The mutual effects of two crucial features of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) (surface and confinement) on the temperature-dependent water diffusion are studied through molecular dynamics simulations. A two-stage diffusion mechanism is detected in the CNTs of diameter smaller than 12.2 Å, which becomes obscure as the temperature increases. This peculiar phenomenon can be ascribed to the cooperation of the small confinement and the periodic surface. The diffusion coefficient of the confined water exhibits a nonmonotonic dependence on the confinement size and an unexpected increase inside the large CNTs (compared to that of bulk water). These anomalous behaviors can be attributed to the competition of the smooth surface and the small confinement. Considering the mutual effects, an empirical formula is proposed on the basis of two groups of numerical examples, whose results indicate that the confinement effect will dominate over the surface effect until the CNT diameter increases up to ~16 Å, whereas thereafter the surface effect becomes dominant and finally both of them vanish gradually.

The diffusion mechanism and coefficient of water confined in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) of diameter ranging from 8 to 54 Å are studied by molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that the motions of water molecules inside the CNTs of diameter smaller than 12.2 Å follow a two-stage diffusion mechanism. Initially, the water diffusion exhibits a long-time super-or sub-diffusion mechanism, and thereafter it transits to the single-file type inside the (6, 6) CNT and shifts to the Fickian type inside the larger CNTs. As for the CNTs of diameter larger than 12.2 Å , the diffusion of the confined water occurs through the Fickian mechanism, which is identical to that of the bulk water. The simulation results further reveal that the diffusion coefficient of the confined water is non-monotonically dependent on the diameter, which can be ascribed to the double-edged effect of CNTs, i.e., the surface effect and the size effect.

The influences of the diameter (size) of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and the temperature on the viscosity of water confined in SWCNTs are investigated by an "Eyring-MD" (molecular dynamics) method. The results suggest that the relative viscosity of the confined water increases with increasing diameter and temperature, whereas the size-dependent trend of the relative viscosity is almost independent of the temperature. Based on the computational results, a fitting formula is proposed to calculate the size- and temperature- dependent water viscosity, which is useful for the computation on the nanoflow. To demonstrate the rationality of the calculated relative viscosity, the relative amount of the hydrogen bonds of water confined in SWCNTs is also computed. The results of the relative amount of the hydrogen bonds exhibit similar profiles with the curves of the relative viscosity. The present results should be instructive for understanding the coupling effect of the size and the temperature at the nanoscale.

Coarse-grained (CG) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were carried out to investigate the dynamics of 2.2 nm monolayer-protected gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in solvents. The effects of ligand length, ligand terminal chemistry, solvents, and temperature were examined. It was found that AuNPs with unmodified alkanethiol ligands formed stable aggregates in water in the time scale of hundreds of nanoseconds (eight nanoparticles). In a particular case, the AuNPs aggregated into an infinite, one-dimensional chainlike assembly instead of clusters of aggregates. The aggregates of AuNPs with short ligand tails seemed to have an amorphous shape, whereas long-tailed AuNPs aggregated into a spherical cluster. The properties of ligand terminals had a dominant influence on the aggregation behavior of AuNPs. Increasing the polarity of the ligand terminals weakened the tendency of aggregation of AuNPs in water. For AuNPs imposed with charged terminals, they did not aggregate even with a high concentration of salt. However the aggregation behavior of AuNPs changed dramatically if the properties of solvent were altered. Temperature increase greatly accelerated the process of aggregation. The results suggest that the dynamics of monolayer-protected AuNPs can be controlled by their surface properties as well as the features of solvents.

In this paper, the viscosity of water confined in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with the diameter ranging from 8 to 54 Å is evaluated, which is crucial for the research on the nanoflow but difficult to be obtained. An ''Eyring-MD'' (molecular dynamics) method combining the Eyring theory of viscosity with the MD simulations is proposed to tackle the particular problems. For the critical energy which is a parameter in the ''Eyring-MD'' method, the numerical experiment is adopted to explore its dependence on the temperature and the potential energy. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method, the viscosity of water at high pressure is computed and the results are in reasonable agreement with the experimental results. The computational results indicate that the viscosity of water inside SWCNTs increases nonlinearly with enlarging diameter of SWCNTs, which can reflect the size effect on the transports capability of the SWCNTs. The trend of the viscosity is well explained by the variation of the hydrogen bond of the water inside SWCNTs. A fitting equation of the viscosity of the confined water is given, which should be significant for recognizing and studying the transport behavior of fluid through the nanochannels.

Cataract is the most common eye disease that causes blindness in patients. Ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiation is considered an important factor leading to cataract by inducing apoptosis in human lens epithelial cells (HLECs), but the mechanism is currently unclear. In this study, we investigated HLECs under different intensities of UVB irradiation and different exposure time. The annexin V-FITC/propidium iodide staining results showed that UVB irradiation could efficiently lead to HLECs apoptosis in time- and dose-dependent manner. The expression of pro-apoptotic Bax gene was promoted by UVB irradiation, while anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 gene expression was inhibited at both transcript and protein levels. Notably, the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 displayed a high and positive correlation to the proportion of apoptotic HLECs. Mitochondrial dysfunction was also observed with rapid loss of potential (∆Ψ m), as well as changes of the levels of reactive oxygen species, malondialdehyde, total antioxidative capabilities, and superoxide dismutase. In caspase pathway, the level of caspase-3 protein increased after UVB irradiation. All these discovered changes may play important roles in UVB-induced HLECs apoptosis, and would be helpful in understanding the mechanism of UVB-induced cataract and providing potential prevention and treatment strategies.

The Keratograph 4 appears to provide an effective noninvasive method for assessing tear film, enabling effective preoperative evaluation of tear film break-up regularity, informing the location of the incision and reducing the probability of postoperative DES.

A complete understanding of the interactions between nanoparticles (NPs) and the cell membrane is essential for the potential biomedical applications of NPs. The rotation of the NP during the cellular wrapping process is of great biological significance and has been widely observed in experiments and simulations. However, the underlying mechanisms of the rotation and their potential influences on the wrapping behavior are far from being fully understood. Here, by coupling the rotation of the NP with the diffusion of the receptors, we set up a model to theoretically investigate the wrapping pathway and the internalization rate of the rotatable NP in the receptor-mediated endocytosis. Based on this model, it is found that the endocytosis proceeds through the symmetric-asymmetric or asymmetric-symmetric-asymmetric wrapping pathway due to the bending and membrane tension competition induced rotation of NP. In addition, we show that the wrapping rate in the direction that the wrapping proceeds can be largely accelerated by the rotation. Moreover, the time to fully wrap the NP depends not only on the size and shape of the NP but also on its rotation and initial orientation. These results reveal the roles of the shape, rotation, and initial orientation of the NP on the receptor-mediated endocytosis and may provide guidelines for the design of NP-based drug delivery systems.