Self-assembled pH-responsive films prepared from mussel anchoring threads
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The byssus is a series of collagen-rich fibers securing mussels to surfaces. The complex but elegant heterogeneous assembly of the various proteins in the threads is responsible for their remarkable mechanical properties combining strength and extensibility. Along with the well-known biocompatibility and biodegradability attributed to collagen-based materials, these mechanical properties are highly desirable to produce biomaterials for soft tissue engineering and drug delivery applications. In order to replicate the byssus natural features and properties, we prepared a soluble byssus protein hydrolyzate (BPH) that can generate water-insoluble self-standing films. Atomic force and scanning electron microscopy revealed the presence of self-assembled collagen-like fibrils at the surface of the films. Infrared spectroscopy analysis of the film formation showed that insolubility is caused by the self-assembly of polypeptides from the hydrolyzate into antiparallel β-sheets, aggregated β-strands and collagen triple-helix structures. The mechanical properties and water swelling measurements on the films can be reversibly pH-modulated by modifying the electrostatic interactions between the ∼30 mol% of charged amino acids. Optimal mechanical properties and minimum swelling are obtained at the isoelectric point (pH 4.5). Higher or lower pH treatment reversibly decreases their stiffness and strength and increases their swelling ratio. Altogether, our results show that byssus proteins are an interesting sustainable feedstock for preparing new solid-state pH-tuneable biomaterials.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".