Emission scenario of non-CO2 gases from energy activities and other sources in China

This paper gives a quantitative analysis on the non-CO2 emissions related to energy demand, energy activities and land use change of six scenarios with different development pattern in 2030 and 2050 based on IPAC emission model. The various mitigation technologies and policies are assessed to understand the corresponding non-CO2 emission reduction effect. The research shows that the future non-CO2 emissions of China will grow along with increasing energy demand, in which thermal power and transportation will be the major emission and mitigation sectors. During the cause of future social and economic development, the control and mitigation of non-CO2 emissions is a problem as challenging and pressing as that of CO2 emissions.This study indicates that the energy efficiency improvement, renewable energy, advanced nuclear power generation, fuel cell, coal-fired combined cycle, clean coal and motor vehicle emission control technologies will contribute to non-CO2 emissions control and mitigation.     

Microbial Methylotrophic Metabolism: Recent Metabolic Modeling Efforts and Their Applications In Industrial Biotechnology

Developing methylotrophic bacteria into cell factories that meet the chemical demand of the future could be both economical and environmentally friendly. Methane is not only an abundant, low‐cost resource but also a potent greenhouse gas, the capture of which could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Rational strain design workflows rely on the availability of carefully combined knowledge often in the form of genome‐scale metabolic models to construct high‐producer organisms. In this review, the authors present the most recent genome‐scale metabolic models in aerobic methylotrophy and their applications. Further, the authors present models for the study of anaerobic methanotrophy through reverse methanogenesis and suggest organisms that may be of interest for expanding one‐carbon industrial biotechnology. Metabolic models of methylotrophs are scarce, yet they are important first steps toward rational strain‐design in these organisms.     

Structural analysis based on state-space modeling.

A new method has been developed to compute the probability that each amino acid in a protein sequence is in a particular secondary structural element. Each of these probabilities is computed using the entire sequence and a set of predefined structural class models. This set of structural classes is patterned after Jane Richardson''s taxonomy for the domains of globular proteins. For each structural class considered, a mathematical model is constructed to represent constraints on the pattern of secondary structural elements characteristic of that class. These are stochastic models having discrete state spaces (referred to as hidden Markov models by researchers in signal processing and automatic speech recognition). Each model is a mathematical generator of amino acid sequences; the sequence under consideration is modeled as having been generated by one model in the set of candidates. The probability that each model generated the given sequence is computed using a filtering algorithm. The protein is then classified as belonging to the structural class having the most probable model. The secondary structure of the sequence is then analyzed using a "smoothing" algorithm that is optimal for that structural class model. For each residue position in the sequence, the smoother computes the probability that the residue is contained within each of the defined secondary structural elements of the model. This method has two important advantages: (1) the probability of each residue being in each of the modeled secondary structural elements is computed using the totality of the amino acid sequence, and (2) these probabilities are consistent with prior knowledge of realizable domain folds as encoded in each model. As an example of the method''s utility, we present its application to flavodoxin, a prototypical alpha/beta protein having a central beta-sheet, and to thioredoxin, which belongs to a similar structural class but shares no significant sequence similarity.     

Comparing the effect of immobilization methods on the activity of lipase biocatalysts in ester hydrolysis

The activity of various lipases was compared, in both free and immobilized forms, using the kinetics of the hydrolysis reaction of p-nitrophenyl butyrate, which was followed with in situ UV/Vis diode array spectrophotometry. Several enzymes were used to catalyze the reaction, namely Candida antarctica lipase B and Fusarium solani pisi cutinase wildtype and three single-mutation variants. The enzymes were tested in three different forms: free, immobilized as cross-linked aggregates and supported on zeolite NaY. A simple kinetic model was used to allow a quantitative comparison of the behavior of the different catalysts. It was concluded that although immobilization reduces the activity of the enzyme, the zeolite offers a much higher specific activity when compared to the cross-linked aggregates, thus supplying a heterogeneous catalyst with promising catalytic properties.     

