Latest ArticlesConia-ene reactions, as a type of ene reactions, have not become a remarkable focus until the beginning of 21st century, when Lewis acids served as powerful catalysts and found an increasingly broad utilization in this field. Consequently, the catalytic Conia-ene reactions have gained great significance in synthetic chemistry due to their high efficiency and atom economy on the construction of valuable cyclic molecules. During the past two decades, the rapid development of transition-metal catalysis and organocatalysis has imposed a profound impact on the exploration of asymmetric Conia-ene reactions. As a result, several strategies have been developed and applied successfully. Organized on the basis of the catalytic system, this review comprehensively presents a summary of recent progress achieved in this emerging domain, aimed at highlighting the reactions' features, practicalities, and the mechanistic rationale is presented where possible.
The intrinsic liquid interface of Na-K alloy allays concerns about dendrite growth on metal anodes that are thermodynamically within the room temperature (20–22 ℃). Nevertheless, it hinders the formation of a stable electrode structure due to the inferior wettability induced by considerable liquid tension. In addition, the dominant ionic carrier in the Na-K alloy is subject to multiple factors, which is not conducive to customized battery design. This review, based on recently reported frontier achievements on Na-K liquid anodes, summarizes practical strategies for promoting the wettability by high-temperature induction, capillary effect, vacuum infiltration, and solid interface protection. Furthermore, four selection mechanisms of the dominant ionic carrier are presented: (1) ion property dominated, (2) cathode dominated, (3) separator dominated, and (4) solid electrolyte interface dominated. Notably, initial electrolytes in energy storage systems have been unable to play a decisive role in ionic selection. Utilizing a superior wettability strategy and simultaneously identifying the dominant ionic carrier can facilitate the tailored application of dendrite-free Na-K liquid anodes.
As a new treatment technique, photothermal therapy (PTT) has aroused worldwide attention in cancer treatment, mainly due to its excellent absorption ability, easy regulation, and biodegradability. Photothermal conversion materials with enhanced permeability and retention effect can be targeted easily to tumor tissue. They can accumulate efficiently to tumor tissues and allow normal tissues and organs not to be affected by temperature, thus significantly helping to reduce the systemic toxicity and improve the antitumor effect. However, PTT alone often suffers from therapeutic resistance and reduced therapeutic efficacy, due to photothermal nanomaterial-mediated fundamental cellular defense mechanism of heat shock response, which could be inhibited by small interfering RNA (siRNA). Nevertheless, photothermal conversion materials as an excellent siRNA delivery carrier may considerably enhance the delivery efficiency of siRNA. Therefore, photothermal and RNA interfering (RNAi) synergistic therapy has recently aroused extensive attention in tumor treatment. In this review, we mainly summarize the recent advances of photothermal and RNAi synergistic therapy, including some synergistic therapeutic nanoplatforms of inorganic and organic photothermal materials and other combined therapies such as combining with small molecular antitumor agents or PDT/imaging. The combination of various treatment techniques may considerably improve the synergistic therapeutic effect of PTT and RNAi in the treatment of cancers.
The abnormal aggregation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) has been widely believed to play an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is also recognized as one of the main biomarkers for AD diagnosis. The peptide sequence Lys-Leu-Val-Phe-Phe (KLVFF) is considered as the main driver of the fibrillation of Aβ, which also can be utilized to target Aβ and inhibit its aggregation. In this study, KLVFF and Fmoc-KLVFF fluorescent nanoparticles were self-assembled through zinc coordination and π-π stacking. The recognition of Aβ aggregates including oligomers and fibrils by fluorescent nanoparticles can be realized through aromatic, hydrophobic, and hydrogen-bond interactions. The fluorescent nanoprobes can distinguish Aβ aggregation formats and detect Aβ at the limit of 1 pg/mL (S/N = 3). Hence, the detection of Aβ aggregates by fluorescent peptide nanoparticles has great potential for AD diagnosis and progression prediction.
