1,721,053 research outputs found
Modello ortotopico di neuroblastoma: un valido approccio sperimentale per valutare in vivo l'efficacia dell'inibizione di p38MAPK nel sensibilizzare il neuroblastoma umano al trattamento con etoposide
No full textModello ortotopico di neuroblastoma: un valido approccio sperimentale per valutare in vivo l'efficacia dell'inibizione di p38MAPK nel sensibilizzare il neuroblastoma umano al trattamento con etoposid
Narrow-escape time and sorting of active particles in circular domains
No full textIt is now well established that microswimmers can be sorted or segregated fabricating suitable microfluidic devices or using external fields. A natural question is how these techniques can be employed for dividing swimmers of different motility. In this paper, using numerical simulations in the dilute limit, we investigate how motility parameters (time of persistence and velocity) impact the narrow-escape time of active particles from circular domains. We show that the escape time undergoes a crossover between two asymptotic regimes. The control parameters of the crossover is the ratio between the persistence length of the active motion and the typical length scale of the circular domain. We explore the possibility of taking advantage of this finding for sorting active particles by motility parameters
Linear and nonlinear thermodynamics of a kinetic heat engine with fast transformations
No full textWe investigate a kinetic heat engine model composed of particles enclosed in a box where one side acts as a thermostat and the opposite side is a piston exerting a given pressure. Pressure and temperature are varied in a cyclical protocol of period \tau: their relative excursions,
\delta and \epsilon, respectively, constitute the thermodynamic forces dragging the system out of equilibrium. The analysis of the entropy production of the system allows us to define the conjugated fluxes, which are proportional to the extracted work and the consumed heat. In the limit of small
\delta, and \epsilon the fluxes are linear in the forces through a \tau-dependent Onsager matrix whose off-diagonal elements satisfy a reciprocal relation. The dynamics of the piston can be approximated, through a coarse-graining procedure, by a Klein-Kramers equation which—in the linear regime—yields analytic expressions for the Onsager coefficients and the entropy production. A study of the efficiency at maximum power shows that the Curzon-Ahlborn formula is always an upper limit which is approached at increasing values of the thermodynamic forces, i.e., outside of the linear regime. In all our analysis the adiabatic limit \tau\to\infty and the the small-force limit \delta, \epsilon\to 0 are not directly related.
Coulomb Friction Driving Brownian Motors
Get PDFWe review a family of models recently introduced to describe Brownian motors under the influence of Coulomb friction, or more general non-linear friction laws. It is known that, if the heat bath is modeled as the usual Langevin equation (linear viscosity plus white noise), additional non-linear friction forces are not sufficient to break detailed balance, i.e. cannot produce a motor effect. We discuss two possibile mechanisms to elude this problem. A first possibility, exploited in several models inspired to recent experiments, is to replace the heat bath's white noise by a “collisional noise”, that is the effect of random collisions with an external equilibrium gas of particles. A second possibility is enlarging the phase space, e.g. by adding an external potential which couples velocity to position, as in a Klein—Kramers equation. In both cases, non-linear friction becomes sufficient to achieve a non-equilibrium steady state and, in the presence of an even small spatial asymmetry, a motor effect is produced
Entropy production for velocity-dependent macroscopic forces: The problem of dissipation without fluctuations
No full textIn macroscopic systems, velocity-dependent phenomenological forces F(v) are used to model friction, feedback devices or self-propulsion. Such forces usually include a dissipative component which conceals the fast energy exchanges with a thermostat at the environment temperature T, ruled by a microscopic Hamiltonian H. The mapping —even if effective for many purposes— may lead to applications of stochastic thermodynamics where an incomplete fluctuating entropy production (FEP) is derived. An enlighting example is offered by recent macroscopic experiments where dissipation is dominated by solid-on-solid friction, typically modelled through a deterministic Coulomb force F(v). Through an adaptation of the microscopic Prandtl-Tomlinson model for friction, we show how the FEP is dominated by the heat released to the T-thermostat, ignored by the macroscopic Coulomb model. This problem, which haunts several studies in the literature, cannot be cured by weighing the time-reversed trajectories with a different auxiliary dynamics: it is only solved by a more accurate stochastic modelling of the thermostat underlying dissipation
The entropy production of Ornstein–Uhlenbeck active particles: a path integral method for correlations
Get PDFBy employing a path integral formulation, we obtain the entropy production rate for a system of active Ornstein–Uhlenbeck particles (AOUP) both in the presence and in the absence of thermal noise. The present treatment clarifies some contraddictions concerning the definition of the entropy production rate in the AOUP model, recently appeared in the literature. We derive explicit formulas for three different cases: overdamped Brownian particle, AOUP with and without thermal noise. In addition, we show that it is not necessary to introduce additional hypotheses concerning the parity of auxiliary variables under time reversal transformation. Our results agree with those based on a previous mesoscopic approach
Activity induced delocalization and freezing in self-propelled systems
Get PDFWe study a system of interacting active particles, propelled by colored noises, characterized by an activity time τ, and confined by a single-well anharmonic potential. We assume pair-wise repulsive forces among particles, modelling the steric interactions among microswimmers. This system has been experimentally studied in the case of a dilute suspension of Janus particles confined through acoustic traps. We observe that already in the dilute regime - when inter-particle interactions are negligible - increasing the persistent time, τ, pushes the particles away from the potential minimum, until a saturation distance is reached. We compute the phase diagram (activity versus interaction length), showing that the interaction does not suppress this delocalization phenomenon but induces a liquid- or solid-like structure in the densest regions. Interestingly a reentrant behavior is observed: a first increase of τ from small values acts as an effective warming, favouring fluidization; at higher values, when the delocalization occurs, a further increase of τ induces freezing inside the densest regions. An approximate analytical scheme gives fair predictions for the density profiles in the weakly interacting case. The analysis of non-equilibrium heat fluxes reveals that in the region of largest particle concentration equilibrium is restored in several aspects
Production in Escherichia coli of recombinant COVID-19 spike protein fragments fused to CRM197
No full textDuring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic affected almost 108 individuals. Quite a number of vaccines against COVID-19 were therefore developed, and a few recently received authorization for emergency use. Overall, these vaccines target specific viral proteins by antibodies whose synthesis is directly elicited or indirectly triggered by nucleic acids coding for the desired targets. Among these targets, the receptor binding domain (RBD) of COVID-19 spike protein (SP) does frequently occur in the repertoire of candidate vaccines. However, the immunogenicity of RBD per se is limited by its low molecular mass, and by a structural rearrangement of full-length SP accompanied by the detachment of RBD. Here we show that the RBD of COVID-19 SP can be conveniently produced in Escherichia coli when fused to a fragment of CRM197, a variant of diphtheria toxin currently used for a number of conjugated vaccines. In particular, we show that the CRM197-RBD chimera solubilized from inclusion bodies can be refolded and purified to a state featuring the 5 native disulphide bonds of the parental proteins, the competence in binding angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, and a satisfactory stability at room temperature. Accordingly, our observations provide compulsory information for the development of a candidate vaccine directed against COVID-19
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