Softening the tumor matrix through cholesterol depletion breaks the physical barrier for enhanced antitumor therapy.

The tumor develops defense tactics, including conversing the mechanical characteristics of tumor cells and their surrounding environment. A recent study reported that cholesterol depletion stiffens tumor cells, which could enhance adaptive T-cell immunotherapy. However, it remains unclear whether reducing the cholesterol in tumor cells contributes to re-educating the stiff tumor matrix, which serves as a physical barrier against drug penetration.

Biodegradable and Efficient Charge-Migrated Z-Scheme Heterojunction Amplifies Cancer Ferroptosis by Blocking Defensive Redox System.

Ferroptosis is an emerging non-apoptotic death process, mainly involving lipid peroxidation (LPO) caused by iron accumulation, which is potentially lethal to the intrinsically apoptotic-resistant malignant tumor. However, it is still restricted by the inherent antioxidant systems of tumor cells and the poor efficacy of traditional iron-based ferroptosis initiators. Herein, the study develops a novel ferroptosis-inducing agent based on PEGylated Cu/Cu-doped black phosphorus@polypyrrole heterojunction (BP@CPP), which is constructed by utilizing the phosphate on the surface of BP to chelate Cu ions and initiating subsequent in situ polymerization of pyrrole.

Human-Hair-Derived Natural Particles as Multifunctional Sunscreen for Effective UV Protection.

Excessive ultraviolet (UV) radiation can lead to a series of skin problems. Although commercial sunscreens can protect skin from UV-induced damage to an extent, the side effects caused by such products are still worrisome. Here, inspired by the natural photoprotection effect of human hair, we extracted the multifunctional particles from human hair as sunscreens for UV protection.

Construction of Zn-doped RuO nanowires for efficient and stable water oxidation in acidic media.

Oxygen evolution reaction catalysts capable of working efficiently in acidic media are highly demanded for the commercialization of proton exchange membrane water electrolysis. Herein, we report a Zn-doped RuO nanowire array electrocatalyst with outstanding catalytic performance for the oxygen evolution reaction under acidic conditions. Overpotentials as low as 173, 304, and 373 mV are achieved at 10, 500, and 1000 mA cm, respectively, with robust stability reaching to 1000 h at 10 mA cm.

Peptide-based siRNA delivery system for tumor vascular normalization and gene silencing in 4T1 cells.

Efficient gene delivery in an integrated drug delivery system is urgent for multimodal antitumor therapy. Herein, we describe a protocol for constructing a peptide-based siRNA delivery system to achieve tumor vascular normalization and gene silencing in 4T1 cells. We highlighted four major steps, including (1) synthesis of the chimeric peptide, (2) preparation and characterization of P@siRNA micelleplexes, (3) in vitro tube formation assay and transwell cell migration assay, and (4) siRNA transfection in 4T1 cells.

Vaccine-like nanomedicine for cancer immunotherapy.

The successful clinical application of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) therapeutics has attracted extensive attention to immunotherapy, however, their drawbacks such as limited specificity, persistence and toxicity haven't met the high expectations on efficient cancer treatments. Therapeutic cancer vaccines which instruct the immune system to capture tumor specific antigens, generate long-term immune memory and specifically eliminate cancer cells gradually become the most promising strategies to eradicate tumor. However, the disadvantages of some existing vaccines such as weak immunogenicity and in vivo instability have restricted their development.

Biodegradable calcium sulfide-based nanomodulators for HS-boosted Ca-involved synergistic cascade cancer therapy.

Hydrogen sulfide (HS) is the most recently discovered gasotransmitter molecule that activates multiple intracellular signaling pathways and exerts concentration-dependent antitumor effect by interfering with mitochondrial respiration and inhibiting cellular ATP generation. Inspired by the fact that HS can also serve as a promoter for intracellular Ca influx, tumor-specific nanomodulators (I-CaS@PP) have been constructed by encapsulating calcium sulfide (CaS) and indocyanine green (ICG) into methoxy poly (ethylene glycol)poly (lactideglycolide) (PLGA-PEG). I-CaS@PP can achieve tumor-specific biodegradability with high biocompatibility and pH-responsive HS release.

Isoginkgetin synergizes with doxorubicin for robust co-delivery to induce autophagic cell death in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Doxorubicin (DOX) widely used in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can induce serious side effects and drug resistance. Herein, we aimed to seek a strategy to improve the efficacy and reduce the side effects of DOX in HCC based on an autophagy inducer drug called isoginkgetin (ISO). The design of multifunctional nanocarriers based on hyaluronic acid-conjugated and manganese-doped mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HM) for the co-delivery of antitumor drugs against HCC provided an effective and promising antitumor strategy.

