No abstract

No abstract

Incorporating superabsorbent polymer (SAP), which has the abilities of absorption and desorption in concrete can achieve the effect of internal curing. The influences of the volume, particle size and ways of entrained water of SAP on the workability, compressive strength, shrinkage, carbonation resistance and chloride penetration resistance of concrete were analyzed through the macroscopic and microscopic test. The results show that pre-absorbed SAP can increase the slump of the mixture, but SAP without water absorption and pre-absorbed SAP with the deduction of internal curing water from mixing water can reduce the slump. The improvement effects of SAP on compressive strength of concrete increase gradually with the increase of age. Especially from 28 days, the compressive strength of concrete increases obviously. At later age, the compressive strengths of SAP concrete under natural curing environment exceed the strength of reference concrete under natural curing environment and nearly reach the strengths of reference concrete under standard curing environment. SAP effectively reduces the shrinkage of concrete, improves the concrete's abilities of carbonation resistance and chloride penetration resistance. The microscopic test results show that SAP can effectively improve the micro structure and make the pore structure refined. When SAP is added into concrete, the gel pores and small capillary pores are increased, the size of big capillary pores and air pores are reduced.

The cannabinoid receptor subtype 2 (CB2) is a member of the G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) superfamily. As the relationship between structure and function for this receptor remains poorly understood, the present study was undertaken to characterize the structure of a segment including the first and second transmembrane helix (TM1 and TM2) domains of CB2. To accomplish this, a transmembrane double-helix bundle from this region was expressed, purified, and characterized by NMR. Milligrams of this hydrophobic fragment of the receptor were biosynthesized using a fusion protein overexpression strategy and purified by affinity chromatography combined with reverse phase HPLC. Chemical and enzymatic cleavage methods were implemented to remove the fusion tag. The resultant recombinant protein samples were analyzed and confirmed by HPLC, mass spectrometry, and circular dichroism (CD). The CD analyses of HPLC-purified protein in solution and in DPC micelle preparations suggested predominant alpha-helical structures under both conditions. The 13C/15N double-labeled protein CB2(27-101) was further verified and analyzed by NMR spectroscopy. Sequential assignment was accomplished for more than 80% of residues. The 15N HSQC NMR results show a clear chemical shift dispersion of the amide nitrogen-proton correlation indicative of a pure double-labeled polypeptide molecule. The results suggest that this method is capable of generating transmembrane helical bundles from GPCRs in quantity and purity sufficient for NMR and other biophysical studies. Therefore, the biosynthesis of GPCR transmembrane helix bundles represents a satisfactory alternative strategy to obtain and assemble NMR structures from recombinant "building blocks."