Refolding Behavior of Urea-Induced Denaturation Collagen

Xu Wei,Yanqiu Zhao,Jingjing Zheng,Qin Cao,Sheng Li,Lang He,Benmei Wei,Juntao Zhang,Chengzhi Xu,Haibo Wang 한국고분자학회 2021 Macromolecular Research Vol.29 No.6

Exploration of the denaturation and refolding of natural collagen is important for the application of collagen and its denatured products. In this study, using urea as a denaturant, we prepared a denatured natural collagen product and analyzed its structural changes. The denaturation treatment severely destroyed the triple helix conformation of collagen, but had no significant effect on the primary structure of its α chains or the covalent cross-linking between α chains. Next, we observed the refolding behavior of the denatured collagen by removing urea through dialysis. We found that the denatured collagen products from different sources (grass carp skin, bovine tendon) all showed a reconstruction of the triple helix conformation up to 60-75% of the value of natural collagen during the refolding process. The telopeptide did not significantly promote triple helix reconstruction. In conclusion, the reconstruction of the α chains did not perfectly occur in a “head-to-head, tail-to-tail” manner in refolded collagen, as each α chain was participating in the reconstruction of multiple triple helix domains. The refolded collagen still had weak self-assembly ability and formed a unique network-like structure containing small interlaced and closely combined fibers, which shows favorable cell compatibility and potential applications.

High-Frequency Modeling and Optimization of E/O Response and Reflection Characteristics of 40 Gb/s EML Module for Optical Transmitters

Chengzhi Xu,Y.Z. Xu,Yanli Zhao,Kunzhong Lu,Weihua Liu,Shibing Fan,Hui Zou,Wen Liu 한국전자통신연구원 2012 ETRI Journal Vol.34 No.3

A complete high-frequency small-signal circuit model of a 40 Gb/s butterfly electroabsorption modulator integrated laser module is presented for the first time to analyze and optimize its electro-optic (E/O) response and reflection characteristics. An agreement between measured and simulated results demonstrates the accuracy and validity of the procedures. By optimizing the bonding wire length and the impedance of the coplanar waveguide transmission lines, the E/O response increases approximately 5% to 15% from 20 GHz to 33 GHz, while the signal injection efficiency increases from approximately 15% to 25% over 18 GHz to 35 GHz.

Ground type-I collagen—a focused study on its fibrillogenesis behavior and bioactivity in vitro

Yuling Xu,Lei Dai,Ke Li,Jialin Liu,Haibo Wang,Lang He,Chengzhi Xu,Benmei Wei,Juntao Zhang 한국고분자학회 2023 Macromolecular Research Vol.31 No.1

Take bovine tendon type-I collagen as the raw material, we pretreated it by freezing and then grinding the macromolecule at a low temperature (4–10 °C). Effects of the grinding process on the molecular structure, water solubility, fibrillogenesis behavior in vitro and biological activity of collagen were systematically prospected. Sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS–PAGE) results revealed that the collagen had typical structural characteristics of type-I collagen; moreover, grinding treatment gave rise to partially degraded collagen molecules which took on continuous bands with lower molecular weights different from α1 and α2. More strikingly, the degradation degree positively corresponded to the grinding duration. Circular dichroism (CD) analysis manifested that with extended grinding, intensities of both the positive and negative peaks for collagen samples shrunk. Interestingly, grinding also contributed to improved water solubility of collagen. The water solubility of the sample ground for 20 min (COL20) was 1.91 mg/mL, which is about 6 times higher than that of the natural collagen sample (0.28 mg/mL). Amid the study concerning the fibrillogenesis behavior, turbidity and rheological data collaboratively demonstrated that with prolonged grinding time, the assembly rate and degree of the sample plunged. Assembled gel from the ground collagen with finer fibrils was also observed in scanning electron microscope (SEM), which further embraced the conclusion aforementioned in fibrillogenesis kinetics. Cell experiments corroborated that the grinding process can be harnessed to manipulate the cell proliferation promoting ability of collagen. Simultaneously, further dissection of COL20 with the best biological activity clarified that the water-soluble part and water-insoluble part of COL20 had distinct aptitudes as to promoting cell proliferation as well as inhibiting the growth of liver cancer cells.

