Disease can easily be spread through contact along with contents contaminated along with infectious microorganism, making regulate of transmission an fascinating goal of surface research. In order to make “energetic surfaces” that can easily lessen or get rid of this contamination, a detailed discovering of the molecular mechanisms of interactions in between the surfaces and the microorganisms is crucial. ICFO researchers in the teams led by ICREA Professor at ICFO Valerio Pruneri and Prof. Melike Lakadamyali, in collaboration along with Dr. Prantik Mazumder at Corning Incorporated and researchers at the Universitat de Barcelona led by Professors Ramon Reigada and Francesc Sagués, present a study of the external membrane of Influenza A virus envelope, lately published in Applied contents and Interfaces, which sheds light on the mechanisms by which substrates along with various wettability can easily interact along with the lipid envelope of bacteria and viruses. Their findings pave the method for the make of brand-new and much more efficient antimicrobial surfaces.
First author of this paper, Dr. Ilaria Mannelli, a member of the Optoelecetonics research group at ICFO led by Prof. Pruneri, explains, “The external envelope of Influenza A virus features a phospholipid bilayer along with embedded proteins, in which the external section is hydrophilic allowing a great dispersion of the viral particles in aqueous solutions. However, the inner section of the envelope is gained of the hydrophobic and oleophilic tails of lipids. Due to this, once a solution of viruses is deposited into a functionalized surface that is simultaneously hydrophobic and oleophilic, the inner section of the viral envelope strongly interacts along with the substrate molecules moving from the viral envelope to the surface. As a consequence, the integrity of the external membrane of Influenza A virus envelope is damaged and the infectivity of the virus solution is reduced.”
ICFO researchers in collaboration along with Corning, Inc, tailored the wetting characteristics of glass surfaces by functionalizing them along with coating gained of alkyl- and fluoro-silanes also as by nanostructuring. Furthermore, utilizing a variety of experimental and computational means including real-time fluorescence microscopy done at ICFO and molecular dynamics simulations done by researchers at UB, researchers were able to study the effects of these functionalized surfaces on the infectivity of Influenza A viruses and introduce make criteria for brand-new surfaces along with individual properties that can easily deactivate Influenza A viruses along with higher efficiency.
These outcomes offer brand-new insights in to the role of the wetting properties of functionalized surfaces on their effect on enveloped viruses coming in to contact along with them. These insights constitute the basis for guiding the make and progress of brand-new surfaces along with greater antiviral task that can easily be essential for applications in public and/or sensitive environments such as in hospitals.
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The above write-up is reprinted from materials offered by ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences. Note: contents might be edited for content and length.
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