Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

I would like to ask you a question: Are the following statements True and False: 1. Hydrophobic molecules clump together in water thanks to hydrophobic forces 2. In stereoisomerism, the different D or L configurations indicate the deviation of the polarized light by the molecules. Someone could explain me why this statements are true or false. Thank so much

Hello there. I've been having a really hard time with my cultures of human immortalized podocytes. Everytime I put them under differentiation conditions, they die because of contamination. For more context, this culture is expanded in DMEM F12 10% FBS at 33°C until confluence. Then, for differentiation, it's subcultered into some plastic previously coated with laminin/fibronectin and maintained with RPMI 1% FBS 1X ITS at 37°C, with media changes every other day. When the cultures are expanding they're fine, but when I start the differentiation they die before a week, that's to say, about the second media change. Cells look detached, media loo…

Hey guys! 👋 Does anybody know any tip to increase DNA yield from agarose gel? I use Promega Kit and short fragments clean up properly but when it comes to linear plasmid DNA (>5000 bp), yields are poor.

I'm in the process of aerobically-decomposing A. Nodasum meal with select bacteria. After I have got it how I want it, how do I preserve it from producing hydrogen sulphide and other noxious gases when I put it in air-tight containers? Freezing is an option, but not really practical. Production capacity is about 10L at time. Happy to add details as required. The critters are: i've also ordered a B. Subtilis preparation for breaking down cellulose in addition. Will these make a useful amount of aliginate lyase to do the job? I can't afford the enzyme on its own - Sigma-Aldrich stuff.. Are there other methods to degrade the alginate? I never realised that seaweed…

Hi, I am trying to prepare some simulated intestinal fluid (SIF) with and without micelles. Any chance there are any research biochemists who might be familiar with this media preparation? Most methods (and commercial products) seem to mix sodium taurocholate with lecithin to prepare SIF. However, we had purchased some "bile salts" (50/50 mix of cholate and deoxycholate) which are less expensive than the taurocholate and were wondering if this is also considered appropriate for SIF, although I only found one reference so far that uses those with lecithin. Is there a chemical reason for using taurocholate instead of cholate/deoxycholate? Would it be considered "a…

Hi all, I'm writing on here as a last-ditch attempt to find some help with a practical class I run for some university students. This was a lab I took over from, and the academic that designed it is no longer with us, so I can't ask him for help! We run a Biochemistry lab that allows students to investigate constitutive mutants for the Lac operon. We get them to select, isolate, enrich, and characterise mutants by growing ML30 in either phenyl-ß-galactosidase, glucose, or lactose. They then grow them on succinate and X-gal plates to visualise the mutations. Every year this lab has problems, and we need to get to the bottom of them, so I was hoping someone may h…

Good Morning, We are collaborating with a group that performs disk diffusion assays on compounds that we make. We would like to publish some disk diffusion data in addition to reporting on the syntheses and perhaps the in vitro behavior of a set of compounds. However, the area of whole-cell biological testing is generally unfamiliar to me, and I don't know how to present data in a manuscript. I also don't have a good feel for what information should or should not be included in reporting these data. Perhaps someone could suggest a model publication, for example. Thank you.

Hi, My group is researching nirmatrelvir's binding to the SARS-CoV-2 main protease and all the literature says it is a "reversible covalent inhibitor." As I was taught it, covalent inhibition is permanent, so how is the nirmatrelvir reaction reversible? I know the nirmatrelvir nitrile warhead bonds with the Cys145 of Mpro, but that's about it.

Hello, i knew forward and reverse primer sequences, but i found in papers references to "U" and "L" primer sequences where i expected forward/reverse instead. Do you know what these letters mean exactly? Many thanks

Hello. I was watching a Youtube video on biochemistry and out of the blue the presenter threw out the word microcell without any explanation. I googled and found very little explanation though I saw many artlcles using the term. This was pretty well the only explanation I saw: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/microcell (biology) A simple cell consisting of a nucleus and protoplasm within a membrane In my searching I found the term 'whole cell' and also 'micronucleotide' - but again not much in the way of explaining them or distinguishing them from each other. Any clarification would be appreciated.

