Microalgae have great potential to be a feedstock for producing biofuel. One of the major impediments towards the industrial-scale manufacturing of biofuel from microalgae is the ineffective separation of microalgae from water. In this communication, we first carried out froth flotation tests to harvest freshwater microalgae (Chlorella sp. BR2) and marine microalgae (Tetraselmis sp. M8) from di...

Ultrathin coatings of fluorosilane films for silicon and polydimethylsiloxane PDMS nanochannels are desirable to control the hydrophobicity of the surface and reduce or prevent undesired protein adsorption or cell interactions critical for the performance of most biomedical micro/nanodevices. Surface modifications using vapor-phase deposition become increasingly important for some biomedical na...

Equilibrium unfolding of a 69-kDa monomeric Escherichia coli maltodextrin glucosidase (MalZ) was studied using intrinsic and extrinsic fluorescence spectroscopy. The unfolding transition of MalZ followed a three-state process, involving the formation of a stable intermediate state having more exposed hydrophobic surface. It was found that the protein structure can be easily perturbed by low con...

Pathogenic microorganisms are able to adhere on equipment surfaces, being possible to contaminate food during processing. Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes are important pathogens that can be transmitted by food, causing severe foodborne diseases. Most surfaces of food processing industry are made of stainless steel joined by welds. However currently, there are few studies evaluating t...

In order to study how the geometric parameters and shape of the micro-structure surface of a bionic heart valve affects hemocompatibility, mastoid micro-structures with different periodic space were fabricated using a femtosecond laser on a polyurethane (PU) surface. The apparent contact angles of droplets on the micro-structure surfaces were measured to characterize their wettability. Then a s...

Super-resolution microscopy allows biological systems to be studied at the nanoscale, but has been restricted to providing only positional information. Here, we show that it is possible to perform multi-dimensional super-resolution imaging to determine both the position and the environmental properties of single-molecule fluorescent emitters. The method presented here exploits the solvatochromi...

Infections associated with prosthetic implants or medical devices are most commonly caused by coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) [1]. The ability of CNS to produce slime has been suggested to play a critical role in the adhesion onto surfaces of implants and medical devices [2] and in the course of medical device-associated infections [3]. Staphylococcus aureus, the pathogenic counterpart o...

Cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) has been shown to be an important factor in the ability of the opportunistic pathogenic yeast Candida albicans to adhere to surfaces. Hydrophobic cells adhere more readily to host tissue, and are more resistant to phagocytic killing, than hydrophilic cells. Consequently, CSH plays an important role in the pathogenicity of C. albicans. Previous work suggested a ...

Virulent strains of Yersinia enterocolitica and their plasmidless, avirulent derivatives were examined for their cell surface properties. Increased surface charge and hydrophobicity of Y. enterocolitica were found to be associated with the possession of a 40- to 48-megadalton plasmid. These surface properties were expressed, as were other plasmid-associated properties, at 37 but not at 22 degre...

As anyone who has looked at a petunia or a pansy can testify, plants generate flowers with characteristic numbers and patterns of organs. The floral organs are derived from a pool of stem cells called the floral meristem. In wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana flowers (shown at lower left) the meristem gives rise to four sepals that enclose the bud, four white petals, six pollen-bearing stamens and ...