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Query: UMLS:C0432222 (SEM)
 47,337 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Fibrillar collagen was reconstituted from mixtures of monomeric tropocollagen and heparin or hyaluronic acid, respectively. Turbidity measurements were utilized to follow the fibrillar assembly and demonstrated the influence of the concentration of the glycosaminoglycan on the maximum optical densities. Thin film coatings of maleic anhydride copolymers were utilized for the covalent immobilization of the fibrillar assemblies to solid supports. Quantification of surface-bound collagen was accomplished by ellipsometry and HPLC-based amino acid analysis indicating that less collagen was immobilized in the presence of the glycosaminoglycans. SEM and AFM revealed various sizes and shapes of the immobilized fibrillar assemblies if collagen fibrils were prepared in the presence of heparin or hyaluronic acid. Human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) were cultivated on the surface-bound collagen fibrils and the migration of adherent cells was studied by time-lapse microscopy. Migration rates on fibrillar structures were significantly lower then on tropocollagen indicating a more intimate contact of HSCs to the fibrillar substrates.
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PMID:Fibrillar collagen assembled in the presence of glycosaminoglycans to constitute bioartificial stem cell niches in vitro. 1592 75

The interaction between the anionic surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate, and the polyelectrolyte, poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride), may lead to formation of nanoparticles dispersed in water. The morphology of the resulting nanoparticles and their ability to solubilize hydrophobic molecules were evaluated. As shown by SEM and AFM imaging, the particles are spherical, having a diameter of about 20 nm. The solubilization within the nanoparticles was tested with pyrene, a fluorescence probe, and Nile Red, a solvatochromic probe. It was found that for Nile Red the solubilization within the nanoparticles is at lower polarity than for SDS micelles, and from pyrene solubilization it appears that the hydrophobicity of the nanoparticles depends on the ratio between the SDS molecules and the charge unit of the polymer.
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PMID:Solubilization of hydrophobic molecules in nanoparticles formed by polymer-surfactant interactions. 1597 88

High-resolution, detailed 3D reconstructions of biological specimens obtained from scanning electron microscopy stereo-micrographs and proprietary software were compared with Tapping-Mode AFM datasets of the same fields. The reconstruction software implements several original solutions including a neural adaptive point-matching technique, the ability to build an irregular triangulated mesh rather than a regular orthogonal grid, and the ability to re-map one of the original images exactly onto the reconstructed surface. The technique was applied to human nerve tissue to obtain 1,424 x 968-pixel, texture-mapped datasets, which were subsequently compared against 512 x 512-pixel AFM datasets from the same viewfields. Accounting for the inherent differences of the two techniques, direct comparison revealed an excellent visual match. The correspondence was also quantified by calculating the cross-correlation coefficient between corresponding altimetric profiles in SEM and AFM data, which consistently exceeded a figure of 0.9, with a rate of point mismatch in the order of 0.01%. Research is still underway to improve the robustness of the technique when applied to arbitrary images
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PMID:A vision-based, 3D reconstruction technique for scanning electron microscopy: direct comparison with atomic force microscopy. 1602 84

Hydroxylated fullerene reacts rapidly and irreversibly (across a wide pH range) with Fe(NO3)3, Al(NO3)3, CaCl2, CoCl2, CuCl2, KMnO4, Ag(NO3), and ZnCl2 under ambient aqueous conditions to produce insoluble metal-hydroxyfullerene cross-linked polymers (M-fullerenol). Materials have been characterized by SEM, TEM, AFM, XPS, and UV-visible spectroscopy. Molecular mechanics calculations on the model systems, [Fe(C60O2)2] and [Fe(C60O2)3], show that both tetrahedral and octahedral coordination are possible. The rate of precipitation reaction is proportional to the concentration of both reagents. The interaction of hydroxyfullerenes with metals is an important issue with regard to waste treatment, fullerene exposure in the environment, and fullerene-based pharmaceutical agents.
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PMID:Reaction of hydroxyfullerene with metal salts: a route to remediation and immobilization. 1604 11

New nanoparticles based on well-defined dextran esters were prepared by a dialysis process. Dextran was converted into a propionate with a degree of substitution of 1.70 and, subsequently, acylated under homogeneous reaction conditions with a pyroglutamic acid imidazolide, which is prepared in situ by conversion of pyroglutamic acid with N,N-carbonyldiimidazole. The synthesis path allows perfect control of the amphiphilicity and solubility. The highly functionalized polysaccharide derivative avoids the collapse of the nanostructure due to the prevention of hydrogen bond formation. The major fraction of the dextran propionate pyroglutamate nanoparticles investigated by SEM and AFM exhibits narrow size distribution with 370 nm as mean diameter and uniform spherical shape. The SEM image verifies that polymeric nanoparticles in the suspensions did not undergo any morphological changes within 3 weeks.
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PMID:Nanoparticles on the basis of highly functionalized dextrans. 1604 24

