Interactions between poly(ethylene glycol) and protein in dichloromethane/water emulsions: A study of interfacial properties

From adsorption kinetics and interfacial rheological studies performed by using a pendant-drop method, i.e. in conditions close to those of the primary emulsion of the water-in-oil-in-water emulsion-encapsulation technique, it was shown that adsorption of the hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) at the water/dichloromethane (DCM) interface can be efficiently slowed down by modulating some parameters. It was shown that a decrease of the ionic strength of the aqueous phase, and the optimization of the density of the poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) adsorbed film by increasing the PEG concentration or by modulating the polymer chain length, can significantly decrease the rate of adsorption of HEWL at the water/DCM interface. Moreover, it was shown that the choice of the dissolution phase of PEG (DCM or water) clearly influences the results

Interactions between poly(ethylene glycol) and protein in dichloromethane/water emulsions. 2. Conditions required to obtain spontaneous emulsification allowing the formation of bioresorbable poly(D,L lactic acid) microparticles

From microscopic observations, it was established that an oil-in-water emulsion with droplets of a size in the micrometer range can spontaneously form at room temperature without additional external stirring as soon as a solvent that is only partly miscible to water-like dichloromethane (DCM) is put in contact with an aqueous mixture of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and a protein. Experimental results show that emulsification only occurs if the system simultaneously includes PEG with middle chain, an organic solvent partly miscible to water and for which PEG affinity is sufficiently high, and a protein. From adsorption kinetics, it appears that this spontaneous emulsification process is related to the rapid diffusion of DCM towards water through the formation of interfacial turbulences, once the accumulation of PEG close to the DCM/water interface occurs. The oil droplets formed would be then stabilized by adsorbed protein molecules. Since the presence of polylactic acid in the organic phase did not prevent the emulsion formation, we studied the feasibility of formulating microparticles using this polymer. From results, it appears that microcapsules with a polymeric shell, with a homogeneous size of about 50 microm and able to encapsulate a model hydrophobic drug, such as amiodarone, can be obtained by using this spontaneous emulsification method

Vibrational Instability of Metal-Poor Low-Mass Main-Sequence Stars

We find that low-degree low-order g-modes become unstable in metal-poor low-mass stars due to the $\varepsilon$-mechanism of the pp-chain. Since the outer convection zone of these stars is limited only to the very outer layers, the uncertainty in the treatment of convection does not affect the result significantly. The decrease in metallicity leads to decrease in opacity and hence increase in luminosity of a star. This makes the star compact and results in decrease in the density contrast, which is favorable to the $\varepsilon$-mechanism instability. We find also instability for high order g-modes of metal-poor low-mass stars by the convective blocking mechanism. Since the effective temperature and the luminosity of metal-poor stars are significantly higher than those of Pop I stars, the stars showing $\gamma$ Dor-type pulsation are substantially less massive than in the case of Pop I stars. We demonstrate that those modes are unstable for about $1\,M_\odot$ stars in the metal-poor case.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, To be published in Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings series (ASSP). Proceedings of the "20th Stellar Pulsation Conference Series: Impact of new instrumentation and new insights in stellar pulsations", 5-9 September 2011, Granada, Spai

Etudes in situ de la formation du carbonate de calcium CaCO3 synthétisé en milieu aqueux sous pression de CO2

National audienc

Microencapsulation of Proteins within Polymeric and Inorganic Particles using Supercritical CO2 Media

International audienc