Search

The thin-film composite (TFC) nanofiltration (NF) membrane is a very important method in solving the water crisis. However, the fabrication and industrialization of high-performance NF membranes still remains challenging. In this work, zwitterionic NF membranes via microwave-assisted grafting of betaine was first proposed. The resulting polyamide layer showed leaflike nanostructures after modification. Because of the enlarged permeation area and enhanced hydrophilicity derived from the unique leaflike structure, the optimal membrane permeability reached 40.8 L m -1 h -1 bar -1 . This water permeance was 2.2 times as high as the original polypiperazine-amide membrane, with a Na 2 SO 4 rejection maintained at 97.0%. More importantly, the membrane demonstrated excellent selectivity to monovalent and divalent anions. This zwitterionic membrane fabricated by microwave-assisted grafting of betaine provides new insight for industrial scalable NF membranes with great potentials.

An electrochemical immunosensor was constructed using an electropolymerized pyrrolepropylic acid (PPA) film with high porosity and hydrophilicity. A high density of carboxyl groups of PPA was used to covalently attach protein probes, leading to significantly improved detection sensitivity compared with conventional entrapment methods. As a model, anti-mouse IgG was covalently immobilized or entrapped in the PPA film and used in a sandwich-type alkaline phosphatase-catalyzing amperometric immunoassay with p-aminophenyl phosphate as the substrate. With covalent binding, the detection limit for IgG in PBS buffer, pH 7.4, was 100 pg/mL with a dynamic range of 5 orders of magnitude. The covalent bonding mode in the carbonate-bicarbonate buffer, pH 9.6, further brought down the detection limit to 20 pg/mL with remarkable selectivity.

Nucleic acid molecules may fold into secondary structures, and the formation of such structures is involved in many biological processes and technical applications. The folding and unfolding rate constants define the kinetics of conformation interconversion and the stability of these structures and is important in realizing their functions. We developed a method to determine these kinetic parameters using an optical biosensor based on surface plasmon resonance. The folding and unfolding of a nucleic acid is coupled with a hybridization reaction by immobilization of the target nucleic acid on a sensor chip surface and injection of a complementary probe nucleic acid over the sensor chip surface. By monitoring the time course of duplex formation, both the folding and unfolding rate constants for the target nucleic acid and the association and dissociation rate constants for the target-probe duplex can all be derived from the same measurement. We applied this method to determine the folding and unfolding rate constants of the G-quadruplex of human telomere sequence (TTAGGG)(4) and its association and dissociation rate constants with the complementary strand (CCCTAA)(4). The results show that both the folding and unfolding occur on the time scale of minutes at physiological concentration of K(+). We speculate that this property might be important for telomere elongation. A complete set of the kinetic parameters for both of the structures allows us to study the competition between the formation of the quadruplex and the duplex. Calculations indicate that the formation of both the quadruplex and the duplex is strand concentration-dependent, and the quadruplex can be efficiently formed at low strand concentration. This property may provide the basis for the formation of the quadruplex in vivo in the presence of a complementary strand.