2 research outputs found
Complex Chiral Colloids and Surfaces via High-Index Off-Cut Silicon
Silicon wafers are commonly
etched in potassium hydroxide solutions
to form highly symmetric surface structures. These arise when slow-etching
{111} atomic planes are exposed on standard low-index surfaces. However,
the ability of nonstandard high-index wafers to provide more complex
structures by tilting the {111} planes has not been fully appreciated.
We demonstrate the power of this approach by creating chiral surface
structures and nanoparticles of a specific handedness from gold. When
the nanoparticles are dispersed in liquids, gold colloids exhibiting
record molar circular dichroism (>5 Ć 10<sup>9</sup> M<sup>ā1</sup> cm<sup>ā1</sup>) at red wavelengths are obtained.
The nanoparticles
also present chiral pockets for binding
Profiling the Serum Protein Corona of Fibrillar Human Islet Amyloid Polypeptide
Amyloids
may be regarded as native nanomaterials that form in the
presence of complex protein mixtures. By drawing an analogy with the
physicochemical properties of nanoparticles in biological fluids,
we hypothesized that amyloids should form a protein corona <i>in vivo</i> that would imbue the underlying amyloid with a modified
biological identity. To explore this hypothesis, we characterized
the protein corona of human islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) fibrils
in fetal bovine serum using two complementary methodologies developed
herein: quartz crystal microbalance and ācentrifugal captureā,
coupled with nanoliquid chromatography tandem mass spectroscopy. Clear
evidence for a significant protein corona was obtained. No trends
were identified for amyloid corona proteins based on their physicochemical
properties, whereas strong binding with IAPP fibrils occurred for
linear proteins or multidomain proteins with structural plasticity.
Proteomic analysis identified amyloid-enriched proteins that are known
to play significant roles in mediating cellular machinery and processing,
potentially leading to pathological outcomes and therapeutic targets