Tunable biopolymers based on elastin-like polypeptides (ELP) were engineered for the selective removal of mercury. ELP undergoes a reversible thermal precipitation within a wide range of temperatures and was exploited to enable easy recovery of the sequestered mercury. A bacterial metalloregulatory protein, MerR, which binds mercury with an unusually high affinity and selectivity, was fused to ...

Biofouling and scaling on reverse osmosis (RO) or nanofiltration (NF) membranes during desalination of secondary and tertiary effluents pose an obstacle that limits the reuse of wastewater. In this study we explored the mineral scaling induced by biopolymers originated from bacterial biofilms: bovine serum albumin (BSA), fibrinogen, lysozyme and alginic acid, as well as an extracts of extracell...

This chapter offers an overview of the biopolymer-based lightweight materials with respect to their potential for packaging applications. The biopolymer-based materials have garnered increasing attention to packaging market due to the concerns from both environmental and economical perspectives of traditional petroleum based polymers in recent years. The largely use of these traditional synthet...

conclusions although quince seeds dried mucilage by lyophilization had less yield amounts yet in view of purity and physicochemical and mechanical properties, it was significantly better than mucilage prepared by the oven method (p < 0.05). results the yield value of mucilage from the warm method was about three folds greater than the amount from the cold method. the phytochemical, physicochemi...

BACKGROUND Spider silk is a tear-resistant and elastic biopolymer that has outstanding mechanical properties. Additionally, exiguous immunogenicity is anticipated for spider silks. Therefore, spider silk represents a potential ideal biomaterial for medical applications. All known spider silk proteins, so-called spidroins, reveal a composite nature of silk-specific units, allowing the recombinan...

Proteins and polysaccharides are common ingredients in food products. In many food formulations, proteins and polysaccharides (two major biopolymers) are used simultaneously. Understanding their interactions can help controlling physical properties and stability of formulated foods. Interactions between β-lactoglobulin (BLG) and tragacanth gum (TG) were studied in aqueous solutions at pH rangin...

in order to know the environmental behaviour of toxic pollutants it is fundamental to understandthe role of chemical components of a material on sorption of such pollutants.in this study, the sorption of amix of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs) by cork fractions (i.e. raw cork (cf), free extractive cork(fef) and nonsaponifiable (desf)) has been investigated to better understand the role ...

In this work we analyze the theoretical aspects of a single polymer confined inside a cavity. The problem is of biological relevance since it is known, for instance, that molecules like proteins need an isolated environment in order to quickly and correctly reach their folded native state. The polymer is considered in the Grand Canonical ensemble of its monomeric units, where its average length...

Let d be a metric on the set FP(X) of fuzzy subsets of a finite set X. A midpoint of two fuzzy subsets μ, ν ∈ FP(X) is any fuzzy subset ξ ∈ FP(X) such that d(ξ, μ) = d(ξ, ν) = 1 2d(μ, ν). These midpoints can be used to represent “middle ways” or “compromises” between two situations described by the fuzzy subsets μ and ν. Now, the imprecise knowledge of a nucleic acid or protein sequence of leng...

Section on Tissue Biophysics and Biomimetics, NICHD, National Institutes of Health, 13 South Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA E-mail: [email protected] Summary: Aggrecan is a charged biopolymer whose complexes with hyaluronic acid provide the compressive resistance of cartilage. In cartilage extracellular matrix aggrecan-hyaluronic acid complexes are enmeshed within a network of collagen fibr...