Latest ArticlesLung cancer is the most malignant tumor disease with the highest diagnosis and mortality rate in China. The development of therapeutic drugs is the current research focus. Dai-Bai-Jie is a traditional medicine of the Dai nationality, which is commonly used in the treatment of decreasing swelling, alleviating pain and detoxification. Most of the current researches focused on the component analysis of Dai-Bai-Jie, but few researches studied on its antitumor and pharmacological effect. In this study, we incubated A549 cells with different concentrations of Dai-Bai-Jie. The cell proliferation experiment showed that the DaiBai-Jie solution inhibited the proliferation of A549 cells and caused cell apoptosis. In this work, we confirmed that Dai-Bai-Jie had an inhibitory effect on the proliferation and migration of non-small cell lung cancer A549, which may be used as a novel candidate of anti-tumor therapy for lung cancer patients.
Ionophore can prominently improve the ion permeability of cell membrane and disrupt cellular ion homeostasis. Most studies regarding ionophore facilitating ion transmembrane transport focus on artificial liquid-liquid interfaces, which have large difference from the actual environment of cell membrane. Here, we construct a supported lipid bilayer on a gold nanoparticles film modified ZnSe prism as an appropriate model of cell membrane to investigate the dynamic of the ion transport facilitated by ionophore using surface enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy (SEIRAS). We find that the ion transmembrane transport consists of two steps: The ion transmembrane transport starts with the association/disassociation between ion and ionophore at the edge of lipid bilayer; The second step is the transfer of ion-ionophore complex across lipid bilayer. Our results show that the complex transfer across the lipid bilayer is the rate determining step.
Thiophonate-methyl (TPM) is one of fungicides and pesticides widely used in agriculture field. However, the residue of its benzimidazole (BZD) metabolites in related agricultural products poses a potential risk to consumers. In this paper, nickel oxide nanoparticle-deposited silica (SiO2@NiO) composite was used for the selective enrichment and purification of TPM's BZD metabolites in celery cabbage sprayed with TPM. Meanwhile, high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with precursor ion scan-mass spectrometry (HPLC-PIS-MS) and high-resolution MS/MS analysis (HR-MS/MS) was utilized for their qualitative and quantitative analysis. Twenty-one potential TPM's BZD metabolites were found and four of them were identified. One metabolite was discovered for the first time. Besides, a robust and sensitive quantitative method was developed with good linearities (R2 > 0.9972) within a wide range of 10.00-1000 ng/g. The detection limits of three known TPM's metabolites were within the range of 3.20-4.90 ng/g. Relative standard deviations (RSDs) of intra-day and inter-day precisions were less than 18.3%, which showed perfect reproducibility. The method was successfully applied to monitoring TPM's BZD metabolites in celery cabbage sprayed with TPM and the concentration versus time curves of TPM's metabolites in celery cabbage were plotted. This method is expected to be used to monitor BZD residues in various fruits and vegetables.
Carbon dots (CDs) with multi-color emissive properties and a high photoluminescent quantum yield (PLQY) have attracted great attention recently due to their potential applications in chemical, environmental, biological and photo-electronic fields. Solvent-dependent effect in photoluminescence provides a facial and effective approach to tune the emission of CDs. In this study, green emissive nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs) are synthesized from p-hydroquinone and ethylenediamine through a simple hydrothermal method. The as-prepared N-CDs possess a robust excitation-independent green luminescence and a high PLQYof up to 15.9%. Further spectroscopic characterization indicates that the high PLQY is achieved by the balance of nitrogen doping states and the surface passivation extent in CDs. The N-CDs also exhibit solvent-dependent multi-color emissive property and distinct PLQY in different solvents (the maximum can reach up to 25.3%). Furthermore, the as-prepared N-CDs are applied as fluorescence probes to detect acetone and H2O2 in water. This method has exhibited a low detection limit of acetone (less than 0.1%) and a quick and linear response to the H2O2 with the concentration from 0 to 120 μmol/L. This work broadens the knowledge of applying CDs as probes in the bio and chemical sensing fields.
