Due to their anisotropic shape, gold nanorods (GNRs) possess a number of advantages for biosystem use including, enhanced surface area and tunable optical properties within the near-infrared (NIR) region. However, cetyl trimethylammonium bromide-related cytotoxicity, overall poor cellular uptake following surface chemistry modifications, and loss of NIR optical properties due to material intrac...

The trimethylammonium compound glycine betaine (N,N, N-trimethylglycine) can be accumulated to high intracellular concentrations, conferring enhanced osmo- and cryotolerance upon Listeria monocytogenes. We report the identification of betL, a gene encoding a glycine betaine uptake system in L. monocytogenes, isolated by functional complementation of the betaine uptake mutant Escherichia coli MK...

A commonly used electrolyte in electrospray mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) of biomolecules is ammonium acetate (NH4OAc). Although some nucleic acid structures such as duplexes require only proper physiological ionic strength (whatever the monovalent ions) to be properly folded in ESI-MS conditions, the folding of some other nucleic acid structures such as DNA G-quadruplexes also depends on direct b...

The ability to adapt to different seawater salinities is essential for cosmopolitan marine phytoplankton living in very diverse habitats. In this study, we examined the role of small zwitterionic metabolites in the osmoadaption of two common microalgae species Emiliania huxleyi and Prorocentrum minimum. By cultivation of the algae under salinities between 16‰ and 38‰ and subsequent analysis of ...

Here we investigate the effect of cucurbit[7]uril (CB7) on the thermal and optical properties of fluorene– thiophene based conjugated polyelectrolytes. For this purpose, poly(9,90-bis(600-(N,N,N-trimethylammonium)hexyl)fluorene-alt-co-thiophenelene) P1 and poly(9,90-bis(600-(N,N,N-trimethylammonium)propyl)fluorenealt-co-thiophenelene) P2 and their CB7-based polyrotaxane counterparts, P1CB7 and ...

It has recently been shown that surface plasmon microscopy (SPM) allows single nanoparticles (NPs) on sensor surfaces to be detected and analyzed. The authors have applied this technique to study the adsorption of single metallic and plastic NPs. Binding of gold NPs (40, 60 and 100 nm in size) and of 100 nm polystyrene NPs to gold surfaces modified by differently ω-functionalized alkyl thiols w...

The interaction between single-stranded RNAs and liposomes was studied using UV, Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Circular Dichroism spectroscopy (CD). The effect of the surface characteristics of liposomes, which were composed of 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) and modified with cholesterol (Ch) or 1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium propane (DOTAP), on t...

The synthesis of tetrakis (1,1-dimethyl-2-trimethylammonium)ethylphthalocyaninato Zn(II) tetraiodide 2--a new cationic phthalocyanine--is reported as well as its photophysical properties in water, relevant for the use of this dye as photodynamic sensitizer. The hydrophobicity of the macrocycle leads to strong aggregation which lowers the fluorescence and singlet oxygen quantum yields of aqueous...