Electrostatics responsive systems

The approach of the preceding section was improved over the one of section IIC by including an electrostatic response of the solvent to the presence of the solute (and of the other solvent molecules). It is thereby taken into account that the most important inter-molecular interactions in such a system most often are of electrostatic nature and an accurate description of those is essential. Since the approach considers the individual molecules, it is an explicit approach. 

The theoretical background to classical electrostatics is first reviewed, beginning with the physical basis for the electrostatic response of a protein/solvent system to a charge distribution, and ways of modelling this response. Consistent classical electrostatic frameworks for describing a protein/solvent system are then described. In addition the methods must be able to model temperature, pH and ionic strength effects if these affect the property of interest. Of particular importance is the way one may extract experimentally observable properties from such models. 

Xi Zhang and co-workers employed chitosan and adenosines -triphosphate (ATP) as building blocks to fabricate polymeric supra-amphiphiles based on electrostatic interactions, which can self-assemble to form spherical aggregates [73]. The spherical a egates inherit the phosphatase responsiveness of ATP. This enzyme-responsive system can be more biocompatible and block polymers are not needed in preparation, which makes it possible to fabricate the chitosan-based enz nne-responsive assemblies in a large-scale, cheap way. 

Because of its small size and portabiHty, the hot-wire anemometer is ideally suited to measure gas velocities either continuously or on a troubleshooting basis in systems where excess pressure drop cannot be tolerated. Furnaces, smokestacks, electrostatic precipitators, and air ducts are typical areas of appHcation. Its fast response to velocity or temperature fluctuations in the surrounding gas makes it particularly useful in studying the turbulence characteristics and rapidity of mixing in gas streams. The constant current mode of operation has a wide frequency response and relatively lower noise level, provided a sufficiently small wire can be used. Where a more mgged wire is required, the constant temperature mode is employed because of its insensitivity to sensor heat capacity. In Hquids, hot-film sensors are employed instead of wires. The sensor consists of a thin metallic film mounted on the surface of a thermally and electrically insulated probe. 

The treatment of electrostatics and dielectric effects in molecular mechanics calculations necessary for redox property calculations can be divided into two issues electronic polarization contributions to the dielectric response and reorientational polarization contributions to the dielectric response. Without reorientation, the electronic polarization contribution to e is 2 for the types of atoms found in biological systems. The reorientational contribution is due to the reorientation of polar groups by charges. In the protein, the reorientation is restricted by the bonding between the polar groups, whereas in water the reorientation is enhanced owing to cooperative effects of the freely rotating solvent molecules. 

CV measurements showed that the reversible eleetrode reaetion of the [Fe(CN)6]" redox eouple was suppressed to some extent by the treatment with the DNA. The addition of the anti-DNA antibody further suppressed the redox reaetion thus decreasing the magnitudes of the CV peak currents. This is most likely caused by a steric hindrance of the bulky protein, which binds to the DNA double strands on the electrode surface, to mainly reduce the effective area of the electrode. The electrostatic repulsive effect may also contribute to the electrode response, since the isoelectric point of mouse IgM is commonly in the range of 4.5 to 7.0. Figure 11 shows the relationship between the decrease in the anodic peak current (A/p ) and the antibody concentration. As seen in this figure, the electrode system responded to the anti-DNA antibody in the concentration range of 1 — 100 nM. For the case of the mouse IgM, which does not interact with double-stranded DNA, the present system gave almost no response. The sensor did not respond to other serum proteins as well (data not shown). 

A different pH-triggered deshielding concept with hydrophilic polymers is based on reversing noncovalent electrostatic bonds [78, 195, 197]. For example, a pH-responsive sulfonamide/PEl system was developed for tumor-specific pDNA delivery [195]. At pH 7.4, the pH-sensitive diblock copolymer, poly(methacryloyl sulfadimethoxine) (PSD)-hZocA -PEG (PSD-b-PEG), binds to DNA/PEI polyplexes and shields against cell interaction. At pH 6.6 (such as in a hypoxic extracellular tumor environment or in endosomes), PSD-b-PEG becomes uncharged due to sulfonamide protonation and detaches from the nanoparticles, permitting PEI to interact with cells. In this fashion PSD-b-PEG is able to discern the small difference in pH between normal and tumor tissues. 

Polymeric beads obtained via emulsion polymerization, precipitation, etc. can be stained with dyes providing that both have functional groups available [7]. Covalent coupling is mostly preferred but the attachment based on strong electrostatic interactions is also feasible. This method is mostly used to design pH- and ion-sensitive micro- and nanobeads. The dynamic response of such systems can be... 

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