Examining the inorganic elemental composition of lobster phyllosoma (Panulirus ornatus) with X-ray fluorescence microscopy.

The ornate spiny rock lobster, Panulirus ornatus, is an attractive candidate for aquaculture. The larval stages of spiny lobsters, known as phyllosoma, are complex with many developmental stages. Very little is known about the inorganic element composition of phyllosoma.

Hydrogel oxygen reservoirs increase functional integration of neural stem cell grafts by meeting metabolic demands.

Injectable biomimetic hydrogels have great potential for use in regenerative medicine as cellular delivery vectors. However, they can suffer from issues relating to hypoxia, including poor cell survival, differentiation, and functional integration owing to the lack of an established vascular network. Here we engineer a hybrid myoglobin:peptide hydrogel that can concomitantly deliver stem cells and oxygen to the brain to support engraftment until vascularisation can occur naturally.

The Assembly Mechanism and Mesoscale Architecture of Protein-Polysaccharide Complexes Formed at the Solid-liquid Interface.

Protein-polysaccharide composite materials have generated much interest due to their potential use in medical science and biotechnology. A comprehensive understanding of the assembly mechanism and the mesoscale architecture is needed for fabricating protein-polysaccharide composite materials with desired properties. In this study, complex assemblies were built on silica surfaces through a layer-by-layer (LbL) approach using bovine beta-lactoglobulin variant A (βLgA) and pectin as model protein and polysaccharide, respectively.

Detecting polystyrene nanoplastics using filter paper-based surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

This work presents a novel filter paper-based method using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), for detecting polystyrene nanoplastics (PSNPs). The SERS system used a simple mixture of spherical Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) and 20 nm nanoplastics deposited onto a filter paper which offered a detection limit of 10 μg mL with a sample volume of 50 μL, and in a rare case 5.0 μg mL (with four aliquits of 50 μL).