No abstract

Phosphonate-steel interactions have been industrially significant for decades, but details of the phosphonate-steel interface have not yet been characterized. Self-assembled monolayers of phosphonic acids were formed on stainless steel 316L by room-temperature solution deposition. The acids are covalently bound to the surface as phosphonates in a bidentate manner, as determined by diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Complete coverage of the surface is confirmed by contact angle measurement and atomic force microscopic imaging. This method of monolayer formation contrasts the requirement for heating and long reaction times found to be necessary to form phosphonate monolayers on other metal oxide substrates, such as titanium and silicon.

The misfolding and aggregation of the intrinsically disordered, microtubule-associated tau protein into neurofibrillary tangles is implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. However, the mechanisms of tau aggregation and toxicity remain unknown. Recent work has shown that lipid membrane can induce tau aggregation and that membrane permeabilization may serve as a pathway by which protein aggregates exert toxicity, suggesting that the plasma membrane may play dual roles in tau pathology. This prompted our investigation to assess tau's propensity to interact with membranes and to elucidate the mutually disruptive structural perturbations the interactions induce in both tau and the membrane. We show that although highly charged and soluble, the full-length tau (hTau40) is also highly surface active, selectively inserts into anionic DMPG lipid monolayers and induces membrane morphological changes. To resolve molecular-scale structural details of hTau40 associated with lipid membranes, X-ray and neutron scattering techniques are utilized. X-ray reflectivity indicates hTau40's presence underneath a DMPG monolayer and penetration into the lipid headgroups and tailgroups, whereas grazing incidence X-ray diffraction shows that hTau40 insertion disrupts lipid packing. Moreover, both air/water and DMPG lipid membrane interfaces induce the disordered hTau40 to partially adopt a more compact conformation with density similar to that of a folded protein. Neutron reflectivity shows that tau completely disrupts supported DMPG bilayers while leaving the neutral DPPC bilayer intact. Our results show that hTau40's strong interaction with anionic lipids induces tau structural compaction and membrane disruption, suggesting possible membrane-based mechanisms of tau aggregation and toxicity in neurodegenerative diseases.

Organophosphonic acid self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on oxide surfaces have recently seen increased use in electrical and biological sensor applications. The reliability and reproducibility of these sensors require good molecular organization in these SAMs. In this regard, packing, order and alignment in the SAMs is important, as it influences the electron transport measurements. In this study, we examine the order of hydroxyl- and methyl- terminated phosphonate films deposited onto silicon oxide surfaces by the tethering by aggregation and growth method using complementary, state-of-art surface characterization tools. Near edge x-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy and in situ sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy are used to study the order of the phosphonate SAMs in vacuum and under aqueous conditions, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry results show that these samples form chemically intact monolayer phosphonate films. NEXAFS and SFG spectroscopy showed that molecular order exists in the octadecylphosphonic acid and 11-hydroxyundecylphosphonic acid SAMs. The chain tilt angles in these SAMs were approximately 37° and 45°, respectively.