Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

please has anyone tracked the accummulation of aluminium in fruits using morin staining? I have two sets of fruit samples- one set treated with aluminum, and the other is not treated. normally the treated fruit shld show fluorescence when stained with morin since Al forms a green fluorescence complex with morin, while the non-treated should show little or no fluorescence. But when I observe the fruits under a fluorescence microscope after staining with morin at exciter 400-450 and emission 500-550, both the treated and non-treated fruits showed green fluorescence all over the fruits. Am confused on what actually the problem is. i really need assistance. Thanks.

While doing a simple experiment with different pH levels and catalase, I came across something really peculiar. For some reason when I add sodium hydroxide to hydrogen peroxide and add my catalase (chicken liver) I find that the pH level of 10 is releasing more oxygen than the pH level of seven. I originally thought that when anything over 7.5 would denature the catalase, but according to my data that didn't happen. Is sodium hydroxide some sort of inhibitor for catalase or did I make a mistake? O we used an o2 sensor that was calibrated perfectly before the experiment so there was no error in that. Anybody have any idea?

Hi, I am trying to run a superoxide dismutase assay for my RBC and serum samples. I need help with the calculations for the standard curve. I am using the sigma assay kit (http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/19160?lang=en&region=US) with this SOD (http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/S5395?lang=en&region=US). SOD comes from Sigma as a powder at 3000 units of activity per mg; there are 5 mg in the vial. Thus, there is 15000 units total in the vial. I want to make an initial dilution of the SOD powder with buffer to a concentration of 30000 units/mL and make several aliquots to freeze. I'm stuck on a simple, but stupid ques…

I'm reviewing literature to see if anyone has tried making gold colloids with adenosine deaminase. I haven't been able to find anything besides experiments with gold and other proteins and DNA. Has anybody heard of ADA being used to make colloids? Any comments on the concept? Know of any proteins similar to ADA that can be used? Thanks for the help.

Hello, I am a studen of Dental Faculty, during preparation for scientific project it turned out, that estimation of ferum level is saliva taken from several patients would be very interesting. Unfortunately i can not find any "available for university students" method of this procedure. Biochemical faculty promised to help us in reagents and laboratory work, but still we have no good method of evaluation. Can you suggest us good method for estimation of ferum level in saliva? Any information/previous studies/methods will be very helpful

I've decided to post a serious question to those Biophysics Scientists out there: If an ordinary layperson has what he/she believes to be a solid theory related to the dynamics of single cells, would you honestly be willing to listen to their theory? Do you think that a layperson could know more about this subject matter than a scientist in this related field? What would a layperson have to do to grab your attention? Thank you ahead of time-

For many years in medical science cancer has been one of the many banes of existence. Chemotherapy in some cases is very successful, but sometimes the administration of this agent comes at a heavy price. What if there was a way to administer chemo or some other eliminating agent that was engineered to only kill cancerous cells. Could there possibly be a way to detect them chemically. Is there a growth hormone we can target? Can we solve the problem by designing microscopic technology that will attach onto a cancer cell? I do not know if any of this is at all possible, but I would be interested in hearing all of your opinions! I am a biochemisty undergrad and I want to dev…

what are meroacids, i find the term used only in mycolic acid metabolism

How do i tag Bacillus sp. with gfp.

okay so i loosely understand this is the energy currency of the cells/body whatever but my friend said its the "high energy phosphate bonds" where the energy comes from, so its actually not the molecule itself but the energy in the bonds between the phosphate groups? arnt these just single covalent? so where does all this "energy" come from? thanks

Hey everyone, I'm doing a research on bacteria (color is reddish), that can digest coumarin. I sprayed 3-methylcatechol solution on those bacteria and after several hours bacteria became more yellow than reddish. It means that bacteria have 3-methylcatechol 2,3-dioxygenase (extradiol) activity. BUT I can't find any activity in their cellular extract. Due to this problem I can't purify this protein (molar weight also is unknown) and, furthermore, I can't get genes of coumarin digestion (we think that this dioxygenase participates in coumarin biotransformations). So, any idea why I can't find enzyme activity in cellular extract?

My knowledge of respiration is incomplete, having just started the topic today in my Biology class -- however, it is mostly the intricacies of the biochemistry (e.g. oxidative phosphorylation, Krebs cycle, etc) that I have not got to grips with, rather than the general concepts of it and the simplified equation: glucose + oxygen = carbon dioxide + water + energy. As I understand it, anaerobic respiration shares the same initial steps with aerobic respiration. These steps occur in the cytoplasm, and in the presence of oxygen, the pathway is completed in the mitochondria, creating 30+ ATP in addition to the first two. Here is how my teacher put it: in mammals and plan…

I have made standard solutions of gallic acid and ascorbic acid to estimate total h2o2 scavenging activity. I used Xylenol reagent. I got different od values and calculated % of inhibition values for various concentrations of gallic acid and ascorbic acid solutions. Now I want to just verify my data. Can anyone give me source for either absorbency s or ic50 values of gallic acid and ascorbic acid standard curves? I tried to search many journal articles, but didn't find anything exactly related to this. As I have not registered, I have no access to many sites like scopus.

