pH-Responsive Micelles Containing Quinine Functionalities Enhance Intracellular Gene Delivery and Expression.

Quinine is a promising building block for creating polymer carriers for intracellular nucleic acid delivery. This is due to its ability to bind to genetic material through intercalation and electrostatic interactions and the balance of hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity dependent on the pH/charge state. Yet, studies utilizing cinchona alkaloid natural products in gene delivery are limited.

Quinine-Based Polymers Are Versatile and Effective Vehicles for Intracellular pDNA, mRNA, and Cas9 Protein Delivery.

Quinine-based polymers have previously demonstrated promising performance in delivering pDNA in cells owing to their electrostatic as well as the nonelectrostatic interactions with pDNA. Herein, we evaluate whether quinine-based polymers are versatile for delivery of mRNA and Cas9-sgRNA complexes, especially in a serum-rich environment. Both mRNA and the Cas9-sgRNA complex are potent therapeutics that are structurally, chemically, and functionally very different from pDNA.

Label-Free Detection of Virus-like Particles with Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy through Analyte Localization and Polymer-Enabled Capture.

Virus detection is highly important; the last several years, since the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, have highlighted a weakness in the field: the need for highly specialized and complex methodology for sensitive virus detection, which also manifests as sacrifices in limits of detection made to achieve simple and rapid sensing. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has the potential to fill this gap, and two novel approaches to the development of a detection scheme are presented in this study. First, the physical entrapment of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and additional virus-like particles through substrate design to localize virus analytes into SERS hotspots is explored.

Enhancing pDNA Delivery with Hydroquinine Polymers by Modulating Structure and Composition.

Quinine is a promising natural product building block for polymer-based nucleic acid delivery vehicles as its structure enables DNA binding through both intercalation and electrostatic interactions. However, studies exploring the potential of quinine-based polymers for nucleic acid delivery applications (transfection) are limited. In this work, we used a hydroquinine-functionalized monomer, HQ, with 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate to create a family of seven polymers (HQ-X, X = mole percentage of HQ), with mole percentages of HQ ranging from 12 to 100%.

A GPx-mimetic copper vanadate nanozyme mediates the release of nitric oxide from -nitrosothiols.

Although reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS), such as hydrogen peroxide (HO), nitric oxide (NO), hydroxyl radicals (OH˙), superoxide (O) , play crucial roles in redox biology and cellular signaling, higher concentrations of these species lead to oxidative and nitrosative stress, which are associated with various pathophysiological conditions like neurodegeneration, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. There is growing evidence that functional impairment of the endothelium is one of the first recognizable signs of the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. A decreased bioavailability of NO and increased generation of ROS are the two major molecular changes associated with endothelial dysfunction.

Crystal-facet-dependent denitrosylation: modulation of NO release from -nitrosothiols by CuO polymorphs.

Nitric oxide (NO), a gaseous small molecule generated by the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) enzymes, plays key roles in signal transduction. The thiol groups present in many proteins and small molecules undergo nitrosylation to form the corresponding -nitrosothiols. The release of NO from -nitrosothiols is a key strategy to maintain the NO levels in biological systems.

Nanoisozymes: Crystal-Facet-Dependent Enzyme-Mimetic Activity of V O Nanomaterials.

Nanomaterials with enzyme-like activity (nanozymes) attract significant interest owing to their applications in biomedical research. Particularly, redox nanozymes that exhibit glutathione peroxidase (GPx)-like activity play important roles in cellular signaling by controlling the hydrogen peroxide (H O ) level. Herein we report, for the first time, that the redox properties and GPx-like activity of V O nanozyme depends not only on the size and morphology, but also on the crystal facets exposed on the surface within the same crystal system of the nanomaterials.