Publications by authors named "Moreno Meneghetti"

Carbyne-related materials permit exploring the potentially extraordinary properties of this long-sought but still elusive carbon allotrope. However, accurate understanding of these materials is challenging. Here we report the crystal structure of a Au-pseudocarbyne, a representative of a possible new family of materials consisting of sp-hybridized carbon chains and stabilizing metal atoms.

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Microplastics pollution is being unanimously recognized as a global concern in all environments. Routine analysis protocols foresee that samples, which are supposed to contain up to hundreds of microplastics, are eventually collected on nanoporous filters and inspected by microspectroscopy techniques like micro-FTIR or micro-Raman. All particles, whether made of plastic or not, must be inspected one by one to detect and count microplastics.

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The immune checkpoint programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein is expressed by tumor cells and it suppresses the killer activity of CD8 T-lymphocyte cells binding to the programmed death 1 (PD-1) protein of these immune cells. Binding to either PD-L1 or PD1 is used for avoiding the inactivation of CD8 T-lymphocyte cells. We report, for the first time, Au plasmonic nanostructures with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) properties (SERS nanostructures) and functionalized with an engineered peptide (CLP002: Trp-His-Arg-Ser-Tyr-Tyr-Thr-Trp-Asn-Leu-Asn-Thr), which targets PD-L1.

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Copper acetate (also known as verdigris) is a bimetallic Cu(II) greenish pigment widely used in oil paintings. Since ancient times, this pigment has been known as a degradation-prone compound, especially when combined with lipidic binders. However, the degradation mechanism and the involved species have not yet been disclosed.

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Perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells have a tremendous potential to boost renewable electricity production thanks to their very high performance combined with promising cost structure. However, for actual field deployment, any solar cell technology needs to be assembled into modules, where the associated processes involve several challenges that may affect both the performance and stability of the devices. For instance, due to its hygroscopic nature, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) is incompatible with perovskite-based photovoltaics.

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Nanostructured thin metal films are exploited in a wide range of applications, spanning from electrical to optical transducers and sensors. Inkjet printing has become a compliant technique for sustainable, solution-processed, and cost-effective thin films fabrication. Inspired by the principles of green chemistry, here we show two novel formulations of Au nanoparticle-based inks for manufacturing nanostructured and conductive thin films by using inkjet printing.

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Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has become a promising method for the detection of contaminants or biomolecules in aqueous media. The low interference of water, the unique spectral fingerprint, and the development of portable and handheld equipment for in situ measurements underpin its predominance among other spectroscopic techniques. Among the SERS nanoparticle substrates, those composed of plasmonic and magnetic components are prominent examples of versatility and efficiency.

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All-inorganic lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) have shown great potential as emerging semiconducting materials due to their excellent optoelectronic properties. However, syntheses in solution commonly use high temperatures and toxic solvents, which are obstacles for safety and sustainability of the process. In this work, laser ablation in alcohol is proposed as a simple and sustainable, ligand-free, top-down approach to synthesize CsPbBr nanocrystals in ambient conditions.

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In this article, the depositions and functional characterizations of Ta-N and Ta-Al-N coatings for protection purposes, grown by reactive high-power impulse magnetron sputtering onto silicon substrates, are described. Nitride films were grown while changing the substrate polarization voltage (i.e.

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Article Synopsis
  • Illuminated manuscripts are products of various skills and reflect the historical and geographical context of their creation.
  • Analyzing these manuscripts' materials and characteristics is crucial for understanding their history and comparing them to other works.
  • Recent studies on a Persian illuminated manuscript using non-invasive methods like multispectral imaging and portable instruments have led to new insights into the creation techniques of Middle Eastern manuscripts.
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The presence of non-hexagonal rings in the honeycomb carbon arrangement of graphene produces rippled graphene layers with valuable chemical and physical properties. In principle, a bottom-up approach to introducing distortion from planarity of a graphene sheet can be achieved by careful insertion of curved polyaromatic hydrocarbons during the growth of the lattice. Corannulene, the archetype of such non-planar polyaromatic hydrocarbons, can act as an ideal wrinkling motif in 2D carbon nanostructures.

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Cell targeting has been considered an important strategy in diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Among different targeting units, peptides have emerged for their ability to bind to many different cellular targets, their scarce immunogenicity and the possibility of introducing multiple copies on nanosystems, providing high avidity for the target. However, their sensitivity to proteases strongly limits their applications in vivo.

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The thermal history of carbon phases, including graphite and diamond, in the ureilite meteorites has implications for the formation, igneous evolution, and impact disruption of their parent body early in the history of the Solar System. Geothermometry data were obtained by micro-Raman spectroscopy on graphite in Almahata Sitta (AhS) ureilites AhS 72, AhS 209b and AhS A135A from the University of Khartoum collection. In these samples, graphite shows G-band peak centers between 1578 and 1585 cm and the full width at half maximum values correspond to a crystallization temperature of 1266 °C for graphite for AhS 209b, 1242 °C for AhS 72, and 1332 °C for AhS A135A.

