European Space Agency experiments on thermodiffusion of fluid mixtures in space

This paper describes the European Space Agency (ESA) experiments devoted to study thermodiffusion of fluid mixtures in microgravity environment, where sedimentation and convection do not affect the mass flow induced by the Soret effect. First, the experiments performed on binary mixtures in the IVIDIL and GRADFLEX experiments are described. Then, further experiments on ternary mixtures and complex fluids performed in DCMIX and planned to be performed in the context of the NEUF-DIX project are presented. Finally, multi-component mixtures studied in the SCCO project are detailed.

Dynamical DNA accessibility induced by chromatin remodeling and protein binding

Chromatin remodeling factors are enzymes being able to alter locally chromatin structure at the nucleosomal level and they actively participate in the regulation of gene expression. Using simple rules for individual nucleosome motion induced by a remodeling factor, we designed simulations of the remodeling of oligomeric chromatin, in order to address quantitatively collective effects in DNA accessibility upon nucleosome mobilization. Our results suggest that accessibility profiles are inhomogeneous thanks to borders effects like protein binding. Remarkably, we show that the accessibility lifetime of DNA sequence is roughly doubled in the vicinity of borders as compared to its value in bulk regions far from the borders. These results are quantitatively interpreted as resulting from the confined diffusion of a large nucleosome depleted region.

Note: Temperature derivative of the refractive index of binary mixtures measured by using a new thermodiffusion cell

A thermodiffusion cell is developed for performing Soret experiments on binary mixtures at high pressure and in the presence of a porous medium. The cell is validated by performing experiments at atmospheric pressure. The experiments are performed by applying different temperature gradients to binary mixtures in order to determine their thermal contrast factor. These measurements provide a first demonstration of the good reproducibility of this kind of measurements upon calibration.