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The salivary pellicle is a thin acellular film formed on orally exposed surfaces by adsorption of macromolecules from the oral fluids and serves as a protective layer in the maintenance of oral health. Pellicle thickness measurements are a central tool helping to understand how exogenous manipulations may influence pellicle formation. This is of particular importance for the investigation of new preventive and therapeutic approaches. In the present study we determined the kinetics of the in situ pellicle thickness formation at different intraoral sites and investigated how pellicle formation occurs in different individuals. To address the kinetic aspect, the thickness of the in situ pellicle was determined after formation periods of 3 min, 30 min and 120 min. The thickness of the pellicle was either measured on silicon wafers by ellipsometry or on bovine enamel by transmission electron microscopy. We found a physiologically important rapid pellicle formation phase within the first minutes and a slow pellicle formation phase between 30 min and 120 min. Furthermore, our results identify significant inter-individual differences both for the pellicle thickness and for the formation kinetics, indicating the consideration of individual-specific differences of the pellicle layer as an important aspect for future studies., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Structural and chemical changes that arise from fluoridation of hydroxyapatite (Ca(5)(PO(4))(3)OH or "HAp"), as representing the synthetic counterpart of tooth enamel, are investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Elemental depth profiles with a depth resolution on the nanometer scale were determined to reveal the effect of fluoridation in neutral (pH = 6.2) and acidic agents (pH = 4.2). With respect to the chemical composition and the crystal structure, XPS depth profiling reveals different effects of the two treatments. In both cases, however, the fluoridation affects the surface only on the nanometer scale, which is in contrast to recent literature with respect to XPS analysis on dental fluoridation, where depth profiles of F extending to several micrometers were reported. In addition to the elemental depth profiles, as published in various other studies, we also present quantitative depth profiles of the compounds CaF(2), Ca(OH)(2), and fluorapatite (FAp) that were recently proposed by a three-layer model concerning the fluoridation of HAp in an acidic agent. The analysis of our experimental data exactly reproduces the structural order of this model, however, on a scale that differs by nearly 2 orders of magnitude from previous predictions. The results also reveal that the amount of Ca(OH)(2) and FAp is small compared to that of CaF(2). Therefore, it has to be asked whether such narrow Ca(OH)(2) and FAp layers really can act as protective layers for the enamel.

To explore the variability in biosensor studies, 150 participants from 20 countries were given the same protein samples and asked to determine kinetic rate constants for the interaction. We chose a protein system that was amenable to analysis using different biosensor platforms as well as by users of different expertise levels. The two proteins (a 50-kDa Fab and a 60-kDa glutathione S-transferase [GST] antigen) form a relatively high-affinity complex, so participants needed to optimize several experimental parameters, including ligand immobilization and regeneration conditions as well as analyte concentrations and injection/dissociation times. Although most participants collected binding responses that could be fit to yield kinetic parameters, the quality of a few data sets could have been improved by optimizing the assay design. Once these outliers were removed, the average reported affinity across the remaining panel of participants was 620 pM with a standard deviation of 980 pM. These results demonstrate that when this biosensor assay was designed and executed appropriately, the reported rate constants were consistent, and independent of which protein was immobilized and which biosensor was used.

The hairy attachment system on a gecko's toes, consisting of one billion spatulae in the case of Gekko gecko [Ruibal, R. & Ernst, V. (1965) J. Morphol. 117, 271-294], allows it to adhere to nearly all surface topographies. The mechanistic basis for gecko adhesion has been intensely investigated, but the lowest hierarchical level, that of the spatula, has become experimentally accessible only recently. This report details measurements of the adhesion force exerted by a single gecko spatula for various atmospheric conditions and surface chemistries. Through judicious choice and modification of substrates, the short- and long-range adhesive forces are separated. In contrast to previous work [Autumn, K., Sitti, M., Liang, Y. C. A., Peattie, A. M., Hansen, W. R., Sponberg, S., Kenny, T. W., Fearing, R., Israelachvili, J. N. & Full, R. J. (2002) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 12252-12256], our measurements clearly show that humidity contributes significantly to gecko adhesion on a nanoscopic level. These findings are crucial for the development of artificial biomimetic attachment systems.

In the course of miniaturization of electronic and microfluidic devices, reliable predictions of the stability of ultrathin films have a strategic role for design purposes. Consequently, efficient computational techniques that allow for a direct comparison with experiment become increasingly important. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that the full complex spatial and temporal evolution of the rupture of ultrathin films can be modelled in quantitative agreement with experiment. We accomplish this by combining highly controlled experiments on different film-rupture patterns with computer simulations using novel numerical schemes for thin-film equations. For the quantitative comparison of the pattern evolution in both experiment and simulation we introduce a novel pattern analysis method based on Minkowski measures. Our results are fundamental for the development of efficient tools capable of describing essential aspects of thin-film flow in technical systems.