Nowadays, tremendous researches have been focused on the core-shell lipid-polymer nanoparticles (LPNs) due to the advantages of both liposomes and polymer nanoparticles. In this work, LPNs were applied to encapsulate brinzolamide (Brz-LPNs) for achieving sustained drug release, improving drug corneal permeation and enhancing drug topical therapeutic effect. The structure of Brz-LPNs was composed of poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) nanocore which encapsulated Brz (Brz-NPs) and lipid shell around the core. Brz-LPNs were prepared by a modified thin-film dispersion method. With the parameters optimization of Brz-LPNs, optimal Brz-LPNs showed an average particle size of 151.23±1.64 nm with a high encapsulation efficiency (EE) of 86.7%±2.28%. The core-shell structure of Brz-LPNs were confirmed by transmission electronic microscopy (TEM). Fourier transformed infrared spectra (FTIR) analysis proved that Brz was successfully entrapped into Brz-LPNs. Brz-LPNs exhibited obvious sustained release of Brz, compared with AZOPT® and Brz-LPs. Furthermore, the corneal accumulative permeability of Brz-LPNs significantly increased compared to the commercial available formulation (AZOPT®) in vitro. Moreover, Brz-LPNs (1 mg/mL Brz) showed a more sustained and effective intraocular pressure (IOP) reduction than Brz-LPs (1 mg/mL) and AZOPT® (10 mg/mL Brz) in vivo. In conclusion, Brz-LPNs, as promising ocular drug delivery systems, are well worth developing in the future for glaucoma treatment.
A straightforward coassembly strategy was developed for the preparation of polymeric nanoparticles driving by the intermolecular hydrogen bond between neutral poly(2-methyl-2-oxaozline) (PMeOx), tannic acid (TA) and doxorubicin hydrochloride (Dox). The occurrence of the hydrogen-bonding amongst the different functionalities within the formed nanoparticles was verified by infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), UV-vis absorption and photoluminescent measurements indicated the rapid formation of uniform and water dispersible/stable nanoparticles. The relative poor stability of PMeOx-TA-Dox in fetal bovine serum (FBS) solution enabled the rapid separation of Dox and PMeOx-TA, facilitating the release of Dox and its entrance into cellular nuclei as revealed by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). The presented strategy may provide an efficient alternative for the construction of multifunctional nanomedicines.
Over the past two decades, layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of micro/nanocapsules has been of interest for the investigation of bio-nano interactions to explore bio-applications, such as drug delivery. The choice of an appropriate template that can be easily dissolved under mild conditions is one of the challenges for the assembly of LbL capsules. Herein, we report the engineering of LbL capsules with tunable morphologies using cuprous oxide (Cu2O) particles as templates. Cu2O particles with cubic, tetradecahedral or spherical morphologies were synthesized via hydrothermal processes, which can be dissolved under mild condition (e.g., sodium thiosulfate solution). The influence of capsule morphologies on cell association was investigated, which indicates that LbL capsules with cubic geometry promoted cell association up to 4 and 9-fold than tetradecahedral and spherical capsules, respectively. The reported method provides a new avenue for the assembly of LbL capsules with different morphologies, which has the potential for better understanding of biological interactions of LbL capsules.
Kerogen is known as an important organic part for absorbing and forming shale gas whose absorption function, especially mechanical and tribological properties, has not been fully revealed. Here, we use Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis to reveal the chemical structure of kerogen. We report the first study of the adhesion and friction behavior of kerogen using atomic force microscope (AFM) Nanoman technology. Our finding reveals the friction of kerogen is decreased at higher pressure while is inhibited at increased temperature, and friction decreases logarithmically as the sliding speed increases. The weakened of Al-O linkage at high temperature have great influence on the decrease of friction forces between kerogen and alumina pellet. This finding lays the mechanism for understanding the dynamic adhesion behavior of kerogen in frictions, therefore attracting increasing interests from scientists, researchers, petroleum engineers and investors.
As an emerging 2D conjugated material, graphitic carbon nitride (CN) has attracted great research attention as important catalytic medium for transforming solar energy. Nanostructure modulation of CN is an effective way to improve catalytic activities and has been extensively investigated, but remains challenging due to complex processes, time consuming or low yield. Here, taking advantage of recent discovered good solvents for CN, a nanoprecipitation approach using poor solvents is proposed for preparation of CN nanoparticles (CN NPs). With simple processes of CN dissolution and precipitation, we can quickly synthesize CN NPs (~40 nm) with a yield of up to 50%, the highest one to the best of our knowledge. As an example of potential applications, the as-prepared CN NPs were applied to photocatalytic degradation of dyes with an evident boosted performance up to 2.5 times. This work would open a new way for batch preparation of nanostructured CN and pave its large-scale industrial applications.
The controllable synthesis of one-dimensional (1D) structural morphology of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) is significant for its application in catalysis, sense and gas separation. In this communication, we report a simple and moderate synthetic strategy to obtain uniform HKUST-1 nanobelts (NBs) by using copper nanowires (Cu NWs) as a metal source as well as a template. The control experiments showed that synergy between metal dissolution rate and crystal formation plays a key role in the formation of nanobelts. Our study represents an attractive synthetic strategy of 1D MOFs-based material for applications.
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