Browsing by Author "Goder, JND"

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    Study of the effect of Penetratin on the gyroid to diamond phase transition in Myverol
    (Australian Institute of Physics, 2012-02-01) Goder, JND; Rafi, NAM; Bryant, G; Hunt, T; Kent, B; Garvey, CJ
    Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), such as penetratin, have aroused a lot of interest in both the academic and applied research areas for their ability to penetrate cell membranes [1]. Even though there has been much work done, mostly on bilayer membranes, we still do not fully understand the mechanisms involved during this phenomenon. In our investigation, we are going to focus on the phase transition of Myverol/Saline system from Gyroid to Diamond cubic phase in the presence of penetratin, to get an understanding of how CPPs work in a more complex system. We use a Myverol/Saline system that exhibits these types of phase behaviors at specific compositions [2]. We plan to use a variety of Small Angle Scattering techniques in an attempt to elucidate the transitional phase behavior of the Myverol/Saline system with varying concentrations of penetratin. From this we hope to develop a model system for investigating the role of a simple peptide in changing the packing of amphiphilic molecules. In this study, we are making the use of 2 complementary techniques, Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) and small angle neutron scattering (SANS), to investigate the Myverol/Saline system as functions of both temperatures and peptide composition. We also hope to carry out DSC measurements in parallel with the SAXS. We will report on preliminary SAXS experiments carried out at the Australian Synchrotron.