Electron Correlation Effects in Polaron-Pair Recombination in Conjugated Polymers

Within a Su-Schriffer-Heeger model modified to include electron-electron interaction and an external electric field, we investigate the dynamics of oppositely charged polarons in a polymer chain in the presence of both electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions under the influence of an external electric field. We adopt a multi-configurational time-dependent Hartree-Fock method for the time-dependent Schrodinger equation and the Newtonian equation of motion for a lattice. Our results show that the on-site Coulomb interaction is of fundamental importance and favors the recombination between the pairs of polarons, and the yield of excitons depends crucially on the strength of the on-site Coulomb interaction U. Furthermore, the influence of the nearest neighbor interaction V is also discussed.

REGULATORY EFFECTS OF HUMAN RECOMBINANT IL-6 ON NATURAL KILLER CELL ACTIVITY OF HUMAN FETAL SPLEENS

In the present study it was proved first that human recombinant interleukin-6(HrIL-6) significantly augmented natural killer(NK) cell activity derived from human fetal spleens against K562 target cells in a 4 hours 51Cr release assay. The enhancement of NK activity with 24 hours preincubation in HrlL-6 was dose-dependent, and significantly higher than that of fresh NK cells and controls cultured with RPMI-1640 medium alone (P<0.001). We also found that IL-6 was able to augment NK activity from different fetal spleens at 20 to 40 weeks of gestation (up to 2.24 to 2.78 times), and no difference of NK activity of fetal splenocytes treated by HrIL-6 was observed between different fetal age (32.3% to 45.4%, P>0.05). Furthermore, IL-6-augmented NK activity of fetal splenocytes was very similar to adult levels (P>0.05). These finding strongly indicated that IL-6 plays an important role in the development of NK cell function during the gestational period, suggesting that IL-6 may be of importance in the regulation of host defense mechanisms against malignancies and viral diseases.

Cloning and expression of human arresten gene and effect of its recombinant protein on endothelial cell proliferation

To clone human arresten gene and investigate biological activity of the recombinant protein.Methods Human arresten gene was obtained from the plasmid pGEMArr and subcloned into the BamHⅠ and Pst Ⅰ restriction sites of prokaryotic expression vector pRSET containing T7 promoter.The recombinant plasmid pRSETAN was subsequently transformed into the strain E.coli BL21(DE3),and the target gene was expressed under induction of IPTG.The expressed protein was extracted,purified by Ni 2+ chelation affinity chromatography and refoled.The effect of the recombinant protein on proliferation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) was also analyzed with the MTT assay.Results Endonuclease digesting and DNA sequencing confirmed that the arresten gene was correctly inserted into the expression vector.The recombinant protein was hightly expressed in the form of inclusion body in the host bacteria after induction.SDS-PAGE analysis revealed that the recombinant protein with a molecular weight of 26×103 amounted to 27% of the total bacterial proteins.The purity of the expected protein could reach over 96% through affinity chromatography.After renaturation,the recombinant protein could reach over 96% through affinity chromatography.After renaturation,the recombinant protein could significantly suppress proliferation of human umbilical vein endothelia cells(HUVECs) induced by vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF).Conclusion Human arresten gene was successfully cloned into the expression vector pRSET and expressed at high level in Escherichia coli.Purified and refolded arresten protein could effectively inhibit proliferation of vascular endothelia cells.2 refs.

Competing effects of surface catalysis and ablation in hypersonic reentry aerothermodynamic environment

Under hypersonic flow conditions, the complicated gas-graphene interactions including surface catalysis and surface ablation would occur concurrently and intervene together with the thermodynamic response induced by spacecraft reentry. In this work, the competing effects of surface heterogeneous catalytic recombination and ablation characteristics at elevated temperatures are investigated using the Reactive Molecular Dynamics(RMD) simulation method. A GasSurface Interaction(GSI) model is established to simulate the collisions of hyper-enthalpy atomic oxygen on graphene films in the temperature range of 500–2500 K. A critical temperature Tcaround900 K is identified to distinguish the graphene responses into two parts: at T < T_(c), the heterogeneous surface catalysis dominates, while the surface ablation plays a leading role at T > T_(c). Contradicting to the traditional Arrhenius expression that the recombination coefficient increases with the increase of surface temperature, the value is found to be relatively uniform at T < T_(c) but declines sharply as the surface temperature increases further due to the competing ablation effect. The occurrence of surface ablation decreases the amounts of active sites on the graphene surface for oxygen adsorption, leading to reduced recombination coefficient from both Langmuir-Hinshelwood(L-H) and Eley-Rideal(E-R) mechanisms. It suggests that the traditional Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) simulation method, which relies on the Arrhenius-type catalysis model, would result in large discrepancies in predicting aerodynamic heat for carbon-based materials during reentry into strong aerodynamic thermal environment.