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Laser synthesis emerges as a suitable technique to produce ligand-free nanoparticles, alloys and functionalized nanomaterials for catalysis, imaging, biomedicine, energy and environmental applications. In the last decade, laser ablation and nanoparticle generation in liquids has proven to be a unique and efficient technique to generate, excite, fragment and conjugate a large variety of nanostructures in a scalable and clean way. In this work, we give an overview on the fundamentals of pulsed laser synthesis of nanocolloids and new information about its scalability towards selected applications.

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Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a highly sensitive technique for the non- or minimally invasive identification of molecules at very low concentrations. In this work, SERS is exploited using naked laser-ablated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for the detection of dyes on artificially aged paper inked with a ballpoint pen. Although several studies on inks with SERS are present in the literature, most of them report on the investigations on freshly prepared products, and less information is present on the detection of aged dyes and inks using SERS.

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Liquid biopsy represents a new frontier of cancer diagnosis and prognosis, which allows the isolation of tumor cells released in the blood stream. The extremely low abundance of these cells needs appropriate methodologies for their identification and enumeration. Herein we present a new protocol based on surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) gold multivalent nanostructures to identify and enumerate tumor cells with epithelial and mesenchimal markers.

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We demonstrate that the protonation chemistry of molecules adsorbed at nanometer distances from the surface of anisotropic gold nanoparticles can be manipulated through the effect of surface morphology on the local proton density of an organic coating. Direct evidence of this remarkable effect was obtained by monitoring surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) from mercaptobenzoic acid and 4-aminobenzenethiol molecules adsorbed on gold nanostars. By smoothing the initially sharp nanostar tips through a mild thermal treatment, changes were induced on protonation of the molecules, which can be observed through changes in the measured SERS spectra.

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Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful and sensitive technique for the detection of fingerprint signals of molecules and for the investigation of a series of surface chemical reactions. Many studies introduced quantitative applications of SERS in various fields, and several SERS methods have been implemented for each specific application, ranging in performance characteristics, analytes used, instruments, and analytical matrices. In general, very few methods have been validated according to international guidelines.

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Graphene oxide nanoribbons (GONRs), obtained from the oxidative unzipping of carbon nanotubes, have been investigated as building blocks towards reaching active platforms in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The complete development of carbon nanomaterials is strongly related to the exploitation of their chemical versatility, so this work is focused on the positive effect that a specific chemical functionalization provides to the SERS effect when gold nanoparticles are used. The covalent derivatization of GONRs with terminal thiol groups boosts their interaction with different types of gold nanoparticles (namely, 'naked' or citrate-stabilized), and the resulting two-dimensional aggregates show an intense enhancement of the Raman scattering from the carbon nanostructures because of their two-dimensional extended aggregation pattern.

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Early detection is the most effective mean of improving prognosis for many fatal diseases such as cancer. In this context, the Surface Enhanced Resonance Raman Scattering (SERRS) technique is being proposed as alternative to fluorescent methods in detection of biomarkers, because SERRS nanostructures are bright as fluorescent tags but more stable and clearly detectable using the narrow Raman "fingerprints" of a suitable reporter. Here we show that biocompatible SERRS active gold nanostructures, functionalized with an engineered PreS1 peptide (AuNP@PEG-PreS1), detect the presence of the SerpinB3 antigen overexpressed on liver tumor cells, a biomarker of the onset of liver cell carcinomatous transformation.

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Colloidal gold nanostructures are nowadays widely involved in sensor applications. One of the most interesting techniques that takes advantage of them is certainly the Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) effect, even if it is often considered a tricky technique due to structural constraints required by the nanostructured substrates to obtain high enhancement factors (EFs), i.e.

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Nanostructures can strongly interact with cells or other biological structures; furthermore when they are functionalized with targeting units, they are of great interest for a variety of applications in the biotechnology field like those for efficient imaging, diagnosis and therapy and in particular for cancer theranostics. Obtaining targeting with good specificity and sensitivity is a key necessity, which, however, is affected by the complexity of the interactions between the nanostructures and the biological components. In this work we report the study of specificity and sensitivity of gold nanoparticles functionalized with the peptide GE11 for the targeting of the epidermal growth factor receptor, expressed on many cells and, in particular, on many types of cancer cells.

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Competitive reactions, on the surface of plasmonic nanostructures, allow exploiting SERS signals for quantitative Therapeutic Drug Monitoring. As an example, the concentration of Erlotinib, an anti-EGFR small molecule, used for the treatment of non-small cell lung and pancreatic cancer, is determined. The numerous side effects and the variability of patient responses make Erlotinib a good candidate for monitoring.

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Multimodal contrast agents offer new interesting diagnostic possibilities, summing the benefits of multiple imaging techniques. Magnetic resonance and optical imaging are complementary techniques. The first allows total body screening, even though it suffers from low spatial resolution and needs high loadings, whereas the second shows lower penetration, but bright signals, and a higher spatial resolution and needs lower loadings.

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The ability of carbon nanohorns (CNHs) to cross biological barriers makes them potential carriers for delivery purposes. In this work, we report the design of a new selective antibody-drug nanosystem based on CNHs for the treatment of prostate cancer (PCa). In particular, cisplatin in a prodrug form and the monoclonal antibody (Ab) D2B, selective for PSMA cancer cells, have been attached to CNHs due to the current application of this antigen in PCa therapy.

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