Radical processes initiated by ionizing radiation in PEEK and their macroscopic consequences

Poly (ether ether ketone) was irradiated with gamma rays or electron beam to investigate the radical process. The generated paramagnetic species were observed by electron spin resonance spectroscopy at ambient temperature and in liquid nitrogen. The effect of microwave power on saturation of the particular spectra and thermal annealing effects were determined. The following radicals were identified: radical anion, phenoxyl radical, and phenylperoxy radical. Despite the fact that the intermediates were formed as a result of backbone cleavage causing degradation, the macroscopic features were almost unaffected by irradiation up to dose of 1500 kGy.     

Tuning Human Serum Albumin (HSA) Hydrogels through Albumin Glycation

The changes of technological properties of albumin-based hydrogels induced by increasing degrees of post-translational modification of the protein are reported. Maillard-type modification of amino acids arginine and lysine of albumin is achieved through glyoxal as an α-dicarbonyl compound. The degrees of modification are fine-tuned using different molar ratios of glyoxal. Hydrogels are thermally induced by heating highly concentrated precursor solutions above the protein's denaturation temperature. While the post-translational modifications are determined and quantified with mass spectrometry, continuous-wave (CW) electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy shed light on the protein fatty acid binding capacity and changes thereof in solution and in the gel state. The viscoelastic behavior is characterized as a measure of the physical strength of the hydrogels. On the nanoscopic level, the modified albumins in low concentration solution reveal lower binding capacities with increasing degrees of modification. On the contrary, in the gel state, the binding capacity remains constant at all degrees of modifications. This indicates that the loss of fatty acid binding capacity for individual albumin molecules is partially compensated by new binding sites in the gel state, potentially formed by modified amino acids. Such, albumin glycation offers a fine-tuning method of technological and nanoscopic properties of these gels.     

石英的顺磁中心在电子自旋共振测年中的特性及应用

沉积物的电子自旋共振测年是利用石英矿物中的顺磁中心浓度确定总辐射能量,进而推定石英矿物的埋藏年代。石英中可用于测年的顺磁中心包括E’心、Al心、Ti心和Ge心。E’心需要经过热活化后才能测年。Al心是一种电子空穴心,在低温下可观测到较强的信号值。光照可以使Al心漂白,但有残留值存在。Ti心、Ge心都是电子中心,Ti心在低温测试中可见,信号微弱。Ge心光晒退最敏感,在常温观测中可见。不同顺磁中心的形成机理不同导致它们具有不同的特性,适用于不同沉积环境中的样品测年,在冰碛物中Ge心测年更具有可行性。电子自旋共振测试时降低温度可使信号增强,Ti心在10 K和15 K时信号强度最大;Al心在20 K时信号最强。Ge心在200 K时信号明显增强。在电子自旋共振测年中可根据不同顺磁中心信号强度的变化调整测试温度获得信号的最优值。在以后的ESR测试中可以选取信号最强时的测试温度进行测试,以增强微弱信号的信噪比,有利于对复杂的信号形态的分辨确定,提高对信号强度定量的准确性。     

茶多酚对6-OHDA诱导的SH-SY5Y细胞凋亡的保护作用

茶多酚在体内具有广泛的生物活性和药理作用,有助于预防与氧化应激相关的疾病,比如癌症,心血管疾病,神经退行性疾病和衰老. 氧化应激参与了帕金森病（PD）的病理进程. 活性氧在PD的发病机制中发挥了重要的作用,氧自由基直接损伤细胞膜引起脂质过氧化,损伤蛋白质和各种功能酶引起蛋白质沉淀,诱导促凋亡因子的表达,损伤DNA,最终导致了细胞的凋亡. 然而,关于茶多酚对PD的预防和治疗作用目前还不清楚. 本文应用氧化应激诱导的PD病理细胞模型,评价了茶多酚的神经保护作用. 结果表明茶多酚这类植物天然抗氧化剂对氧化应激诱导的细胞凋亡具有明确的抑制作用. 实验中我们选择了6-OHDA诱导的SH-SY5Y细胞作为细胞模型, 运用了MTT、流式细胞术、荧光显微成相, 竞争性ELISA和蛋白质杂交等方法研究了SH-SY5Y细胞的凋亡特性. 结果表明,6-OHDA对SH-SY5Y有时间-浓度依赖性细胞毒性,100 μmol/L 6-OHDA处理24 h,细胞活力减少50 %,同时伴随着活性氧增加（用ＥＳR）,线粒体膜电位降低,细胞内钙离子和一氧化氮增加,nNOS和iNOS表达量上升及蛋白结合的硝基酪氨酸水平升高. 单独茶多酚处理对细胞没有太大的影响,而茶多酚预处理可显著降低6-OHDA所产生的细胞毒性. 溶液实验证明,茶多酚对6-OHDA的自氧化有浓度-时间依赖性抑制作用（用ＥＳＲ）. 本研究表明茶多酚可能是通过活性氧-一氧化氮途径,减少过氧亚硝基的生成来对6-OHDA诱导的细胞凋亡表现保护作用的. 本文的实验结果提示茶多酚在治疗PD等慢性神经退行性疾病上可能是一种有着潜在疗效的药物.     

