Dual-responsive near-infrared turn-on fluorescent probe for cancer stem cell-specific visualization.

Aldehyde dehydrogenase 1A1 (ALDH1A1) stands out as one of the most reliable intracellular biomarkers for stem cells because it is expressed in both cancer stem cells (CSCs) and normal somatic stem cells (NSCs). Although several turn-on fluorescent probes for ALDH1A1 have been developed to visualize CSCs in cancer cells, the discrimination of CSCs from NSCs is difficult. We here report an AND-type dual-responsive fluorescent probe, CHO_βgal, the near-infrared fluorescence of which can be turned on after responding to both ALDH1A1 and β-galactosidase.

AIE-ESIPT Photoluminescent Probe Based on 3-(3-Hydroxypyridin-2-yl)isoquinolin-4-ol for the Detection of Intracellular Hydrogen Peroxide.

Excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) molecules, which feature large Stokes shifts to avoid self-absorption, play an essential role in photoluminescent bioimaging probes. Herein, we report the development of an ESIPT molecule 3-(3-hydroxypyridin-2-yl)isoquinolin-4-ol (PiQ). PiQ not only undergoes a distinct ESIPT process unlike the symmetrical 2,2'-bipyridyl-3,3'-diol but also exhibits aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics.

Global analysis of key post-transcriptional regulation in early leaf development of Limonium bicolor identifies a long non-coding RNA that promotes salt gland development and salt resistance.

Limonium bicolor, known horticulturally as sea lavender, is a typical recretohalophyte with salt glands in its leaf epidermis that secrete excess Na+ out of the plant. Although many genes have been proposed to contribute to salt gland initiation and development, a detailed analysis of alternative splicing, alternative polyadenylation patterns, and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has been lacking. Here, we applied single-molecule long-read mRNA isoform sequencing (Iso-seq) to explore the complexity of the L.

Light-controllable cell-membrane disturbance for intracellular delivery.

Highly polar and charged molecules, such as oligonucleotides, face significant barriers in crossing the cell membrane to access the cytoplasm. To address this problem, we developed a light-triggered twistable tetraphenylethene (TPE) derivative, TPE-C-N, to facilitate the intracellular delivery of charged molecules through an endocytosis-independent pathway. The central double bond of TPE in TPE-C-N is planar in the ground state but becomes twisted in the excited state.

A reductively convertible nickel phthalocyanine precursor as a biological thiol-responsive turn-on photoacoustic contrast agent.

A nickel phthalocyanine precursor bearing poly(ethylene glycol) as a turn-on contrast agent for photoacoustic imaging was prepared. The water-soluble polymeric chains were smoothly eliminated through thiol-mediated reductive aromatization in cancer cells, enabling the detection of endogenous biological thiols and .

Bioinformatics in Plant Breeding and Research on Disease Resistance.

In the context of plant breeding, bioinformatics can empower genetic and genomic selection to determine the optimal combination of genotypes that will produce a desired phenotype and help expedite the isolation of these new varieties. Bioinformatics is also instrumental in collecting and processing plant phenotypes, which facilitates plant breeding. Robots that use automated and digital technologies to collect and analyze different types of information to monitor the environment in which plants grow, analyze the environmental stresses they face, and promptly optimize suboptimal and adverse growth conditions accordingly, have helped plant research and saved human resources.

Steric Control in Activator-Induced Nucleophilic Quencher Detachment-Based Probes: High-Contrast Imaging of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 1A1 in Cancer Stem Cells.

Turn-on fluorescence probes can visualize the enzyme activity with high contrast. We have established a new turn-on mechanism, activator-induced nucleophilic quencher detachment (AiQd), and developed AiQd-based turn-on fluorescence probes for the detection of enzymes. Herein, we demonstrate that the precise steric control efficiently quenches the fluorescence of AiQd-based turn-on probes before the enzymatic transformation.

Aluminum naphthalocyanine conjugate as an MMP-2-activatable photoacoustic probe for in vivo tumor imaging.

Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), which is one of MMPs family, is known as an extracellular gelatinase controlling cancer cell adhesion, growth, and metastasis. Because of the great interest in MMP-2 activity, the detailed protocols for evaluating MMP-2-responsive contrast agents, especially photoacoustic probes for in vivo use, are helpful for researchers in the field. We here describe the detailed synthetic procedure of MMP-2-activatable photoacoustic probe AlNc-pep-PEG consisting of aluminum naphthalocyanine, MMP-2-responsive peptide sequence, and poly(ethylene glycol), which has recently been developed in our research group.

MMP-2-Activatable Photoacoustic Tumor Imaging Probes Based on Al- and Si-Naphthalocyanines.

Enzyme-activatable photoacoustic probes are powerful contrast agents to visualize diseases in which a specific enzyme is overexpressed. In this study, aluminum and silicon naphthalocyanines (AlNc and SiNc, respectively) conjugated with matrix metalloprotease-2 (MMP-2)-responsive PLGLAG peptide sequence and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as an axial ligand were designed and synthesized. AlNc-peptide-PEG conjugates formed dimeric species interacting with each other through face-to-face H-aggregation in water, while SiNc-based conjugates hardly interacted with each other because of the two bulky hydrophilic axial ligands.

The simultaneous adsorption, activation and in situ reduction of carbon dioxide over Au-loading BiOCl with rich oxygen vacancies.

The main process of carbon dioxide (CO) photoreduction is that excited electrons are transported to surface active sites to reduce adsorbed CO molecules. Obviously, electron transfer to the active site is one of the key steps in this process. However, current catalysts for CO adsorption, activation, and electron reduction occur in different locations, which greatly reduce the efficiency of photocatalysis.

Substituted -vinyl-BODIPY as thiol-selective fluorogenic probes for sensing unfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum.

A new type of thiol probes based on the meso-vinyl-BODIPY (VB) scaffold were developed. The monochloro-substituted VB1Cl exhibited the largest fluorescence enhancement (>200-fold) as well as high selectivity upon biological thiol sensing. VB1Cl was successfully applied for reporting the protein unfolding process under ER stress in living cells.

pH-Activatable Cyanine Dyes for Selective Tumor Imaging Using Near-Infrared Fluorescence and Photoacoustic Modalities.

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is an emerging molecular imaging modality that complements fluorescence imaging and enables high resolution within deep tissue. Fluorescence/PA multimodality imaging would be a powerful technique to extract more comprehensive information from targets than traditional single-modality imaging. In this paper, we developed a new pH-activatable sensor, , which is applicable to both fluorescence and PA detection.

Valley Polarization and Valleyresistance in a Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Superlattice.

A significant, fundamental challenge in the field of valleytronics is how to generate and regulate valley-polarized currents in practical ways. Here, we discover a new mechanism for producing valley polarization in a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide superlattice, in which valley-resolved gaps are formed at the supercell Brillouin zone boundaries and centers due to intervalley scattering. When the incident energy of the electron lies in the gaps, the available states are valley polarized, thus providing a valley-polarized current from the superlattice.

Enhanced Schottky effect of a 2D-2D CoP/g-CN interface for boosting photocatalytic H evolution.

As emerging noble metal-free co-catalysts, transition metal phosphides have been employed to improve photocatalytic H2 production activity. Herein, the metallicity of CoP, as a representative phosphide, and the Schottky effect between CoP and g-C3N4 are confirmed via theoretical calculations. Then, a 2D/2D structure is designed to enlarge the Schottky effect between the interfaces, for which the apparent quantum efficiency of the photocatalytic H2 evolution is 2.

Association between ERCC2 rs13181 polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk: an updated meta-analysis with 4024 subjects.

Background: Genetic variants in the excision repair cross-complimentary group 2 (ERCC2) gene may affect individual susceptibility to cancer by modulating the capability of DNA damage repair. However, the current studies concerning the association of ERCC2 rs13181 polymorphism with ovarian cancer risk provided inconsistent evidence.

