User:Brian P. Josey/Notebook/2010/02/01

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Mindmapping Ferritin Project


This is a mindmap that Koch put together while when we had our meeting today on what I am going to do this semester. It is pretty straight forward, and will serve as an outline for us for the next couple of months. Of course it is going to change down the line. For right now, I am going to follow the actions listed under my name, so look at the magnets, horse spleen ferritin, XMind and read the proposal.

XMind and Mindmapping
So I downloaded XMind, and I like it. It is very clear and helps me see things fan out, and spread out. It is really easy to use, and I picked it up in no time what-so-ever. I can see it being more useful for school than anything else. I make lists of things to do, and I converted what I needed to do this week into a mindmap, and it helps a lot to keep it clean, and I will probably do that again. There is only one downside to it that I don't really like; I can't move things around. I can move around topics based off of their order, and whether they are a subtopic, a main topic, or independent, but I can't move them in regards to distance. For me, how far apart two things are relate to their importance. If a topic is close to the main idea, it is more important than if it was far away. But the definite positives are that you can change the colors of all the branches and it allows me to write in hiragana and kanji. Being able to write in Japanese can help me out with class, because I can use XMind to make collapsible lists to study for vocabulary and kanji quizzes.

Ferritin
I was able to find some horse spleen ferritin over at VWR. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any more details other than the volume and price because I don't have an account with them. However, we can get half a milliliter solution | here (Steve Koch 18:30, 1 February 2010 (EST): How about Sigma?)

Brian P. Josey 18:46, 1 February 2010 (EST) I was actually just looking at them:

At VWR again | 25mg-125mg

At Sigma I found two:

Horse spleen |SIGMA&N5=SEARCH_CONCAT_PNO|BRAND_KEY&F=SPEC F4503 (Steve Koch 22:31, 1 February 2010 (EST): This one from Sigma looks good. I'd like to know how much iron is in there (maybe tech support would know?) but since it's red-brown, it must have at least a good fraction.  I think it's a good start.)(Brian P. Josey 10:52, 2 February 2010 (EST) According to the FAQ on their website, the concentration of iron is lot specific, but each ferritin protein has "up to 4500" iron ions. If that helps. I couldn't find an estimated concentration.)
 * Steve Koch 23:27, 2 February 2010 (EST): That sounds like a lot of iron. I found some of my old notes (http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgqjkh6p_136hgssdpfv).  I don't expect these to mean anything to you, as I can barely remember myself.  But the references at the end could perhaps be useful.  I have this useful statement, though: "For d = 12 nm, number of spins, N is about 17,814."  This is for an iron oxide nanoparticle.  So, 4500 would seem to be almost full for ferritin.  Of course, they say, "up to" which could mean anything.  I believe one of those papers I gave you explained a lot about natural ferritin.  And the reason it's susceptibility is so low is not because it's not full of iron, but because it's not magnetite or maghemite.  I can't remember what it tends to be, but not those two strong ferrimagnets.  I think that paper also speculated that this is good biologically so you don't have very susceptible particles in the body?
 * Brian P. Josey 15:34, 3 February 2010 (EST) According to the Meldrum paper, ferritin has an inorganic core of ferrihydrite, which chemically is 5Fe2O3·9H2O. The Quintana paper might have some more information on that, and the speculation, but I've only read the first half.
 * Steve Koch 20:45, 3 February 2010 (EST): Thanks! Ferrihydrite is what I couldn't remember.

Human liver |SIGMA&N5=SEARCH_CONCAT_PNO|BRAND_KEY&F=SPEC| F6754

I included the Fxxxx numbers, just in case my links don't work. I tried Sigma first, and I didn't find anything, but I tried them again. It looks like we have a couple of options. If we get a small amount, we might be able to dilute it, and put it in a tube for a visual test, or try to see it with the other tests (ie. dark field).


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