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Violi, Angela
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- Creator:
- Luyet, Chloe, Elvati, Paolo, Vinh, Jordan, and Violi, Angela
- Description:
- A growing body of work has linked key biological activities to the mechanical properties of cellular membranes, and as a means of identification. Here, we present a computational approach to simulate and compare the vibrational spectra in the low-THz region for mammalian and bacterial membranes, investigating the effect of membrane asymmetry and composition, as well as the conserved frequencies of a specific cell. We find that asymmetry does not impact the vibrational spectra, and the impact of sterols depends on the mobility of the components of the membrane. We demonstrate that vibrational spectra can be used to distinguish between membranes and, therefore, could be used in identification of different organisms. The method presented, here, can be immediately extended to other biological structures (e.g., amyloid fibers, polysaccharides, and protein-ligand structures) in order to fingerprint and understand vibrations of numerous biologically-relevant nanoscale structures.
- Keyword:
- molecular dynamics, membranes, mechanical vibration, bacterial identification, and Staphylococcus aureus
- Citation to related publication:
- Luyet C, Elvati P, Vinh J, Violi A. Low-THz Vibrations of Biological Membranes. Membranes. 2023; 13(2):139. https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes13020139
- Discipline:
- Engineering
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- Creator:
- Elvati, Paolo, Luyet, Chloe, Wang, Yichun, Liu, Changjiang, VanEpps, J. Scott, Kotov, Nicholas A., and Violi, Angela
- Description:
- Amyloid nanofibers are abundant in microorganisms and are integral components of many biofilms, serving various purposes, from virulent to structural. Nonetheless, the precise characterization of bacterial amyloid nanofibers has been elusive, with incomplete and contradicting results. The present work focuses on the molecular details and characteristics of PSMa1-derived functional amyloids present in Staphylococcus aureus biofilms, using a combination of computational and experimental techniques, to develop a model that can aid the design of compounds to control amyloid formation. Results from molecular dynamics simulations, guided and supported by spectroscopy and microscopy, show that PSMa1 amyloid nanofibers present a helical structure formed by two protofilaments, have an average diameter of about 12 nm, and adopt a left-handed helicity with a periodicity of approximately 72 nm. The chirality of the self-assembled nanofibers, an intrinsic geometric property of its constituent peptides, is central to determining the fibers' lateral growth.
- Keyword:
- molecular self-assembly, computational nanotechnology, nanobiotechnology, and structural properties
- Citation to related publication:
- Paolo Elvati, Chloe Luyet, Yichun Wang, Changjiang Liu, J. Scott VanEpps, Nicholas A. Kotov, and Angela Violi ACS Applied Nano Materials 2023 6 (8), 6594-6604 DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.3c00174
- Discipline:
- Engineering and Science
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- Creator:
- Shi, Xuetao, Elvati, Paolo, and Violi, Angela
- Description:
- Non-thermal plasma systems offer unique opportunities in the fields of bio-imaging, drug delivery, photovoltaics, microelectronics manufacturing. Such interests are largely inspired by the fact that hot plasma electrons coexist with neutral species and ions close to room-temperature under non-thermal plasma conditions. Modeling of these systems requires a deep understanding of the atomistic processes underlying the rich chemistry of the various radicals and ions with the nascent nanoparticle surface. A key parameter for determining the contribution of a certain radical/ion species to the nanoparticle surface growth, called sticking coefficient, is computed as a weighted sum from the simulated sticking outcomes with different collision velocities drawn from a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution at certain temperatures. In this work, the collisions of SiHx (x=1-4) fragments and silicon cluster (Si4, Si2H6, and Si29H36) surfaces, responsible for the sticking coefficients, are simulated by molecular dynamics (MD) with a reactive force field. The dependence of sticking coefficients on temperature, H coverage of both silane fragments and cluster surfaces, and the size of the cluster, are systematically examined. And the mechanism underlying the sticking events, specifically the conversion of physical aggregation to chemisorption is investigated to better understand the complex interplay between factors influencing the surface growth. The detailed and multi-parameter model of sticking coefficients, accompanied by the mechanism study of physisorption to chemisorption conversion, provides a more accurate and robust approximation of surface growth rate using sticking coefficients, and a deeper understanding of surface growth processes, for the wider non-thermal plasma simulation community.
- Keyword:
- Sticking coefficients, Silanes, Molecular Dynamics, Non-equilibrium, and Aggregation mechanisms
- Citation to related publication:
- Shi, X., Elvati, P., Violi, A. (2021). On the growth of Si nanoparticles in non-thermal plasma: physisorption to chemisorption conversion. J. Phys. D. Submitted.
- Discipline:
- Science