Kurchatov Institute

The article presents information about the biography and professional path of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Nervous Diseases, M.M. Odinak, dedicated to his 80th anniversary.

In this work, we analyzed the ability to incorporate 8-oxo-dATP by several human DNA polymerases: replicative Pol ε (exo-) from Family B; base excision repair (BER) enzymes Pol β and Pol λ from Family X; and translesion Pol η, Pol ι, and Pol κ from Family Y. We demonstrated that human DNA polymerases differ in their abilities to discriminate against 8-oxo-dATP. Among the tested DNA polymerases, Pol λ exhibited the worst ability to discriminate against 8-oxo-dATP opposite template T on DNA substrates with a protruding single-stranded 5'-end and a double-stranded DNA with a 1 nt gap. Pol β and DNA polymerases of Family Y showed relatively high accuracy. Pol η demonstrated the most effective discrimination against 8-oxo-dATP on templates T and G. Pol ι exclusively incorporated 8-oxo-dATP opposite template G but not T. Unexpectedly, the catalytic subunit of high-fidelity Pol ε (exo-) incorporated 8-oxo-dATP opposite templates T and G with higher efficiency compared with the error-prone polymerases of Family Y and Pol β. While the structures of human polymerases with incoming 8-oxo-dATP are not available, we speculate on a possible mechanism of 8-oxo-dATP discrimination.

Abstract We revise the notion of the blobbed topological recursion by extending it to the setting of generalized topological recursion as well as allowing blobs which do not necessarily admit topological expansion. We show that the so-called non-perturbative differentials form a special case of this revisited version of blobbed topological recursion. Furthermore, we prove the KP integrability of the differentials of blobbed topological recursion for the input data that include KP-integrable blobs. This result generalizes, unifies, and gives a new proof of the KP integrability of nonperturbative differentials conjectured by Borot–Eynard and recently proved by the authors.

This work presents an analysis of the physical mechanisms of radiation-induced changes in the structural parameters, morphology, and properties of ZnS and ZnSe crystals irradiated with 2 MeV electrons at fluences ranging from 0.5 × 1017to 4.0 × 1017electrons cm-2. The processes of defect formation (vacancies, interstitials, and dislocations) resulting from elastic (nuclear) and inelastic (electronic) collisions are analyzed. These processes lead to lattice compression, bandgap narrowing, and an increase in the Urbach energy with rising electron fluence, reflecting enhanced structural disorder, as well as to surface smoothing, higher microhardness, and intensification of the longitudinal optical phonon mode in the Raman spectra. Differences between ZnS and ZnSe are discussed with respect to the ionicity of chemical bonds and the defect dynamics influencing lattice relaxation. A conceptual physical model is proposed to explain the observed effects in ZnS and ZnSe, based on electron-phonon interactions and defect annihilation processes.