Summary: Additives that exhibit polyelectrolyte behavior such as N,N‐dimethylformamide (DMF) may improve the electrospinning characteristics of viscoelastic polymer solutions. DMF additions to the solution lead to extensive jet splaying, thereby reducing the fiber diameter significantly. Nanofibrous structures with diameters of the order of 150 nm can be produced by the addition of about 10 vol.‐% DMF to the solvent (chloroform). DMF additions also yield a narrow, unimodal distribution of fibers, compared to the bimodal distribution typically detected in electrospun polymers.

Nanocomposite fibers of Bombyx mori silk and single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT) were produced by the electrospinning process. Regenerated silk fibroin dissolved in a dispersion of carbon nanotubes in formic acid was electrospun into nanofibers. The morphology, structure, and mechanical properties of the electrospun nanofibers were examined by field emission environmental scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and microtensile testing. TEM of the reinforced fibers shows that the single wall carbon nanotubes are embedded in the fibers. The mechanical properties of the SWNT reinforced fiber show an increase in Young's modulus up to 460% in comparison with the un-reinforced aligned fiber, but at the expense of the strength and strain to failure.

A clear understanding of physicochemical factors governing nanoparticle toxicity is still in its infancy. We used a systematic approach to delineate physicochemical properties of nanoparticles that govern cytotoxicity. The cytotoxicity of fourth period metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs): TiO2, Cr2O3, Mn2O3, Fe2O3, NiO, CuO, and ZnO increases with the atomic number of the transition metal oxide. This trend was not cell-type specific, as observed in non-transformed human lung cells (BEAS-2B) and human bronchoalveolar carcinoma-derived cells (A549). Addition of NPs to the cell culture medium did not significantly alter pH. Physiochemical properties were assessed to discover the determinants of cytotoxicity: (1) point-of-zero charge (PZC) (i.e., isoelectric point) described the surface charge of NPs in cytosolic and lysosomal compartments; (2) relative number of available binding sites on the NP surface quantified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to estimate the probability of biomolecular interactions on the particle surface; (3) band-gap energy measurements to predict electron abstraction from NPs which might lead to oxidative stress and subsequent cell death; and (4) ion dissolution. Our results indicate that cytotoxicity is a function of particle surface charge, the relative number of available surface binding sites, and metal ion dissolution from NPs. These findings provide a physicochemical basis for both risk assessment and the design of safer nanomaterials.

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Oligonucleotide-directed site-specific mutagenesis was applied to alter the cleavage site in the signal peptide of the major outer membrane lipoprotein of Escherichia coli. Replacing the glycine residue at the cleavage site with an alanine residue did not affect the processing of the signal peptide. However, when the same cleavage site was constructed by the deletion of the glycine residue, the signal peptide was no longer cleaved. These results indicate that stringent structural integrity at the cleavage site in the lipoprotein signal sequence is required for correct processing of prolipoprotein.