Wettability (hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity) is of fundamental importance in physical, chemical, and biological behaviors, resulting in widespread interest. Herein, by modulating surface curvature, we observed a reversible hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition on a model referred to a platinum surface. The underlying mechanism is revealed to be the competition between strong water-solid attraction and interfacial water orderliness. On the basis of the competition, we further propose an equation of wetting transition in the presence of an ordered interfacial liquid. It quantitatively reveals the relation of solid wettability with interfacial water orderliness and solid surface curvature, which can be used for predicting the critical point of the wetting transition. Our findings thus provide an innovative perspective on the design of a functional device demonstrating a reversible wettability transition and even a molecular-level understanding of biological functions.
2-Hydroxyglutaric acid disodium salt (2HG) is a unique biomarker existing in glioma, which can be used for recognizing cancer development stage and identifying the boundary between the ordinary tissue and cancer tissue. However, the most efficient detection method for 2HG now is Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS), whose testing time is at least twenty minutes and the variability of 2HG (continuous synthesis and decomposition) determines it cannot be used as the real-time image in medical surgery. In this paper, by using the Terahertz Time-domain Spectroscopy (THz-TDS) System, we investigate the vibration spectra of 2HG isomers and further distinguish their physical properties by using Density Functional Theory. The differences between isomers are mainly attributed to the proton transfer inside the carbon chain. These results indicate that terahertz technology can identify the isomers of 2HG accurate and fast, which has important significance for the further investigation of glioma and clinical surgery.
Membrane fluidity, essential for cell functions, is obviously affected by copper, but the molecular mechanism is poorly understood. Here, we unexpectedly observed that a decrease in phospholipid (PL) bilayer fluidity caused by Cu was more significant than those by Zn and Ca, while a comparable reduction occurred in the last two ions. This finding disagrees with the placement in the periodic table of Cu just next to Zn and far from Ca. The physical nature was revealed to be an anomalous attraction between Cu cations, as well as the induced motif of two phospholipids coupled by Cu-Cu bond (PL-diCu-PL). Namely, upon Cu ion binding to a negatively charged phosphate group of lipid, Cu was reduced to Cu. The attraction of the cations then caused one Cu ion simultaneously binding to two lipids and another Cu, resulting in the formation of PL-diCu-PL structure. In contrast, this attraction cannot occur in the cases of Zn and Ca ions. Remarkably, besides lipids, the phosphate group also widely exists in other biological molecules, including DNA, RNA, ADP and ATP. Our findings thus provide a new view for understanding the biological functions of copper and the mechanism underlying copper-related diseases, as well as lipid assembly.
The widespread applications of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) conjugated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have spurred an increasing interest in the interactions between ssDNA and AuNPs. Despite extensive studies using the most sophisticated experimental techniques, the detailed molecular mechanisms still remain largely unknown. Large scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can thus be used to supplement experiments by providing complementary information about ssDNA-AuNP interactions. However, up to now, all modern force fields for DNA were developed based on the properties of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) molecules, which have hydrophilic outer backbones "protecting" hydrophobic inner nucleobases from water. Without the double-helix structure of dsDNA and thus the "protection" by the outer backbone, the nucleobases of ssDNA are directly exposed to solvent, and their behavior in water is very different from that of dsDNA, especially at the interface with nanoparticles. In this work, we have improved the force field of ssDNA for use with nanoparticles, such as AuNPs, based on recent experimental results and quantum mechanics calculations. With the new improved force field, we demonstrated that a poly(A) sequence adsorbed on a AuNP surface is much more stable than a poly(T) sequence, which is consistent with recent experimental observations. On the contrary, the current standard force fields, including AMBER03, CHARMM27, and OPLSAA, all gave erroneous results as compared to experiments. The current improved force field is expected to have wide applications in the study of ssDNA with nanomaterials including AuNPs, which might help promote the development of ssDNA-based biosensors and other bionano-devices.
Surface-enhanced
Raman scattering (SERS) effect, usually is associated
with the highly confined electromagnetic field in plasmonic nanostructures,
and has been widely investigated for molecular sensing and imaging
applications. However, SERS substrates have confronted with poor reproducibility
and inefficient nanometer-level structural control. By employing oligonucleotides,
highly reproducible SERS substrates with uniform 1 nm nanogap could
be constructed. In this work, we investigated the effect of oligonucleotides,
especially the unmodified oligonucleotides, on the morphology of nanogaps.
We found that the morphology of nanogap is dependent on the sequence,
length, and surface-coating density of the unmodified oligonucleotide
and speculate that the formation of nanogaps is dominated by stable
self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of unmodified oligonucleotides, which
is supported by molecular dynamic simulation (MD) results. We further
studied the morphologies of nanogaps, with oligonucleotide SAMs of
different states and nanoseeds of different sizes and shapes. This
work elucidated the relationships between the SAMs of unmodified oligonucleotides
and the morphology of nanogaps, which will facilitate the design of
reliable SERS nanostructures.
PGM-free
(platinum group metal) electrocatalysts are intensively
investigated and used as low-cost catalysts for the oxygen reduction
reaction (ORR) in the field of fuel cells, but further studying their
performance improvement methods and actual reaction mechanism is still
a big a challenge. In this work, a novel eletrocatalyst containing
atomically dispersed Mn/Fe single atoms (SAs) and Fe nanoparticles
(NPs) on N-doped carbonaceous (nanosheet/nanotube hybrids) is fabricated
via a simple pyrolysis method. This high-activity ORR electrocatalyst
has higher half-wave potential (E
1/2 =
0.91 V) and superior long-term durability in alkaline solutions and
outperforms Pt/C catalysts, which can be ascribed to the synergetic
interaction between Mn/Fe SAs and Fe-NPs. FeNPs/MnFeSAs-NC-25 has stronger reactant adsorption ability and a lower
dissociation energy barrier than FeNPs/FeSAs-NC, which is conducive to breaking the O–O bond and accelerating
ORR kinetics. This work presents a method to synthesize carbon-based
electrocatalysts with high ORR activity and stability and shows that
a variety of active sites encapsulated in N-doped carbonaceous materials
can be a class of competitive candidates for PGM-free electrocatalysts.
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