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Morphologies of eumelanins from the ink of six cephalopods species measured by atomic force microscopy

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Abstract

The morphologies of eumelanin, isolated from the six cephalopods species Sepia esculenta, Sepia lycidas, Sepia pharaonis, Sepiella japonica, Euprymna berryi, and Uroteuthis (Photololigo) edulis, were investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results showed that the hierarchical aggregate structures of irregular spherical particles with different diameters are the common characteristics of these eumelanins. Furthermore, the diameters of these spherical particles present an uneven distribution in a wide range and mainly concentrate in the range of about 20-150 nm. In addition, the eumelanin from different cephalopods species show obvious differences in the morphologies, which is illustrated by different assembly forms of diverse aggregate units and the quantitative features of eumelanin particles derived from the images.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Special Fund Project of Industry, University and Research Institute Collaboration in Guangdong province (No. 2013B090500036), the Project of Science & Technology in Guangdong Province (No. 2014B040404071), the Project of Science & Technology in Zhanjiang City (No. 2013A202-4), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (No. 2015A 030310406) and the PhD. Programs Foundation of Lingnan Normal University (No. ZL1313).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Round Beibu Gulf Institute for the Protection and Utilization of Marine Animals in Medicine, Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, 524048, P. R. China

    Yulin Sun, Li Tian, Jing Wen, Juan Zhao, Wei Zhang & Daohai Chen

  2. Life Science and Technology School, Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, 524048, P. R. China

    Yulin Sun, Li Tian, Jing Wen, Juan Zhao, Wei Zhang, Chunyao Xie, Meiqing Zhou, Xiaoying Qiu & Daohai Chen

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  1. Yulin Sun
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  2. Li Tian
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  4. Juan Zhao
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Correspondence to Daohai Chen.

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These authors contribute to this work equally.

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Sun, Y., Tian, L., Wen, J. et al. Morphologies of eumelanins from the ink of six cephalopods species measured by atomic force microscopy. J. Ocean Univ. China 16, 461–467 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-017-3010-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-017-3010-8

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