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Experimental Identification (experimental + identification)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Chemistry	80%

Selected Abstracts

Development and Experimental Identification of a Biomechanical Model of the Trunk for Functional Electrical Stimulation Control in Paraplegia

NEUROMODULATION, Issue 4 2008
Ingenieur Michele Vanoncini
ABSTRACT Objectives., Theoretic modeling and experimental studies suggest that functional electrical stimulation (FES) can improve trunk balance in spinal cord injured subjects. This can have a positive impact on daily life, increasing the volume of bimanual workspace, improving sitting posture, and wheelchair propulsion. A closed loop controller for the stimulation is desirable, as it can potentially decrease muscle fatigue and offer better rejection to disturbances. This paper proposes a biomechanical model of the human trunk, and a procedure for its identification, to be used for the future development of FES controllers. The advantage over previous models resides in the simplicity of the solution proposed, which makes it possible to identify the model just before a stimulation session (taking into account the variability of the muscle response to the FES). Materials and Methods., The structure of the model is based on previous research on FES and muscle physiology. Some details could not be inferred from previous studies, and were determined from experimental data. Experiments with a paraplegic volunteer were conducted in order to measure the moments exerted by the trunk-passive tissues and artificially stimulated muscles. Data for model identification and validation also were collected. Results., Using the proposed structure and identification procedure, the model could adequately reproduce the moments exerted during the experiments. The study reveals that the stimulated trunk extensors can exert maximal moment when the trunk is in the upright position. In contrast, previous studies show that able-bodied subjects can exert maximal trunk extension when flexed forward. Conclusions., The proposed model and identification procedure are a successful first step toward the development of a model-based controller for trunk FES. The model also gives information on the trunk in unique conditions, normally not observable in able-bodied subjects (ie, subject only to extensor muscles contraction). [source]

Experimental annotation of channel catfish virus by probabilistic proteogenomic mapping

PROTEINS: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND BIOINFORMATICS, Issue 10 2009
Dusan Kunec Dr.
Abstract Experimental identification of expressed proteins by proteomics constitutes the most reliable approach to identify genomic location and structure of protein-coding genes and substantially complements computational genome annotation. Channel catfish herpesvirus (CCV) is a simple comparative model for understanding herpesvirus biology and the evolution of the Herpesviridae. The canonical CCV genome has 76 predicted ORF and only 12 of these have been confirmed experimentally. We describe a modification of a statistical method, which assigns significance measures, q -values, to peptide identifications based on 2-D LC ESI MS/MS, real-decoy database searches and SEQUEST XCorr and ,Cn scores. We used this approach to identify CCV proteins expressed during its replication in cell culture, to determine protein composition of mature virions and, consequently, to refine the canonical CCV genome annotation. To complement trypsin, we used partial proteinase K digestion, which yielded greater proteome coverage. At FDR <5%, for peptide identifications, we identified 25/76 previously predicted ORF using trypsin and 31/76 using proteinase K. Furthermore, we identified 17 novel protein-coding regions (7 potential ATG-initiated ORF). Most of these novel ORF encode small proteins (<100 amino acids). Directed, strand-specific reverse transcription real-time PCR confirmed RNA expression from 6/7 novel ATG-initiated ORF investigated. [source]

N-Ace: Using solvent accessibility and physicochemical properties to identify protein N-acetylation sites

JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 15 2010
Tzong-Yi Lee
Abstract Protein acetylation, which is catalyzed by acetyltransferases, is a type of post-translational modification and crucial to numerous essential biological processes, including transcriptional regulation, apoptosis, and cytokine signaling. As the experimental identification of protein acetylation sites is time consuming and laboratory intensive, several computational approaches have been developed for identifying the candidates of experimental validation. In this work, solvent accessibility and the physicochemical properties of proteins are utilized to identify acetylated alanine, glycine, lysine, methionine, serine, and threonine. A two-stage support vector machine was applied to learn the computational models with combinations of amino acid sequences, and the accessible surface area and physicochemical properties of proteins. The predictive accuracy thus achieved is 5% to 14% higher than that of models trained using only amino acid sequences. Additionally, the substrate specificity of the acetylated site was investigated in detail with reference to the subcellular colocalization of acetyltransferases and acetylated proteins. The proposed method, N-Ace, is evaluated using independent test sets in various acetylated residues and predictive accuracies of 90% were achieved, indicating that the performance of N-Ace is comparable with that of other acetylation prediction methods. N-Ace not only provides a user-friendly input/output interface but also is a creative method for predicting protein acetylation sites. This novel analytical resource is now freely available at http://N-Ace.mbc.NCTU.edu.tw/. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010 [source]

Design of the Sandwich-like Compounds Based on the All-Metal Aromatic Unit Al3,

CHEMPHYSCHEM, Issue 12 2006
Li-ming Yang
Hetero-assembly: Sandwich-like complexes containing Al3, assemble in a "hetero-decked sandwich" scheme where cluster fusion is avoided. The all-metal aromaticity of Al3, is preserved in the complex CpMAl3q, (see figure) and this theoretical study supports the experimental identification of the Al62, anion (with M+ counterions). [source]

Ionization-Induced Proton Transfer in Model DNA Base Pairs: A Theoretical Study of the Radical Ions of the 7-Azaindole Dimer

CHEMPHYSCHEM, Issue 12 2004
Hsing-Yin Chen Dr.
Abstract Proton-transfer reactions of the radical anion and cation of the 7-Azaindole (7AI) dimer were investigated by means of density functional theory (DFT). The calculated results for the dimer anion and cation were very similar. Three equilibrium structures, which correspond to the non-proton-transferred (normal), the single-proton-transferred (SPT) and the double-proton-transferred (tautomeric) forms, were found. The transition states for proton-transfer reactions were also located. The calculations showed that the first proton-transfer reaction (normal,SPT) is exothermic and almost barrier-free; therefore, it should occur spontaneously in the period of a vibration. In contrast, the second proton-transfer reaction (SPT,tautomer) was found to be far less-probable in terms of reaction energy and barrier. Hence, it was concluded that both (7AI)2and (7AI)2exist in the SPT form. The conclusion was further confirmed by the calculated electron vertical detachment energy (VDE) of the SPT form of (7AI)2, 1.33 eV, which is very close to the experimental measurement of 1.35 eV. The calculated VDEs of the normal and tautomeric (7AI)2forms were too small compared to the experimental value. The proton transfer process was found to be multidimensional in nature involving not only proton motion but also intermolecular rocking motion. In addition, IR spectra were calculated and reported. The spectra of the three structures showed very different features and, therefore, can be considered as fingerprints for future experimental identifications. The implications of these results to biology and spectroscopy are also briefly discussed. [source]