This study is devoted to the long-term behavior of nucleation, growth and fragmentation equations, modeling the spontaneous formation and kinetics of large polymers in a spatially homogeneous and closed environment. Such models are, for instance, commonly used in the biophysical community in order to model in vitro experiments of fibrillation. We investigate the interplay between four processes...

Chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline in dilute aqueous acids using an ammonium peroxydisulfate oxidant proceeds via the intermediacy of large, colorless aggregates that act as ‘seeds’ in orchestrating the overall morphology of the product polyaniline. Observed for the first time by continuously monitoring the polymerization by static and dynamic light-scattering (LS) measurements, these...

Polpyrrole (PPy)/Ag nanocomposites were successfully synthesized at the interface of water and ionic liquid by one-step UV-induced polymerization. Highly dispersed PPy/Ag nanoparticles were obtained by controlling the experimental conditions. The results of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed ...

Microtubules are dynamically unstable polymers that interconvert stochastically between polymerization and depolymerization. Compared with microtubules assembled from purified tubulin, microtubules in a physiological environment polymerize faster and transit more frequently between polymerization and depolymerization. These dynamic properties are essential for the functions of the microtubule c...

Vinyl functionalized poly (ε-caprolactone) with molar mass ranging from 500–5000 Da were synthesized by ring opening polymerization and further photopolymerized. One-step synthesis and functionalization is achieved based on ring opening polymerization (ROP). Hydroxyl butyl vinyl ether (HBVE) was employed to play the role as the initiator of ROP, and photo-curable functional group. The presence ...

Protrusion formation is the first step that precedes cell movement of motile cells. Spatial control of actin polymerization is necessary to achieve directional protrusion during cell migration. Here we show that the spatial coordinators p190RhoGEF and p190RhoGAP regulate actin polymerization during leading edge protrusions by regulating the actin barbed end distribution and amplitude. The distr...

Magnetic pH-sensitive microcontainers were produced by a four-step process. The first step involves the synthesis of citrate-modified magnetic nanoparticles via the coprecipitation method. The second step consists of the encapsulation of magnetic nanoparticles in non-cross-linked poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA) microspheres through distillation precipitation polymerization, resulting in a core/sh...