Latest ArticlesGreat success has been witnessed in last decades, some new techniques and strategies have been widely used in drug discovery. In this roadmap, several representative techniques and strategies are highlighted to show recent advances in this filed. (A) A DOX protocol has been developed for accurate protein-ligand binding structure prediction, in which first principle method was used to rank the binding poses. Validation against crystal structures have found that DOX prediction achieved an impressive success rate of 99%, indicating significant improvement over molecular docking method. (B) Virtual target profiling is a compound-centric strategy enabling a parallel implementation of interrogating compounds against various targets in a single screen, which has been used in hit/lead identification, drug repositioning, and mechanism-of-action studies. Current and emerging methods for virtual target profiling are briefly summarized herein. (C) Research on targeted autophagy to treat diseases has received encouraging progress. However, due to the complexity of autophagy and disease, experimental and in silico methods should be performed synergistically for the entire process. This part focuses on in silico methods in autophagy research to promote their use in medicinal research. (D) Histone deacetylases (HDACs) play important roles in various biological functions through the deacetylation of lysine residues. Recent studies demonstrated that HDACs, which possess low deacetylase activities, exhibited more efficient defatty-acylase activities. Here, we review the defatty-acylase activity of HDACs and describe examples for the design of isoform selective HDAC inhibitor. (E) The FDA approval of three kinase allosteric inhibitors and some others entering clinical study has spurred considerable interests in this targeted drug discovery area. (F) Recent advances are reviewed in structure-based design of novel antiviral agents to combat drug resistance. (G) Since nitric oxide (NO) exerts anticancer activity depending on its concentration, optimal levels of NO in cancer cells is desirable. In this minireview, we briefly describe recent advances in the research of NO-based anticancer agents by our group and present some opinions on the future development of these agents. (H) The field of photoactivation strategies have been extensively developed for controlling chemical and biological processes with light. This review will summarize and provide insight into recent research advances in the understanding of photoactivatable molecules including photoactivatable caged prodrugs and photoswitchable molecules.
Protein-metabolite interactions (PMIs) play important roles in various biological processes, especially in disease progression. However, due to the complexity of living cells, it is very difficult to identify specific PMIs. Herein, we chose one oncogenic factor, metadherin (MTDH), as a bait to identify its in vivo interacting metabolites in cancer cells. Cholesterol is an important metabolite and essential structural component of cell membranes. It could also drive several diseases including cancer. Interestingly, we found that cholesterol robustly interacted with MTDH and downregulated the expression of MTDH in cancer cells. Furthermore, MTDH disturbed metabolite alterations under cholesterol treatment in MTDH transduced cancer cells. Collectively, our results uncover an undescribed PMI where MTDH, as an oncogenic factor, might positively regulate cancer progression by interacting with cholesterol. This study interprets the theoretical basis of PMI-oriented cancer progression and targeting therapies in clinic.
Linear carbon chains (LCCs) are a one-dimensional sp1-hybridized allotrope of carbon. LCCs are extremely unstable: The longer the LCCs, the less stable the materials. Thus, it is a big challenge to synthesize long LCCs. Although the research on the short LCCs, e.g., polyynes, can be traced back to the 18th, LCCs are still not well-known compared to other allotropes of carbon, e.g., fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene. Therefore, introducing recent progress on LCCs is of great significance to draw more attention in the community of nanocarbons as well as nanomaterials in general. Theoretically, various excellent properties have been predicted. Experimentally, LCCs with different length in many kinds of forms have been successfully synthesized. In this review, we summarized recent studies of polyynic LCCs from both theoretical and experimental aspects. Also, perspectives are highlighted to point out the further investigations of the materials.
N, N'-Disulfonylhydrazines have been proven to be the most reactive precursors of the sulfonyl radicals among all types of sulfonyl substituted hydrazines as early as half a century ago. However, the sulfonyl radicals generated from these compounds have not been used in organic synthesis except the simple selfdimerization synthesis of disulfones controlled by the “solvent-cage-effects”. In this article, N, N'-disulfonylhydrazines were introduced as new sulfonylating reagents and their combinations with NIS were disclosed as new iodosulfonylating reagents of alkynes. Finally, a highly efficient method for the synthesis of (E)-β-iodovinyl arenesulfones was developed by mixing an alkyne, a N, N'-disulfonylhydrazine and NIS in aqueous THF at room temperature for 5 min.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from cancer cells are considered as ideal biomarker for liquid biopsy in cancer diagnosis, and are stable and abundant. Electrochemical methods for the detection of EVs are preferred over conventional methods such as Western blotting and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for their high sensitivity and real-time detection. This article summaries studies proposing the electrochemical methods utilizing immunological and molecular methodologies for detecting EVs derived biomacromolecules such as miRNAs and transmembrane protein for cancer diagnosis. Moreover, the electrochemical detection methods are compared and future prospects for the development of electrochemical methods for EVs detection are concluded.
