Latest ArticlesEnsuring the timely and precise monitoring of severe liver diseases is crucial for guiding effective therapies and significantly extending overall quality of life. However, this remains a worldwide challenge, given the high incidence rate and the presence of strong confounding clinical symptoms. Herein, we applied a convenient and high-yield method to prepare the magnetic mesoporous carbon (MMC-Fe), guided by a composite of resol and triblock copolymer. With the combination of MMC-Fe, high-throughput mass spectrometry, and a simple machine learning algorithm, we extracted N-glycan profiles from various serum samples, including healthy controls, liver cirrhosis, and liver cancer, and from which we screened specific N-glycans. Specifically, the selected N-glycans demonstrate exceptional performance with area under the curve (AUC) values ranging from 0.948 to 0.993 for the detection of liver diseases, including alpha fetoprotein (AFP)-negative liver cancer. Among them, five N-glycans holds potential in monitoring distinctions between liver cirrhosis and AFP-negative liver cancer (AUC values of 0.827–0.842). This study is expected to promote the glycan-based precise monitoring of diseases, not limited to liver disease.
β-Amino sulfides hold significant biological importance, motivating the development of several methods for sulfenylamination of alkenes. However, these methods often involve a three-component system with limited alkene substrate range. In this study, we present a pioneering two-component approach utilizing readily accessible sulfenamides as efficient difunctionalization reagents. Key to its success is the careful selection of a suitable photosensitizer, which enables precise modulation of sulfenamides by promoting unprecedented energy transfer rather than traditional single-electron oxidation. This novel strategy leads to the concurrent formation of N- and S-radical species, ensuring high regioselectivity for both electron-neutral and electron-deficient alkenes. As a result, a wide range of valuable β-amino sulfides, including those with congested amine groups, can be readily synthesized. These findings highlight the potential of this method for the efficient synthesis of diverse functionalized β-amino sulfides.
Surface chemistry focuses on the investigation of the adsorption, migration, assembly, activation, reaction, and desorption of atoms and molecules at surfaces. Surface chemistry plays the pivotal roles in both fundamental science and applied technology. This review will summarize the recent progresses on surface assembly, synthesis and catalysis investigated mainly by scanning tunneling microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Surface assemblies of water and small biomolecules, construction of Sierpiński triangles and surface chirality are summarized. On-surface synthesis of conjugated carbo- and heterocycles and other kinds of carbon nanostructures are surveyed. Surface model catalysis, including single-atom catalysis and electrochemical catalysis, are discussed at the single-atom level.
As the main organ of gas exchange, the lungs are susceptible to various exogenous attacks, and pneumonia is one of the major inflammatory diseases that threaten human health. Generally, pneumonia is a disease that occurs in the alveoli and respiratory bronchioles induced by pathogens and further causes local and systemic inflammatory responses. The development of pneumonia can bring various serious complications, including lung abscess, sepsis, meningitis, brain damage and hearing loss. Over the past few decades, the mortality rate of pneumonia patients has remained high. While lung cancer is another lung-related malignant tumors worldwide, with a low 5 year survival rate. Exploring the mechanisms of their occurrence and interaction between pneumonia and lung cancer is a challenging and meaningful task. The abnormalities of lipid droplets (LDs) polarity have been found strongly accompanied by many diseases, especially cancer, inflammation, and metabolic diseases. However, their exact role is not yet clear. Hence, it is significant to develop a novel detection method to observe the polarity changes of LDs, which would help to reveal the development process of diseases pneumonia and lung cancer. In this work, a new polarity-sensitive LDs-targeted near-infrared probe BFZ up to 712 nm was designed, according to the intramolecular charge transfer mechanism, which displayed high fluorescence intensity in low polarity while showing decreased fluorescence intensity in high-polarity conditions with a significant redshift. The BFZ was successfully applied to the change of LDs polarity in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated A549 cells, and a mouse model of lung inflammation. It also tells the polarity differences between normal and tumor cells and between normal and tumor tissues. Moreover, the correlations between pneumonia and polarity changes were observed through the imaging experiments, which may provide an insightful method for the early diagnosis of pneumonia and lung cancer.
Water pollution caused by Hg(II) and Ag(I) poses deleterious effects to environmental safety. Adsorption is one of the promising methods to decontaminate aqueous metal ions. Herein, polyhydroxyl-capped poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimer/silica composites (G1-OH and G2-OH) were prepared for decontaminating aqueous Hg(II) and Ag(I). The maximum adsorption capacity of G1-OH and G2-OH for Hg(II) are 0.45 and 0.76 mmol/g, while that for Ag(I) are 0.66 and 0.81 mmol/g. The optimum solution pH for the adsorption of Hg(II) and Ag(I) are both 6. The adsorption for Hg(II) and Ag(I) can reach equilibrium at 150 and 120 min, respectively. Pseudo-second-order model can be used to describe the adsorption kinetic process and the rate-controlling step is film diffusion process. Adsorption isotherm indicates the adsorption can be promoted by increasing concentration and temperature, and the adsorption process could be described by Langmuir model with chemical mechanism. G1-OH and G2-OH exhibit excellent adsorption selectivity and they can 100% adsorb Hg(II) or Ag(I) with the coexisting of Fe(III), Co(II), Cu(II) or Ni(II). Adsorption mechanism confirms C-N, OH and CONH groups play critical role for the adsorption of the two ions. The work may provide efficient adsorbents for the decontamination of aqueous Hg(II) and Ag(I) with practical value.