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have evolved into the mainstream power source of energy storage equipment by reason of their advantages such as high energy density, high power, long cycle life and less pollution. With the expansion of their applications in deep-sea exploration, aerospace and military equipment, special working conditions have placed higher demands on the low-temperature performance of LIBs. However, at low temperatures, the severe polarization and inferior electrochemical activity of electrode materials cause the acute capacity fading upon cycling, which greatly hindered the further development of LIBs. In this review, we summarize the recent important progress of LIBs in low-temperature operations and introduce the key methods and the related action mechanisms for enhancing the capacity of the various cathode and anode materials. It aims to promote the development of high-performance electrode materials and broaden the application range of LIBs.
There is an increasing demand of using the low-cost and sustainable cobalt to replace its noble congeners (rhodium and iridium) as reflected by the recent upsurge of cobalt catalysis in the diverse organic transformations. Since all the redox reactivity of cobalt catalysis highly relies on the capability of the interconversion between their oxidation states (most frequently +1, +2 and +3), electrochemistry perfectly meets such a requirement owing to its outstanding performance in the redox manipulation. In this review, we highlight the recent advances in the merger of cobalt catalysis and electrochemistry in organic synthesis.
A chiral cobalt pincer complex, when combined with an achiral electron-rich mono-phosphine ligand, catalyzes efficient asymmetric hydrogenation of a wide range of aryl ketones, affording chiral alcohols with high yields and moderate to excellent enantioselectivities (29 examples, up to 93% ee). Notably, the achiral mono-phosphine ligand shows a remarkable effect on the enantioselectivity of the reaction.
Potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) are attracted tremendous interest for large-scale energy storage systems (ESSs) owing to their economic merits. However, the main challenges of the PIBs are sluggish K-ion diffusion and large volume variations in the potassium repeated intercalation/deintercalation. Herein, mesoporous carbon nanosheet-assembled flowers (abbreviated as F-C) are designed as an original anode for superior-performance PIBs. Specifically, the F-C anode exhibits a high K-storage capacity (e.g., 381 mAh/g at 50 mA/g during the 2nd cycle), excellent rate performance (e.g., 101 mAh/g at 2.0 A/g) and superior long cycle capability. Such excellent K-ion storage property is largely benefited from the large surface area (~141 m2/g) and reasonable pore volume (0.465 cm3/g), which not only stimulates rapid K-ions diffusion and relieves the huge volume strain, but also exposes extensive active sites for K-ion capacitive storage.
Celastrol, a Chinese herbal medicine, has exhibited anticancer activity in many types of cancer cells. However, the further clinical application of celastrol is restricted by its poor water solubility and serious side effects. Furthermore, the apoptosis mechanism of tumor cells induced by celastrol has not been exhausted yet. In this study, we developed a reduction sensitive polymeric vector for tumor-targeted celastrol delivery. And our researches indicated that the celastrol could be delivered by reduction-sensitive nanomedicine (RSNMs) with a controlled release strategy. Meanwhile, the cell uptake results indicated that excellent reduction-sensitive behavior of RSNMs could effectively accelerate celastrol into the human retinoblastoma (RB) cell. The cell cytotoxicity assay demonstrated that celastrol inhibited proliferation of human RB Y79 cells growth in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, the results of flow cytometry and terminal dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) staining showed that celastrol induced apoptosis of the RB Y79 cells, and revealed a time-dependent increase in apoptosis induction of RB Y79 cells. The results of western blotting showed that celastrol induced the apoptosis of human RB Y79 cells involving the activation of caspase-3 and caspase-9. In conclusion, our results revealed that RSNMs may be utilized as a novel therapy for retinoblastoma.
Three novel polycyclic polyprenyled acylphloroglucinols, Hyperscabins A-C, were obtained from the aerial parts of Hypericum scabrum. They featured an unprecedented 5, 5-spiroketal subunit with the loss of C-2' carbonyl in the phloroglucinol ring. Their structures were characterized by extensive spectroscopic analyses, NMR calculations with DP4+ analysis, calculated electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectra and the application of modified Mosher's methods. In the assay of [3H]-5-HT and [3H]-NE reuptake inhibition, compounds 1 and 2 showed good inhibitory activity (81.8% and 83.2%) in 10 μmol/L. In addition, compound 1 significantly increased cell viability in the experiment of oxygen and glucose deprivation/deoxygenation.
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