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It is obtained that there exist strong solutions of Pucci extremal equations with sublinear growth in D u and measurable ingredients. It is proved that a strong maximum principle holds in a local sense in Lemma 4.1 although even the (weak) maximum principle fails. By using this existence result, it is shown that the ABP type maximum principle and the weak Harnack inequality for viscosity solutions hold true. As an application, the Hölder continuity for viscosity solutions of possibly singular, quasilinear equations is established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theexcited-state properties of bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) ain triethylamine, 1-propanol, and methanol are investigatedwith the time-dependent density functional theory by using the quantummechanical and molecular mechanical reweighting free energy self-consistantfield method. It is found that no prevalent density functionals canreproduce the experimental excited-state properties, i.e., the absorptionand reorganization energies, of BChl ain the solutions.The parameter μ in the range-separated hybrid functional istherefore optimized to reproduce the differences of the absorptionenergies in the solutions. We examine the origin of the differencesof the absorption energies in the solutions and find that sensitivebalance between contributions of structural changes and solute–solventinteractions determines the differences. The accurate descriptionof the excitation with the density functional with the adjusted parameteris therefore essential to the understanding of the excited-state propertiesof BChl ain proteins and also the mechanism of thephotosynthetic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are known for their low stability and large conformational changes upon transitions between multiple states. A widely used method for stabilizing these receptors is to make chimeric receptors by fusing soluble proteins (i.e., fusion partner proteins) into the intracellular loop 3 (ICL3) connecting the transmembrane helices 5 and 6 (TM5 and TM6). However, this fusion approach requires experimental trial and error to identify appropriate soluble proteins, residue positions, and linker lengths for making the fusion. Moreover, this approach has not provided state-targeting stabilization of GPCRs. Here, to rationally stabilize a class A GPCR, adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR) in a target state, we carried out the custom-made de novo design of α-helical fusion partner proteins, which can fix the conformation of TM5 and TM6 to that in an inactive state of A2AR through straight helical connections without any kinks or intervening loops. The chimeric A2AR fused with one of the designs (FiX1) exhibited increased thermal stability. Moreover, compared with the wild type, the binding affinity of the chimera against the agonist NECA was significantly decreased, whereas that against the inverse agonist ZM241385 was similar, indicating that the inactive state was selectively stabilized. Our strategy contributes to the rational state-targeting stabilization of GPCRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]