While high-throughput planar patch-clamp instruments are now established to perform whole-cell recordings for drug screening, the conventional micropipette-based approach remains the gold standard for performing cell-attached single-channel recordings. Generally, planar platforms are not well-suited for such studies due to excess noise resulting from low seal resistances and the use of substrat...

BACKGROUND PB1-F2 is a proapoptotic influenza A virus protein of approximately 90 amino acids in length that is located in the nucleus, cytosol and in the mitochondria membrane of infected cells. Previous studies indicated that the molecule destabilizes planar lipid bilayers and has a strong inherent tendency for multimerization. This may be correlate with its capacity to induce mitochondrial m...

riverbank erosion, land loss and associated sedimentation are river engineering and water resources management problems of global significance. the ability to predict riverbank stability on eroding rivers is the prerequisite of developing a channel width adjustment model and is essential for estimating riverbank erosion and associated sedimentation. in this research, a detailed model for stabil...

Direct and non-invasive measurement of the pressure distribution in test sections of a micro-channel is a challenging, if not an impossible, task. Here, we present an analytical method for extracting the pressure distribution in a deformable microchannel under flow. Our method is based on a measurement of the channel deflection profile as a function of applied hydrostatic pressure; this initial...

The cytotoxic 48-mer peptide, polytheonamide B (pTB), from a marine sponge forms a β(6.3)-helix with an inner diameter of 4 Å and a length of 45 Å, features that allow the selective permeation of monovalent cations across targeted cell membranes. To characterize this long, narrow pore, electrophysiological examination using a planar lipid bilayer method was performed. The single-channel current...

Filamentous phage f1 exits its Escherichia coli host without killing the bacterial cell. It has been proposed that f1 is secreted through the outer membrane via a phage-encoded channel protein, pIV. A functional pIV mutant was isolated that allowed E. coli to grow on large maltodextrins and rendered E. coli sensitive to large hydrophilic antibiotics that normally do not penetrate the outer memb...

It is difficult to mix solutions in microchannels. Under typical operating conditions, flows in these channels are laminar-the spontaneous fluctuations of velocity that tend to homogenize fluids in turbulent flows are absent, and molecular diffusion across the channels is slow. We present a passive method for mixing streams of steady pressure-driven flows in microchannels at low Reynolds number...