Functional and structural dissection of glycosyltransferases underlying the glycodiversity of wolfberry-derived bioactive ingredients lycibarbarspermidines.

Lycibarbarspermidines are unusual phenolamide glycosides characterized by a dicaffeoylspermidine core with multiple glycosyl substitutions, and serve as a major class of bioactive ingredients in the wolfberry. So far, little is known about the enzymatic basis of the glycosylation of phenolamides including dicaffeoylspermidine. Here, we identify five lycibarbarspermidine glycosyltransferases, LbUGT1-5, which are the first phenolamide-type glycosyltransferases and catalyze regioselective glycosylation of dicaffeoylspermidines to form structurally diverse lycibarbarspermidines in wolfberry.

A Photoresponsive and Metal-Organic Framework Encapsulated DNA Tetrahedral Entropy-Driven Amplifier for High-Performance Imaging Intracellular MicroRNA.

The further development of high-performance fluorescent biosensors to image intracellular microRNAs is beneficial to cancer medicine. By virtue of the need for enzymes and hairpin DNA probes, the entropy-driven reaction-assisted signal amplification strategy has shown an enormous potential to accomplish this task. Nevertheless, this good option still meets with poor biostability, low cell uptake efficiency, and unsatisfactory accuracy.

Light-Activated and Self-Driven Autonomous DNA Nanomachine Enabling Fluorescence Imaging of MicroRNA in Living Cells with Exceptional Precision and Efficiency.

Owing to their favorable design flexibility and eminent signal amplification ability, DNA nanomachine-supported biosensors have provided an attractive avenue for intracellular fluorescence imaging, especially for DNA walkers. However, this promising option not only suffers from poor controllability but also needs to be supplied with additional driving forces on account of the frequent employment of metal ion-dependent DNAzymes. Aiming at overcoming these obstacles, we introduce some fruitful solutions.

Photo-gated and self-powered three-dimensional DNA motors with boosted biostability for exceptionally precise and efficient tracing of intracellular survivin mRNA.

Benefiting from the outstanding signal amplification effect and the admirable construction flexibility, the currently proposed DNA motors (particularly DNA walkers) based biosensing concepts have provided a forceful fluorescence imaging tool for intracellular detection. Even so, this promising sensing means is not only subject to poor controllability and prone to produce false signals but also requires exogenous powering forces owing to the common employment of DNAzyme. In response to these challenges, we are herein motivated to present some meaningful solving strategies.

Holographic Optical Tweezers and Boosting Upconversion Luminescent Resonance Energy Transfer Combined Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas12a Biosensors.

Taking advantage of outstanding precision in target recognition and -cleavage ability, the recently discovered CRISPR/Cas12a system provides an alternative opportunity for designing fluorescence biosensors. To fully exploit the analytical potential, we introduce here some meaningful concepts. First, the collateral cleavage of CRISPR/Cas12a is efficiently activated in a functional DNA regulation manner and the bottleneck which largely applicable to nucleic acids detection is broken.

A boosting upconversion luminescent resonance energy transfer and biomimetic periodic chip integrated CRISPR/Cas12a biosensor for functional DNA regulated transduction of non-nucleic acid targets.

Apart from gene editing capacity, the newly discovered CRISPR/Cas systems offer an exciting option for biosensing field because of their excellent target recognition accuracy. However, the currently constructed sensors are not only limited to nucleic acid analysis but also suffer from poor adaptability in complex samples and unsatisfying sensitivity. We herein introduce some advanced concepts to break through these bottlenecks.

Toxicity of polyhydroxylated fullerene to mitochondria.

Mitochondrial dysfunction is considered as a crucial mechanism of nanomaterial toxicity. Herein, we investigated the effects of polyhydroxylated fullerene (C60(OH)44, fullerenol), a model carbon-based nanomaterial with high water solubility, on isolated mitochondria. Our study demonstrated that fullerenol enhanced the permeabilization of mitochondrial inner membrane to H(+) and K(+) and induced mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT).

Dysfunction of Rice Mitochondrial Membrane Induced by Yb3+.

Ytterbium (Yb), a widely used rare earth element, is treated as highly toxic to human being and adverseness to plant. Mitochondria play a significant role in plant growth and development, and are proposed as a potential target for ytterbium toxicity. In this paper, the biological effect of Yb(3+) on isolated rice mitochondria was investigated.

Study on Biological Effects of La(3+) on Rat Liver Mitochondria by Microcalorimetric and Spectroscopic Methods.

The effects of lanthanum on heat production of mitochondria isolated from Wistar rat liver were investigated with microcalorimetry; simultaneously, the effects on mitochondrial swelling and membrane potential (Δψ) were determined by spectroscopic methods. La(3+) showed only inhibitory action on mitochondrial energy turnover with IC50 being 55.8 μmol L(-1).

Effects of La(III) and Ca(II) on isolated Carassius auratus liver mitochondria: heat production and mitochondrial permeability transition.

The effects of lanthanum and calcium on heat production of mitochondria isolated from Carassius auratus liver were investigated by microcalorimetry, and their effects on mitochondrial swelling and membrane potential (Δψ) were determined by spectroscopic methods. La(3+) showed only inhibitory action on mitochondrial energy turnover with inhibition concentration of 50 % (IC50) being 71.2 μmol L(-1).

Membrane permeability transition and dysfunction of rice mitochondria effected by Er(III).

Herein, the biological effects of heavy rare earth ion Er(III) on rice mitochondria were comprehensively investigated mainly by spectroscopic methods. The experimental results demonstrated that Er(III) could lead to the swelling of rice mitochondria, collapse of mitochondrial transmembrane potential, decrease of membrane fluidity, promotion of H(+) permeability and suppression of K(+) permeability. These further indicated that Er(III) could induce the mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) and the dysfunction of rice mitochondria.