桃拉综合征病毒中国株ZHZC3全基因测序及分子结构预测

设计8对引物分片段扩增桃拉综合征病毒中国分离株ZHZC3全基因组,病毒两末端序列采用末端快速扩增方法(RACE)获取。扩增产物克隆到pMD18-T载体并测序,用DNAstar软件拼接全序列及同源性比较。结果显示ZHZC3全序列除去3′poly(A)尾,由10202个碱基组成,有两个开放阅读框,分别编码2107和1011个氨基酸的聚蛋白。与美国参考株HI94相比,在编码区没有核苷酸的缺失和插入,但在5′UTR缺失3个A,两者整体核酸同源性达97.9%。ORF1中ZHZC3与HI94及巴西株(BLZ01)的核酸同源性分别为97.6%、97.7%,在ORF2中ZHZC3与HI94、BLZ01的核酸同源性则分别为98.3、97%。与国外株ORF2的部分序列比较发现:ZHZC3和中国台湾株均与美国株HI94同源性最高。克隆分析6株TSV中国大陆株主要结构蛋白CP2基因,发现其编码的氨基酸存在三个高变区,中国大陆株更有其独特的氨基酸变异模式,312(S),449(A),451(Q)和468(H)。表明该病毒的整体变异性不高,但中国的流行株已形成其自己的遗传演变特征。在此基础上,利用生物学软件对CP2蛋白功能域和三维结构进行了预测,为进一步分析CP2蛋白结构与功能关系奠定了基础。ZHZC3株是第一个测定全序列的TSV中国株。     

白桦4CL蛋白结构分析及同源建模

利用生物信息学方法分析白桦4CL蛋白的氨基酸组成、等电点、疏水/亲水区、跨膜区及二级结构等蛋白质性质;并同拟南芥、水稻和毛白杨的4CL蛋白进行对比,进行同源性分析;利用生物信息学软件对其空间结构进行了模拟,得到了可靠的分子生物学模型,并根据模型对白桦4CL蛋白功能进行预测,为今后测定白桦4CL蛋白生物学功能奠定了理论基础。     

Chemical cross-linking and mass spectrometry for protein structural modeling

The growth of gene and protein sequence information is currently so rapid that three-dimensional structural information is lacking for the overwhelming majority of known proteins. In this review, efforts towards rapid and sensitive methods for protein structural characterization are described, complementing existing technologies. Based on chemical cross-linking and offering the analytical speed and sensitivity of mass spectrometry these methodologies are thought to contribute valuable tools towards future high throughput protein structure elucidation.     

Assessing Methods for Developing Phosphorus Desorption Isotherms from Soils using Anion Exchange Membranes

Developing desorption isotherms for inorganic phosphorus (P) is a time-consuming and non-standardized procedure. Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) have been successfully used in studies of P desorption kinetics and total membrane-desorbable P, but rarely have they been used for developing P desorption isotherms. Our study had two objectives: (1) to evaluate the suitability of using multiple strips of AEMs (termed the Multiple AEM Method) to develop P desorption isotherms; and (2) to compare the Multiple AEM Method with a sequential-extraction approach using AEMs (termed the Sequential AEM Method) to determine if the manner in which AEMs were used would influence the slope of the desorption isotherm, i.e. the partition coefficient. Both methods yielded well-defined, but numerically different desorption isotherms for all levels of sorbed P. However, estimated K _d values among methods were equivalent in the low and medium levels of P sorbed. The Multiple AEM method was quicker than the Sequential AEM method, but both gave similar K _d values in an agriculturally significant range of soil solution concentrations. These methods should be tested on a range of soil type to determine their suitability in developing P desorption isotherms and to move toward method standardization for desorption isotherms.     

Substrate-enzyme interactions and catalytic mechanism in phospholipase C: a molecular modeling study using the GRID program.

Based on the high-resolution X-ray crystallographic structure of phospholipase C from Bacillus cereus, the orientation of the phosphatidylcholine substrate in the active site of the enzyme is proposed. The proposal is based on extensive calculations using the GRID program and molecular mechanics geometry relaxations. The substrate model has been constructed by successively placing phosphate, choline and diacylglycerol moieties in the positions indicated from GRID calculations. On the basis of the resulting orientation of a complete phosphatidylcholine molecule, we propose a mechanism for the hydrolysis of the substrate.