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Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis

The isotropic and nematic (I + N) coexistence for rod-like colloids is a signature of the first-order thermodynamics nature of this phase transition. However, in the case of amyloid fibrils, the biphasic region is too small to be experimentally detected, due to their extremely high aspect ratio. Her...

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Autores principales: Vigolo, Daniele, Zhao, Jianguo, Handschin, Stephan, Cao, Xiaobao, deMello, Andrew J., Mezzenga, Raffaele
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430637/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28450728
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01287-1
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author Vigolo, Daniele
Zhao, Jianguo
Handschin, Stephan
Cao, Xiaobao
deMello, Andrew J.
Mezzenga, Raffaele
author_facet Vigolo, Daniele
Zhao, Jianguo
Handschin, Stephan
Cao, Xiaobao
deMello, Andrew J.
Mezzenga, Raffaele
author_sort Vigolo, Daniele
collection PubMed
description The isotropic and nematic (I + N) coexistence for rod-like colloids is a signature of the first-order thermodynamics nature of this phase transition. However, in the case of amyloid fibrils, the biphasic region is too small to be experimentally detected, due to their extremely high aspect ratio. Herein, we study the thermophoretic behaviour of fluorescently labelled β-lactoglobulin amyloid fibrils by inducing a temperature gradient across a microfluidic channel. We discover that fibrils accumulate towards the hot side of the channel at the temperature range studied, thus presenting a negative Soret coefficient. By exploiting this thermophoretic behaviour, we show that it becomes possible to induce a continuous I-N transition with the I and N phases at the extremities of the channel, starting from an initially single N phase, by generating an appropriate concentration gradient along the width of the microchannel. Accordingly, we introduce a new methodology to control liquid crystal phase transitions in anisotropic colloidal suspensions. Because the induced order-order transitions are achieved under stationary conditions, this may have important implications in both applied colloidal science, such as in separation and fractionation of colloids, as well as in fundamental soft condensed matter, by widening the accessibility of target regions in the phase diagrams.
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spelling pubmed-54306372017-05-15 Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis Vigolo, Daniele Zhao, Jianguo Handschin, Stephan Cao, Xiaobao deMello, Andrew J. Mezzenga, Raffaele Sci Rep Article The isotropic and nematic (I + N) coexistence for rod-like colloids is a signature of the first-order thermodynamics nature of this phase transition. However, in the case of amyloid fibrils, the biphasic region is too small to be experimentally detected, due to their extremely high aspect ratio. Herein, we study the thermophoretic behaviour of fluorescently labelled β-lactoglobulin amyloid fibrils by inducing a temperature gradient across a microfluidic channel. We discover that fibrils accumulate towards the hot side of the channel at the temperature range studied, thus presenting a negative Soret coefficient. By exploiting this thermophoretic behaviour, we show that it becomes possible to induce a continuous I-N transition with the I and N phases at the extremities of the channel, starting from an initially single N phase, by generating an appropriate concentration gradient along the width of the microchannel. Accordingly, we introduce a new methodology to control liquid crystal phase transitions in anisotropic colloidal suspensions. Because the induced order-order transitions are achieved under stationary conditions, this may have important implications in both applied colloidal science, such as in separation and fractionation of colloids, as well as in fundamental soft condensed matter, by widening the accessibility of target regions in the phase diagrams. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-04-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5430637/ /pubmed/28450728 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01287-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Vigolo, Daniele
Zhao, Jianguo
Handschin, Stephan
Cao, Xiaobao
deMello, Andrew J.
Mezzenga, Raffaele
Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis
title Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis
title_full Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis
title_fullStr Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis
title_full_unstemmed Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis
title_short Continuous Isotropic-Nematic Transition in Amyloid Fibril Suspensions Driven by Thermophoresis
title_sort continuous isotropic-nematic transition in amyloid fibril suspensions driven by thermophoresis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430637/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28450728
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01287-1
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