Thrombin-activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI) is a human plasma zymogen that acts as a molecular link between the coagulation and fibrinolytic cascades. TAFI can be activated by thrombin and plasmin but the reaction is enhanced significantly when thrombin is in a complex with the endothelial cofactor thrombomodulin (TM). The in vitro properties of TAFI have been extensively characterized. Activated TAFI (TAFIa) is a thermally unstable enzyme that attenuates fibrinolysis by catalyzing the removal of basic residues from partially degraded fibrin. The in vivo role of the TAFI pathway, however, is poorly defined and very little is known about the role of different activators in regulating the TAFI pathway. In the present study, we have constructed and characterized various TAFI mutants that are resistant to activation by specific activators. Based on peptide sequence studies, these mutants were constructed by altering key amino acid residues surrounding the scissile R92-A93 bond. We measured the thermal stabilities of all our mutants and found them to be similar to wild type TAFI. We have identified that the TAFI mutants P91S, R92K, and S90P are impaired in activation by thrombin or thrombin-TM, thrombin alone, and thrombin alone or plasmin, respectively. The TAFI mutants A93V and S94V were predicted to be resistant to activation by plasmin but this was not observed. The triple mutant, DVV was not activated by any of the aforementioned activators. Finally, we have used in vitro fibrin clot lysis assays to evaluate the antifibrinolytic potential of our variants and were able to correlate their effectiveness with their respective activation kinetics. In summary, we have developed activation resistant TAFI variants that can potentially be used to explore the role of the TAFI pathway in vivo. / Thesis (Master, Biochemistry) -- Queen's University, 2009-01-30 11:44:37.191

Cette étude porte principalement sur l’influence de déformations plastiques sévères réalisées par torsion sous forte pression (ou HPT) sur différentes natures de poudres de magnésium pour la modification des propriétés d’absorption de l’hydrogène de Mg. La nature différente des poudres a été obtenue soit par un procédé d'atomisation de gaz, soit par un procédé d'évaporation/condensation par plasma d'arc. Ces poudres ont été consolidées en produits en vrac par un procédé HPT en deux étapes. Parmi les poudres composites étudiées, la poudre de magnésium contenant du graphène a montrée d’excellentes propriétés d’absorption de l’hydrogène correspondant à des cinétiques d’activation plus rapides. Un avantage significatif du procédé HPT est de briser les couches d’oxyde MgO, imperméables au passage de l’hydrogène et de venir les disperser uniformément avec les additifs dans le Mg. Par l’introduction de défauts cristallins associés à un affinement microstructural, le procédé HPT a permis d’obtenir des améliorations significatives dès le premier cycle d’hydrogénation pour les poudres consolidées de Mg par rapport aux poudre initiales, tandis que des résultats inverses ont été obtenus au sein de la poudre dopée au C et déformée par HPT. Un autre impact du procédé HPT a été de réduire l’hystérésis entre les plateaux de pression d’absorption et de résorption au cours des essais PCT (pressure-composition-temperature). De plus, il a été observé que le procédé HPT réduit de manière drastique la température de résorption pour toutes les combinaisons de poudres tandis que le taux de résorption de l’hydrogène a été légèrement diminué pour les produits consolidés. Toutefois, l’inconvénient majeur du procédé HPT, indépendamment de la nature des composés étudiés, est qu’il altère systématiquement la capacité de stockage maximum des poudres initiales. / The present work mainly focuses on the effects of severe plastic deformation through high-pressure torsion (HPT) of different nature of magnesium based powders on improving the hydrogen sorption properties of Mg. The different nature of powders was obtained by either a gas-atomization process or an arc-plasma evaporation/condensation method. These powders were consolidated into bulk products by a two-step HPT process. Among the studied powder composites, the Mg/graphene based powder demonstrated excellent hydrogen sorption properties representing faster activation kinetics. A significant advantage of the HPT processing was to break the impervious MgO oxide layers, and to disperse them uniformly along with catalytic additives within the Mg domains. Through the introduction of structural defects and microstructural refinement, the HPT processing has allowed significant improvements in the first hydrogenation kinetics for the consolidated Mg products compared to their initial powder precursors while it was reverse for the C-doped HPT products. Another significant impact of the HPT processing was to reduce the hysteresis between the absorption and desorption plateau pressures during the pressure-composition-temperature (PCT) experiments. Moreover, it was revealed that the HPT processing has drastically reduced the hydrogen desorption temperatures for all the powder combinations while the rate of dehydrogenation was slightly diminished for their consolidated products. Nevertheless, the major drawback of the HPT processing, irrespective of the nature of studied composites, was that it always impaired the maximum hydrogen storage capacity of the starting powder precursors.

It is well known that atmospheric aerosols provide the sites for forming cloud droplets, and can affect the Earth's radiation budget through their interactions with clouds. The ability of aerosols to act as cloud condensation nuclei is a strong function of their chemical composition and size. The compositional complexity of aerosol prohibits their explicit treatment in atmospheric models of aerosol-cloud interactions. Nevertheless, the cumulative impact of organics on CCN activity is still required, as carbonaceous material can constitute up to 90% of the total aerosol, 10-70% of which is water soluble. Therefore it is necessary to characterize the water soluble organic carbon fraction by CCN activation, droplet growth kinetics, and surface tension measurements. In this thesis, we investigate the water soluble properties, such as surface tension, solubility, and molecular weight, of laboratory and ambient aerosols and their effect on CCN formation. A mechanism called Curvature Enhanced Solubility is proposed and shown to explain the apparent increased solubility of organics. A new method, called Köhler Theory Analysis, which is completely new, fast, and uses minimal amount of sample was developed to infer the molar volume (or molar mass) of organics. Due to the success of the technique in predicting the molar volume of laboratory samples, it was applied to aerosols collected in Mexico City. Additionally the surface tension, CCN activity, and droplet growth kinetics of these urban polluted aerosols were investigated. Studies performed for the water soluble components showed that the aerosols in Mexico City have surfactants present, can readily become CCN, and have growth similar to ammonium sulfate. Finally, aerosols from three different polluted sources, urban, bovine, and ship emissions, were collected and characterized. The data assembled was used to predict CCN concentrations and access our understanding of the system. From these analyses, it was evident that knowledge of the chemical composition and mixing state of the aerosol is necessary to achieve agreement between observations and predictions. The data obtained in this thesis can be introduced and used as constraints in aerosol-cloud interaction parameterizations developed for global climate models, which could lead to improvements in the indirect effect of aerosols.