Molecular dynamics in cells: A neutron view

Surviving salt fluctuations: stress and recovery in Halobacterium salinarum, an extreme halophilic Archaeon

“…marismortui and of the native proteome from Hbt. salinarum [12][13][14][15][16] indicated that halophilic proteins display specific biophysical adaptation properties to high salt reflected by higher structural resilience, compared to mesophilic systems. It is likely, therefore, that most halophilic proteins display an obligatory requirement for high salt conditions in order to be active and stable.…”

Improving position resolution of neutron detectors with ultra-thin B4C foils

“…The neutron capture reaction by 3 He atoms results in the emission of one triton and one proton with energies of 191 keV and 573 keV, respectively, accompanied by a 0.764 MeV gamma-ray. The fact that 3 He is naturally a stable and non-toxic noble gas with high neutron capture crosssection, made it the golden standard for neutron detection, achieving high efficiency and good gamma-ray discrimination.…”

“…Neutron detection is usually achieved via nuclear capture reactions, in which the neutron is absorbed by the nucleus of an atom, which then becomes unstable and decays into two highly ionizing charged particles. The cross-section to thermal neutrons of these reactions is particularly high for few isotopes: 3 He (5333 barn), 10 B (3837 barn) and 6 Li (940 barn). Because the neutron capture cross-section scales with √ , where E is the neutron energy, neutrons used in irradiation experiments typically undergo a moderation process in which their energy is dissipated through successive elastic scattering interactions within a moderator medium, until thermal energy (0.025 eV) is reached.…”

The Effect of an Intramembrane Light-Actuator on the Dynamics of Phospholipids in Model Membranes and Intact Cells

“…16,28 Therefore, essentially, our incoherent signal mostly arises from the intracellular water hydrogen, while most of cellular signal comes from macromolecular dynamics (especially proteins). 16,17 In regards of D 2 O, it only would account for a small residual amount of the extracellular medium, and the incoherent contribution of D 2 O on IRIS is estimated to be smaller than 4 % at Q < 1.3 Å -1 . 29 Given these considerations, we thus expect that the D 2 O contribution to the total incoherent scattering would be negligible.…”

“…12 For these reasons, QENS has been used to probe the complex molecular motion of phospholipids and surfactants in supramolecular assembles and lipid bilayers, [13][14][15] as well as in highly complex biological systems such as living cells. 16,17 More specifically, QENS has been also exploited to investigate the effects of guest molecules of pharmaceutical interests on the structure and dynamics of lipid membrane. [18][19][20][21][22] We have recently developed an amphiphilic azobenzene molecule named ZIAPIN2, which partitions stably into the plasma membrane where it can work selectively as an efficient optomechanical actuator.…”