The role of phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of shell matrix proteins in shell formation : an in vivo and in vitro study

Protein phosphorylation is a fundamental mechanism regulating many aspects of cellular processes. Shell matrix proteins (SMPs) control crystal nucleation, polymorphism, morphology, and organization of calcium carbonate crystallites during shell formation. SMPs phosphorylation is suggested to be important in shell formation but the mechanism is largely unknown. Here, to investigate the mechanism of phosphorylation of SMPs in biomineralization, we performed in vivo and in vitro experiment. By injection of antibody against the anti-phosphoserine/threonine /tyrosine into the extrapallial fluid of the pearl oyster Pinctada fucata, phosphorylation of matrix proteins were significantly reduced after 6 days. Newly formed prismatic layers and nacre tablet were found to grow abnormally with reduced crystallinity and possibly changed crystal orientation shown by Raman spectroscopy. In addition, regeneration of shells is also inhibited in vivo. Then, protein phosphatase was used to dephosphorylate SMPs extracted from the shells. After dephosphorylation, the ability of SMPs to inhibiting calcium carbonate formation have been reduced. Surprisingly, the ability of SMPs to modulate crystal morphology have been largely compromised although phosphorylation extent remained to be at least half of the control. Furthermore, dephosphorylation of SMPs changed the distribution of protein occlusions and decreased the amount of protein occlusions inside crystals shown by confocal imaging, indicating interaction between phosphorylated SMPs and crystals. Taken together, this study provides insight into the mechanism of phosphorylation of SMPs during shell formation

Evolution of Surface Deformations of Weakly-Bound Nuclei in the Continuum

We study weakly-bound deformed nuclei based on the coordinate-space Skyrme Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approach, in which a large box is employed for treating the continuum and surface diffuseness. Approaching the limit of core-halo deformation decoupling, calculations found an exotic "egg"-like structure consisting of a spherical core plus a prolate halo in $^{38}$Ne, in which the resonant continuum plays an essential role. Generally the halo probability and the decoupling effect in heavy nuclei are reduced compared to light nuclei, due to denser level densities around Fermi surfaces. However, deformed halos in medium-mass nuclei are possible with sparse levels of negative parity, for example, in $^{110}$Ge. The surface deformations of pairing density distributions are also influenced by the decoupling effect and are sensitive to the effective pairing Hamiltonian.Comment: 5 pages and 5 figure

Pulsar slow glitches in a solid quark star model

A series of five unusual slow glitches of the radio pulsar B1822-09 (PSR J1825-0935) were observed over the 1995-2005 interval. This phenomenon is understood in a solid quark star model, where the reasonable parameters for slow glitches are presented in the paper. It is proposed that, because of increasing shear stress as a pulsar spins down, a slow glitch may occur, beginning with a collapse of a superficial layer of the quark star. This layer of material turns equivalently to viscous fluid at first, the viscosity of which helps deplete the energy released from both the accumulated elastic energy and the gravitation potential. This performs then a process of slow glitch. Numerical calculations show that the observed slow glitches could be reproduced if the effective coefficient of viscosity is ~10^2 cm^{2}/s and the initial velocity of the superficial layer is order of 10^{-10} cm/s in the coordinate rotating frame of the star.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS (Main Journal

Spin squeezing: transforming one-axis-twisting into two-axis-twisting

Squeezed spin states possess unique quantum correlation or entanglement that are of significant promises for advancing quantum information processing and quantum metrology. In recent back to back publications [C. Gross \textit{et al, Nature} \textbf{464}, 1165 (2010) and Max F. Riedel \textit{et al, Nature} \textbf{464}, 1170 (2010)], reduced spin fluctuations are observed leading to spin squeezing at -8.2dB and -2.5dB respectively in two-component atomic condensates exhibiting one-axis-twisting interactions (OAT). The noise reduction limit for the OAT interaction scales as $\propto 1/{N^{2/3}}$, which for a condensate with $N\sim 10^3$ atoms, is about 100 times below standard quantum limit. We present a scheme using repeated Rabi pulses capable of transforming the OAT spin squeezing into the two-axis-twisting type, leading to Heisenberg limited noise reduction $\propto 1/N$, or an extra 10-fold improvement for $N\sim 10^3$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Searching for high-KK isomers in the proton-rich A∼80A\sim80 mass region

Configuration-constrained potential-energy-surface calculations have been performed to investigate the $K$ isomerism in the proton-rich $A\sim80$ mass region. An abundance of high-$K$ states are predicted. These high-$K$ states arise from two and four-quasi-particle excitations, with $K^{\pi}=8^{+}$ and $K^{\pi}=16^{+}$, respectively. Their excitation energies are comparatively low, making them good candidates for long-lived isomers. Since most nuclei under studies are prolate spheroids in their ground states, the oblate shapes of the predicted high-$K$ states may indicate a combination of $K$ isomerism and shape isomerism

Hyperpolarizabilities for the one-dimensional infinite single-electron periodic systems: II. Dipole-dipole versus current-current correlations

Based on Takayama-Lin-Liu-Maki model, analytical expressions for the third-harmonic generation, DC Kerr effect, DC-induced second harmonic optical Kerr effect, optical Kerr effect or intensity-dependent index of refraction and DC-electric-field-induced optical rectification are derived under the static current-current($J_0J_0$) correlation for one-dimensional infinite chains. The results of hyperpolarizabilities under $J_0J_0$ correlation are then compared with those obtained using the dipole-dipole ($DD$) correlation. The comparison shows that the conventional $J_0J_0$ correlation, albeit quite successful for the linear case, is incorrect for studying the nonlinear optical properties of periodic systems.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure