In this study, two plant derived compounds, namely tannin acid (TA) and tung oil (TO) were used to modify southern yellow pine wood (Pinus spp.) to enhance its durability. Wood samples were firstly impregnated with aqueous TA solutions at 5, 10 and 15%, respectively, and then impregnated with TO. Samples treated by TA or TO alone were also prepared. The dimensional stability, hydrophobicity, mold resistance, and thermal stability of both treated and untreated wood were evaluated. The results showed that the dimensional stability and hydrophobicity of wood treated with 10% TA and TO (T10+TO group) improved significantly. Compared with control group, the water absorption of T10+TO group decreased by 80.0% after 192 h immersion, and the antiswelling efficiency reached up to 90.7%, with the contact angle of 118° at 50 s. The mold resistance of wood after 5% TA and TO treatment presented an effectiveness of 87.5%. Meanwhile, T10+TO group presented better thermal stability. Overall, this study revealed that wood impregnated by TA and TO exhibited excellent dimensional stability and anti-mold properties, which could be applicable to indoor environment.
Supramolecular assembly in vitro is a simple and effective way to produce multi-level biostructures to mimic the self-assembly of biomolecules in organisms. The study on peptide assembly behaviors would benefit a lot to understand what goes on in life, as well as in the construction
of plenty of functional biomaterials that have potential applications in various fields. Since cellular microenvironments are crowded and contain various biomolecules, studying protein and peptide co-assembly is of great interest. Here, we introduced the co-assembly of 5-FAM-ELVFFAE-NH2
(EE-7) and (CY5)-KLVFFAK-NH2 (KK-7), which are sequences derived from the core of the amyloid β (Aβ) peptide, a key protein in Alzheimer’s diseases. Morphologic studies employing atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy indicated that
the co-assembled entities had a novel hydrangea-like microstructure, in contrast to micro-sheet structures formed from monocomponent EE-7 or KK-7, respectively. Fluorescence co-localization experiments confirmed that the hydrangealike microstructures were indeed made of both EE-7 and KK-7.
We suggest that the formation of the hydrangea-like microstructures is driven by both the electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions between EE-7 and KK-7. A molecular mechanism has been provided to explain the formation of the hydrangea-like microstructures.
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