Cytotoxicity of nanomixture: Combined action of silver and plastic nanoparticles on immortalized human lymphocytes.

Background: Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) are one of the most commercialized types of nanomaterials, with a wide range of applications owing to their antimicrobial activity. They are particularly important in hospitals and other healthcare settings, where they are used to maintain sterility of surfaces, textiles, catheters, medical implants, and more. However, AgNP can not only harm bacteria, but also damage mammalian cells and tissue.

Determination of calibration parameters of cantilevers of arbitrary shape by finite element analysis.

The use of atomic force microscopy in nanomechanical measurements requires accurate calibration of the cantilever's spring constant (k) and the optical lever sensitivity (OLS). The thermal method, based on the cantilever's thermal fluctuations in fluids, allows estimation of k in a fast, non-invasive mode. However, differences in the cantilever geometry and mounting angle require the knowledge of three correction factors to get a good estimation of k: the contribution of the oscillation mode to the total amplitude, the shape difference between the free and end-loaded configurations, and the tilt of the cantilever with respect to the measured surface.

Nanoscale Visualization of Bacterial Microcompartments Using Atomic Force Microscopy.

Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are polyhedral protein organelles in many prokaryotes, playing significant roles in metabolic enhancement. Due to their self-assembly and modularity nature, BMCs have gained increased interest in recent years, with the intent of constructing new nanobioreactors and scaffolding to promote cellular metabolisms and molecule delivery. In this chapter, we describe the technique of atomic force microscopy (AFM) as a method to study the self-assembly dynamics and physical properties of BMCs.

Dependence of the volume of an antibody on the force applied in a force microscopy experiment in liquid.

The volume of a protein can be estimated from its molecular weight. This approach has also been applied in force microscopy experiments. Two factors contribute to the determination of the volume from a force microscope image, the applied force and the tip radius.