Lucio Litti

University of Padua | UNIPD · Department of Chemical Sciences

Microplastics pollution is being unanimously recognized as a global concern in all environments. Routine analysis protocols foresee that samples, which are supposed to contain up to hundreds of microplastics, are eventually collected on nanoporous filters and inspected by microspectroscopy techniques like micro-FTIR or micro-Raman. All particles, w...

There is an unmet need for in vitro cancer models that emulate the complexity of human tissues. 3D‐printed solid tumor micromodels based on decellularized extracellular matrices (dECMs) recreate the biomolecule‐rich matrix of native tissue. Herein a 3D in vitro metastatic melanoma model that is amenable for drug screening purposes and recapitulates...

The immune checkpoint programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein is expressed by tumor cells and it suppresses the killer activity of CD8+ T-lymphocyte cells binding to the programmed death 1...

Citation: Caruso, G.; Iannilli, V.; Vitale, G.; Vardè, M.; Oliverio, M.; Bogialli, S.; Litti, L.; Setini, A.; Rosso, B.; Corami, F. These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: The Arctic Ocean is undergoing several transformations because of global climate change. Small microplastics (SMPs) or nanoplastics (NPs) carried by marine aero...

Terpenoids play a major role in agriculture, given their fungicidal and herbicidal actions, as well as their favorable toxicological, ecotoxicological, and environmental profiles. Despite all these advantages, terpenoids are reported to be unstable in direct sunlight and atmospheric conditions, so both commercial suppliers and scientific literature...

Tire wear particles (TWPs) are one of the environment's most important emission sources of microplastics. In this work, chemical identification of these particles was carried out in highway stormwater runoff through cross-validation techniques for the first time. Optimization of a pre-treatment method (i.e., extraction and purification) was provide...

Nanostructured thin metal films are exploited in a wide range of applications, spanning from electrical to optical transducers and sensors. Inkjet printing has become a compliant technique for sustainable, solution-processed, and cost-effective thin films fabrication. Inspired by the principles of green chemistry, here we show two novel formulation...

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has become a promising method for the detection of contaminants or biomolecules in aqueous media. The low interference of water, the unique spectral fingerprint, and the development of portable and handheld equipment for in situ measurements underpin its predominance among other spectroscopic techniques. Amo...

This report refers on fieldwork activity done in August-September 2022 in the framework of the project MICROTRACER (PRA_0005). Sediment samples were collected from 10 sites, located across Krossfjorden and Kongsfjorden, on board of MS Teisten with a grab or manually from the coast. Amphipods were sampled in front of Ny-Alesund harbour and in the co...

Microplastics (MPs), especially those below 100 µm (small microplastics, SMPs) and nanoplastics (NPs), are emerging contaminants whose presence is ubiquitous. They represent a concern for seawater, freshwater, sediments, soil, and air, since they may adversely affect ecosystem functions, but they can be a hazard also for biota and human health. Mic...

In this article, the depositions and functional characterizations of Ta-N and Ta-Al-N coatings for protection purposes, grown by reactive high-power impulse magnetron sputtering onto silicon substrates, are described. Nitride films were grown while changing the substrate polarization voltage (i.e., the applied bias voltage) during the process. More...

Measurement of the properties of magnetic nanoparticles is mandatory for their exploitation and usually this is obtained with magnetometers, like SQUID or VSM. However, these techniques need amounts of materials...

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is an ideal technique for environmental and biomedical sensor devices due to not only the highly informative vibrational features but also to its ultrasensitive nature and possibilities toward quantitative assays. Moreover, in these areas, SERS is especially useful as water hinders most of the spectroscopic...

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors find wide applications due to their prompt responses and because they do not need sophisticated instrumentation. One of the most explored effects is the high sensitivity of the plasmon band position due to refractive index changes in the medium. In the following, we present a cost-effective, reusable, and hig...

