The outermost layer of mammalian skin, called the stratum corneum (SC), constitutes a self-healing barrier against moisture loss and ingress of foreign substances. The SC comprises flat "bricks" (50-100 micron wide and 1 micron thick corneocytes largely filled with keratins) held together by a `mortar' of 6-10 layers of lipids (100 nm thick). The corneocytes are hydrophilic, while the lipid...
Single chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) are unimolecular polymer chains folded or collapsed via intra-molecular cross-linking under high dilution, leading to sparse conformations and a topological polydispersity similar to that of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). Currently, there is great interest in expanding this technology to biodegradable and biocompatible polymers, including proteins....
By utilizing time-of-flight neutron reflectometry (ToF-NR) under different relative humidity, we demonstrate that polymer brushes constituted by hydrophilic cyclic macromolecules exhibit more compact conformation with lower roughness compared to linear brush analogues, due to the absence of dangling chain ends extending at the interface. [1] In addition, due to increased interchain steric...
