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Structure induced laminar vortices control anomalous dispersion in porous media.

ABSTRACT: Natural porous systems, such as soil, membranes, and biological tissues comprise disordered structures characterized by dead-end pores connected to a network of percolating channels. The release and dispersion of particles, solutes, and microorganisms from such features is key for a broad range of environmental and medical applications including soil remediation, filtration and drug delivery. Yet, owing to the stagnant and opaque nature of these disordered systems, the role of microscopic structure and flow on the dispersion of particles and solutes remains poorly understood. Here, we use a microfluidic model system that features a pore structure characterized by distributed dead-ends to determine how particles are transported, retained and dispersed. We observe strong tailing of arrival time distributions at the outlet of the medium characterized by power-law decay with an exponent of 2/3. Using numerical simulations and an analytical model, we link this behavior to particles initially located within dead-end pores, and explain the tailing exponent with a hopping across and rolling along the streamlines of vortices within dead-end pores. We quantify such anomalous dispersal by a stochastic model that predicts the full evolution of arrival times. Our results demonstrate how microscopic flow structures can impact macroscopic particle transport.

SUBMITTER: Bordoloi AD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9250523 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:In X-ray crystallographic analysis, the single-wavelength and multi-wavelength anomalous diffraction (SAD and MAD) methods have been widely used in order to solve the phase problem. Selenium-labelled methionine has been shown to be very effective for anomalous dispersion phasing, and at least one selenomethionine is required for every 100 amino acids. Some proteins, such as the Arabidopsis thaliana thylakoid lumen protein AtTLP18.3, can be overexpressed in an Escherichia coli system and high-quality protein crystals can be obtained. However, AtTLP18.3 contains no methionine residues, and site-directed mutagenesis was required in order to introduce methionine residues into the protein. A criterion for the mutated residues is that they should avoid affecting the structure and function. In this study, several leucine and isoleucine residues were selected for methionine substitution by combining secondary-structure and solvent-accessibility predictions. From the secondary-structure prediction, mutated residues were first determined in the coil or loop regions at the junction of two secondary structures. Since leucine and isoleucine residues are hydrophobic and are normally buried within the protein core, these residues should have a higher solvent-accessibility prediction so that they would be partially buried or exposed in the protein. In addition, five residues (Leu107, Leu202, Ile133, Leu128 and Ile159) of AtTLP18.3 were mutated to methionine residues. After overexpression and purification, only two single-mutant lines, L128M and I159M, could be crystallized. Finally, a double-mutation line of truncated AtTLP18.3 with L128M and I159M mutations was constructed. The structure of the double mutant AtTLP18.3 protein was resolved using the single-wavelength anomalous diffraction method at 2.6 Å resolution. The results indicated that a combination of secondary-structure and solvent-accessibility prediction for methionine substitution is a useful method in SAD and MAD phasing.

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Structure induced laminar vortices control anomalous dispersion in porous media.

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