Preliminary Study of Using Colloidal SiO2@ZrO2 Particles in Recovering Actinides from Water and Immobilizing them in a Glass-Ceramic

Actinides, which are toxic for humans, increased their presence in the hydrosphere over the last 80 years. Though actinide recovery from water and immobilization for safe storage is technically feasible, it remains a complex process. Herein, we preliminary studied SiO2@ZrO2 in recovering actinides from water and trapping them in a glass-ceramic upon thermal treatment. To simplify our experimental work, we surrogated radioactive actinides with stable cerium. In the first part of the work, we tested SiO2@ZrO2's ability to recover Ce from water in batch systems. Then, we thermally treated SiO2@ZrO2 with Ce to form a glass-ceramic. All batch experiments showed that SiO2@ZrO2 removes Ce from water. Moreover, all experiments show that SiO2@ZrO2 with Ce converts into a glass-ceramic upon thermal treatment. When heated up to 1000 °C, particles remained spherical, and Ce remained trapped within the structure of crystalline spheroids located between the outer surface and a 50 nm depth. When heated up to 1450 °C, sintering produced bigger particles than the original colloid, and Ce remained trapped within the structure of crystalline spheroids having a broad size distribution located everywhere in the particles.

Microfluidics Technology for the Design and Formulation of Nanomedicines

In conventional drug administration, drug molecules cross multiple biological barriers, distribute randomly in the tissues, and can release insufficient concentrations at the desired pathological site. Controlling the delivery of the molecules can increase the concentration of the drug in the desired location, leading to improved efficacy, and reducing the unwanted effects of the molecules under investigation. Nanoparticles (NPs), have shown a distinctive potential in targeting drugs due to their unique properties, such as large surface area and quantum properties. A variety of NPs have been used over the years for the encapsulation of different drugs and biologics, acting as drug carriers, including lipid-based and polymeric NPs. Applying NP platforms in medicines significantly improves the disease diagnosis and therapy. Several conventional methods have been used for the manufacturing of drug loaded NPs, with conventional manufacturing methods having several limitations, leading to multiple drawbacks, including NPs with large particle size and broad size distribution (high polydispersity index), besides the unreproducible formulation and high batch-to-batch variability. Therefore, new methods such as microfluidics (MFs) need to be investigated more thoroughly. MFs, is a novel manufacturing method that uses microchannels to produce a size-controlled and monodispersed NP formulation. In this review, different formulation methods of polymeric and lipid-based NPs will be discussed, emphasizing the different manufacturing methods and their advantages and limitations and how microfluidics has the capacity to overcome these limitations and improve the role of NPs as an effective drug delivery system.

Lyophilized Polyvinylpyrrolidone Hydrogel for Culture of Human Oral Mucosa Stem Cells

This work shows the synthesis of a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) hydrogel by heat-activated polymerization and explores the production of hydrogels with an open porous network by lyophilisation to allow the three-dimensional culture of human oral mucosa stem cells (hOMSCs). The swollen hydrogel showed a storage modulus similar to oral mucosa and elastic solid rheological behaviour without sol transition. A comprehensive characterization of porosity by scanning electron microscopy, mercury intrusion porosimetry and nano-computed tomography (with spatial resolution below 1 μm) showed that lyophilisation resulted in the heterogeneous incorporation of closed oval-like pores in the hydrogel with broad size distribution (5 to 180 μm, d50 = 65 μm). Human oral mucosa biopsies were used to isolate hOMSCs, expressing typical markers of mesenchymal stem cells in more than 95% of the cell population. Direct contact cytotoxicity assay demonstrated that PVP hydrogel have no negative effect on cell metabolic activity, allowing the culture of hOMSCs with normal fusiform morphology. Pore connectivity should be improved in future to allow cell growth in the bulk of the PVP hydrogel.

Formation of Uni-Lamellar Vesicles in Mixtures of DPPC with PEO-b-PCL Amphiphilic Diblock Copolymers

The ability of mixtures of 1.2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) and the amphiphilic diblock copolymers poly (ethylene oxide)-block-poly(ε-caprolactone) (PEO-b-PCL) to stabilize uni-lamellar nano-vesicles is reported. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) is used to define their size distribution and bilayer structure and resolve the copresence of aggregates and clusters in solution. The vesicles have a broad size distribution which is compatible with bilayer membranes of relatively low bending stiffness. Their mean diameter increases moderately with temperature and their number density and mass is higher in the case of the diblock copolymer with the larger hydrophobic block. Bayesian analysis is performed in order to justify the use of the particular SANS fitting model and confirm the reliability of the extracted parameters. This study shows that amphiphilic block copolymers can be effectively used to prepare mixed lipid-block copolymer vesicles with controlled lamellarity and a significant potential as nanocarriers for drug delivery.

Dust trapping around Lagrangian points in protoplanetary disks

Aims. Trojans are defined as objects that share the orbit of a planet at the stable Lagrangian points L4 and L5. In the Solar System, these bodies show a broad size distribution ranging from micrometer (μm) to centimeter (cm) particles (Trojan dust) and up to kilometer (km) rocks (Trojan asteroids). It has also been theorized that earth-like Trojans may be formed in extra-solar systems. The Trojan formation mechanism is still under debate, especially theories involving the effects of dissipative forces from a viscous gaseous environment. Methods. We perform hydro-simulations to follow the evolution of a protoplanetary disk with an embedded 1–10 Jupiter-mass planet. On top of the gaseous disk, we set a distribution of μm–cm dust particles interacting with the gas. This allows us to follow dust dynamics as solids get trapped around the Lagrangian points of the planet. Results. We show that large vortices generated at the Lagrangian points are responsible for dust accumulation, where the leading Lagrangian point L4 traps a larger amount of submillimeter (submm) particles than the trailing L5, which traps mostly mm–cm particles. However, the total bulk mass, with typical values of ~Mmoon, is more significant in L5 than in L4, in contrast to what is observed in the current Solar System a few gigayears later. Furthermore, the migration of the planet does not seem to affect the reported asymmetry between L4 and L5. Conclusions. The main initial mass reservoir for Trojan dust lies in the same co-orbital path of the planet, while dust migrating from the outer region (due to drag) contributes very little to its final mass, imposing strong mass constraints for the in situ formation scenario of Trojan planets.

