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Can electric fields drive chemistry for an aqueous microdroplet?

ABSTRACT: Reaction rates of common organic reactions have been reported to increase by one to six orders of magnitude in aqueous microdroplets compared to bulk solution, but the reasons for the rate acceleration are poorly understood. Using a coarse-grained electron model that describes structural organization and electron densities for water droplets without the expense of ab initio methods, we investigate the electric field distributions at the air-water interface to understand the origin of surface reactivity. We find that electric field alignments along free O-H bonds at the surface are ~16 MV/cm larger on average than that found for O-H bonds in the interior of the water droplet. Furthermore, electric field distributions can be an order of magnitude larger than the average due to non-linear coupling of intramolecular solvent polarization with intermolecular solvent modes which may contribute to even greater surface reactivity for weakening or breaking chemical bonds at the droplet surface.

SUBMITTER: Hao H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8755715 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Can electric fields drive chemistry for an aqueous microdroplet?

Hao Hongxia H Leven Itai I Head-Gordon Teresa T

Nature communications 20220112 1

Reaction rates of common organic reactions have been reported to increase by one to six orders of magnitude in aqueous microdroplets compared to bulk solution, but the reasons for the rate acceleration are poorly understood. Using a coarse-grained electron model that describes structural organization and electron densities for water droplets without the expense of ab initio methods, we investigate the electric field distributions at the air-water interface to understand the origin of surface rea ...[more]

PMID: 35022410

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Project description:Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is the most common form of adult malignant brain tumor, highly heterogeneous and relatively resistant to therapy with a poor prognosis. As other cancers, GBM starts from a relatively small fraction of poorly differentiated and particularly aggressive cancer stem cells (CSCs), responsible for aberrant proliferation and invasion, rapidly spreading the tumor growth in the other parts of the central nervous system. Due to the extreme tumor heterogeneity, standard therapies (i.e., surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy) provide poor positive outcomes and cancers usually recur. Therefore, alternative approaches, possibly targeting CSCs, are necessary for searching effective therapeutic strategies against GBM. Among many emerging new therapeutic strategies, ultra-short pulsed electric fields (PEF) are considered extremely promising in cancer therapy and our previous results demonstrated the capability of a specific electric pulse protocol, characterized by a high pulse amplitude and a short duration, to selectively affect medulloblastoma CSCs preserving normal cells. Here, we tested the same exposure protocol to investigate the response of U87 GBM cells, and of U87-derived neurospheres. By analyzing different in vitro biological endpoints and taking advantage of transcriptomic and bioinformatics analyses, we found that, independently of CSCs content, PEF exposure affected cell proliferation and differentially regulated hypoxia, inflammation and P53/cell cycle checkpoints. PEF exposure also significantly reduced the clonogenic potential, reducing the ability to form new neurospheres, and inhibited the invasion potential. Importantly, exclusively in U87 neurospheres, PEF exposure changed the expression of stemness/differentiation genes. Our results, confirm this physical stimulus as a promising treatment to destabilize the extreme intra-tumoral GBM heterogeneity opening up the possibility to develop future therapeutic strategies mediated by PEF exposure.

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Can electric fields drive chemistry for an aqueous microdroplet?

Publications

Can electric fields drive chemistry for an aqueous microdroplet?

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