Bending and free vibration analysis of laminated piezoelectric composite plates

Pengchong Zhang,Chengzhi Qi,Hongyuan Fang,Xu Sun 국제구조공학회 2020 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.75 No.6

This paper provides a semi-analytical approach to investigate the variations of 3D displacement components, electric potential, stresses, electric displacements and transverse vibration frequencies in laminated piezoelectric composite plates based on the scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM) and the precise integration algorithm (PIA). The proposed approach can analyze the static and dynamic responses of multilayered piezoelectric plates with any number of laminae, various geometrical shapes, boundary conditions, thickness-to-length ratios and stacking sequences. Only a longitudinal surface of the plate is discretized into 2D elements, which helps to improve the computational efficiency. Comparing with plate theories and other numerical methods, only three displacement components and the electric potential are set as the basic unknown variables and can be represented analytically through the transverse direction. The whole derivation is built upon the three dimensional key equations of elasticity for the piezoelectric materials and no assumptions on the plate kinematics have been taken. By virtue of the equilibrium equations, the constitutive relations and the introduced set of scaled boundary coordinates, three-dimensional governing partial differential equations are converted into the second order ordinary differential matrix equation. Furthermore, aided by the introduced internal nodal force, a first order ordinary differential equation is obtained with its general solution in the form of a matrix exponent. To further improve the accuracy of the matrix exponent in the SBFEM, the PIA is employed to make sure any desired accuracy of the mechanical and electric variables. By virtue of the kinetic energy technique, the global mass matrix of the composite plates constituted by piezoelectric laminae is constructed for the first time based on the SBFEM. Finally, comparisons with the exact solutions and available results are made to confirm the accuracy and effectiveness of the developed methodology. What’s more, the effect of boundary conditions, thickness-to-length ratios and stacking sequences of laminae on the distributions of natural frequencies, mechanical and electric fields in laminated piezoelectric composite plates is evaluated.

Study of the Non-Linearity on TiO2(0 0 1) Surface with Oxygen Defects: A First-Principles Study

Yuehua Dai,Xu Zhang,Chengzhi Ma,Zhiyong Pan,Feifei Wang,Wenjuan Lu,Jin Yang,Fei Yang 성균관대학교(자연과학캠퍼스) 성균나노과학기술원 2017 NANO Vol.12 No.8

First-principles plane-wave pseudopotential calculations were performed to study the energetics and electronic structures of oxygen defects on rutile TiO2(0 0 1). The influence of the material thickness on non-linearity (NL) was studied. With the increase in the thickness, the NL became stronger. Calculating the site-projected density of states by applying an external electric field showed that the NL of the bulk is due to the exchange of electrons between O 2p orbitals and Ti 3d orbitals. Finally, the influence of oxygen defects—oxygen vacancies (Vo), oxygen interstitials (Oi), and oxygen vacancies/oxygen interstitial (Vo + Oi) pairs (Frenkel pair defects)—on the NL of TiO2 was studied. These results demonstrate that the band gap (Eg) of TiO2 became gradually narrower as the electric field increased. The Stark effect and defects can lead to the splitting of degenerate energy levels. Stronger electric fields increase the band splitting and reduce Eg. With the increase in the Vo concentration, the decrease in the splitting amplitude and width of the energy level lead to weakening of the transfer of electrons between O and Ti atoms and optimizing the NL of TiO2. Therefore, the incorporation of Vo plays a significant role in improving the NL of TiO2.

A New Method of Gelatin Modified Collagen and Viscoelastic Study of Gelatin-Collagen Composite Hydrogel

Lang He,Sheng Li,Chengzhi Xu,Benmei Wei,Juntao Zhang,Yuling Xu,Beirong Zhu,Yang Cao,Xilin Wu,Zhijin Xiong,Rongrui Huang,Jian Yang,Haibo Wang 한국고분자학회 2020 Macromolecular Research Vol.28 No.9