Porous nanomaterials are classified as a kind of materials with great potential for development in the field of electrocatalysis, but there is still room for further improvement as catalysts. We develop a threedimensional (3D) porous structure of Cu/Cu2O as an electrocatalyst for the glucose oxidation reaction (GOR) using the method of calcining the precursor CuC2O4·2H2O in N2. The obtained porous Cu/Cu2O nanostructure can provide more opportunities for effective reactions between particles, which can explain their efficient electrocatalytic performance. Additionally, the as-synthesized Cu/Cu2O nanostructure exhibits outstanding electrocatalytic performance for the glucose, including good stability, excellent sensitivity and remarkable selectivity.
Semiconductor-based photoelectrocatalytic processes have attracted considerable research interest for solar energy collection and storage. Photoelectrocatalysis is a heterogeneous photocatalytic process in which a bias potential is applied to a photoelectrode, and thus the photoelectrocatalytic performance is closely related to the photoelectrode prepared by semiconductors. Among various semiconductors, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted more and more attention because of their unique properties such as optical properties and adjustable structure. Herein, a comprehensive review on different MOFs (Ti-based, Zn-based, Co-based, Fe-based, Cu-based, and mixed metal-based MOFs) for heterogeneous photoelectrocatalysis is carried out and, in particular, the application of this technique for CO2 conversion and water splitting is discussed. In addition, the challenges and development prospects of MOFs in photoelectrocatalysis are also presented.
From a mixture of α-, β- and γ-himachalenes extracted from waste wood of Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica), cadalene (1, 6-dimethyl-4-isopropylnaphthalene) and iso-cadalene (1, 6-dimethyl-3-isopropylnaphthalene) were produced in two steps with up to 71%±5% yield through the ar-himachalene intermediate using I2 and/or AlCl3 as reagents. The selectivity is shown to sharply depend on the operating conditions: while I2/AlCl3 in dichloromethane promotes the formation of cadalene, the formation of iso-cadalene is favored in the presence of AlCl3 in cyclohexane. The bicyclic aromatic compounds were thus obtained through unique rearrangements involving sequential C—C bond cleavage/formation and hydride transfer processes. In the absence of AlCl3 or I2, dihydrocurcumene was also found to be formed with up to 70% selectivity. A tentative mechanism is proposed and discussed.
The effective extracting Cr(VI) from chromite ore processing residue (COPR) is the key to achieve COPR detoxification and recovery. We developed an effective method to extract Cr(VI) from COPR via controlling the phase transformation of Cr(VI)-containing minerals. Characteristic analysis showed that Cr(VI) was mainly incorporated in the hydrocalumite (NaCa4Al2O6(SO4/CrO4)1.5·15H2O) in COPR, which was a layered-double hydroxide (LDH) with multilayer structure. In the hydrothermal treatment experiments, the Na2CO3 solution showed significant extraction effect of Cr(VI) and detoxification effect of COPR. After treatment, 95% of Cr(VI) was removed and the Cr(VI) concentration in the leachate was decreased to 1.6 mg/L by the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP), within the regulatory limit disposal standard (HJ/T 301-2007, 3 mg/L). Further study revealed that, during the treatment, hydrocalumite transformed into calcite (CaCO3) under the effect of mineralizer, therefore, the layered structure collapsed and the incorporated Cr(VI) was released to the supernatant. Meanwhile, the Cr(VI) desorbed from calcite with the calcite particles grew into large size with smooth surface. Stir-flow experiment revealed that the amount of chromium released from CORP to the environment was significantly reduced after treatment, and it is safer for landfill disposal. This work will provide an instructive guidance for the detoxification and recovery of COPR.
The low cost and facile scalable exfoliation route for two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) was still indispensable for potential applications. In this work, we presented a convenient and scalable exfoliation for few-layer BNNSs. Taking advantage of the advantages of swift heating of microwave and ultra low temperature vaporization of liquid nitrogen, bulk h-BN was high-efficiently exfoliated into fewlayer BNNSs. The as-exfoliated BNNSs had a 2-6 nm thickness and approximately 7.91% yield, exhibiting scalable, facile and environment-friendly features. Furthermore, the as-exfoliated BNNSs were applied as additive in oil for reducing friction of oil. The COF of the BNNSs-based grease reduced by 20.10% compared to grease, and the antiwear performance decreased by 55.8% and 45.1% relative to grease and h-BN-based grease.
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