Autocorrelation and relaxation time measurements on metal oxide core: dielectric shell beads in an optical trap

Optical Tweezers are capable of trapping individual particles of sizes that range from micrometers to sub micrometers. One can compute the trap strength experienced by a particle by analyzing the fluctuations in the position of the trapped particle with time. It is reported that the trap strength of a dielectric bead increases linearly with increase in the power of the trapping laser. The situation with metallic particles, however, is strongly dependent on the particle size. Available literature shows that metallic Rayleigh particles experience enhanced trap strengths when compared to dielectric particles of similar sizes due to a larger polarizability. On the contrary, micrometer sized metallic particles are poor candidates for trapping due to high reflectivity. We report here that commercially available micrometer sized metal oxide core - dielectric shell (core – shell) beads are trapped in a single beam optical tweezer in a manner similar to dielectric beads. However as the laser power is increased these core – shell beads are trapped with a reduced corner frequency, which represents a lowered trap strength, in contrast to the situation with ordinary dielectric beads. We attribute this anomaly to an increase in the temperature of the medium in the vicinity of the core – shell bead due to an enhanced dissipation of the laser power as heat. We have computed autocorrelation functions for both types of beads at various trapping laser powers and observe that the variation in the relaxation times with laser power for core - shell beads is opposite in trend to that of ordinary dielectric beads. This supports our claim of an enhanced medium temperature about the trapped core – shell bead. Since an increase in temperature should lead to a change in the local viscosity of the medium, we have estimated the ratio of viscosity to temperature for core – shell and dielectric beads of the same size. We observe that while for ordinary dielectric beads this ratio remains a constant with increasing laser power, there is a decrease for core – shell beads. We plan to extend this work towards studying the hydrodynamic correlations between a pair of trapped beads where one of the beads acts as a heat source. © (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only

Estimation of Membrane Bending Modulus of Stiffness Tuned Human Red Blood Cells from Micropore Filtration Studies

Human red blood cells (RBCs) need to deform in order to pass through capillaries in human vasculature with diameter smaller than that of the RBC. An altered RBC cell membrane stiffness (CMS), thereby, is likely to have consequences on their flow rate. RBC CMS is known to be affected by several commonly encountered disease conditions. This study was carried out to investigate whether an increase in RBC CMS, to the extent seen in such commonly encountered medical conditions, affects the RBC flow rate through channels with diameters comparable to that of the RBC. To do this, we use RBCs extracted from a healthy individual with no known medical conditions and treated with various concentrations of Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA). We study their flow through polycarbonate membranes with pores of diameter 5μm and 8μm which are smaller than and comparable to the RBC diameter respectively. The studies are carried out at constant hematocrit and volumetric flow rate. We find that when the diameter of the capillary is smaller than that of the RBC, the flow rate of the RBCs is lowered as the concentration of BSA is increased while the reverse is true when the diameter is comparable to that of the RBC. We confirm that this is a consequence of altered CMS of the RBCs from their reorientation dynamics in an Optical Tweezer. We find that a treatment with 0.50mg/ml BSA mimics the situation for RBCs extracted from a healthy individual while concentrations higher than 0.50mg/ml elevate the RBC CMS across a range expected for individuals with a condition of hyperglycemia. Using a simple theoretical model of the RBC deformation process at the entry of a narrow channel, we extract the RBC membrane bending modulus from their flow rate. FT PubMed

Correction: Estimation of membrane bending modulus of stiffness tuned human red blood cells from micropore filtration studies.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226640.]

Discriminating thyroid cancers from benign lesions based on differential expression of a limited set of miRNA using paraffin embedded tissues

Background : Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are expressed in a tissue-specific manner and are known to demonstrate differential expression even among the various subtypes of a given tumor. This differential expression has been harnessed successfully in the development of diagnostic assays for various malignant tumors. These assays have been found to be relevant and of value as additional diagnostic tools even among thyroid tumors, particularly with regard to thyroid carcinomas of follicular morphology. Materials and Methods : A limited set of miRNA have been assessed as part of this study in an effort to use minimal number of miRNA markers (miR-187, miR-221, miR-222, and miR-224) to differentiate the benign from the malignant thyroid tumors using miRNA derived from paraffin embedded material. Results : While miR-221 and miR-222 were found to provide good accuracy as individual markers (86% and 84%), a combination of the two provided slightly better accuracy (91%). Both miR-221 and 222 were able to significantly differentiate malignant tumors from the benign samples (P< 0.001) individually and as a combination of markers. However, inclusion of miR-187 and miR-224 in the panel did not provide any additional benefit. Conclusion : While a combination of miR-221 and 222 when used in a diagnostic panel could provide fairly good accuracy additional markers may need to be investigated to augment their diagnostic utility

The impact of the first COVID-19 surge on severe asthma patients in the UK. Which is worse: the virus or the lockdown?

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