Pure collagen materials are expensive with poor mechanical properties, which need modifications in most cases. As the degradation product of collagen, gelatin is cheap, degradable and biocompatible, but few literatures have reported the research about gelatin-collagen composite materials. This is because gelatin and collagen have different soluble temperatures—gelatin is soluble in hot water (≥30 oC) and swells in cold water. However, a low temperature (2-10 oC) is required to prepare and store collagen solution, and neutral collagen solution denatures quickly above the room temperature. In this study, gelatin was ground into powders and swelled in neutral bovine tendon pepsin-soluble collagen solution (BPSC) to form a homogeneous gelatin-collagen mixture, in light of the swelling characteristics of gelatin in cold water. The assembly properties and gel properties of this composite material were further studied. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) test results showed that the bovine tendon collagen had typical type-I collagen structural characterizations with two α chains of about 100 kDa and one β chain of about 200 kDa; while the SDS-PAGE pattern of gelatin displayed bands continuously distributed from 30 to 200 kDa. Amino acid composition analysis test indicated that the content of polar amino acids and the sum of acidic and base amino acids for gelatin were higher than that of BPSC. Studies on gel properties demonstrated that gelatin-collagen mixed solution had collagenlike assembly characteristics and assembly kinetics. The moduli of the assembled gel at 35 oC were equivalent to that of pure bovine tendon collagen system; moreover, the system moduli didn’t change with time with elastic moduli (G') of about 40 Pa. However, at 25 oC, the moduli of gelatin-collagen composite hydrogel increased with the extension of time, its G' increased about 18 times within 8 h, and the ratio of elastic modulus to viscous modulus (G'') increased 4.6 times, showing a significant aging effect of structural strength. Meanwhile, the mechanical strength of the composite hydrogel was also regulated by temperature—the gel was highly elastic (G'≈3,000 Pa, G'>>G'') at a low temperature (5 oC); as the temperature rose, the system moduli gradually decreased and the elastic gel transformed into waterlike fluid at 50 oC little by little. What’s more, gelatin-collagen composite hydrogel also had reversible sol-gel performances and self-healing capability similar to the gelatin hydrogel. This novel preparation method for preparing composite materials and the resultant composite hydrogel are expected to be used in the fields of natural food gels, injectable hydrogels, cell scaffolds, drug sustained-release materials and so on, and improve and promote the processing performances, price and large-scale production of collagen-based materials.

Systematic Modulation of Gelation Dynamics of Snakehead (Channa argus) Skin Collagen by Environmental Parameters

Juntao Zhang,Benmei Wei,Lang He,Chengzhi Xu,Dong Xie,Kyung-Wook Paik,Haibo Wang 한국고분자학회 2017 Macromolecular Research Vol.25 No.11

Gel matrices of mammalian collagen are routinely used as bioengineering materials and food thickening agents, for which the modulation of their mechanical properties is a key issue. However, little information is available regarding gel matrices based on fish-sourced collagen, which offer unique advantages for some applications. Here, a rheology assay, which is the most commonly used method for monitoring developing gels, was used to systematically reveal the influence of environmental parameters on the gelation dynamics and rheological properties of pepsin-soluble collagen (PSC) extracted from snakehead (Channa argus) skins. The gelation dynamics and equilibrium elastic moduli of PSC were affected by concentration, temperature, pH, buffer, and ion strength and type. SEM and TEM images of gels at different concentrations and incubation temperatures confirmed that the mechanical properties of PSC gels are directly related to the density, rather than size, of fibrils. Additionally, the relationship between the biological and mechanical properties of these collagen gels was also evaluated. The present study would facilitate a better understanding of the gelation of fish-sourced collagen and enable more precise control of the mechanical properties of these gel matrices.