The presence of non-hexagonal rings in the honeycomb carbon arrangement of graphene produces rippled graphene layers with valuable chemical and physical properties. In principle, a bottom-up approach to introducing distortion from planarity of a graphene sheet can be achieved by careful insertion of curved polyaromatic hydrocarbons during the growt...

Laser synthesis emerges as a suitable technique to produce ligand-free nanoparticles, alloys and functionalized nanomaterials for catalysis, imaging, biomedicine, energy and environmental applications. In the last decade, laser ablation and nanoparticle generation in liquids has proven to be a unique and efficient technique to generate, excite, fra...

The thermal history of carbon phases, including graphite and diamond, in the ureilite meteorites has implications for the formation, igneous evolution, and impact disruption of their parent body early in the history of the Solar System. Geothermometry data were obtained by micro-Raman spectroscopy on graphite in Almahata Sitta (AhS) ureilites AhS 7...

Raman spectroscopy is becoming increasingly popular as an in vitro bioimaging technique, when coupled with plasmonic substrates such as gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Plasmonic AuNPs not only display excellent biocompatibility but can also induce the surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect, which can be exploited for cell labeling, as an inter...

Liquid biopsy represents a new frontier of cancer diagnosis and prognosis, which allows the isolation of tumor cells released in the blood stream. The extremely low abundance of these cells needs appropriate methodologies for their identification and enumeration. Herein we present a new protocol based on surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering...

In this work we study the surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) produced by hierarchical nanostructures obtained by coupling different anisotropic nanomaterial of two SERS active metals, namely Ag nanostars (AgNSs) and Au nanowires (AuNWs). Ag nanostars (AgNSs) are prepared, by a two-step one-pot synthesis by reduction of AgNO 3 with hydroxylami...

Methods to image complex 3D cell cultures are limited by issues such as fluorophore photobleaching and decomposition, poor excitation light penetration, and lack of complementary techniques to verify the 3D structure. Although it remains insufficiently demonstrated, surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) imaging is a promising tool for the charac...

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful and sensitive technique for the detection of fingerprint sig-nals of molecules and for the investigation of a series of surface chemical reactions. Many studies introduced quantita-tive applications of SERS in various fields and several SERS methods have been implemented for each specific appli...

Anisotropic gold nanostructures are attracting attention due to the strong correlation between their shape and the localized surface plasmon resonances, that allows to tune their optical responses through morphological optimizations. Laser ablation synthesis in solution usually produces stable gold nanospheres colloids without any surfactant, which...

In the field of nanomaterials, multifunctional nanosystems play a prominent role in many applications as new magnetically recoverable catalysts, information processing, fuel cells, efficient bio/nano-sensors and nanomedicine. Aiming at the obtainment of new nanomaterials for biotechnological applications such as biosensors or theragnostic systems,...

We demonstrate that the protonation chemistry of molecules adsorbed at nanometer distances from the surface of anisotropic gold nanoparticles can be manipulated through the effect of surface morphology on the proton density of an organic coating. Direct evidence of this remarkable effect was obtained by monitoring surface-enhanced Raman scattering...

Colloidal gold nanostructures are nowadays widely enveloped in sensor applications. One of the most interesting techniques that takes advantage from them is certainly the Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) effect, even if it is often considered a tricky technique due to structural constrains needed at the nanostructured substrates to get high...

Graphene oxide nanoribbons (GONRs), obtained from the oxidative unzipping of carbon nanotubes, have been investigated as building blocks towards reaching active platforms in surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The complete development of carbon nanomaterials is strongly related to the exploitation of their chemical versatility, so this work i...

The hydrophobic collapse is a structural transition of grafted polymer chains in a poor solvent. Although such a transition seems an intrinsic event during clustering of polymer-stabilized nanoparticles in the liquid phase, it has not been resolved in real time. In this work, we implemented a microfluidic 3D-flow-focusing mixing reactor equipped wi...

