Search results for "Biomimetics"
showing 10 items of 54 documents
Phosphatidylcholine covalently linked to a methacrylate-based monolith as a biomimetic stationary phase for capillary liquid chromatography
2015
Abstract In this study a strategy to immobilize phospholipids onto a polymer-based stationary phase is described. Methacrylate-based monoliths in capillary format (150 × 0.1 mm) were modified by soybean phosphatidylcholine through 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide coupling to obtain stationary phases suitable to mimic cell surface membranes. The covalent coupling reaction involves the phosphate group in phospholipids; therefore, the described methodology is suitable for all types of phospholipids. Immobilization of soy bean phosphatidylcholine on the monolith was confirmed by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectro…
Selective Change Driven Imaging: A Biomimetic Visual Sensing Strategy
2011
Selective Change Driven (SCD) Vision is a biologically inspired strategy for acquiring, transmitting and processing images that significantly speeds up image sensing. SCD vision is based on a new CMOS image sensor which delivers, ordered by the absolute magnitude of its change, the pixels that have changed after the last time they were read out. Moreover, the traditional full frame processing hardware and programming methodology has to be changed, as a part of this biomimetic approach, to a new processing paradigm based on pixel processing in a data flow manner, instead of full frame image processing.
Bioinspired actuated adhesive patterns of liquid crystalline elastomers.
2012
Gecko-inspired arrays of micropillars made of a liquid crystalline elastomer display thermoswitchable adhesive behavior as a consequence of elongation changes caused by reorientation of the mesogens at the nematic-isotropic (N-I) phase transition.
Quantum dots functionalised artificial peptides bioinspired to the D1 protein from the Photosystem II of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii for endocrine disr…
2021
Herein we describe the design and synthesis of novel artificial peptides mimicking the plastoquinone binding niche of the D1 protein from the green photosynthetic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, also able to bind herbicides. In particular, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to model in silico the behaviour of three peptides, D1Pep70-H, D1Pep70-S264K and D1Pep70-S268C, as genetic variants with different affinity towards the photosynthetic herbicide atrazine. Then the photosynthetic peptides were functionalised with quantum dots for the development of a hybrid optosensor for the detection of atrazine, one of the most employed herbicides for weed control in agriculture as well …
Tools for Pathogen Proteomics: Fishing with Biomimetic Nanosponges
2017
The identification of the major virulence factors that drive pathogenicity is critical for gaining insight into the underlying molecular mechanisms of diseases. Although genetic approaches combined with functional analyses have markedly increased the rate of virulence factor discovery, the divergence between genome and proteome can impair the identification of important markers, in particular, of those that act in concert or depend on specific environmental factors. Recently, membrane-coated nanomaterials mimicking source cells of interest have emerged as powerful tools that can be used for improved tumor targeting and as "nanotraps" to capture chemokines and bacterial toxins. In this issue…
Recent Advances in Affinity MOF-Based Sorbents with Sample Preparation Purposes
2020
This review summarizes the recent advances concerning metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) modified with several biomolecules (e.g., amino acids, nucleobases, proteins, antibodies, aptamers, etc.) as ligands to prepare affinity-based sorbents for application in the sample preparation field. The preparation and incorporation strategies of these MOF-based affinity materials were described. Additionally, the different types of ligands that can be employed for the synthesis of these biocomposites and their application as sorbents for the selective extraction of molecules and clean-up of complex real samples is reported. The most important features of the developed biocomposites will be discussed thr…
An adaptive multimeme algorithm for designing HIV multidrug therapies.
2007
This paper proposes a period representation for modeling the multidrug HIV therapies and an Adaptive Multimeme Algorithm (AMmA) for designing the optimal therapy. The period representation offers benefits in terms of flexibility and reduction in dimensionality compared to the binary representation. The AMmA is a memetic algorithm which employs a list of three local searchers adaptively activated by an evolutionary framework. These local searchers, having different features according to the exploration logic and the pivot rule, have the role of exploring the decision space from different and complementary perspectives and, thus, assisting the standard evolutionary operators in the optimizati…
Apposition of silica lamellae during growth of spicules in the demosponge Suberites domuncula: Biological/biochemical studies and chemical/biomimetic…
2006
Recently it has been discovered that the formation of the siliceous spicules of Demospongiae proceeds enzymatically (via silicatein) and occurs matrix guided (on galectin strings). In addition, it could be demonstrated that silicatein, if immobilized onto inorganic surfaces, provides the template for the synthesis of biosilica. In order to understand the formation of spicules in the intact organism, detailed studies with primmorphs from Suberites domuncula have been performed. The demosponge spicules are formed from several silica lamellae which are concentrically arranged around the axial canal, harboring the axial filament composed of silicatein. Now we show that the appositional growth o…
Polynucleotide differentiation using hybrid solid-state nanopore functionalizing with α-hemolysin
2019
We report results from full atomistic molecular dynamics simulations on the properties of biomimetic nanopores. This latter result was obtained through the direct insertion of an α-hemolysin protein inside a hydrophobic solid-state nanopore. Upon translocation of different DNA strands, we demonstrate here that the theoretical system presents the same discrimination properties as the experimental one obtained previously. This opens an interesting way to promote the stability of a specific protein inside a solid nanopore to develop further biomimetic applications for DNA or protein sequencing.
Syntheses, X-ray structures, and physicochemical properties of phenoxo-bridged dinuclear nickel(II) complexes: kinetics of transesterification of 2-h…
2009
Four dinuclear nickel(II) complexes [Ni(II)(2)(L(1))(O(2)CMe)(2)(H(2)O)(2)][PF(6)].MeOH.3H(2)O (1), [Ni(II)(2)(L(1))(O(2)CMe)(2)(NCS)] (2), [Ni(II)(2)(L(2))(O(2)CMe)(2)(MeOH)(H(2)O)][ClO(4)] (3), and [Ni(II)(2)(L(2))(O(2)CMe)(2)(MeOH)(H(2)O)][BPh(4)].3MeOH.H(2)O (4) have been synthesized [HL(1): 2,6-bis[N-methyl-N-(2-pyridylethyl)amino]-4-methylphenol; HL(2): 2,6-bis[3-(pyridin-2-yl)pyrazol-1-ylmethyl]-4-methylphenol]. Complexes 1, 3, and 4 are new while complex 2 was reported previously by Fenton and co-workers (the structure of 2 was presented but no physicochemical properties of this complex were reported; in this work such studies have been completed). X-ray crystallographic analyses of…