Reduction of thrombogenicity of PVC-based sodium selective membrane electrodes using heparin-modified chitosan.

Heparin-modified chitosan (H-chitosan) membrane was utilized to enhance biocompatibility of sodium selective membrane electrode based on the highly thrombogenic polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Sodium ion sensing film was prepared using PVC, sodium ionophore-X, potassium tetrakis(chlorophenyl)-borate, and o-nitrophenyloctylether. The PVC-based sensing film was sandwiched to chitosan or H-chitosan to prevent platelet adhesion on the surface of PVC. Potentiometric response characteristics of PVC-chitosan and PVC-H-chitosan membrane electrodes were found to be comparable to that of a control PVC based sodium-selective electrode. This indicates that chitosan and H-chitosan layers do not alter the response behaviour of the PVC-based sensing film. Biocompatibility of H-chitosan was confirmed by in vitro platelet adhesion study. The platelet adhesion investigations indicated that H-chitosan film is less thrombogenic compared to PVC, which could result in enhancement of biocompatibility of sodium selective membrane electrodes based on PVC, while maintaining the overall electrochemical performance of the PVC-based sensing film.

Molecular dynamics study of Na⁺ transportation in a cyclic peptide nanotube and its influences on water behaviors in the tube.

The dynamics of Na(+) transportation in a transmembrane cyclic peptide nanotube of 8 × (WL)4/POPE has been simulated. The curve of PMF (potential of mean force) for Na(+) moving through the tube, based on ABF (adaptive biasing force) method, indicates that Na(+) possesses lower free energy in an α-plane region than in a mid-plane one. It was found that Na(+) would desorb one or two water molecules in the first solvation shell when entering the tube and later maintain in a solvation state. The average numbers of water molecules around Na(+) are 4.50, 4.09 in the first solvation shell, and 3.10, 4.08 in the second one for Na(+) locating in an α-plane zone and a mid-plane region, respectively. However, water molecules far away from Na(+) location still nearly arrange in a form of 1-2-1-2 file. The dipole orientations of water molecules in the regions of gaps 1 and 7 display "D-defects", resulted from the simultaneous electrostatic potentials generated by Na(+) and the bare carbonyls at the tube mouths. Such "D-defects" accommodate the energetically favorable water orientations thereby.

Calibration of potentiometric sensor arrays with a reduced number of standards.

In this paper a novel calibration procedure for the parameter determination of ion-selective electrodes used in an array is described. Commonly used procedures require a large number of standards to determine the parameters based on the Nicolsky-Eisenman model. The elaborated procedure reduces the number of standards to a minimum by using a standard containing a mixture of ions instead of a couple of pure standards. This paper presents a complete calibration procedure, which consists of designing the composition of the standards, parameter determination and verification of the calibration results. Comparison of the results obtained by the procedure presented with results obtained by the Two-Point Calibration and Separate Solution methods proves that the accuracies of both procedures are comparable. The outlined procedure can be applied in multicomponent analysers.

Quantitative model of NMR chemical shifts of 23Na+ induced by TmDOTP: applications in studies of Na+ transport in human erythrocytes.

The change in the NMR chemical shift of (23)Na(+) induced by the shift reagent TmDOTP was examined under various experimental conditions typical of cells, including changed Na(+), K(+), PO(4)(3-), and Ca(2+) concentrations, pH and temperature. A mathematical model was developed relating these factors to the observed chemical shift change relative to a capillary-sphere reference. This enabled cation concentrations to be deduced quantitatively from experimental chemical shifts, including those observed during biological time courses with cell suspensions containing TmDOTP DOTP, 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetrakis (methylenephosphonate) [corrected]. The model was applied to a (23)Na NMR time course in which monensin, a sodium ionophore, was introduced to human erythrocytes, changing the concentration of cations which may bind TmDOTP, and also resulting in cell volume changes. Using the model with experimentally determined conditions, the chemical shift was predicted and closely followed the experimental values over time. In addition to the model, parameter fitting was achieved by calculating the likelihood distribution of parameters, and seeking the maximum likelihood with a Bayesian type of analysis.