Upon implantation, calcium phosphate (Ca-P) surfaces form on materials that are bone bioactive. In this study, the evolving surface characteristics associated with calcium phosphate precipitation are modeled using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), in a one-step nucleation process. SAMs were used to create amine (-NH2), carboxyl (-COOH) and hydroxyl (-OH) functionalized surfaces by grafting 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, 3-triethoxysilylpropyl succinic anhydride and glycidoxypropyl tri-methoxysilane, respectively, onto oxidized silicon wafers. The SAM surfaces were characterized using ellipsometry to establish the presence of grafted molecules. On the surfaces incubated in simulated physiological fluids for 7 days, the thickness of Ca-P layer grew slowly over the first few hours, increasing strongly between 1 and 5 days and then slowed down again. FTIR showed the dependence of calcium phosphate morphology on the type of surface groups, with stronger P-O bands seen on the OH-terminated surface. SEM analysis showed dispersed Ca-P precipitates on the -COOH and -OH terminated surfaces after 1 day immersion. After 7 days, all SAM surfaces were covered with uniformly dispersed and denser Ca-P precipitates. The underlying Ca-P layer showed cracks on the -NH2-terminated surface. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) data analysis confirmed that Ca/P ratio is in excellent agreement with the theoretical value of 1.67 for hydroxyapatite. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis also showed evidence of apatite formation on all the surfaces, with stronger evidence on the -OH-terminated surface. Highly porous Ca-P precipitates were observed on the SAM surfaces portrayed by the AFM scans with nanoscale RMS roughness. Thus, using highly controlled surface chemistry, under physiological conditions, in vitro, this study demonstrates that a hydroxylated surface enhances Ca-P nucleation and growth relative to other surfaces, thereby supporting the concept of its beneficial effect on bone tissue formation and growth.
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PMID:Nucleation and growth of calcium phosphate on amine-, carboxyl- and hydroxyl-silane self-assembled monolayers. 1608 Nov 55

Polysaccharide multilayer nanocapsules have been fabricated in aqueous media by the layer-by-layer self-assembly of chitosan (CHI) and sodium alginate (ALG) on monodisperse polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles with a diameter of 180 nm as template, followed by removal of the templates through dissolving in THF. The pH and added salt concentration of the polyelectrolyte deposition solutions were optimized to ensure the alternating deposition. Consequently, the most suitable pH values were found to be 6.0-8.0 for ALG and 3.5 for CHI and were used in the deposition. The concentration of added NaCl used in the adsorption solutions was 0.5 M, which led to an average thickness of about 13 nm for 5 bilayers of CHI/ALG shell-wall. zeta-potential indicated the stepwise and alternating adsorption of CHI and ALG to form multilayer film on the PS nanoparticles. The characteristic bands of PS residue almost disappeared in the IR spectrum of the nanocapsule after dipped in THF, confirming thorough removal of PS templates from the core-shell particles. TEM, SEM and AFM were utilized to observe the nanocapsules of about 225 nm in diameter (by TEM). A hydrophilic drug model, acridine hydrochloride (AH), was chosen to investigate the loading and release properties of the nanocapsules. The positively charged AH spontaneously deposited into the capsule due to the electrostatic interaction with the negatively charged styrene sulfonate residues from the PS template inside the capsule. The rate of AH release became slightly slower when the capsule wall was cross-linked with glutaraldehyde, but the accumulative released amount for the cross-linked capsule was obviously reduced. These nanocapsules made from nature polysaccharides have a potential application in controlled drug release.
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PMID:Multilayer nanocapsules of polysaccharide chitosan and alginate through layer-by-layer assembly directly on PS nanoparticles for release. 1612 96

Water molecules adsorbed on SiO2/Si(100) at 140 K to form amorphous solid water (ASW) layers were utilized as a buffer for assisting the growth of gold nanoclusters. It was shown that the average height and diameter of the clusters deposited on the silicon oxide substrate following the buffer annealing/desorption increase as the buffer layer becomes thicker and as more gold is deposited. The clusters' height and diameter were determined by tapping mode AFM and high-resolution SEM imaging, respectively. Typical heights were between 0.5 and 4.5 nm, and the diameters were in the range of 3-9 nm for ASW layer thickness of 7-100 ML and gold deposition in the range of 0.2-1.2 A. The density of the clusters decreased from 65 x 10(10) to 8 x 10(10) cm (-2) in the same buffer layer thickness range. Significantly different morphology of the clusters is obtained when compared to those formed by direct deposition of gold on the silicon oxide surface and to those grown on top of Xe as buffer material.
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PMID:Water as buffer material for gold nanocluster growth. 1614 75

An electrochemical method is developed to quantitatively modify and spectroscopically monitor the size and shape of Ag nanotriangles fabricated by nanosphere lithography (NSL) on an indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode surface. AFM and SEM results demonstrate that the preferential order of electrochemical oxidation for a nanotriangle is, surprisingly, bottom edges first, then triangular tips, then out-of-plane height.
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PMID:Electrochemical tuning of silver nanoparticles fabricated by nanosphere lithography. 1617 65

Three oligothiophene dithiols with different numbers of thiophene rings (3, 6 or 9) have been synthesized and characterized. The X-ray single crystal structures of terthiophene 2 and sexithiophene 5 are reported herein to show the exact molecular lengths, and to explain the difference between their UV-visible spectra arising from the different packing modes. These dithiols with different chain lengths were then treated with 2-dodecanethiol-protected active gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) by means of in situ thiol-to-thiol ligand exchange in the presence of 1 microm gap Au electrodes. Thus the molecular junctions composed of self-assembled films were prepared, in which oligothiophene dithiol-bridged Au-NPs were attached to two electrodes by means of Au-S bonded contacts. The morphologies and current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of these films were studied by SEM and AFM approaches, which suggested that the thickness of the films (3-4 layers) varied within the size of one isolated Au-NP and typical distance-dependent semiconductor properties could be observed. Temperature dependent I-V measurements for these molecular junctions were performed in which the films served as active elements in the temperature range 6-300 K; classical Arrhenius plots and subsequent linear fits were carried out to give the activation energies (deltaE) of devices. Furthermore, preliminary studies on the photoresponsive properties of these devices were explored at 80, 160, and 300 K, respectively. Physical and photochemical mechanisms were used to explain the possible photocurrent generation processes. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in which oligothiophene dithiols act as bridging units to link Au-NPs, and also the first report about functionalized Au-NPs exhibiting photoresponse properties in the solid state.
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PMID:Molecular junctions composed of oligothiophene dithiol-bridged gold nanoparticles exhibiting photoresponsive properties. 1619 25


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