Optical Imaging of Single Extracellular Vesicles: Recent Progress and Prospects.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small, membrane-bound structures released by various cell types into the extracellular environment, which play a crucial role in intercellular communication and the transfer of biomolecules between cells. Given their functional significance, there are intense research interests to use EVs as disease markers and drug carriers. However, EVs characterization is greatly hindered by the small size, the low biomolecule payload, and the high level of heterogeneity.

[Effect of oblique insertion at point with long needle on joint function in female patients with knee osteoarthritis of early and middle stages].

Objective: To compare the improvement of joint function in female patients with early-middle-stage knee osteoarthritis (KOA) treated by oblique insertion at point with long needle and oral celecoxib capsule.

Methods: A total of 105 female patients with early-middle-stage KOA were randomly divided into an observation group (65 cases, 6 cases dropped out, 3 cases were discontinued) and a control group (40 cases, 6 cases dropped out, 2 cases were discontinued). Patients in the observation group were treated with oblique insertion at point (hard knots of quadriceps femoris, hamstring muscle, popliteal muscle, etc.

Recent Advances in Fluorescent Nanoparticles for Stimulated Emission Depletion Imaging.

Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, as a popular super-resolution imaging technique, has been widely used in bio-structure analysis and resolving the dynamics of biological processes beyond the diffraction limit. The performance of STED critically depends on the optical properties of the fluorescent probes. Ideally, the probe should process high brightness and good photostability, and exhibit a sensitive response to the depletion beam.

DNA Molecular Glue Assisted Bacterial Conjugative Transfer.

Bacterial conjugation, a commonly used method to horizontally transfer functional genes from donor to recipient strains, plays an important role in the genetic manipulation of bacteria for basic research and industrial production. Successful conjugation depends on the donor-recipient cell recognition and a tight mating junction formation. However, the efficiency of conjugative transfer is usually very low.

Monodispersed and Monofunctionalized DNA-Caged Au Nano-Clusters with Enhanced Optical Properties for STED Imaging.

The performance of Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy depends critically on the fluorescent probe. Ultrasmall Au nanoclusters (Au NCs) exhibit large Stokes shift, and good stimulated emission response, which are potentially useful for STED imaging. However, Au NCs are polydispersed in size, sensitive to the surrounding environment, and difficult to control surface functional group stoichiometry, which results in reduced density and high heterogeneity in the labeling of biological structures.

Hyperbranched Polymer Dots with Strong Absorption and High Fluorescence Quantum Yield for In Vivo NIR-II Imaging.

In order to improve the fluorescence quantum yield (QY) of NIR-II-emitting nanoparticles, D-A-D fluorophores are typically linked to intramolecular rotatable units to reduce aggregation-induced quenching. However, incorporating such units often leads to a twisted molecular backbone, which affects the coupling within the D-A-D unit and, as a result, lowers the absorption. Here, we overcome this limitation by cross-linking the NIR-II fluorophores to form a 2D polymer network, which simultaneously achieves a high QY by well-controlled fluorophore separation and strong absorption by restricting intramolecular distortion.

Novel Gene Rearrangement Pattern in Mitochondrial Genome: New Gene Order in Pteromalidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea).

The mitochondrial genomes of , , , and were sequenced to better understand the structural evolution of Pteromalidae mitogenomes. These newly sequenced mitogenomes all contained 37 genes. Nucleotide composition was AT-biased and the majority of the protein-coding genes exhibited a negative AT skew.

Engineering Circular Aptamer Assemblies with Tunable Selectivity to Cell Membrane Antigens and .

The strategy of enhancing molecular recognition by improving the binding affinity of drug molecules against targets has generated a lot of successful therapeutic applications. However, one critical consequence of such affinity improvement, generally called "on-target, off-tumor" toxicity, emerged as a major obstacle limiting their clinical usage. Herein, we provide a modular assembly strategy that affords affinity-tunable DNA nanostructures allowing for immobilizing multiple aptamers that bind to the example antigen of EpCAM with different affinities.

The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of the hawkmoth, (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) and phylogenetic analysis.

In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the complete mitogenome to compare mitogenomic structures and reconstruct phylogenetic relationships. The complete mitogenome sequence of is circular, 15,939 bp in size and encodes 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNA), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNA) and a control region (CR). Nucleotide composition is highly biased toward A + T nucleotides (80.

Cannabinoid receptors promote chronic intermittent hypoxia-induced breast cancer metastasis via IGF-1R/AKT/GSK-3β.

The progression of breast cancer is closely related to obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS). Low concentrations of cannabinoids promote tumor proliferation. However, the role of cannabinoid receptors (CBs) in chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH)-induced breast cancer has not been reported.

Complete mitochondrial genome of a parasitoid, (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Trichogrammatidae) and phylogenetic analysis.

is a kind of ovoid parasitic wasp, which has important application value in the biological control of pests. In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the complete mitogenome to compare mitogenomic structures and reconstruct phylogenetic relationships. The complete mitogenome sequence of is circular, 16,176 bp in size and encodes 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNA), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNA), and a control region (CR).

Sequencing and analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome of (Hymenoptera: Braconidae).

We determined the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of (Say). The complete mitogenome sequence of was observed to be a circular molecule 15,708 bp long and consists of 13 protein-coding genes (PCG), 2 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes (GenBank accession no. MN842279).

Highly Specific, Single-step Cancer Cell Isolation with Multi-Aptamer-Mediated Proximity Ligation on Live Cell Membranes.

A single-step method for isolation of specific cells based on multiple surface markers will have unique advantages because of its scalability, efficacy, and mildness. Herein, we developed multi-aptamer-mediated proximity ligation method on live cell membranes that leverages a multi-receptor co-recognition design for enhanced specificity, as well as a robust in situ signal amplification design for improved sensitivity of cell isolation. We demonstrated the promising efficacy of our method on differentiating tumor cell subtypes in both cell mixtures and clinical samples.

Selection and preliminary application of a single stranded DNA aptamer targeting colorectal cancer serum.

Colorectal cancer is one of the common causes of malignant tumors in recent years, thus the discovery of potential compounds that detect the occurrence of colorectal cancer by efficient approaches is necessary. In this study, the method of systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) was used for recognizing serum from colorectal cancer patients by a single-stranded DNA library of aptamers assisted by single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) to remove single-stranded DNA with low affinity. Ten rounds of selection were applied using colorectal cancer serum as a target with the serum of healthy individuals as a control.

Results of 10-year follow-up of the iliac donor site of graft patients.

Objectives: To measure levels of pain and iliac regeneration at the iliac crest donor site during a 10-year follow-up of graft patients.

Methods: This prospective study used a visual analogue scale (VAS) to assess pain at the donor site at 1 month and 1, 3, 5 and 10 years postoperatively. Iliac regeneration status was recorded at 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 years postoperatively by comparing plain radiographs.