Lignin is arguably the most abundant component of biomass that most people have never heard of. That may be about to change.
Polymers
Feb 21, 2023
0
85
Hydroperoxide esters, formed in the reactions of carbonyl oxides (also called Criegee intermediates, CIs) with formic acid, play a crucial role in the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) in the atmosphere.
Analytical Chemistry
Dec 22, 2022
0
21
Rice University researchers have found a way to track the formation of soluble amyloid beta peptide aggregates implicated in the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Biochemistry
Sep 23, 2019
0
81
From the wind-whipped surface of the open ocean, to trillions of tiny water drops in clouds, the air-water interface—water's skin— is the site for crucial natural processes, including ocean-atmosphere exchange and cloud ...
Materials Science
Mar 7, 2019
0
5
Small heat-shock proteins (sHSPs) are molecular chaperones that bind to unfolded proteins to prevent protein aggregation and defend against cellular stress. Mutations in human sHSPs are associated with inherited diseases ...
Biochemistry
Oct 17, 2018
0
6
Cyclic proteins that assemble from multiple identical subunits (homo-oligomers) play key roles in many biological processes, including cell signaling and enzymatic catalysis and protein function. Researchers in Berkeley Lab's ...
Biochemistry
May 10, 2017
1
8
(Phys.org)—A small team of researchers at Harvard University has taken another look at CRISPR and has found that it can be used as a recording device of sorts, keeping track of when and where a given bacterium has been ...
(Phys.org) —Mad cow disease and its cousin Creutzfeld-Jakob disease cause fatal spongy changes in brain tissue. Today, we know that these diseases are caused by prions, proteins that are folded incorrectly. A team of German ...
Biochemistry
Aug 16, 2013
0
0
Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is routinely employed by physicists and chemists to capture atomic-scale images of molecules on surfaces. Now, an international team led by Christian Joachim and co-workers from the A*STAR ...
Nanophysics
Dec 19, 2012
1
0
As pathogenic bacteria overcome our current arsenal of antibiotic drugs, new antimicrobial therapies with fresh modes of action are needed. A set of antimicrobials based on synthetic polymers is a promising approach. These ...
Biochemistry
Nov 21, 2012
0
0
In chemistry, an oligomer is a molecule that consists of a few monomer units (ολιγος, or oligos, is Greek for "a few"), in contrast to a polymer that, at least in principle, consists of an unlimited number of monomers. Dimers, trimers, and tetramers are oligomers. Many oils are oligomeric, such as liquid paraffin. Plasticizers are oligomeric esters widely used to soften thermoplastics such as PVC. They may be made from monomers by linking them together, or by separation from the higher fractions of crude oil. Polybutene is an oligomeric oil used to make putty. Greek prefixes are often used to designate the number of monomer units in the oligomer, for example a tetramer being composed of four units and a hexamer of six.
In biochemistry, the term oligomer is used for short, single-stranded nucleic acid fragments, such as DNA or RNA, or similar fragments of analogs of nucleic acids such as peptide nucleic acid or Morpholinos. Such oligos are used in hybridization experiments (bound to glass slides or nylon membranes), as probes for in situ hybridization or in antisense experiments such as gene knockdowns. It can also refer to a protein complex made of two or more subunits. In this case, a complex made of several different protein subunits is called a hetero-oligomer or heteromer. When only one type of protein subunit is used in the complex, it is called a homo-oligomer or homomer.
Oligomerization is a chemical process that converts monomers to a finite degree of polymerization. The actual figure is a matter of debate, often a value between 10 and 100.[citation needed]
When an oligomer forms as a result of chain transfer the oligomer is called a telomer and the process telomerization. A telomere is a region of highly repetitive DNA at the end of a linear chromosome.
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