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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2017
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5430637 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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