Nanodiamonds and surfactants in water: Hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions.

Hypothesis: Nanodiamonds, one of the most promising nanomaterials for the use in biomedicine, placed in the organisms are bound to interact with various amphiphilic lipids and their micelles. However, while the influence of surfactants, the close relative of lipids, on the properties of colloidal nanodiamonds is well studied, the influence of nanodiamonds on the properties of surfactants, lipids, and, therefore, on the structure of surrounding tissues, is poorly understood.

Experiment: In this work, the influence of interactions of hydrophobic and hydrophilic nanodiamonds with ionic surfactant sodium octanoate in water on hydrogen bonds, the properties of the surfactant and micelle formation were studied using Raman spectroscopy and dynamic light scattering technique.

The use of the novel glycosyl acceptor and supramer analysis in the synthesis of sialyl-α(2-3)-galactose building block.

A new glycosyl acceptor to be used in sialylation was designed as a 3-hydroxy derivative of 4-methoxyphenyl β-d-galactopyranoside with 2-O-acetyl group and O-4 and O-6 protected as benzylidene acetal. Two alternative syntheses of this compound were compared. Sialylation of 3-OH group of the glycosyl acceptor with O-chloroacetylated N-trifluoroacetylneuraminic acid phenyl thioglycoside (NIS, TfOH, MeCN, MS 3 Å, -40 °C) was studied in a wide concentration range (5-150 mmol L).

A hypothetical hierarchical mechanism of the self-assembly of the Escherichia coli RNA polymerase σ(70) subunit.

Diverse morphology of aggregates of amyloidogenic proteins has been attracting much attention in the last few years, and there is still no complete understanding of the relationships between various types of aggregates. In this work, we propose the model, which universally explains the formation of morphologically different (wormlike and rodlike) aggregates on the example of a σ(70) subunit of RNA polymerase, which has been recently shown to form amyloid fibrils. Aggregates were studied using AFM in solution and depolarized dynamic light scattering.

Formation of Easy-to-Recover Polystyrene--Poly(4-vinylpyridine) Micelles Decorated with Pd Nanoparticles in Solutions of Self-Neutralizing Carbonic Acid.

It was found out that block copolymers of polystyrene and poly(4-vinylpyridine) with comparable lengths of blocks could be dissolved in a high-pressure reactor containing water phase saturated with carbon dioxide under high pressure at room temperature. This rather effective dissolution occurs due to a protonation of P4VP nitrogen-containing groups together with a plasticization of the polymer material to be dissolved by a compressed dense CO being contained in the autoclave. The selected block copolymers form rather monodispersed micelles with well-defined and reproducible spherical geometry.

Macromolecular dynamics of conjugated polymer in donor-acceptor blends with charge transfer complex.

Donor-acceptor blends based on conjugated polymers are the heart of state-of-the-art polymer solar cells, and the control of the blend morphology is crucial for their efficiency. As the film morphology can inherit the polymer conformational state from solution, the approaches for probing and controlling the polymer conformational state in the blends are of high importance. In this study, we show that the macromolecular dynamics in solutions of the archetypical conjugated polymer, MEH-PPV, is essentially changed upon addition of an acceptor 2,4,7-trinitrofluorenone (TNF) by using dynamic light scattering (DLS).