From two perspectives; within the domain of Eukaryotic life, is there a most fundamental chemical compound, and in a broader sense, the most fundamental chemical compound in our world. Fundamental being defined as necessary for life/existence. sorry if this is silly sounding

We are characterizing the Beta-Galactosidase from a hot spring bacteria. While assaying for B-Galactosidase using o-Nitrophenol Galactopyranoside we found that it also has Glucosidase activity. I looked for Glucosidase substrate and found that p-Nitrophenol Glucopyranoside is the commonly used substrate for B-Glucosidase. I want to check the Km and Vmax for both the substrates. But I could not find both of the substrate either with o-nitrophenol or p-nitrophenol. If I want to compare the enzyme actvity do I need to use the similar substrate or I can use different substrate, kindly clarify me....

hello was wondering if any one has seen as recent news on reanimating dna in dead tissue. no not frankenstein or jurrasic park here. the idea is this. we have cloning basically functional enough to produce viable subjects. such as dolly the sheep. in the world there are many species that are so low in numbers they are having problems with genetic available material with in the species. we also have museums with specimens of these animals. would it be possible to reanimate dna from these specimens, collect egg samples from living species members and clone the specimens. hence increasing the genetic pool. don't quite see the problem many have with the clo…

I have designed a real-time assay to amplify a target RNA isothermally (@41degrees throughout). My problem is that there is a lot of variation within the gene which leads to quite a lot of variation in the secondary structure of the amplification product and therefore decreased sensitivity of the assay. The assay does not contain a denaturation step (with the exception of an initial denaturation step before the addition of enzymes)so I need another way of melting the secondary structure of the amplification product to see if this will help to increase the sensitivity of the assay? A collegue has suggested DMSO...this has quite a significant effect on the Tm of the probe t…

Why does an animal eat? To give it energy to move about, in general to perform chemical reactions. (Forgetting about any raw materials it may need). But this is *work* energy. So it seems peverse to measure the food value of food in calories which measure the heat energy that would be given out if the food were consumed by fire; a variety of free energy would be better since this measures work. The free energy in glucose is a very different number than the calories. So does anyone happen to know why food value is measured in calories?

Does an enzyme have many subunits that can have many polypeptides? my teacher spoke about this but im still a litte confused. can someone give me a simple explanation?

Hello! I have been trying to find a ribozyme which can cleave peptide bonds but have had no luck. Do any of you know whether one of these has been artificially produced? Is there any reason why it would be impossible to make one? I would like to make some proteases capable of breaking a specific peptide bond, and I was thinking that it could perhaps be easier to evolve one from RNA than from a protein, but I am not familiar enough with the field to know whether this is viable or not.

For an A-Level Biology project, I've been doing a CGI animation of two molecules of glucose bonding to start to form starch. I've assumed that to form the glycosidic bond between the two molecules, a molecule of water is formed, but is that actually correct? I sort of have a feeling it isn't. This is my entry project (I start year 12 tomorrow), so all I know about saccharides is what I can find on the Internet.

Can anyone help or advise me. I am a Student and have been trying to amplify cDNA produced from RNA unsuccessfully for a number of weeks now in order to complete a gene sequence where I have a small gap for around 40 nucleotides. I performed the RT-PCR First Strand Synthesis using Fermatas Revert Aid Firrst Strand cDNA Synthesis Kit and after 10 attempts got a band using the following: 12ul MyTaq 1ul 18s Forward Primer 1ul 18s Reverse Primer 1ul concentrated cDNA 9.5ul Nuclease Free H2O This was to check there was actually cDNA produced. Primers were then designed from either side of the "missing segment" of around 45 nucleotides. To amplify the gene in qu…

Hi, i am a newbie in Molecular Biology. I need help to differentiate between Energy Pathways, Detoxification pathways and degradation pathways. Which one is energy pathways, detoxification pathways or degradation pathways? How can i differentiate or identify them. Any help on this is highly appreciated. Thanks

Hello, First I'd like to say that I'm a newbie on this cool site and it's my first post. We're taught that light has a great impact on certain vitamins and cause them to be destroyed. I know the mechanism of how heat destroys a vitamin, but light sounds different. Well, can someone explain me how light destroys a vitamin? What happens when a vitamin is exposed to light? What reactions? Thank you in advance.

what if herpes is an organ that can support polymerases for the viral transport of xna propagation in dna