Fouling causes serious problems in daily lives and mass industrial processes. Modern industry has made lots of artificial anti-fouling surfaces especially bio-inspired surfaces with some effective strategies to tackle the fouling issue. These surfaces inspired by natural creatures like lotus and sharks show both highefficiency and eco-friendly properties. This review discusses the model behind the anti-fouling properties, the mechanism of various types of fouling, and the strategy of both natural and bio-inspired surfaces. Also, the possibility of building a wide-range anti-fouling and durable surface is discussed.
Recent studies in polymer physics have created macro-scale analogs to solute microscopic polymer chains like DNA by inducing diffusive motion on a chain of beads. These bead chains have persistence lengths of O(10) links and undergo diffusive motion under random fluctuations like vibration. We present a bead chain model within a new stochastic forcing system: an air fluidizing bed of granular media. A chain of spherical 6 mm resin beads crimped onto silk thread are buffeted randomly by the multiphase flow of grains and low density rising air “bubbles”. We “thermalize” bead chains of various lengths at different fluidizing airflow rates, while X-ray imaging captures a projection of the chains’ dynamics within the media. With modern 3D printing techniques, we can better represent complex polymers by geometrically varying bead connections and their relative strength, e.g., mimicking the variable stiffness between adjacent nucleotide pairs of DNA. We also develop Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations to study the 3D motion of the bead chain, where the bead chain is represented by simulated spherical particles connected by linear and angular spring-like bonds. In experiment, we find that the velocity distributions of the beads follow exponential distributions rather than the Gaussian distributions expected from polymers in solution. Through use of the DEM simulation, we find that this difference can likely be attributed to the distributions of the forces imparted onto the chain from the fluidized bed environment. We anticipate expanding this study in the future to explore a wide range of chain composition and confinement geometry, which will provide insights into the physics of large biopolymers.
Why do greasy membrane proteins form stable complexes via greasy binding interfaces in the similarly greasy lipid solvent? To answer this question, we must quantify the thermodynamic factors that drive membrane protein association in membranes. Previously, we found that the CLC-ec1 Cl -/H þ antiporter participates in an equilibrium dimerization reaction in 2:1 POPE:POPG lipid bilayers. The dimer assembles via a large membrane embedded interface lined by non-polar residues, and the complex is stable, exhibiting a free energy of dimerization of À11 kcal/mole relative to the subunit/lipid standard state. Thus, CLC-ec1 provides an ideal model system for studying this question. In the current study, we carried out a van't Hoff analysis of the CLC-ec1 (WT) dimerization equilibrium in lipid bilayers. To verify that we are studying the equilibrated system, we examined subunit-exchange kinetics between WT-Cy3, and WT-Cy5 EPL (E. coli polar lipid) proteoliposomes, fused to form multi-lamellar membranes. Mixing of subunits led to formation of heterodimers (WT-Cy3/WT-Cy5) and the resulting increase in bulk Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) was monitored as a function of time, and temperature (22-56 C). Additionally, temperature jump type experiments conducted for the co-labelled WT showed changes in FRET, with both fused and co-labelled samples converging to the same FRET-plateaus. We found that rate of subunit-exchange increases with temperature, and that FRET-plateau decreases above 44 o C indicating a decrease in oligomerization, with the chloride transport function remaining unchanged across the same temperature range. To measure the full dimerization binding isotherm, we equilibrated WT-Cy5 in EPL membranes at various temperatures and carried out subunit capture single-molecule photobleaching analysis for measurement of K eq (T). Finally, a van't Hoff plot of ln(K eq ) vs. 1/T is presented, allowing a thermodynamic dissection of enthalpy, entropy, and heat capacity changes associated with CLC dimerization in membranes.
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