Early detection is the most effective mean of improving prognosis for many fatal diseases such as cancer. In this context, the Surface Enhanced Resonance Raman Scattering (SERRS) technique is being proposed as alternative to fluorescent methods in detection of biomarkers, because SERRS nanostructures are bright as fluorescent tags but more stable a...

Competitive reactions, on the surface of plasmonic nanostructures, allow exploiting SERS signals for quantitative Therapeutic Drug Monitoring. As an example, the concentration of Erlotinib, an anti-EGFR small molecule, used for the treatment of non-small cell lung and pancreatic cancer, is determined. The numerous side effects and the variability o...

A major challenge in cancer treatment is the quantification of biomarkers associated with a specific cancer type. Important biomarkers are the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detached from the main cancer and circulating in the blood. CTCs are very rare and their identification is still an issue. Although CTCs quantification can be estimated by usin...

Additives responsive to magnetic fields can be easily manipulated under the action of external stimuli and employed in various sectors, with great feasibility. In this work, suspensions of goethite nanorods were developed for anti-friction and anti-wear purposes. Goethite represents a promising additive in lubricants promoting the formation of a pr...

Multimodal contrast agents offer new interesting diagnostic possibilities, summing the benefits of multiple imaging techniques. Magnetic resonance and optical imaging are complementary techniques. The first allows total body screening, even though it suffers from low spatial resolution and needs high loadings, whereas the second shows lower penetra...

Magneto-plasmonic nanostructures functionalized with cell targeting units are interesting for nanobiotechnology applications. Photothermal treatment of cells targeted with antibody functionalized nanostructures and magnetically isolated, allows killing selected cells and is one of the applications of great interest. The magneto-plasmonic nanostruct...

Plasmonic nanostructures show important properties for biotechnological applications, but they have to be guided on the target for exploiting their potentialities. Antibodies are the natural molecules for targeting. However, their possible adverse immunogenic activity and their cost have suggested finding other valid substitutes. Small molecules li...

The present research is focused on the setting up of an advanced analytical system for the detection of synthetic dyes. The system is based on the combination of an innovative thin layer chromatography (TLC) plate coupled with enhanced infrared (MU-ATR, metal underlayer attenuated total reflection) and Surface Enhanced Raman (SERS) spectroscopy. In...

The use of laser ablation assisted in solution for the synthesis of ligand-free perovskite semiconductor inks is demonstrated. The thin films exhibit no hysteresis under polarization and monotonic tunability of the semiconductor band/gap.

Ultrasensitive detection of low-quantity drugs is important for personalized therapeutic approaches in several diseases and, in particular, for cancer treatment. In this field, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) can be very useful for its ability to precisely identify analytes from their unique vibrational spectra, with very high sensitivity....

Diagnostic approaches based on multimodal imaging are needed for accurate selection of the therapeutic regimens in several diseases, although the dose of administered contrast drugs must be reduced to minimize side effects. Therefore, large efforts are deployed in the development of multimodal contrast agents (MCAs) that permit the complementary vi...

SEIRA (surface- enhanced infrared absorption) is based on the effect of enhancement when the sample is absorbed onto islands produced by the deposition or electric deposition of a noble metal [1]. Since the enhancement factors (about 10-1000 times) of SEIRA is not competitive when compared with those of SERS, few attention has been paid on its poss...

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS) emerged as an effective technique for the detection of analytes with high sensitivity. The surface chemistry and the size of AuNPs are the crucial parameters for lowering the detection limits and increasing the selectivity of LDI-MS. Here we show that chemica...

In the field of analytical chemistry, many scientific efforts have been devoted to develop experimental procedures for the characterization of organic substances present in heterogeneous artwork samples, due to their challenging identification. In particular, performances of immunochemical techniques have been recently investigated, optimizing ad h...

Gold nanostructures obtained by laser ablation in solution are functionalized with antibodies for two tumor-associated antigens (PSMA and PSCA) overexpressed by prostate cancer cells and are incubated with cancer cells expressing one of the antigens, both or none. SERRS multiplexing measurements allow their identification and show a great targeting...