Synthesis of Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with Antibacterial Activity

The synthesis of nanomaterials is currently one of the most active in nanoscience branches; especially those help improve the human quality life. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are an example of this as it is known to have inhibitory and bactericidal effects. In this work, we report the synthesis of silver nanoparticles by chemical reduction method of silver nitrate (AgNO3) from aqueous solution, using a mix of polivinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) - Aloe Vera as reducing agent and for stabilization and control of particle size. Silver nanoparticles obtained were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), UV-visible spectroscopy and measurements using Zetasizer Nano ZS were applied to size estimation. The existence of surface plasmon resonance peak at λmax ∼ 420 nm is evidence of silver nanoparticles formation. It was possible to standardize an appropriate protocol for the evaluation of bactericidal activity of the nanoparticles, for mesophilic microorganisms. Bactericidal activity above 90% against these kinds of bacteria was demonstrated. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

Identification of independent association signals and putative functional variants for breast cancer risk through fine-scale mapping of the 12p11 locus.

BACKGROUND: Multiple recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs10771399, at 12p11 that is associated with breast cancer risk. METHOD: We performed a fine-scale mapping study of a 700 kb region including 441 genotyped and more than 1300 imputed genetic variants in 48,155 cases and 43,612 controls of European descent, 6269 cases and 6624 controls of East Asian descent and 1116 cases and 932 controls of African descent in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC; http://bcac.ccge.medschl.cam.ac.uk/ ), and in 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers in the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA). Stepwise regression analyses were performed to identify independent association signals. Data from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements project (ENCODE) and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used for functional annotation. RESULTS: Analysis of data from European descendants found evidence for four independent association signals at 12p11, represented by rs7297051 (odds ratio (OR) = 1.09, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.06-1.12; P = 3 × 10(-9)), rs805510 (OR = 1.08, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.12, P = 2 × 10(-5)), and rs1871152 (OR = 1.04, 95 % CI = 1.02-1.06; P = 2 × 10(-4)) identified in the general populations, and rs113824616 (P = 7 × 10(-5)) identified in the meta-analysis of BCAC ER-negative cases and BRCA1 mutation carriers. SNPs rs7297051, rs805510 and rs113824616 were also associated with breast cancer risk at P < 0.05 in East Asians, but none of the associations were statistically significant in African descendants. Multiple candidate functional variants are located in putative enhancer sequences. Chromatin interaction data suggested that PTHLH was the likely target gene of these enhancers. Of the six variants with the strongest evidence of potential functionality, rs11049453 was statistically significantly associated with the expression of PTHLH and its nearby gene CCDC91 at P < 0.05. CONCLUSION: This study identified four independent association signals at 12p11 and revealed potentially functional variants, providing additional insights into the underlying biological mechanism(s) for the association observed between variants at 12p11 and breast cancer risk.UK funding includes Cancer Research UK and NIH.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BioMed Central via http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13058-016-0718-

Angle-resolved polarimetry of antenna-mediated fluorescence

Optical phase-array antennas can be used to control not only the angular distribution but also the polarization of fluorescence from quantum emitters. The emission pattern of the resulting system is determined by the properties of the antenna, the properties of the emitters, and the strength of the antenna-emitter coupling. Here we show that Fourier polarimetry can be used to characterize these three contributions. To this end, we measure the angle- and Stokes-parameter-resolved emission of bullseye plasmon antennas as well as spiral antennas excited by an ensemble of emitters. We estimate the average antenna-emitter coupling on the basis of the degree of polarization and determine the effect of anisotropy in the intrinsic emitter orientation on polarization of the resulting emission pattern. Our results provide not only new insights into the behavior of bullseye and spiral antennas but also demonstrate the potential of Fourier polarimetry when characterizing antenna-mediated fluorescence

Spin-dependent emission from arrays of planar chiral nanoantennas due to lattice and localized pasmon resonances

Chiral plasmonic nanoantennas manifest a strong asymmetric response to circularly polarized light. Particularly, the geometric handedness of a plasmonic structure can alter the circular polarization state of light emitted from nearby sources, leading to a spin-dependent emission direction. In past experiments, these effects have been attributed entirely to the localized plasmonic resonances of single antennas. In this work we demonstrate that, when chiral nanoparticles are arranged in diffractive arrays, lattice resonances play a primary role in determining the spin-dependent emission of light. We fabricate 2D diffractive arrays of planar chiral metallic nanoparticles embedded in a light-emitting dye-doped slab. By measuring the polarized photoluminescence enhancement we show that the geometric chirality of the array's unit cell induces a preferential circular polarization, and that both the localized surface plasmon resonance and the delocalized hybrid plasmonic-photonic mode contribute to this phenomenon. By further mapping the angle-resolved degree of circular polarization, we demonstrate that strong chiral dissymmetries are mainly localized at the narrow emission directions of the surface lattice resonances. We validate these results against a coupled dipoles model calculation, which correctly reproduces the main features. Our findings demonstrate that, in diffractive arrays, lattice resonances play a primary role into the light spin-orbit effect, introducing a highly non-trivial behavior in the angular spectra

Quantifying single plasmonic nanostructure far -fields with interferometric and polarimetric k-space microscopy

Optically resonant nanoantennae are key building blocks for metasurfaces, nanosensors, and nanophotonic light sources due to their ability to control the amplitude, phase, directivity, and polarization of scattered light. Here, we report an experimental technique for the full recovery of all degrees of freedom encoded in the far-field radiated by a single nanostructure using a high-NA Fourier microscope equipped with digital off-axis holography. This method enables full decomposition of antenna-physics in its multipole contributions and gives full access to the orbital and spin angular momentum properties of light scattered by single nano-objects. Our results demonstrate these capabilities through a quantitative assessment of the purity of the “selection rules” for orbital angular momentum transfer by plasmonic spiral nanostructures