Swinburne University of Technology

9 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Neuroscience

Whole Cell Patch Clamp for Investigating the Mechanisms of Infrared Neural Stimulation

William G. A. Brown¹, Karina Needham², Bryony A. Nayagam², Paul R. Stoddart¹

¹Biotactical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Science, Swinburne University of Technology, ²Department of Otolaryngology, The University of Melbourne

Infrared nerve stimulation has been proposed as an alternative to electrical stimulation in a range of nerve types, including those associated with the auditory system. This protocol describes a patch clamp method for studying the mechanism of infrared nerve stimulation in a culture of primary auditory neurons.

Neuroscience

Gold Nanorod-assisted Optical Stimulation of Neuronal Cells

Chiara Paviolo¹, Sally L. McArthur¹, Paul R. Stoddart¹

¹Biotactical Engineering, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology

This protocol outlines how to use the transient heating associated with the optical absorption of gold nanorods to stimulate differentiation and intracellular calcium activity in neuronal cells. These results potentially open up new applications in neural prostheses and fundamental studies in neuroscience.

Engineering

The Evolution of Silica Nanoparticle-polyester Coatings on Surfaces Exposed to Sunlight

Vi Khanh Truong¹, Miljan Stefanovic¹, Shane Maclaughlin², Mark Tobin³, Jitraporn Vongsvivut³, Mohammad Al Kobaisi¹, Russell J. Crawford⁴, Elena P. Ivanova¹

¹School of Science, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, ²BlueScope Steel Research, ³Infrared Microspectroscopy Beamline, Australian Synchrotron, ⁴School of Science, College of Science, Engineering and Health, RMIT University

Two types of surfaces, polyester-coated steel and polyester coated with a layer of silica nanoparticles, were studied. Both surfaces were exposed to sunlight, which was found to cause substantial changes in the chemistry and nanoscale topography of the surface.

Chemistry

Measurements of Long-range Electronic Correlations During Femtosecond Diffraction Experiments Performed on Nanocrystals of Buckminsterfullerene

Rebecca A. Ryan¹, Sophie Williams¹, Andrew V. Martin¹, Ruben A. Dilanian¹, Connie Darmanin², Corey T. Putkunz¹, David Wood³, Victor A. Streltsov⁴, Michael W.M. Jones⁵, Naylyn Gaffney⁶, Felix Hofmann⁷, Garth J. Williams⁸, Sebastien Boutet⁹, Marc Messerschmidt¹⁰, M. Marvin Seibert¹¹, Evan K. Curwood¹¹, Eugeniu Balaur², Andrew G. Peele⁵, Keith A. Nugent², Harry M. Quiney¹, Brian Abbey²

¹ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, ²Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging, Department of Chemistry and Physics, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences, La Trobe University, ³Department of Physics, Imperial College London, ⁴Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, ⁵Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, ⁶Swinburne University of Technology, ⁷Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, ⁸Brookhaven National Laboratory, ⁹Linac Coherent Light Source, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, ¹⁰BioXFEL Science and Technology Center, ¹¹Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, ¹²Australian Synchrotron

We describe an experiment designed to probe the electronic damage induced in nanocrystals of Buckminsterfullerene (C₆₀) by intense, femtosecond pulses of X-rays. The experiment found that, surprisingly, rather than being stochastic, the X-ray induced electron dynamics in C₆₀are highly correlated, extending over hundreds of unit cells within the crystals¹.

Education

Recording Brain Electromagnetic Activity During the Administration of the Gaseous Anesthetic Agents Xenon and Nitrous Oxide in Healthy Volunteers

Andria Pelentritou¹, Levin Kuhlmann¹, John Cormack², Will Woods³, Jamie Sleigh⁴, David Liley¹

¹Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, ²Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Management, St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, ³Brain and Psychological Science Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology, ⁴Department of Anaesthesiology, University of Auckland

Simultaneous magnetoencephalography and electroencephalography provides a useful tool to search for common and distinct macro-scale mechanisms of reductions in consciousness induced by different anesthetics. This paper illustrates the empirical methods underlying the recording of such data from healthy humans during N-Methyl-D-Aspartate-(NMDA)-receptor-antagonist-based anesthesia during inhalation of nitrous oxide and xenon.

Biology

Confocal Microscopy Reveals Cell Surface Receptor Aggregation Through Image Correlation Spectroscopy

Adam C. Parslow^1,2, Andrew H.A. Clayton³, Peter Lock⁴, Andrew M. Scott^1,2,5,6,7

¹Tumour Targeting Laboratory, Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute, ²School of Cancer Medicine, La Trobe University, ³Centre for Micro-Photonics, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, ⁴LIMS Bioimaging Facility, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University, ⁵Department of Medical Oncology, Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellnes Centre, Austin Health, ⁶Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, ⁷Department of Molecular Imaging and Therapy, Austin Health

Antibodies that bind to target receptors on the cell surface can confer conformation and clustering alterations. These dynamic changes have implications for characterizing drug development in target cells. This protocol utilizes confocal microscopy and image correlation spectroscopy through ImageJ/FIJI to quantify the extent of receptor clustering on the cell surface.

JoVE Core

Generation and Coherent Control of Pulsed Quantum Frequency Combs

Benjamin MacLellan^*1, Piotr Roztocki^*1, Michael Kues^1,2, Christian Reimer¹, Luis Romero Cortés¹, Yanbing Zhang¹, Stefania Sciara^1,3, Benjamin Wetzel^1,4, Alfonso Cino³, Sai T. Chu⁵, Brent E. Little⁶, David J. Moss⁷, Lucia Caspani⁸, José Azaña¹, Roberto Morandotti^1,9,10

¹Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique - Centre Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications (INRS-EMT), ²School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, ³Department of Energy, Information Engineering and Mathematical Models, University of Palermo, ⁴School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Sussex, ⁵Department of Physics and Material Science, City University of Hong Kong, ⁶State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Science, ⁷Centre for Micro Photonics, Swinburne University of Technology, ⁸Institute of Photonics, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, ⁹Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, ¹⁰National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics

A protocol is presented for the practical generation and coherent manipulation of high-dimensional frequency-bin entangled photon states using integrated micro-cavities and standard telecommunications components, respectively.

Environment

Combining Eye-tracking Data with an Analysis of Video Content from Free-viewing a Video of a Walk in an Urban Park Environment

Marco Amati^1,2, Chris McCarthy³, Ebadat Ghanbari Parmehr⁴, Jodi Sita⁵

¹Visiting Professor, Dipartimento di Scienze Agro-Ambientali e Territoriali, Università degli Studi di Bari, ²Centre for Urban Research, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), ³School of Software and Electrical Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, ⁴Faculty of Civil Engineering, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, ⁵School of Science, Australian Catholic University

The objective of the protocol is to detail how to collect video data for use in the laboratory; how to record eye-tracking data of participants looking at the data and how to efficiently analyze the content of the videos that they were looking at using a machine learning technique.

Biochemistry

Obtaining High-Quality Transcriptome Data from Cereal Seeds by a Modified Method for Gene Expression Profiling

Vito M. Butardo Jr.¹, Christiane Seiler², Nese Sreenivasulu³, Markus Kuhlmann²

¹Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Swinburne University of Technology, ²Department of Molecular Genetics, Heterosis Research Group, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), ³Grain Quality and Nutrition Center, Applied Functional Genomics Cluster, International Rice Research Institute

A method for transcriptome profiling of cereals is presented. The microarray-based gene expression profiling starts with the isolation of high-quality total RNA from cereal grains and continues with the generation of cDNA. After cRNA labelling and microarray hybridization, recommendations are given for signal detection and quality control.