froid d'un gel nutritif servant à l'élevage artificiel deSpodoptera littoralis (Boisduval).     

Tetramerization of an RNA oligonucleotide containing a GGGG sequence.

Poly rG can form four-stranded helices. The Hoogsteen-paired quartets of G residues on which such structures depend are so stable that they will form in 5'-GMP solutions, provided that Na+ or K+ are present (see for example, refs 2-4). Telomeric DNA sequences, which are G-rich, adopt four-stranded antiparallel G-quartet conformations in vitro, and parallel tetramerization of G-rich sequences may be involved in meiosis. Here we show that RNAs containing short runs of Gs can also tetramerize. A 19-base oligonucleotide derived from the 5S RNA of Escherichia coli (strand III), 5'GCCGAUGGUAGUGUGGGGU3', forms a K(+)-stabilized tetrameric aggregate that depends on the G residues at its 3' end. This complex is so stable that it would be surprising if similar structures do not occur in nature.     

Engineering the third wave of biocatalysis

Over the past ten years, scientific and technological advances have established biocatalysis as a practical and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional metallo- and organocatalysis in chemical synthesis, both in the laboratory and on an industrial scale. Key advances in DNA sequencing and gene synthesis are at the base of tremendous progress in tailoring biocatalysts by protein engineering and design, and the ability to reorganize enzymes into new biosynthetic pathways. To highlight these achievements, here we discuss applications of protein-engineered biocatalysts ranging from commodity chemicals to advanced pharmaceutical intermediates that use enzyme catalysis as a key step.     

Structural asymmetry and the stability of diverse food webs

Untangling the influence of human activities on food-web stability and persistence is complex given the large numbers of species and overwhelming number of interactions within ecosystems. Although biodiversity has been associated with stability, the actual structures and processes that confer stability to diverse food webs remain largely unknown. Here we show that real food webs are structured such that top predators act as couplers of distinct energy channels that differ in both productivity and turnover rate. Our theoretical analysis shows that coupled fast and slow channels convey both local and non-local stability to food webs. Alarmingly, the same human actions that have been implicated in the loss of biodiversity also directly erode the very structures and processes that we show to confer stability on food webs.     

Clumps and streams in the local dark matter distribution

In cold dark matter cosmological models, structures form and grow through the merging of smaller units. Numerical simulations have shown that such merging is incomplete; the inner cores of haloes survive and orbit as 'subhaloes' within their hosts. Here we report a simulation that resolves such substructure even in the very inner regions of the Galactic halo. We find hundreds of very concentrated dark matter clumps surviving near the solar circle, as well as numerous cold streams. The simulation also reveals the fractal nature of dark matter clustering: isolated haloes and subhaloes contain the same relative amount of substructure and both have cusped inner density profiles. The inner mass and phase-space densities of subhaloes match those of recently discovered faint, dark-matter-dominated dwarf satellite galaxies, and the overall amount of substructure can explain the anomalous flux ratios seen in strong gravitational lenses. Subhaloes boost gamma-ray production from dark matter annihilation by factors of 4 to 15 relative to smooth galactic models. Local cosmic ray production is also enhanced, typically by a factor of 1.4 but by a factor of more than 10 in one per cent of locations lying sufficiently close to a large subhalo. (These estimates assume that the gravitational effects of baryons on dark matter substructure are small.).     

Folding-driven synthesis of oligomers.

The biological function of biomacromolecules such as DNA and enzymes depends on their ability to perform and control molecular association, catalysis, self-replication or other chemical processes. In the case of proteins in particular, the dependence of these functions on the three-dimensional protein conformation is long known and has inspired the development of synthetic oligomers and polymers with the capacity to fold in a controlled manner, but it remains challenging to design these so-called 'foldamers' so that they are capable of inducing or controlling chemical processes and interactions. Here we show that the stability gained from folding can be used to control the synthesis of oligomers from short chain segments reversibly ligated through an imine metathesis reaction. That is, folding shifts the ligation equilibrium in favour of conformationally ordered sequences, so that oligomers having the most stable solution structures form preferentially. Crystallization has previously been used to shift an equilibrium in order to indirectly influence the synthesis of small molecules, but the present approach to selectively prepare macromolecules with stable conformations directly connects folding and synthesis, emphasizing molecular function rather than structure in polymer synthesis.     

Nanoparticle-based drug delivery: case studies for cancer and cardiovascular applications

Nanoparticles (NPs) comprised of nanoengineered complexes are providing new opportunities for enabling targeted delivery of a range of therapeutics and combinations. A range of functionalities can be included within a nanoparticle complex, including surface chemistry that allows attachment of cell-specific ligands for targeted delivery, surface coatings to increase circulation times for enhanced bioavailability, specific materials on the surface or in the nanoparticle core that enable storage of a therapeutic cargo until the target site is reached, and materials sensitive to local or remote actuation cues that allow controlled delivery of therapeutics to the target cells. However, despite the potential benefits of NPs as smart drug delivery and diagnostic systems, much research is still required to evaluate potential toxicity issues related to the chemical properties of NP materials, as well as their size and shape. The need to validate each NP for safety and efficacy with each therapeutic compound or combination of therapeutics is an enormous challenge, which forces industry to focus mainly on those nanoparticle materials where data on safety and efficacy already exists, i.e., predominantly polymer NPs. However, the enhanced functionality affordable by inclusion of metallic materials as part of nanoengineered particles provides a wealth of new opportunity for innovation and new, more effective, and safer therapeutics for applications such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, which require selective targeting of the therapeutic to maximize effectiveness while avoiding adverse effects on non-target tissues.