A phase field model for vesicle–substrate adhesion

In this paper, a phase field model is developed for vesicle adhesion involving complex substrate and vesicle geometries. The model takes into account an adhesion potential that depends on the distance of vesicle to the substrate. A variational problem is solved in a 3D computational domain by minimizing the contribution of bending elastic energy and the adhesion energy under the constraints of total surface area and volume, described via a phase function. An adaptive finite element method is used to efficiently compute the numerical solutions of the model. The computational results are validated through comparison of several axisymmetric shapes with the sharp-interface ODE solution. Moreover, we compute shapes for non-axisymmetric situations to support the observation that concave substrates favor adhesion.     

Mitochondrial BNIP3 upregulation precedes endonuclease G translocation in hippocampal neuronal death following oxygen-glucose deprivation

Background  

Caspase-independent apoptotic pathways are suggested as a mechanism for the delayed neuronal death following ischemic insult. However, the underlying signalling mechanisms are largely unknown. Recent studies imply the involvement of several mitochondrial proteins, including endonuclease G (EndoG) and Bcl-2/adenovirus E1B 19 kDa-interacting protein (BNIP3), in the pathway of non-neuronal cells.     

Role of non-lamellar-forming lipid in promotion of liposomal fusion

Membrane fusion is an important process in a wide range of cellular and sub-cellular activities. It is evident that during the intermediate stages of fusion some transitory non-bilayer configurations must appear within the lipid moiety. Using fluorescence techniques, we have studied here the process of aggregation and fusion of liposomes made of lipids, namely 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) and 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC). When mixed together, the complete fusion between these two liposomes took around 44 h as both DPPC and DMPC favour lamellar configuration. When the mixture was incubated at 42°C the fusion process was completed after 23 h. But, when 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DPPE) was added in the liposomal matrix the time for fusion was reduced to 21 h for mixture without incubation and 17 h when the mixture was incubated. This indicates that DPPE having a tendency to assume non-lamellar conformation, promoted destabilisation of the lamellar conformation within the liposome which facilitated the fusion between two apposing bilayers.     

Screening and interlayer coupling in multilayer MoS2

The two‐dimensional layered semiconducting di‐chalcogenides are emerging as promising candidates for post‐Si‐CMOS applications owing to their excellent electrostatic integrity and the presence of a finite energy bandgap, unlike graphene. However, in order to unravel the ultimate potential of these materials, one needs to investigate different aspects of carrier transport. In this Letter, we present the first comprehensive experimental study on the dependence of carrier mobility on the layer thickness of back‐gated multilayer MoS₂ field‐effect transistors. We observe a non‐monotonic trend in the extracted effective field‐effect mobility with layer thickness which is of relevance for the design of high‐performance devices. We also discuss a detailed theoretical model based on Thomas–Fermi charge screening and interlayer coupling in order to explain our experimental observations. Our model is generic and, therefore, is believed to be applicable to any two‐dimensional layered system.

     

Strain-induced polarization rotation in epitaxial (001) BiFeO3 thin films

Direct measurement of the remanent polarization of high quality (001)-oriented epitaxial BiFeO3 thin films shows a strong strain dependence, even larger than conventional (001)-oriented PbTiO3 films. Thermodynamic analysis reveals that a strain-induced polarization rotation mechanism is responsible for the large change in the out-of-plane polarization of (001) BiFeO3 with biaxial strain while the spontaneous polarization itself remains almost constant.     

Many-body effects in hyperfine interactions in <Superscript>205</Superscript>Pb<Superscript>+</Superscript>

Ab initio calculations have been carried out to study the magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole hyperfine structure constants of ²⁰⁵Pb⁺. Many-body effects have been considered to all orders using the relativistic coupled-cluster theory in the singles, doubles and partial triples approximation. The trends of these effects are found to be different from atomic systems that have been studied earlier.     

VEGFR-2 targeted cellular delivery of doxorubicin by gold nanoparticles for potential antiangiogenic therapy

We report a novel gold nanobioconjugate system that achieves targeted delivery of the small molecule drug doxorubicin to endothelial cells using anti-VEGFR-2 antibody conjugated gold nanoparticles (GNPs). The reported nanobioconjugate system combines the inherent ability of GNPs to undergo high levels of derivatization with the precision of antibody recognition of a cell surface antigen. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) confirmed intracellular presence of the GNPs. Using a VEGFR-2 expressing cell line and a cell line that is negative for the receptor, in combination with competition assay we established the cell specific targeted delivery of the nanobioconjugate. The nanobioconjugate system described here may have potential drug delivery applications for antiangiogenic cancer therapy.     

Diabatization of the reactive F + H<Subscript>2</Subscript> system employing rigorous Berry phases

In this article are presented the first ever derived single-valued diabatic potentials for the reactive H₂ +  F system based on a rigorous study of the conical intersection (ci) and Born-Oppenheimer non-adiabatic coupling terms (BO NACTs). This study revealed the existence of a Jahn-Teller (1, 2) ci located at a point on the collinear axis and a Renner-Teller (2, 3) ci along this axis. The diabatic potentials were calculated employing the rigorous adiabatic-to-diabatic transformation (ADT) angles (also known as mixing angles) which possess integer Berry phases along any closed contour at the region of interest in configuration space. The ADT angles were calculated employing BO NACTs and line integrals.