Poly(methyl methacrylate)Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is the synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is used as an engineering plastic, and it is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Hesalite, Plexiglas, Acrylite, Lucite, and Perspex, among several others (see below). This plastic is often used in sheet form as a lightweight or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It can also be used as a casting resin, in inks and coatings, and for many other purposes.
Fusion proteinFusion proteins or chimeric (kī-ˈmir-ik) proteins (literally, made of parts from different sources) are proteins created through the joining of two or more genes that originally coded for separate proteins. Translation of this fusion gene results in a single or multiple polypeptides with functional properties derived from each of the original proteins. Recombinant fusion proteins are created artificially by recombinant DNA technology for use in biological research or therapeutics.
Thermoplastic elastomerThermoplastic elastomers (TPE), sometimes referred to as thermoplastic rubbers, are a class of copolymers or a physical mix of polymers (usually a plastic and a rubber) that consist of materials with both thermoplastic and elastomeric properties. While most elastomers are thermosets, thermoplastics are in contrast relatively easy to use in manufacturing, for example, by injection moulding. Thermoplastic elastomers show advantages typical of both rubbery materials and plastic materials.
Colloidal goldColloidal gold is a sol or colloidal suspension of nanoparticles of gold in a fluid, usually water. The colloid is coloured usually either wine red (for spherical particles less than 100 nm) or blue-purple (for larger spherical particles or nanorods). Due to their optical, electronic, and molecular-recognition properties, gold nanoparticles are the subject of substantial research, with many potential or promised applications in a wide variety of areas, including electron microscopy, electronics, nanotechnology, materials science, and biomedicine.
Fluorescence microscopeA fluorescence microscope is an optical microscope that uses fluorescence instead of, or in addition to, scattering, reflection, and attenuation or absorption, to study the properties of organic or inorganic substances. "Fluorescence microscope" refers to any microscope that uses fluorescence to generate an image, whether it is a simple set up like an epifluorescence microscope or a more complicated design such as a confocal microscope, which uses optical sectioning to get better resolution of the fluorescence image.
Electron microscopeAn electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. They use electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light, electron microscopes have a higher resolution of about 0.1 nm, which compares to about 200 nm for light microscopes.
ImmunoprecipitationImmunoprecipitation (IP) is the technique of precipitating a protein antigen out of solution using an antibody that specifically binds to that particular protein. This process can be used to isolate and concentrate a particular protein from a sample containing many thousands of different proteins. Immunoprecipitation requires that the antibody be coupled to a solid substrate at some point in the procedure. Involves using an antibody that is specific for a known protein to isolate that particular protein out of a solution containing many different proteins.
Protein foldingProtein folding is the physical process where a protein chain is translated into its native three-dimensional structure, typically a "folded" conformation, by which the protein becomes biologically functional. Via an expeditious and reproducible process, a polypeptide folds into its characteristic three-dimensional structure from a random coil. Each protein exists first as an unfolded polypeptide or random coil after being translated from a sequence of mRNA into a linear chain of amino acids.
Biomolecular structureBiomolecular structure is the intricate folded, three-dimensional shape that is formed by a molecule of protein, DNA, or RNA, and that is important to its function. The structure of these molecules may be considered at any of several length scales ranging from the level of individual atoms to the relationships among entire protein subunits. This useful distinction among scales is often expressed as a decomposition of molecular structure into four levels: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary.
Protein fold classIn molecular biology, protein fold classes are broad categories of protein tertiary structure topology. They describe groups of proteins that share similar amino acid and secondary structure proportions. Each class contains multiple, independent protein superfamilies (i.e. are not necessarily evolutionarily related to one another). Four large classes of protein that are generally agreed upon by the two main structure classification databases (SCOP and CATH).
