Experimental analysis, molecular networks

Figure 9.5 Schematic illustration of the experimental analysis of molecular networks of the cell surface membrane (for details see text).

This chapter provides a technical overview of microarrays, including information on array formats, production and use of microarrays for interrogating various molecular species—DNA, RNA, and proteins—and analysis of data. The challenges in experimental design to maximize microarray data quality, and the use of microarrays in understanding intracellular molecular networks as well as in drug discovery and development, are also discussed. 

To determine the crosslinking density from the equilibrium elastic modulus, Eq. (3.5) or some of its modifications are used. For example, this analysis has been performed for the PA Am-based hydrogels, both neutral [18] and polyelectrolyte [19,22,42,120,121]. For gels obtained by free-radical copolymerization, the network densities determined experimentally have been correlated with values calculated from the initial concentration of crosslinker. Figure 1 shows that the experimental molecular weight between crosslinks considerably exceeds the expected value in a wide range of monomer and crosslinker concentrations. These results as well as other data [19, 22, 42] point to various imperfections of the PAAm network structure. 

The reactions of intramolecular cross-linking is a rather poorly investigated area in the field of macro-molecular reactions. However, the problems of regularities of such processes are related to such important problems of polymer chemistry as chemical modification of polymers, networks formation, sorption of low molecular reagents by polymers, intramolecular catalysis, conformational transitions and so on. In spite of the great importance of the study of regularities of cross-linking reactions, the experimental and theoretical analysis of such processes is complicated by many difficulties. ... 

We present a review of theoretical and experimental results on the swelling behavior and collapse transition in polymer gels obtained by our group at Moscow State University. The main attention is paid to polyelectrolyte networks where the most important factor is additional osmotic pressure created by mobile counter ions. The influence of other factors such as condensation of counter ions, external mechanical force, the mixed nature of low-molecular solvents, interaction of network chains with linear macromolecules and surfactants etc. is also taken into account Experimental results demonstrate a good correlation with theoretical analysis. 

Thus, this consideration shows that the thermoelasticity of the majority of the new models is considerably more complex than that of the phantom networks. However, the new models contain temperature-dependent parameters which are difficult to relate to molecular characteristics of a real rubber-elastic body. It is necessary to note that recent analysis by Gottlieb and Gaylord 63> has demonstrated that only the Gaylord tube model and the Flory constrained junction fluctuation model agree well with the experimental data on the uniaxial stress-strain response. On the other hand, their analysis has shown that all of the existing molecular theories cannot satisfactorily describe swelling behaviour with a physically reasonable set of parameters. The thermoelastic behaviour of the new models has not yet been analysed. 

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