Publications

We obtained osmotic pressure data of lysozyme solutions, describing their physical states over a wide
concentration range, using osmotic stress for pressures between 0.05 bar and about 40 bar and volume
fractions between 0.01 and 0.61. The osmotic pressure vs. volume fraction data consist of a dilute, gas-phase
regime, a transition regime with a high-compressibility plateau, and a concentrated regime where the system is
nearly incompressible. The first two regimes are shifted towards a higher protein volume fraction upon
decreasing the strength or the range of electrostatic interactions. We describe this shift and the overall shape of
the experimental data in these two regimes through a model accounting for a steric repulsion, a short-range
van der Waals attraction and a screened electrostatic repulsion. The transition is caused by crystallization, as
shown by small-angle X-ray scattering. We verified that our data points correspond to thermodynamic equilibria,
and thus that they consist of the reference experimental counterpart of a thermodynamic equation of state.

Monte Carlo simulations and coarse-grained modelling have been used to analyze
Histatin 5, which is an unstructured short cationic salivary peptide known to have anticandidical
properties. The calculated scattering functions have been compared with
intensity curves and the distance distribution function P(r) obtained from SAXS, at
both high and low salt concentrations. The aim is to achieve a molecular understanding
and a physico-chemical insight of the obtained SAXS results and to gain information of
conformational changes of Histatin 5 due to altering salt content, charge distribution,
and net charge. From a modelling perspective, the accuracy of the electrostatic interaction
is of special interest. The used coarse-grained model is based on the primitive
model in which charged hard spheres differing in charge and in size represent the ionic
particles, and the solvent only enters the model through its relative permittivity. The
Hamiltonian of the model comprises three different contributions: (i) excluded volumes,
(ii) electrostatic, and (iii) van der Waals interactions. Even though the model can be
considered as gross omitting atomistic details, a great correspondence is obtained with
experimental results.

DOI 10.1002/prot.25025

Liquid jets ultimately break up into droplets through an instability driven by surface tension. For highly viscous liquids, drops are connected by cylindrical liquid filaments whose radii linearly decrease with time, thus forming drops on a string structure. For a jet composed of two aqueous phases made in air by coaxial extrusion, we observe that, for moderate Weber and capillary numbers, drops slow down with different velocities, leading to drop coalescence. The origin of the traffic collision is linked to the spatial feature of the capillary instability where capillary and viscous forces acting on the drops evolve along the jet and ultimately amplify small velocity fluctuations. The emergence of such fluctuations is related to the unstable nature of the annular coflow of liquids having contrasting viscoelastic properties. From a practical point of view, flow and actuation conditions can be adjusted to inhibit drop collision and thus drop coalescence. These findings allow then the fabrication of monodisperse submillimeter core-shell objects based on the fragmentation of compound jets made of polymer solutions that find applications for three-dimensional cell culture.
 

The fabrication of alginate hydrogel microparticles with embedded liposomes and magnetic nanoparticles for radiofrequency controlled release of encapsulated chemical cargo was considered. An extractive gelation process was implemented in a microfluidic device, which enabled the production of uniform composite microparticles of dimensions comparable to those of blood cells (between 5 and 10 mm). The critical parameters that control the extractive gelation process were systematically explored and feasible values that provide microgel particles of a defined size and morphology were identified. First, the initial water-in-oil droplet is formed in a flow-focusing junction whose size is controlled by the flow-rate of the oil phase. Then, the train of droplets is sandwiched between two streams of oil containing calcium ions. In that way, a flux of water molecules from the droplets towards the continuous phase as well as a transport of calcium ions towards the disperse phase are initiated. The final microparticle properties were thus found to be sensitive to three elementary sub-processes: (i) the initial droplet size; (ii) the extraction of water into the oil phase, which was controlled by the volume of the oil phase and its initial moisture content; and (iii) the kinetics of ionic cross-linking of the alginate matrix, which was controlled by the varying calcium concentration. The size and morphology of the final composite microgels were fully characterized.
 