Recently, I have a research paper on molecluar biology which needs publication. Can anyone refer me a good journal which is open access, peer reviewed, Google Scholar indexed?

I'm trying to switch from an old school radioactive T7 polymerase assay to a fluorescence based one. I've seen available assays from Profoldin and Jena Bioscience, and I'm looking for others. Does anyone have any experience with off-the-shelf T7 polymerase assays? Thank you!

Can someone recommend the appropriate forum to consider or identify what this image contains. I esitmate this image is a 150 - 300 x image of human blood on an organic substrate. The photo was taken with a $400 celestron miscroscope. Can someone explain what I am looking at?

Just a quick question about this, I downloaded the attached from Openclipart. I am a little confused as to why Uracil and Thymine appear identical, other than the numbers. I am not too sure what the numerical values around Uracil represent. Could someone clarity what these are please. If the molecule is wrong then I will just have a look for a better resource for this. As far as I am aware Uracil is not one of the main 4 actual nucleobase. However would be good to have a little more understanding of what I am looking at here, as I am planning an activity to build these molecules from molymods as part of a STEM Group activity. Thanks …

Hello As my profile name suggests, I'm very interested in lavender, and especially the medicinal properties. I'm making a presentation about the medicinal properties of the compounds in lavender. (Primarily terpenes, with linalool & linalyl acetate being the most prominent.) And I've gotten interested in one property in particular: anti-psychotic. Now my question is: is there any scientific evidence for the possible anti-psychotic properties of lavender? I found several sources claiming that linalool has anti-psychotic properties. https://abstraxtech.com/blogs/learn/what-is-linalool-uses-and-benefits ("Linalool is considered to be an …

Hello! I'm currently conducting research on the effects of probiotic metabolites on salt tolerance, but I would like to extend my research further. More specifically, I want to test how these metabolites can maybe have a positive effect on different health conditions such as stroke, cardiovascluar disease, etc. I work at a university metabolic engineering and analysis lab. Is there any way I could induce conditions similar to those of these diseases in vitro? For example, I would love to induce stroke-like conditions on agar if at all possible. Thank you so much!

Hello there! I am considering using a creatine based water solution to encourage collagen synthesis while microneedling my face. I'm wondering if there is a dilution ratio anyone can recommend? Also would pure witch hazel be a safe addition to the toner? I appreciate any help I can get! 😇

Do memory enhancing substances exist which increse the capacity realy?

I had a lecture today that included cell volume and reciprocal cell volume calculations and I did not get it at all. The equations we used are attached. We went through two problems in class and I was wandering if anyone can shed some light on them at all? like what they are and how you would actually work them out? I have loads of these calculations to do during my course and I really need to get to grips with them Problem 1 A protein crystallises in a monoclinic unit cell with cell parameters a=100.02Å b=90.57Å c=68.33Å =90.0o =104.48o =90.0o . What is the cell volume (V) and what is the reciprocal cell volume (V*)? Problem 2 A protein crystallises in an orth…

Hi, I'm new to Primer-BLAST. Can anyone help me, is this primer pair ok? Are the low GC% and high self complementarity of the minus strand problematic? What about the plus strand with 5.0 self complementarity and 4.0 self 3' self complementarity? Are the Tm too low? Thank you!

I would like to ask what is the differences between Southern Blotting and RFLP? Thank you.

Heavy metals are useful industrially, and omnipresent- however, as cumulative toxins with low (or no) safe dose, that is a bit of a problem; so I was wondering: mammals (and most life on earth) already deal with "toxic heavy metals"- Fe, Cu, Mn... by producing proteins (eg ferritin) that bind it before it has a chance to break anything too important. Here comes the question then: would it be possible to create a gene therapy to produce low, but constant levels of heavy metal (at least some of them- Hg, Pb, Pt) chelating agents in the blood? An antibody, or a cysteine-rich oilgopeptide or something specific enough not to chelate away the useful stuff (it seems dimerca…

biochemistry trial 1 Hello! It works

how do it turn cellulose to glucose in the most cheapest way possible? here cellulose is paper (no ink)