FlyFactorSurvey (http://pgfe.umassmed.edu/TFDBS/) is a database of DNA binding specificities for Drosophila transcription factors (TFs) primarily determined using the bacterial one-hybrid system. The database provides community access to over 400 recognition motifs and position weight matrices for over 200 TFs, including many unpublished motifs. Search tools and flat file downloads are provided to retrieve binding site information (as sequences, matrices and sequence logos) for individual TFs, groups of TFs or for all TFs with characterized binding specificities. Linked analysis tools allow users to identify motifs within our database that share similarity to a query matrix or to view the distribution of occurrences of an individual motif throughout the Drosophila genome. Together, this database and its associated tools provide computational and experimental biologists with resources to predict interactions between Drosophila TFs and target cis-regulatory sequences.

It has been demonstrated that a simple two-compartment kinetic model may account for the changes in plasma concentration of pancuronium after i.v. administration. However, it can be shown that this simple model does not account satisfactory for the observed changes in muscle twitch response. By the addition of a receptor (biophase) compartment, twitch response can be reconciled with model behavior and the characteristics resemble those predicted by animal studies. The complete model is applied to the problem of total renal failure, and shows that patients with this condition are likely to be marginally resistant to small doses of pancuronium, with a normal rate of recovery. However, larger doses are likely to result in delayed recovery, the duration of effect increasing in a dose-dependent manner.

The pharmacokinetics of fentanyl and alfentanil were compared by the simultaneous i.v. administration of both drugs, measurement of plasma concentrations and compartmental analysis. In addition, plasma protein binding, erythrocyte:plasma partition, and heptane:water partition were compared. Alfentanil was found to have a very much smaller apparent volume of distribution, smaller total clearance, and shorter terminal half-time in plasma. Alfentanil was also found to have a greater plasma protein binding, but in contrast to fentanyl, no binding to erythrocytes. It is concluded that alfentanil is less cumulative than fentanyl, has restricted hepatic clearance, and will exhibit non-linear kinetics at very high doses. An appendix describes the model-fitting procedure in detail.

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Iron oxides are a ubiquitous class of compounds that are involved in many biological, geological, and technological processes, and the Fe(III)/Fe(II) redox couple is a fundamental transformation pathway; however, the study of iron oxide surfaces in aqueous solution by powerful spectroscopic techniques has been limited due to "strong absorber problem". In this work, atomic layer deposition (ALD) thin films of polycrystalline α-Fe 2 O 3 were analyzed using the Eisenthal χ (3) technique, a variant of second harmonic generation that reports on interfacial potentials. By determining the surface charge densities at multiple pH values, the point of zero charge was found to be 5.5 ± 0.3. The interaction of aqueous Fe(II) at pH 4 and in 1 mM NaCl with ALD-prepared hematite was found to be fully reversible and to lead to about 4 times more ferrous iron ions adsorbed per square centimeter than on fused-silica surfaces under the same conditions. The data are consistent with a recently proposed conceptual model for net Fe(II) uptake or release that is underlain by a dynamic equilibrium between Fe(II) adsorbed onto hematite, electron transfer into favorable surface sites with attendant Fe(III) deposition, and electron conduction to favorable remote sites that release and replenish aqueous Fe(II).

The pharmacokinetics of cisatracurium differ only marginally between young and elderly adults. Onset is delayed in the elderly because of slower biophase equilibration.

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The fate of chromium in the environment relies heavily on its redox chemistry and interaction with iron oxide surfaces. Atomic layer deposition was used to deposit a 10 nm film of polycrystalline α-Fe2O3 (hematite) onto a fused silica substrate which was analyzed using second harmonic generation (SHG), a coherent, surface-specific, nonlinear optical technique. Specifically, the χ(3) technique was used to investigate the adsorption of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) to the hematite/water interface under flow conditions at pH 4 with 10 mM NaCl. We observed partially irreversible adsorption of Cr(III), the extent of which was found to be dependent on the concentration of Cr(III) ions in solution. This result was confirmed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The interaction of Cr(III) with hematite is compared with the adsorption of Cr(III) to the silica/water interface, which is the substrate for the ALD-prepared hematite films, and found to be fully reversible under the same experimental conditions. The observed binding constant for Cr(III) interacting with the silica surface was found to be 4.0(6) × 103 M–1, which corresponds to an adsorption free energy of −30.5(4) kJ/mol when referenced to 55.5 M water. The surface charge density at maximum metal ion surface coverage was found to be 0.005(1) C/m2, which corresponds to 1.0 × 1012 ions/cm2 assuming a +3 charge for chromium. In contrast, the observed binding constant for Cr(III) interacting reversibly with the hematite surface was calculated to be 2(2) × 104 M–1, corresponding to an adsorption free energy of −35(2) kJ/mol when referenced to 55.5 M water. The surface charge density at maximum metal ion surface coverage was found to be 0.004(5) C/m2 for the reversibly bound chromium species, which corresponds to 8.3 × 1011 reversibly bound ions per cm2, again assuming a +3 charge of chromium. The data also allows us to estimate that about 6.7 × 1012 Cr(III) ions are irreversibly bound per cm2 hematite at saturation coverage. The results of this investigation suggest that the use of hematite in permeable reactive barriers, for cost-effective chromium remediation, allows for Cr(III) remediation at very low concentrations through adsorptive and redox processes but quickly renders the barriers ineffective at high chromium concentrations due to surface saturation.