AFM-TEM correlation microscopy and its application to lipid nanoparticles.

So far, only a few articles have demonstrated the possibility of correlated AFM-TEM imaging - sequential imaging of the same individual objects using atomic-force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The current work contributes to the development of this approach by giving a step-by-step procedure, which yields pairs of correlated AFM-TEM images. We describe the application of correlation AFM-TEM microscopy to lipid nanoparticles (small extracellular vesicles and liposomes).

ScanEV - A neural network-based tool for the automated detection of extracellular vesicles in TEM images.

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is the most widely accepted method for visualization of extracellular vesicles (EVs), and particularly, exosomes. TEM images provide us with information about the size and morphology of the EVs. We have developed an online tool ScanEV (Scanner for the Extracellular Vesicles, available at https://bioeng.

Stomatin is highly expressed in exosomes of different origin and is a promising candidate as an exosomal marker.

Proteins involved in the organizing of lipid rafts can be found in exosomes, as shown for caveolin-1, and they could contribute to exosomal cargo sorting, as shown for flotillins. Stomatin belongs to the same stomatin/prohibitin/flotillin/HflK/C family of lipid rafts proteins, but it has never been studied in exosomes except for extracellular vesicles (EVs) originating from blood cells. Here we first show the presence of stomatin in exosomes produced by epithelial cancer cells (non-small cell lung cancer, breast, and ovarian cancer cells) as well as in EVs from biological fluids, including blood plasma, ascitic fluids, and uterine flushings.

The miscibility and spatial distribution of the components in electrospun polymer-protein mats.

Biodegradable blended electrospun mats are promising for biomedical applications such as wound dressing, tissue engineering, and drug delivery. Electrospun mats based on polyesters can be modified by the addition of other polymers or proteins to accelerate the degradation, improve mechanical properties or biocompatibility. However, relatively little is known about the distribution of the components throughout the blended mats.

Fabrication of hydrogel scaffolds via photocrosslinking of methacrylated silk fibroin.

Silk fibroin is a promising biomaterial for tissue engineering due to its valuable mechanical and biological properties. However, being a natural product and a protein, it lacks the processability and uniform quality of an advanced synthetic material. Here we propose a way to overcome this contradiction using novel fibroin photocrosslinkable derivative (FBMA).

Wall Thickness of Industrial Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Is Not a Crucial Factor for Their Degradation by Sodium Hypochlorite.

The propensity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for biodegradation is important for their safe use in medical and technological applications. Here, we compared the oxidative degradation of two samples of industrial-grade MWCNTs-we called them MWCNT-d and MWCNT-t-upon their treatment with sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl). The MWCNTs had a similar inner diameter but they differed about 2-fold in the outer diameter.