Methods: This study was to quantitatively summarize the evidence from the individual studies electronically retrieved by a meta-analysis.

One-step synthesis, electronic structure, and photocatalytic activity of earth-abundant visible-light-driven FeAlO.

The development of inexpensive visible-light-driven photocatalysts is an important prerequisite for realizing the industrial application of photocatalysis technology. In this paper, an earth-abundant FeAlO photocatalyst is prepared via facile solution combustion synthesis. Density functional theory and the scanning Kelvin probe technique are employed to ascertain the positions of the energy bands and the Fermi level.

d-PET-controlled "off-on" Polarity-sensitive Probes for Reporting Local Hydrophilicity within Lysosomes.

Polarity-sensitive fluorescent probes are powerful chemical tools for studying biomolecular structures and activities both in vitro and in vivo. However, the lack of "off-on" polarity-sensing probes has limited the accurate monitoring of biological processes that involve an increase in local hydrophilicity. Here, we design and synthesize a series of "off-on" polarity-sensitive fluorescent probes BP series consisting of the difluoroboron dippyomethene (BODIPY) fluorophore connected to a quaternary ammonium moiety via different carbon linkers.

Light up ClO(-) in live cells using an aza-coumarin based fluorescent probe with fast response and high sensitivity.

Hypochlorous acid (HClO)/hypochlorite (ClO(-)), one of the reactive oxygen species (ROS), is a key microbicidal agent used for natural defense; however, HClO is also responsible for some human diseases. Although much effort has been made to develop HClO-selective fluorescent probes, many of them display a delayed response time and nanomole-sensitive probes are rare. In this study, we designed and synthesized an aza-coumarin based fluorescent probe AC-ClO for ClO(-) determination with fast response (completed within 2 min) and high sensitivity (detection limit is 25 nM).

Ratiometric fluorescence imaging of cellular polarity: decrease in mitochondrial polarity in cancer cells.

Mitochondrial polarity strongly influences the intracellular transportation of proteins and interactions between biomacromolecules. The first fluorescent probe capable of the ratiometric imaging of mitochondrial polarity is reported. The probe, termed BOB, has two absorption maxima (λabs = 426 and 561 nm) and two emission maxima--a strong green emission (λem = 467 nm) and a weak red emission (642 nm in methanol)--when excited at 405 nm.

A Nile blue based infrared fluorescent probe: imaging tumors that over-express cyclooxygenase-2.

The first Golgi-localized cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2)-specific near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probe, Niblue-C6-IMC, able to detect cancer cells, was designed. Importantly, Niblue-C6-IMC preferentially labeled the tumors in a mouse tumor model with deep tissue penetration capacity. It may be a promising molecular tool for guiding tumor resection during surgery.

An "enhanced PET"-based fluorescent probe with ultrasensitivity for imaging basal and elesclomol-induced HClO in cancer cells.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cellular oxidant stress have long been associated with cancer. Unfortunately, the role of HClO in tumor biology is much less clear than for other ROS. Herein, we report a BODIPY-based HClO probe (BClO) with ultrasensitivity, fast response (within 1 s), and high selectivity, in which the pyrrole group at the meso position has an "enhanced PET" effect on the BODIPY fluorophore.

Highly sensitive naphthalene-based two-photon fluorescent probe for in situ real-time bioimaging of ultratrace cyclooxygenase-2 in living biosystems.

Detecting and imaging of ultratrace cyclooxygenase-2 in living biosystems could provide much important valuable information for the diagnosis and intervention of cancer. Molecular probes, whose fluorescent signals are generated by cyclooxygenase-2, hold great potential for identification and enumeration of cyclooxygenase-2 in living biosystems. Although quite a few fluorescent probes have been reported for cyclooxygenase-2, the use fluorogenic probe with the excellent two-photon properties for the determination of ultratrace cyclooxygenase-2 has been scarce.