Low Chattering Trajectory Tracking Control of Non-singular Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Based on Disturbance Observer

Jiqing Chen,Chaoyang Zhao,Qingsong Tang,Xu Liu,Zhikui Wang,Chengzhi Tan,Jiahua Wu,Teng Long 제어·로봇·시스템학회 2023 International Journal of Control, Automation, and Vol.21 No.2

The improvement of the performance of the multi-joint manipulator control system is of great significance to improve the level of industrial automation. The existing sliding mode control methods are difficult to ensure the high-precision and fast-tracking of joints of a manipulator to the desired trajectory under low chattering control input. Therefore, a non-singular fast terminal sliding mode control method based on a nonlinear disturbance observer is proposed. In addition, a new non-singular fast terminal sliding mode surface is designed. The performance comparison method of the sliding mode surface proves its better control quality. Aiming at the problem of serious chattering, the nonlinear disturbance observer technology, and saturation function method are introduced to effectively weaken the chattering. Finally, taking the 3-DOF manipulator as the research object, a comparative simulation experiment is carried out in the MATLAB / Simulink environment. The results show that under the uncertainty of modeling error, external disturbance, and joint friction, the designed control method not only solves the problems of singular control input and serious chattering but also realizes the high-precision and fast-tracking of each joint to the desired trajectory. Thus, the effectiveness and feasibility of the design method are verified. The improvement of the performance of the multi-joint manipulator control system is of great significance to improve the level of industrial automation. The existing sliding mode control methods are difficult to ensure the high-precision and fast-tracking of joints of a manipulator to the desired trajectory under low chattering control input. Therefore, a non-singular fast terminal sliding mode control method based on a nonlinear disturbance observer is proposed. In addition, a new non-singular fast terminal sliding mode surface is designed. The performance comparison method of the sliding mode surface proves its better control quality. Aiming at the problem of serious chattering, the nonlinear disturbance observer technology, and saturation function method are introduced to effectively weaken the chattering. Finally, taking the 3-DOF manipulator as the research object, a comparative simulation experiment is carried out in the MATLAB / Simulink environment. The results show that under the uncertainty of modeling error, external disturbance, and joint friction, the designed control method not only solves the problems of singular control input and serious chattering but also realizes the high-precision and fast-tracking of each joint to the desired trajectory. Thus, the effectiveness and feasibility of the design method are verified.

Reconstituted Fibril from Heterogenic Collagens-A New Method to Regulate Properties of Collagen Gels

Jian Yang,Haibo Wang,Lang He,Benmei Wei,Chengzhi Xu,Yuling Xu,Juntao Zhang,Sheng Li 한국고분자학회 2019 Macromolecular Research Vol.27 No.11

Heterotypic collagen fibril has long been found in the tissues of organisms, which plays an important role in the formation and function of complex structures of organisms. Inspiring by the phenomenon, scholars tried to incubate collagens from different sources into novel collagen materials in vitro, and the forming of heterogenic reconstituted collagen fibrils (RF) was often demonstrated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and fluorescence quenching analysis. In this work, we used two type-I collagens from different species (bovine tendon and grasscarp fish skin) to coassemble in vitro, and verified the formation of RF from a new rheological perspective. In addition, we also investigated the assembly behavior, surface hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity, microscopic morphology and cell proliferation ability of the RF. The results showed that the assembly rate, surface properties, fibril size, viscoelastic properties of RF can be delicately regulated by the method of heterogenic collagen reconstitution. This study provides new experimental evidence for the reconstitution of heterogenic collagens, and also offers a new means for the regulation of collagen gel performance, which would help to expand the application range of collagen gel materials.

Effect of Ionic Liquids on the Fibril-Formation and Gel Properties of Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus) Skin Collagen

Zhongwei Zhai,Haibo Wang,Benmei Wei,Peiwen Yu,Chengzhi Xu,Lang He,Juntao Zhang,Yuling Xu 한국고분자학회 2018 Macromolecular Research Vol.26 No.7

Self-assembled environment of collagen is one of the important factors for improving and regulating the properties of collagen-based biomaterials. This study aimed to investigate the effect of ionic liquids (ILs) on the fibril-formation and gel properties of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus) skin collagen. Fibrillogenic kinetics analysis showed that the collagen self-assembly can be suppressed by the introduction of ILs, and the inhibitory effect is influenced by concentration and types of ILs. Scanning electron microscopy test indicated that the assembled collagen fibrils in the presence of ILs had bigger diameters than that in the conventional buffer. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis revealed that the thermal stability of collagen fibrils can be significantly increased when self-assembly is performed in the presence of ILs. Moreover, the introduction of ILs enhanced the mechanical strength of collagen gels. Finding from this work provides a new idea for improving the performance of fish-sourced collagen biomaterials.