The Heterooligomerization of Human Small Heat Shock Proteins Is Controlled by Conserved Motif Located in the N-Terminal Domain

Ubiquitously expressed human small heat shock proteins (sHsps) HspB1, HspB5, HspB6 and HspB8 contain a conserved motif (S/G)RLFD in their N-terminal domain. For each of them, we prepared mutants with a replacement of the conserved R by A (R/A mutants) and a complete deletion of the pentapeptide (Δ mutants) and analyzed their heterooligomerization with other wild-type (WT) human sHsps. We found that WT HspB1 and HspB5 formed heterooligomers with HspB6 only upon heating. In contrast, both HspB1 mutants interacted with WT HspB6 even at low temperature. HspB1/HspB6 heterooligomers revealed a broad size distribution with equimolar ratio suggestive of heterodimers as building blocks, while HspB5/HspB6 heterooligomers had an approximate 2:1 ratio. In contrast, R/A or Δ mutants of HspB6, when mixed with either HspB1 or HspB5, resulted in heterooligomers with a highly variable molar ratio and a decreased HspB6 incorporation. No heterooligomerization of HspB8 or its mutants with either HspB1 or HspB5 could be detected. Finally, R/A or Δ mutations had no effect on heterooligomerization of HspB1 and HspB5 as analyzed by ion exchange chromatography. We conclude that the conserved N-terminal motif plays an important role in heterooligomer formation, as especially pronounced in HspB6 lacking the C-terminal IXI motif.

Improving the Size Homogeneity of Multicore Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have been widely explored for use in many biomedical applications. Methods for synthesis of magnetic nanoparticle (MNP), however, typically yield multicore structures with broad size distribution, resulting in suboptimal and variable performance in vivo. In this study, a new method for sorting SPIONs by size, labeled diffusive magnetic fractionation (DMF), is introduced as an improvement over conventional magnetic field flow fractionation (MFFF). Unlike MFFF, which uses a constant magnetic field to capture particles, DMF utilizes a pulsed magnetic field approach that exploits size-dependent differences in the diffusivity and magnetic attractive force of SPIONs to yield more homogenous particle size distributions. To compare both methods, multicore SPIONs with a broad size distribution (polydispersity index (PdI) = 0.24 ± 0.05) were fractionated into nine different-sized SPION subpopulations, and the PdI values were compared. DMF provided significantly improved size separation compared to MFFF, with eight out of the nine fractionations having significantly lower PdI values (p value < 0.01). Additionally, the DMF method showed a high particle recovery (>95%), excellent reproducibility, and the potential for scale-up. Mathematical models were developed to enable optimization, and experimental results confirmed model predictions (R2 = 0.98).

Plant virome reconstruction and antiviral RNAi characterization by deep sequencing of small RNAs from dried leaves

In plants, RNA interference (RNAi) generates small interfering (si)RNAs from entire genomes of viruses, satellites and viroids. Therefore, deep small (s)RNA sequencing is a universal approach for virome reconstruction and RNAi characterization. We tested this approach on dried barley leaves from field surveys. Illumina sequencing of sRNAs from 2 plant samples identified in both plants Hordeum vulgare endornavirus (HvEV) and barley yellow mosaic bymovirus (BaYMV) and, additionally in one plant, a novel strain of Japanese soil-borne wheat mosaic furovirus (JSBWMV). De novo and reference-based sRNA assembly yielded complete or near-complete genomic RNAs of these viruses. While plant sRNAs showed broad size distribution, viral sRNAs were predominantly 21 and 22 nucleotides long with 5′-terminal uridine or adenine, and were derived from both genomic strands. These bona fide siRNAs are presumably processed from double-stranded RNA precursors by Dicer-like (DCL) 4 and DCL2, respectively, and associated with Argonaute 1 and 2 proteins. For BaYMV (but not HvEV, or JSBWMV), 24-nucleotide sRNAs represented the third most abundant class, suggesting DCL3 contribution to anti-bymovirus defence. Thus, viral siRNAs are well preserved in dried leaf tissues and not contaminated by non-RNAi degradation products, enabling both complete virome reconstruction and inference of RNAi components mediating antiviral defense.

Applying SAXS to study the structuring of Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles in colloidal suspensions

In this work, Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) patterns, obtained from two different aqueous colloidal suspensions of magnetite nanoparticles electrostatically stabilized with citric acid, were fitted using three different mathematical models in order to describe the particle size distribution and aggregation state. The colloidal suspensions differ in the mean particle size (4.5±1.0 nm and 5.5±1.1 nm) and the aqueous stabilization, allowing control of the strength of the interaction strength between particles. The models used for SAXS analysis, reveal that the particles are almost spherical with a broad size distribution, and that particles in each suspension are aggregated and are subject to an attractive interaction potential, typical for magnetic nanoparticles. For the better-stabilized sample, ramified chain-like aggregates were found, and for the less-stabilized sample, a more compact structure was determined. The size distribution obtained by applying SAXS mathematical models are in agreement with the size distribution determined using Transmission Electronic Microscopy(TEM)

A protocol for size separation of nanographenes

Top-down methods are convenient preparative methods for nanographenes, although the products consist of graphene fragments with a broad size distribution. We developed a simple protocol for size separation of nanographenes.