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- Title
Non-equilibrium nature of two-dimensional isotropic and nematic coexistence in amyloid fibrils at liquid interfaces.
- Authors
Jordens, Sophia; Isa, Lucio; Usov, Ivan; Mezzenga, Raffaele
- Abstract
Two-dimensional alignment of shape-anisotropic colloids is ubiquitous in nature, ranging from interfacial virus assembly to amyloid plaque formation. The principles governing two-dimensional self-assembly have therefore long been studied, both theoretically and experimentally, leading, however, to diverging fundamental interpretations on the nature of the two-dimensional isotropic-nematic phase transition. Here we employ single-molecule atomic force microscopy, cryogenic scanning electron microscopy and passive probe particle tracking to study the adsorption and liquid crystalline ordering of semiflexible ?-lactoglobulin fibrils at liquid interfaces. Fibrillar rigidity changes on increasing interfacial density, with a maximum caused by alignment and a subsequent decrease stemming from crowding and domain bending. Coexistence of nematic and isotropic regions is resolved and quantified by a length scale-dependent order parameter S2D(d). The nematic surface fraction increases with interfacial fibril density, but depends, for a fixed interfacial density, on the initial bulk concentration, ascribing the observed two-dimensional isotropic-nematic coexistence to non-equilibrium phenomena.
- Publication
Nature Communications, 2013, Vol 4, Issue 5, p1917
- ISSN
2041-1723
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/ncomms2911