Surface-grafted water-soluble polymer brushes are being intensely investigated for preventing protein adsorption to improve biomedical device function, prevent marine fouling, and enable applications in biosensing and tissue engineering. In this contribution, we present an experimental-theoretical analysis of a peptidomimetic polymer brush system with regard to the critical brush density requir...

Attachment of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) to polymeric nanostructures is a general strategy for sterically shielding and imparting water solubility to hydrophobic payloads. In this report, we describe direct graft-through polymerization of branched, multifunctional macromonomers that possess a PEG domain and a hydrophobic nitroxide domain. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy was ...

Transporting epithelial cells build apical microvilli to increase membrane surface area and enhance absorptive capacity. The intestinal brush border provides an elaborate example with tightly packed microvilli that function in nutrient absorption and host defense. Although the brush border is essential for physiological homeostasis, its assembly is poorly understood. We found that brush border ...

This paper presents a novel physically-based model for virtual Chinese brush. Compared with previous works, the main advantage of our method lies in the use of physically based modeling methods that describe the behavior of the real brush’s deformation in terms of the interaction of the external and internal forces with the virtual writing paper. Instead of simulating the brush using bristles, ...

We formulate a self-consistent field theory for polyelectrolyte brushes in the presence of counterions. We numerically solve the self-consistent field equations and study the monomer density profile, the distribution of counterions, and the total charge distribution. We study the scaling relations for the brush height and compare them to the prediction of other theories. We find a weak dependen...

Flat carbon anodes placed near a cathode in a microbial fuel cell (MFC) are adversely affected by oxygen crossover, but graphite fiber brush anodes placed near the cathode produce high power densities. The impact of the brush size and electrode spacing was examined by varying the distance of the brush end from the cathode and solution conductivity in multiple MFCs. The startup time was increase...

The brush border of small intestinal enterocytes is highly enriched in cholesterol- and glycosphingolipid-containing membrane microdomains, commonly termed as lipid 'rafts'. Functionally, transcytosis of IgA and exocytosis of newly made brush-border proteins in enterocytes occur through apical lipid raft-containing compartments, but little is otherwise known about these raft microdomains. We th...

To develop our understanding of myosin-1a function in vivo, we have created a mouse line null for the myosin-1a gene. Myosin-1a knockout mice demonstrate no overt phenotypes at the whole animal level but exhibit significant perturbations and signs of stress at the cellular level. Among these are defects in microvillar membrane morphology, distinct changes in brush-border organization, loss of n...

Figure 1: Calligraphy made with our system This paper presents a novel 3D brush model consisting of a skeleton and a surface, which is deformed through constrained energy minimization. The main advantage of our model over existing ones is in its ability to mimic brush flattening and bristle spreading due to brush bending and lateral friction exerted by the paper surface during the painting proc...

This paper reports the development of a lead-free brush material for high-load starter motors. These brushes can be used in much more extreme conditions --at a PV-value (the product of the brush contact pressure and sliding velocity) approximately three times that of conventional starter motor brushes, and double the electrical current density. The major technical requirement for this developme...