Amyloid
β, Aβ(1–42), is a component of senile
plaques present in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease patients
and one of the main suspects responsible for pathological consequences
of the disease. Herein, we directly visualize the Aβ activity
toward a brain-like model membrane and demonstrate that this activity
strongly depends on the Aβ oligomer size. PeakForce quantitative
nanomechanical mapping mode of atomic force microscopy imaging revealed
that the interaction of large-size (LS) Aβ oligomers, corresponding
to high-molecular-weight Aβ oligomers, with the brain total
lipid extract (BTLE) membrane resulted in accelerated Aβ fibrillogenesis
on the membrane surface. Importantly, the fibrillogenesis did not
affect integrity of the membrane. In contrast, small-size (SS) Aβ
oligomers, corresponding to low-molecular-weight Aβ oligomers,
created pores and then disintegrated the BTLE membrane. Both forms
of the Aβ oligomers changed nanomechanical properties of the
membrane by decreasing its Young’s modulus by ∼45%.
Our results demonstrated that both forms of Aβ oligomers induce
the neurotoxic effect on the brain cells but their action toward the
membrane differs significantly.
Single‐atom catalysts (SACs) are highly enviable to exploit the utmost utilization of metallic catalysts; their efficiency by utilizing nearly all atoms to often exhibit high catalytic performances. To architect the isolated single atom on an ideal solid support with strong coordination has remained a crucial trial. Herein, graphene functionalized with nitrile groups (cyanographene) as an ideal support to immobilize isolated copper atoms G(CN)‐Cu with strong coordination is reported. The precisely designed mixed‐valence single atom copper (G(CN)‐Cu) catalysts deliver exceptional conversions for electrochemical methanol oxidation (MOR) and CO2 reduction (CO2RR) targeting a “closed carbon cycle.” An onset of MOR and CO2RR are obtained to be ≈0.4 V and ≈−0.7 versus Ag/AgCl, respectively, with single active sites located in an unsaturated coordination environment, it being the most active Cu sites for both studied reactions. Moreover, G(CN)‐Cu exhibited significantly lower resistivity and higher current density toward MOR and CO2RR than observed for reference catalysts.
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