Ionic surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) unfold proteins in a much more diverse yet effective way than chemical denaturants such as guanidium chloride (GdmCl). But how these unfolding...
Studying cellular
mechanics allows important insights into its
cytoskeletal composition, developmental stage, and health. While many
force spectroscopy assays exist that allow probing of mechanics of
bioparticles, most of them require immobilization of and direct contact
with the particle and can only measure a single particle at a time.
Here, we introduce quantitative acoustophoresis (QAP) as a simple
alternative that uses an acoustic standing wave field to directly
determine cellular compressibility and density of many cells simultaneously
in a contact-free manner. First, using polymeric spheres of different
sizes and materials, we verify that our assay data follow the standard
acoustic theory with great accuracy. We furthermore verify that our
technique not only is able to measure compressibilities of living
cells but can also sense an artificial cytoskeleton inside a biomimetic
vesicle. We finally provide a thorough discussion about the expected
accuracy our approach provides. To conclude, we show that compared
to existing methods, our QAP assay provides a simple yet powerful
alternative to study the mechanics of biological and biomimetic particles.
fall within previously determined estimates for both the bilayer center and interface and they correlate with the steeply changing profile of water concentration in the membrane. Using these results we have discovered a function that describes the solvation environment of the bilayer with nanometer resolution and how membrane protein energetics are modulated by it. These results allow us to more accurately predict hydrophobic side chain water-to-bilayer transfer free energies, and can be easily implemented in structure prediction algorithms.
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