Modeling and Performance Analysis of a Fault-Tolerant 3D Photonic Network-on-Chip Based on Hybrid Photonics-Plasmonics.

The performance of electro-optic modulators and optical routers and their routing algorithms are the key factors affecting the performance of networks on optical chips. This paper improves the mesh 3-dimensional photonic network-on-chip (3D-PNoC) topology. An SPP hybrid silicon-based electro-optic modulator and an improved fault-tolerant SPP router are used to improve the performance of the network on an optical chip.

Polypyrrole Nanoenzymes as Tumor Microenvironment Modulators to Reprogram Macrophage and Potentiate Immunotherapy.

Nanozyme-based tumor catalytic therapy has attracted widespread attention in recent years, but its therapeutic outcome is drastically diminished by species of nanozyme, concentration of substrate, pH value, and reaction temperature, etc. Herein, a novel Cu-doped polypyrrole nanozyme (CuP) with trienzyme-like activities, including catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and peroxidase (POD), is first proposed by a straightforward one-step procedure, which can specifically promote O and ·OH elevation but glutathione (GSH) reduction in tumor microenvironment (TME), causing irreversible oxidative stress damage to tumor cells and reversing the redox balance. The PEGylated CuP nanozyme (CuPP) has been demonstrated to efficiently reverse immunosuppressive TME by overcoming tumor hypoxia and re-educating macrophage from pro-tumoral M2 to anti-tumoral M1 phenotype.

Oxidative stress-amplified nanomedicine for intensified ferroptosis-apoptosis combined tumor therapy.

Ferroptosis, as an effective sensitizer for apoptosis-based cancer treatments, has been elucidated to rely on high levels of intracellular oxidative stress mediated by the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, ferroptosis-related oxidation effect is largely counteracted by the endogenous reductive glutathione (GSH). Here, we constructed a self-assembled metal-organic nanomedicine p53/Ce6@ZF-T, which was composed of p53 plasmid-complexed chlorin e6 (Ce6)-poly(amidoamine), Fe-containing mesoporous zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 and naturally derived tannic acid (TA).

ATP-exhausted nanocomplexes for intratumoral metabolic intervention and photoimmunotherapy.

Tumor cells reprogram the metabolic pathways to acquire abundant nutrients and sustain malignant proliferation. This fierce metabolic competition in tumor ecosystem has been uncovered to be associated with tumor microenvironmental immunosuppression. Here we develop an adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-exhausted nanocomplex (IR@ZIF-RGD) to intervene in tumor energy metabolism and regulate tumor immune microenvironment.

A New Criterion for Exponential Stability of a Class of Hopfield Neural Network with Time-Varying Delay Based on Gronwall's Inequality.

In this paper, we study the problem of exponential stability for the Hopfield neural network with time-varying delays. Different from the existing results, we establish new stability criteria by employing the method of variation of constants and Gronwall's integral inequality. Finally, we give several examples to show the effectiveness and applicability of the obtained criterion.

Tumor Microenvironment-Specific Chemical Internalization for Enhanced Gene Therapy of Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Benefiting from treating diseases at the genetic level, gene therapy has been considered a new revolution in the biomedical field. However, the extracellular and intracellular barriers during gene transport such as enzymatic degradation and endo-/lysosomal sequestration significantly compromise the therapeutic efficacy. Though photochemical internalization (PCI) has emerged as a promising approach for causing endo-/lysosomal leakage with translocation of the internalized molecules into the cytosol, its effect is still unsatisfactory due to the insufficient light penetration depth.

Potentiating photodynamic therapy of ICG-loaded nanoparticles by depleting GSH with PEITC.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a clinically approved cancer treatment which utilizes reactive oxygen species (ROS) to eradicate cancer cells. But the high concentration of GSH inside tumor cells can neutralize the generated ROS during PDT, resulting in an insufficient therapeutic effect. To address this issue, we combined ICG-loaded nanoparticles with PEITC for potent PDT.

TrackCC: A Practical Wireless Indoor Localization System Based on Less-Expensive Chips.

This paper aims at proposing a new wireless indoor localization system (ILS), called TrackCC, based on a commercial type of low-power system-on-chip (SoC), nRF24LE1. This type of chip has only output power levels and acute fluctuation for a received minimum power level in operation, which give rise to many practical challenges for designing localization algorithms. In order to address these challenges, we exploit the Markov theory to construct a ( l + 1 ) × ( l + 1 ) -sized state transition matrix to remove the fluctuation, and then propose a priority-based pattern matching algorithm to search for the most similar match in the signal map to estimate the real position of unknown nodes.