OPMS - A web-based ocean pollution monitoring system.

Marine pollution poses significant risks to both marine ecosystems and human health, requiring effective monitoring and control measures. This study presents the Ocean Pollution Monitoring System (OPMS), a web application designed to visualize the seasonal and annual fluctuations of marine pollutants along coastal regions in Canada. The pollutants include fecal coliform and biotoxins such as paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), and amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP).

Tutorial: fluorescence lifetime microscopy of membrane mechanosensitive Flipper probes.

Measuring forces within living cells remains a technical challenge. In this Tutorial, we cover the development of hydrophobic mechanosensing fluorescent probes called Flippers, whose fluorescence lifetime depends on lipid packing. Flipper probes can therefore be used as reporters for membrane tension via the measurement of changes in their fluorescence lifetime.

Inclusive Pattern Generation Protocols to Decode Thiol-Mediated Uptake.

Thiol-mediated uptake (TMU) is an intriguing enigma in current chemistry and biology. While the appearance of cell-penetrating activity upon attachment of cascade exchangers (CAXs) has been observed by many and is increasingly being used in practice, the molecular basis of TMU is essentially unknown. The objective of this study was to develop a general protocol to decode the dynamic covalent networks that presumably account for TMU.

Core-Alkynylated Fluorescent Flippers: Altered Ultrafast Photophysics to Track Thick Membranes.

Fluorescent flippers have been introduced as small-molecule probes to image membrane tension in living systems. This study describes the design, synthesis, spectroscopic and imaging properties of flippers that are elongated by one and two alkynes inserted between the push and the pull dithienothiophene domains. The resulting mechanophores combine characteristics of flippers, reporting on physical compression in the ground state, and molecular rotors, reporting on torsional motion in the excited state, to take their photophysics to new level of sophistication.

Apical dehydration impairs the cystic fibrosis airway epithelium barrier via a 1-integrin/YAP1 pathway.

Defective hydration of airway surface mucosa is associated with lung infection in cystic fibrosis (CF), partly caused by disruption of the epithelial barrier integrity. Although rehydration of the CF airway surface liquid (ASL) alleviates epithelium vulnerability to infection by junctional protein expression, the mechanisms linking ASL to barrier integrity are unknown. We show here the strong degradation of YAP1 and TAZ proteins in well-polarized CF human airway epithelial cells (HAECs), a process that was prevented by ASL rehydration.