We describe an interfacial rheometry technique based on pairs of micrometer-sized magnetic particles
at a fluid–fluid interface. The particles are repeatedly attracted and repelled by well-controlled magnetic
dipole–dipole forces, so-called interfacial rheometry by intra-pair magnetophoresis (IPM). From the
forces (pN), displacements (µm) and velocities (µm s-1) of the particles we are able to quantify the
interfacial drag coefficient of particles within a few seconds and over very long timescales. The use of
local dipole–dipole forces makes the system insensitive to fluid flow and suited for simultaneously
recording many particles in parallel over a long period of time. We apply IPM to study the timedependent
adsorption of an oil-soluble amino-modified silicone polymer at a water–oil interface using
carboxylated magnetic particles. At low polymer concentration the carboxylated particles remain on the
water side of the water–oil interface, while at high polymer concentrations the particles transit into the
oil phase. Both conditions show a drag coefficient that does not depend on time. However, at intermediate
polymer concentrations data show an increase of the interfacial drag coefficient as a function
of time, with an increase over more than three orders of magnitude (10^-7 to 10^-4 N s m1), pointing to
a strong polymer-polymer interaction at the interface. The time-dependence of the interfacial drag
appears to be highly sensitive to the polymer concentration and to the ionic strength of the aqueous
phase. We foresee that IPM will be a very convenient technique to study fluid–fluid interfaces for a
broad range of materials systems.

DOI: 10.1039/c5sm02917a

A modified version of the Gibbs-ensemble Monte-Carlo method reveals how polydisperse charged colloidal particles can build complex colloidal crystals. It provides general rules that are applicable to this fractionated crystallization that stems from size segregation. It explains the spontaneous formation of complex crystals with very large unit-cells in suspensions of nanoparticles with a broad size distribution.

DOI: 10.1039/C5FD00145E

We report small-angle x-ray scattering experiments on aqueous dispersions of colloidal silica with a broad monomodal size distribution (polydispersity, 14%; size, 8 nm). Over a range of volume fractions, the silica particles segregate to build first one, then two distinct sets of colloidal crystals. These dispersions thus demonstrate fractional crystallization and multiple-phase (bcc, Laves AB2, liquid) coexistence. Their remarkable ability to build complex crystal structures from a polydisperse population originates from the intermediate-range nature of interparticle forces, and it suggests routes for designing self-assembling colloidal crystals from the bottom up.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.208001

Physics (viewpoint), at http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/57

Determining the phenotype and genotype of single cells is central to understand microbial evolution. DNA sequencing technologies allow the detection of mutants at high resolution, but similar approaches for phenotypic analyses are still lacking. We show that a drop-based millifluidic system enables the detection of heritable phenotypic changes in evolving bacterial populations. At time intervals, cells were sampled and individually compartmentalized in 100 nL drops. Growth through 15 generations was monitored using a fluorescent protein reporter. Amplification of heritable changes–via growth–over multiple generations yields phenotypically distinct clusters reflecting variation relevant for evolution. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, we follow the evolution of Escherichia coli populations during 30 days of starvation. Phenotypic diversity was observed to rapidly increase upon starvation with the emergence of heritable phenotypes. Mutations corresponding to each phenotypic class were identified by DNA sequencing. This scalable lineage-tracking technology opens the door to large-scale phenotyping methods with special utility for microbiology and microbial population biology.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152395

We present the MilliDrop Analyzer (MDA), a droplet-based millifluidic system for digital antimicrobial susceptibility testing (D-AST), which enables us to determine minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) precisely and accurately. The MilliDrop technology was validated by using resazurin for fluorescence readout, for comparison with standard methodology, and for conducting reproducibility studies. In this first assessment, the susceptibility of a reference Gramnegative strain Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 to gentamicin, chloramphenicol, and nalidixic acid were tested by the MDA, VITEK®2, and broth microdilution as a reference standard. We measured the susceptibility of clinically relevant Grampositive strains of Staphylococcus aureus to vancomycin, including vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA), heterogeneous vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (hVISA), and vancomycin-susceptible S. aureus (VSSA) strains. The MDA provided results which were much more accurate than those of VITEK®2 and standard broth microdilution. The enhanced accuracy enabled us to reliably discriminate between VSSA and hVISA strains.

doi:10.​1007/​s10096-015-2554-z