Wet-spun polyacrylonitrile fibres are the main precursor for high strength carbon fibres. The properties of carbon fibres strongly depend on the structure of the precursor fibre. Polyacrylonitrile fibres were spun from solutions with varying solvent/nonsolvent content and different draw ratios. Wet-spinning is an immersion precipitation process, thus thermodynamic affinity of spinning dope to t...

Spinning of cellulosic fibers requires the prior dissolution cellulose. 3-Alkyl-1-methylimidazolium ionic liquids have proven to be suitable solvents for that purpose, but degradation cellulose in spinning dope can severe. Suitable stabilizers are therefore required prevent degradation, do not adversely affect spinnability or long-term yellowing behavior fibers. A group twelve renewables-based ...

TLRs discriminate foreign from self via their specificity for pathogen-derived invariant ligands, an example being TLR9 recognizing bacterial unmethylated CpG motifs. In this study we report that endosomal translocation of CpG DNA via the natural endocytotic pathway is inefficient and highly saturable, whereas endosomal translocation of DNA complexed to the cationic lipid N-[1-(2,3-dioleoyloxy)...

The uptake of two photosensitising agents (hematoporphyrin and chlorophyll a) by a highly pathogenic bacterium, namely methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), has been studied by using unilamellar liposomes of different size, fluidity and electric charge as carriers. Optimal results are obtained by using hematoporphyrin embedded in fluid cationic vesicles composed by the monocationi...

Modulation of the biological pathways responsible for fracture repair and osteogenisis may accelerate regeneration. Gene therapy is an alternative method for the release of osteogenisis-stimulating proteins into tissues. The development of vectors for gene release is still a problem in terms of ethics and techniques. In this work we evaluated whether cationic liposomes constitute a valuable str...

Our recent coarse-grained (CG) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of membranes with a hemifused-ribbon (λ-shaped) geometry showed curvature-driven demixing leading to enrichment in dioleoyl-phosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE) in a negatively-curved region (at C –0.8 nm) of a DOPE/dipalmitoyl-phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) membrane. Here we extend the analysis with respect to lipid composition and simu...

The human group II secretory phospholipase A, (sPLA,) has been implicated in a number of inflammatory conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis. A continuous fluorescence displacement assay which measures the release of long chain fatty acids [l] has been used to investigate the activity of a recombinant form of this human enzyme (HR PLAJ and is reported here for the first time. Secretory phos...