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Despite the widespread use of cancer chemotherapy drugs, the molecular mechanisms of action of many of them remain unclear. Some of these drugs, such as taxol, are known to affect the dynamics of microtubule assembly and stop the process of cell division in prophase-prometaphase. Recently, new spatial structures of microtubules and individual tubulin oligomers have emerged associated with various regulatory proteins and cancer chemotherapy drugs. However, knowledge of the spatial structure in itself does not provide information about the mechanism of action of drugs.

In this work, we applied the molecular dynamics method to study the behavior of taxol-bound tubulin oligomers and used our previously developed method for analyzing the conformation of tubulin protofilaments, based on the calculation of modified Euler angles. Recent structures of microtubule fragments have demonstrated that tubulin protofilaments bend not in the radial direction, as many researchers assume, but at an angle of approximately 45◦ from the radial direction. However, in the presence of taxol, the bending direction shifts closer to the radial direction. There was no significant difference between the mean bending and torsion angles of the studied tubulin structures when bound to the various natural regulatory ligands, guanosine triphosphate and guanosine diphosphate. The intra-dimer bending angle was found to be greater than the interdimer bending angle in all analyzed trajectories. This indicates that the bulk of the deformation energy is stored within the dimeric tubulin subunits and not between them. Analysis of the structures of the latest generation of tubulins indicated that the presence of taxol in the tubulin beta subunit pocket allosterically reduces the torsional rigidity of the tubulin oligomer, which could explain the underlying mechanism of taxol’s effect on microtubule dynamics. Indeed, a decrease in torsional rigidity makes it possible to maintain lateral connections between protofilaments, and therefore should lead to the stabilization of microtubules, which is what is observed in experiments. The results of the work shed light on the phenomenon of dynamic instability of microtubules and allow to come closer to understanding the molecular mechanisms of cell division.

The paper contains a mathematical model for the optimal location of enterprises producing fuel from renewable wood waste for the regional distributed heating supply system. Optimization is based on total cost minimization of the end product – the thermal energy from wood fuel. A method for solving the problem is based on genetic algorithm. The paper also shows the practical results of the model by example of Udmurt Republic.

Photosynthetic apparatus of a plant cell consists of multiple photosynthetic electron transport chains (ETC). Each ETC is capable of capturing and utilizing light quanta, that drive electron transport along the chain. Light assimilation efficiency depends on the plant’s current physiological state. The energy of the part of quanta that cannot be utilized, dissipates into heat, or is emitted as fluorescence. Under high light conditions fluorescence levels gradually rise to the maximum level. The curve describing that rise is called fluorescence rise (FR). It has a complex shape and that shape changes depending on the photosynthetic apparatus state. This gives one the opportunity to investigate that state only using the non invasive measuring of the FR.

When measuring fluorescence in experimental conditions, we get a response from millions of photosynthetic units at a time. In order to reproduce the probabilistic nature of the processes in a photosynthetic ETC, we created a Monte Carlo model of this chain. This model describes an ETC as a sequence of electron carriers in a thylakoid membrane, connected with each other. Those carriers have certain probabilities of capturing light photons, transferring excited states, or reducing each other, depending on the current ETC state. The events that take place in each of the model photosynthetic ETCs are registered, accumulated and used to create fluorescence rise and electron carrier redox states accumulation kinetics. This paper describes the model structure, the principles of its operation and the relations between certain model parameters and the resulting kinetic curves shape. Model curves include photosystem II reaction center fluorescence rise and photosystem I reaction center redox state change kinetics under different conditions.

Technological development determines the emergence of highly detailed data in time and space, which expands the possibilities of analysis, allowing us to consider consumer decisions and the competitive behavior of enterprises in all their diversity, taking into account the context of the territory and the characteristics of time periods. Despite the promise of such studies, they are currently limited in the scientific literature. This is due to the range of problems, the solution of which is considered in this paper. The article draws attention to the complexity of the analysis of depersonalized high-frequency data and the possibility of modeling consumption changes in time and space based on them. The features of the new type of data are considered on the example of real depersonalized data received from the fiscal data operator “First OFD” (JSC “Energy Systems and Communications”). It is shown that along with the spectrum of problems inherent in high-frequency data, there are disadvantages associated with the process of generating data on the side of the sellers, which requires a wider use of data mining tools. A series of statistical tests were carried out on the data under consideration, including a Unit-Root Test, test for unobserved individual effects, test for serial correlation and for cross-sectional dependence in panels, etc. The presence of spatial autocorrelation of the data was tested using modified tests of Lagrange multipliers. The tests carried out showed the presence of a consistent correlation and spatial dependence of the data, which determine the expediency of applying the methods of panel and spatial analysis in relation to high-frequency data accumulated by fiscal operators. The constructed models made it possible to substantiate the spatial relationship of sales growth and its dependence on the day of the week. The limitation for increasing the predictive ability of the constructed models and their subsequent complication, due to the inclusion of explanatory factors, was the lack of open access statistics grouped in the required detail in time and space, which determines the relevance of the formation of high-frequency geographically structured data bases.