Silica-loaded poly(glycerol monomethacrylate)-poly(2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate) diblock copolymer vesicles are prepared in the form of concentrated aqueous dispersions via polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA). As the concentration of silica nanoparticles present during the PISA synthesis is increased up to 35% w/w, higher degrees of encapsulation of this component within the vesicles ca...

Dynamic ensembles of macromolecules mediate essential processes in biology. Understanding the mechanisms driving the function and molecular interactions of 'unstructured' and flexible molecules requires alternative approaches to those traditionally employed in structural biology. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is an established method for structural characterization of biological macromole...

A series of polyesterurethanes with differing block length and constant composition have been synthesized for rheological studies. Hard segments based on isophorone diisocyanate and 1,4butanediol and soft segments based on polycaprolactone to ensure high thermal stability and to prevent high melting point crystallinity enabled long-duration rheological characterization at high temperatures. DSC...

The inference of protein structure from experimental data is of crucial interest in science, medicine and biotechnology. Unfortunately, high-resolution experimental methods can not yet provide a detailed analysis of the ensemble of conformations adopted under physiological conditions. Low resolution techniques are often better suited for this task. Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) plays a ma...

Determination of molecular masses of charged polymers is often nontrivial and most methods have their drawbacks. For polyelectrolytes, a new possibility for the determination of number-average molecular masses is represented by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) which allows fast determinations with a 10% accuracy. This is done by relating the mass to the position of a characteristic peak feat...

The properties of a dendronized linear polymer (DP) in dilute solutions depending on solvent quality and temperature are described. The polymer has a contour length of Lc = 1,060 nm. The sample of the fourth generation (PG4) was analyzed in the thermodynamically good solvents dioxane, chloroform, and methanol. The wormlike macromolecule has a persistence length lp = 7 nm in dioxane and a cross-...

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and elastic and quasi-elastic neutron scattering techniques were used to investigate the high-pressure-induced changes on interactions, the low-resolution structure and the dynamics of lysozyme in solution. SAXS data, analysed using a global-fit procedure based on a new approach for hydrated protein form factor description, indicate that lysozyme completely m...

Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) is a powerful tool in the study of biological macromolecules providing information about the shape, conformation, assembly and folding states in solution. Recent advances in robotic fluid handling make it possible to perform automated high throughput experiments including fast screening of solution conditions, measurement of structural responses to ligand bin...

As is known from molecular dynamics simulation, lysozyme oligomers in crystallization solutions are most stable when taking into account as many precipitant ions possible embedded the corresponding crystal structure. Therefore, number of associated with crystallographic oligomer models can play a role during modeling small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data. This hypothesis has been tested pres...

Functionalized biomass waste sources of cellulose have drawn attention due to their high availability and sustainability properties. In this work we characterize the structural flow properties high-pressure homogenized citrus fiber dispersions, employing SAXS, rheology rheo-MRI techniques. The treatment disrupts microfibrillar network within fibers, but leaves individual microfibrils intact. Un...