Radical Compatibility with Nonaqueous Electrolytes and Its Impact on an All‐Organic Redox Flow Battery

Nonaqueous redox flow batteries hold the promise of achieving higher energy density because of the broader voltage window than aqueous systems, but their current performance is limited by low redox material concentration, cell efficiency, cycling stability, and current density. We report a new nonaqueous all‐organic flow battery based on high concentrations of redox materials, which shows significant, comprehensive improvement in flow battery performance. A mechanistic electron spin resonance study reveals that the choice of supporting electrolytes greatly affects the chemical stability of the charged radical species especially the negative side radical anion, which dominates the cycling stability of these flow cells. This finding not only increases our fundamental understanding of performance degradation in flow batteries using radical‐based redox species, but also offers insights toward rational electrolyte optimization for improving the cycling stability of these flow batteries.     

Evaluating the accuracy of ESR dose determination of pseudo-Early Pleistocene fossil tooth enamel samples using dose recovery tests

In ESR dating of Early Pleistocene fossil tooth enamel samples, the fitting function used for the evaluation of the D_E value is undoubtedly among the major sources of uncertainty. Dose recovery tests performed on fossil tooth enamel showing D_E values >1,000 Gy demonstrate: (i) that high precision ESR measurements (<0.5%) and high D_E reproducibility (<5%) may be achieved; (ii) the appropriateness of the Double Saturating Exponential (DSE) fitting function for ESR dose reconstruction. In contrast, the SSE function, which has been almost exclusively used so far, does simply not correctly describe the behavior of the radiation induced ESR signal of tooth enamel with the dose.Several fitting functions and data weighting options were tested and the combination of a DSE with data weighted by the inverse of the squared intensities is the procedure providing the most accurate D_E results. However, the SSE may nevertheless sometimes produce consistent results if D_max does not exceed 6*D_E. Further work is required in that direction in order to determine more precisely in which conditions the SSE could be used as a fair approximation of the DSE function for these samples.     

ESR and calculations on electronic structure of phenalenyl and phenalenyl derivative radicals

Calculations on electronic structure of the perinaphthenyl radical and phenalenyl derivative radicals responsible for the composition of the ESR spectrum of marine diesel under heating were performed to obtain support for the experimental ESR results. The parameters calculated were the hyperfine coupling constants (A), which were then used for comparison with the experimental data. The energy‐minimized structures were obtained using the density functional theory method. In all cases, the symmetry system was taken into account in theoretical calculations. The differences between experimental and theoretical values were below 7% for nearest hydrogens in molecules, named hyperfine coupling constant A (first neighbors) and 18% for farthest hydrogens atoms named hyperfine coupling constants A′ (second neighbors), for all structures analyzed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Electron spin resonance (ESR/EPR) of free radicals observed in human red hair: a new,simple empirical method of determination of pheomelanin/eumelanin ratio in hair

The definition of the concentration of pheomelanin in the skin is an issue of great interest because in the case of being influenced by UV radiation, it manifests itself as a prooxidant, causing various skin disorders including melanoma that might help to explain the relatively high incidence of skin cancer among individuals with red hair. The ESR spectra of red hair samples were investigated. It was found that at low microwave power, they are characterized by two types of spectra. Red hair ESR signals result from a superposition of two spectral shapes, a singlet spectrum as a result of the existence of eumelanin and a triplet spectrum as a result of the existence of pheomelanin. At high microwave power, only triplet spectra shape was detected, caused by saturation of the eumelanin singlet. Using different concentration ratios of black to red hair, we measured ESR spectra and plotted the ratio values in each sample against a measured ‘g‐factor’ (experimental). We found that there is a linear relationship between these two parameters. So, it is evident that using these results, the concentration ratio of pheomelanin to eumelanin in a sample of hair can be easily determined by an almost noninvasive method. This can be considered a potential advantage for many practical activities compared with other invasive methods. The concentration dependence curve of pheomelanin (µg/mg) on g_exp‐factor in an ESR spectrum of hair has been designed, which allows the determination of the amount of pheomelanin in hair of any color. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dosimetric and kinetic characteristics of watch glass sample

This paper reports the Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) and Thermoluminescence (TL) dosimetric and kinetic characteristics of commercial watch glass. Both of the ESR and TL response of the watch glass sample yielded linear behavior in the 0.5–135 Gy gamma dose range. ESR dosimetric properties of watch glass sample like dose-rate dependence, signal reproducibility and fading behavior have also been studied in detail. Kinetic behavior and activation energy of the radiation induced free radicals responsible from the ESR spectra of watch glass sample were determined. The TL kinetic parameters such as activation energy (E), frequency factor (s), order of kinetics (b) were also calculated by applying the methods of initial rise (IR), isothermal decay (ID), variable heating rate (VHR) and de-convolution.