Diabetic pressure ulcers (DPU) are non-healing due to vascular dysfunction and bacterial infection. Early intervention can delay ulcer progression, such as preventing the formation of full-thickness skin defects. Local administration of deferoxamine (DFO) at wound sites has been shown to promote neovascularization and enhance wound healing. However, since DPU skin wounds are not full-thickness defects and DFO is hydrophilic, enhancing its transdermal delivery is crucial for effective treatment. Photothermal ablation of stratum corneum, generated by copper sulfide nanoparticles (CuS NPs) under near-infrared (NIR) light irradiation, is a promising method to improve transdermal drug delivery. Meanwhile, CuS NPs-induced photothermal therapy offers excellent antibacterial performance. In this study, DFO and CuS NPs were incorporated into a matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs)-sensitive hydrogel. This hydrogel promotes cell adhesion and is degraded by cell-secreted MMPs, a process crucial for the controlled release of encapsulated DFO and CuS NPs. Under NIR irradiation, the stratum corneum is disrupted, facilitating transdermal DFO delivery and simultaneously eliminating infected bacteria. As a result, the essential requirements for DPU treatment, "facilitating transdermal DFO delivery, promoting angiogenesis, and inhibiting bacterial infection", were achieved simultaneously.
Selenium (Se) plays an important role in the development and treatment of lung cancer, yet its specific mechanisms remain elusive. Lower Se level in serum was noted in lung cancer patients compared to normal controls. Therefore, developing effective therapeutic adjuvants containing Se might benefit the treatment of lung cancer patients. This study aimed to investigate the association between Se and the chemotherapeutic efficacy of lung cancer. Lentinan-modified selenium nanoparticles (LET-SeNPs) were created to develop and verify the effectiveness of Se containing adjuvant applied with pemetrexed on lung cancer cells. A synergistic effect was observed between LET-SeNPs and pemetrexed in vitro. The combination of LET-SeNPs and pemetrexed could induce reactive oxygen species overproduction, mitochondrial dysfunction and DNA damage, ultimately leading to cancer cell apoptosis. It is implied that LET-SeNPs might be a promising sensitizer to pemetrexed chemotherapy and could potentially enhance chemotherapy efficiency in non-small cell lung cancer.
Two o-carborane based tetraphenylethene (TPE) cationic cyclophanes O1·4PF6 and O2·4PF6 were synthesized through an SN2 reaction. Their structures were confirmed both possessing Z-shaped cavities in single crystal analysis. The optical properties of these macrocycles were systematically investigated using UV–vis spectroscopy and fluorescence techniques. It is worth noting that the introduction of a methoxy group to the TPE unit enables the synthesis of a near-infrared-emitting macrocycle O2·4PF6. The recognition behaviors of these two macrocycles towards nucleotides were investigated using various techniques including fluorescence titration, UV–vis titration, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Interestingly, these cyclophanes exhibited aggregation-induced emission (AIE) effects in water or under the induction of nucleotides.
The usage of flexible ligands in constructing MOF materials (FL-MOFs) has been widely studied due to its numerous advantages, including the structural diversity, polynuclear MOFs, transmitting magnetic exchanges, enantioselective separation, asymmetric catalysis, etc. However, the field still faces challenges in deeply understanding the effect of ligand configuration on the properties of these materials. Here, we employ a flexible aggregation-induced emission ligand (4,4′-((1E, 1′E)-anthracene-9,10-diylbis(ethene-2,1-diyl))dibenzoic acid) with great mechanical stability to construct FL-MOFs to lock the ligand configuration to explore the pressure-induced evolution of the ligand with coordination restriction, involving changes in fluorescence and intermolecular interaction. In-situ high-pressure fluorescence, Raman, and FT-IR experiments have revealed that the intermolecular interaction of AIE-Mn-MOF with configuration restriction increased more rapidly than that of free AIE-L. This discovery offers valuable insights for synthesizing MOF materials with exceptional mechanical stability and significantly advances our understanding of the impact of coordination restriction in FL-MOFs on their response to external stimuli.
Achieving selectivity in cell penetrating peptide (CPP) design is crucial to mitigate systemic toxicity and enable precise targeting based on distinct cellular phenotypes. Herein, we designed an amphiphilic peptide, L17Yp, by incorporating phosphorylated tyrosine into natural occurring M-lycotoxin peptide, known for its potent membrane-lytic activity. This strategic modification induced a conformational shift, as confirmed by circular dichroism spectroscopy, transitioning it from its bioactive α-helix conformation to an inactive random coli configuration, effectively shielding its membrane-penetrating capacity. Upon exposure to alkaline phosphatase, L17Yp undergoes enzymatic dephosphorylation, prompting a conformational shift that restores its membrane-transduction capabilities. This unique property hold promises for selective drug delivery. This work introduces an enzymatic approach for targeted perturbation of the cell membrane, offering promising prospects for precise drug delivery applications.
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