Engineered Ferritin for Magnetogenetic Manipulation of Proteins and Organelles Inside Living Cells

Magnetogenetics is emerging as a novel approach for remote‐controlled manipulation of cellular functions in tissues and organisms with high spatial and temporal resolution. A critical, still challenging issue for these techniques is to conjugate target proteins with magnetic probes that can satisfy multiple colloidal and biofunctional constraints. Here, semisynthetic magnetic nanoparticles are tailored based on human ferritin coupled to monomeric enhanced green fluorescent protein (mEGFP) for magnetic manipulation of proteins inside living cells. This study demonstrates efficient delivery, intracellular stealth properties, and rapid subcellular targeting of those magnetic nanoparticles via GFP–nanobody interactions. By means of magnetic field gradients, rapid spatial reorganization in the cytosol of proteins captured to the nanoparticle surface is achieved. Moreover, exploiting efficient nanoparticle targeting to intracellular membranes, remote‐controlled arrest of mitochondrial dynamics using magnetic fields is demonstrated. The studies establish subcellular control of proteins and organelles with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution, thus opening new prospects for magnetogenetic applications in fundamental cell biology and nanomedicine.     

Deployable Structures Based on Buckling of Curved Beams Upon a Rotational Input

Inspired by the recent success of buckling-induced reconfigurable structures, a new class of deployable systems that harness buckling of curved beams upon a rotational input is proposed. First, experimental and numerical methods are combined to investigate the influence of the beam's geometric parameters on its non-linear response. Then, it is shown that a wide range of deployable architectures can be realized by combining curved beams. Finally, the proposed principles are used to build deployable furniture such as tables and lamp shades that are flat/compact for transportation and storage, require simple or no assembly, and can be expanded by applying a simple rotational input.     

Experimental investigations of non‐Newtonian/Newtonian liquid‐liquid flows in microchannels

The plug flow of a non‐Newtonian and a Newtonian liquid was experimentally investigated in a quartz microchannel (200‐µm internal diameter). Two aqueous glycerol solutions containing xanthan gum at 1000 and 2000 ppm were the non‐Newtonian fluids and 0.0046 Pa s silicone oil was the Newtonian phase forming the dispersed plugs. Two‐color particle image velocimetry was used to obtain the hydrodynamic characteristics and the velocity profiles in both phases under different fluid flow rates. The experimental results revealed that the increase in xanthan gum concentration produced longer, bullet‐shaped plugs, and increased the thickness of the film surrounding them. From the shear rate and viscosity profiles, it was found that the polymer solution was in the shear‐thinning region while the viscosity was higher in the middle of the channel compared to the region close to the wall. Circulation times in the aqueous phase increased with the concentration of xanthan gum. © 2017 The Authors AIChE Journal published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 3599–3609, 2017     

Toluene degradation by a water/silicone oil mixture for the design of two phase partitioning bioreactors

Toluene degradation performances were studied in a 10 L Two-Phase Partitioning Bioreactor (TPPB).The liquid phase consisted of a mixture of water and PDMS 50 (PolyDiMethylSiloxane,i.e.silicone oil,viscosity of 46 maa·s) in the volume ratio of 75％/25％.Two series of experiments were carried out:in the first,the reactor was sequentially supplied with toluene whereas in the second,toluene was continuously supplied.Activated sludge from the wastewater treatment plant of Beaurade (Rennes,France) was used at an initial concentration of 0.5 dry mass g· (mixture L)-1.The elimination capacity (EC) was investigated as well as the change in biomass concentration over time.Toluene biodegradation was very efficient (removal efficiency,RE =100％) for toluene flows ranging from 0.2 to 1.2 ml· h-1,corresponding to elimination capacities of up to 104 g· m-3· h-1.For a toluene flow of 1.2 ml·h-1,the biomass concentration measured at the end of the experiment was 4.7 dry mass g.(mixture L)-1.The oxygen concentration in the liquid phase was clearly not a limiting factor in these operating conditions.Based on these results,an extrapolation leading to the design of a large-scale pilot TPPB can now be considered to study toluene degradation performances in industrial conditions.     

Anaerobic digestion of olive mill wastewaters in biofilm reactors packed with granular activated carbon and "Manville" silica beads

Anaerobic digestion is one of the most promising technologies for disposing olive mill wastewaters (OMWs). The process is generally carried out in the conventional contact bioreactors, which however are often unable to efficiently remove OMW phenolic compounds, that therefore occur in the effluents. The possibility of mitigating this problem by employing an anaerobic OMW-digesting microbial consortium passively immobilized in column reactors packed with granular activated carbon (GAC) or "Manville" silica beads (SB) was here investigated. Under batch conditions, both GAC- and SB-packed-bed biofilm reactors exhibited OMW COD and phenolic compound removal efficiencies markedly higher (from 60% to 250%) than those attained in a parallel anaerobic dispersed growth reactor developed with the same inoculum; GAC-reactor exhibited COD and phenolic compound depletion yields higher by 62% and 78%, respectively, than those achieved with the identically configured SB-biofilm reactor. Both biofilm reactors also mediated an extensive OMW remediation under continuous conditions, where GAC-reactor was much more effective than the corresponding SB-one, and showed a tolerance to high and variable organic loads along with a volumetric productivity in terms of COD and phenolic compound removal significantly higher than those averagely displayed by most of the conventional and packed-bed laboratory-scale reactors previously proposed for the OMW digestion.     

Greffage de molécules à la surface du silicium par voie électrochimique

The hydrogentated surface of silicon exhibits remarkable properties, but poor resistance to oxidation. To improve its stability, surface hydrogen has been replaced by several organic groups. Such grafting can be carried out chemically by a multi-step reaction scheme. However, an electrochemical approach allows direct reaction with the hydrogenated surface. The porous-silicon surface has been partially methoxylated by a controlled anodic dissolution. If has also been methylated using a non-destructive anodic process, with a yield of 80%, limited only by steric hindrance. The methylated surface of porous silicon exhibits a stability against oxidation increased by an order of magnitude.     

Building maps of local apparent conductivity of the epicardium with a 2-D electrophysiological model of the heart

In this paper, we address the problem of estimating the parameters of an electrophysiological model of the heart from a set of electrical recordings. The chosen model is the reaction-diffusion model on the transmembrane potential proposed by Aliev and Panfilov. For this model of the transmembrane, we estimate a local apparent two-dimensional conductivity from a measured depolarization time distribution. First, we perform an initial adjustment including the choice of initial conditions and of a set of global parameters. We then propose a local estimation by minimizing the quadratic error between the depolarization time computed by the model and the measures. As a first step we address the problem on the epicardial surface in the case of an isotropic version of the Aliev and Panfilov model. The minimization is performed using Brent method without computing the derivative of the error. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated on synthetic electrophysiological measurements. A proof of concept is obtained on real electrophysiological measures of normal and infarcted canine hearts.     

Pressure control in a PEM fuel cell via second order sliding mode

Pressure difference inside the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) arises due to load variations, during which the pressure difference between anode and cathode rises. Practically, this problem can be avoided by equalizing anode and cathode pressures, to protect the fuel cell from permanent damage. This paper focuses on pressure regulation in the anode and cathode sides of the PEMFC. The control objective is achieved using second order sliding mode multi-input multi-output (MIMO) controller based on “Twisting algorithm”. Parametric uncertainty is formally presented and included in a nonlinear dynamic fuel cell model. The resultant nonlinear controller is robust and is proved to guarantee performance around any equilibrium point and under parametric uncertainty. Simulation results show that the proposed controller has a good transient response under load variations.