DNA separation by capillary electrophoresis with hydrophilic substituted celluloses as coating and sieving polymers. Application to the analysis of genetically modified meals

A coating procedure based on the physical adsorption of hydroxypropyl cellulose onto the wall of a capillary column has been successfully used for the separation of DNA fragments up to 500 bp. The method uses a running Tris-phosphate-EDTA buffer containing 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose as sieving polymer. The separation procedure shows good reproducibility (measured as RSD%) for consecutive runs (<0.64), for different days (< 1.15) and capillaries (<2.15), short analysis times, and a long coating lifetime. Good reproducibility and efficiency are even achieved by performing the separation in the presence of additives such as ethidium bromide and mannitol. The method is applied to the detection of GMOs in soybean and maize meals with an accurate evaluation of the length of DNA sequences, previously amplified by polymerase chain reaction.     

Criticality and transmission of information in a swarm of cooperative units

We show that the intelligence of a swarm of cooperative units (birds) emerges at criticality, as an effect of the joint action of frequent organizational collapses and of spatial correlation as extended as the flock size. The organizational collapses make the birds become independent of one another, thereby allowing the flock to follow the direction of the lookout birds. Long-range correlation violates the principle of locality, making the lookout birds transmit information on either danger or resources with a time delay determined by the time distance between two consecutive collapses.     

CFD modelling of a spray deposition process of paint

The paint deposition process by spraying has been studied by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics in order to predict the final thickness of the coating and to determine theoretically the overspraying phenomenon. The VOF model has been used to describe the impact phenomena onto the wall and the Euler-Lagrange approach to simulate droplet trajectories on their way to the surface. Particular attention has been devoted to the prediction of the maximum diameter reached by an impinging droplet at the end of the spreading phase. This diameter is very important in the study of the paint processes because the high viscosity and the small surface tension of paints reduce the impingement practically only to the spreading phase. Two different configurations of atomizers have been considered. The air flux provides a finer atomisation of the liquid, gives to the droplets the necessary velocity to reach the wall, but is also the main cause of overspray since the small droplets tend to follow its deviation near the wall.     

Amphiphilic Iminosugar Pharmacological Chaperones towards β-Glucocerebrosidase: Self-Assembly and Biological Activity

Pharmacological chaperones (PCs) can restore correct enzymatic activity at sub-inhibitory concentrations and are considered an emerging therapy for Gaucher Disease (GD). Amphiphilic PCs show more favourable cross-membrane properties and have a higher activity on cells than hydrophilic PCs. To investigate whether the biological activity of amphiphilic iminosugars is related to their state as monomers or as micellar aggregates, we synthesized some novel N-alkylated iminosugars and performed physico-chemical characterizations in the solid state and in aqueous dispersion of the best compound in terms of biological activity. The results suggest that the C12 N-alkylated iminosugar 10 exerts its biological activity in the monomeric state, and that the low cell viability observed in the presence of a 50 μM concentration of compound 10 is not related to the formation of micellar aggregates in solution.