FeO-Based Nanospheres with High Photothermal Conversion Efficiency for Dual-Effect and Mild Biofilm Eradication against Periodontitis.

Periodontitis, a chronic inflammatory oral disease resulting from plaque biofilms, affects about 743 million individuals worldwide. However, the efficacy of current treatments is hampered by challenges in delivering antibiotics to recalcitrant oral biofilms and bacterial resistance, thereby impeding successful treatment of infectious diseases. To address the issues, an antibacterial photothermal material was designed, comprising a spherical structure of zinc oxide (ZnO) wrapped with triiron tetraoxide (FeO).

Combination of Evans syndrome and COVID-19: a systematic review of reported cases.

Background: Evans syndrome is a rare autoimmune disease characterized by simultaneous or sequential primary immune thrombocytopenia and autoimmune hemolytic anemia. Despite the low incidence of Evans syndrome after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, its progression may threaten public health. This review offers an up-to-date summary of the works on the association between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Evans syndrome to explore the pathogenic mechanisms, epidemiological characteristics, clinical presentations, diagnostic markers, and treatment strategies.

LRET-Based Simultaneous Detection of Dual miRNAs via Multitrap Optical Tweezers Assisted Suspension Array Tagged by Two Different Luminescent Quenchable UCNPs Combining CRISPR/Cas12a Amplification.

Nowadays, optical tweezers play a vital role not only in optical manipulation but also in bioassay. As principal optical trapping objects, microbeads can combine optical tweezers with suspension array technology, with amply focused laser beams and adequately concentrated tags contributing to highly sensitive detection. In view of the inefficiency of conventional single-trap optical tweezers, multitrap systems are developed.

Highly Sensitive In Vivo Imaging of Bacterial Infections with a Hydrophilicity-Switching, Self-Immobilizing, Near-Infrared Fluorogenic β-Lactamase Probe Enriched within Bacteria.

The emergence of antibiotic resistance, particularly bacterial resistance to β-lactam antibiotics, the most widely prescribed therapeutic agents for infectious diseases, poses a significant threat to public health worldwide. The discovery of effective therapies against antibiotic-resistant pathogens has become an urgent need, necessitating innovative approaches to accelerate the identification and development of novel antibacterial agents. On the other hand, the expression of the β-lactam-hydrolyzing enzyme (β-lactamase), the major cause of bacterial resistance to β-lactam antibiotics, provides a distinctive opportunity to visualize bacterial infection, evaluate the efficacy of existing antibiotics, screen for novel antibacterial agents, and optimize drug dosing regimens in live animals.

A combination screening strategy based on UPLC-HRMS and UPLC-MRM for the comprehensive analysis of malonyl-substituted flavonoid glycosides in Astragalus.

Recently, malonylated glycosides have received increasing attention in the study of medicinal plants due to their significant physiological functions. A few malonyl-substituted flavonoid glycosides (MFGs) have been reported in Astragalus, however, the number of MFGs was limited. This study established screening strategies based on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography - high resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC-HRMS) and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography - multiple reaction monitoring (UPLC-MRM) to screen and quantify MFGs in Astragalus.

Conformational Chirality of Single-Crystal Covalent Organic Frameworks.

The crystallization of organic polymers is often hindered by chiral units, hence resulting in chiral organic polymers typically existing as amorphous or partially crystalline phases such as natural rubber and cellulose. Similarly, as an emerging crystalline chiral polymer, chiral covalent organic frameworks (COFs) also inevitably face a delicate balance between chiral units and crystallization, limiting their production and applications in separation, catalysis, and optics. Here, we present a general strategy for producing a series of conformational chiral COFs with high crystallinity through breaking the meso conformation of achiral COFs.

Chloroquine: Rapidly withdrawing from first-line treatment of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 outbreak has garnered significant global attention due to its impact on human health. Despite its relatively low fatality rate, the virus affects multiple organ systems, resulting in various symptoms such as palpitations, headaches, muscle pain, and hearing loss among COVID-19 patients and those recovering from the disease. These symptoms impose a substantial physical, psychological, and social burden on affected individuals.

Advances in hybridized nanoarchitectures for improved oro-dental health.

On a global note, oral health plays a critical role in improving the overall human health. In this vein, dental-related issues with dentin exposure often facilitate the risk of developing various oral-related diseases in gums and teeth. Several oral-based ailments include gums-associated (gingivitis or periodontitis), tooth-based (dental caries, root infection, enamel erosion, and edentulous or total tooth loss), as well as miscellaneous diseases in the buccal or oral cavity (bad breath, mouth sores, and oral cancer).

Topological Polymer Networks-Enabled Mechanically Strong Polyamide-Imide Aerogel Fibers for Thermal Insulation in Harsh Environments.

Aerogel fibers have sparked substantial interest as attractive candidates for thermal insulation materials. Developing aerogel fibers with the desired porous structure, good knittability, flame retardancy, and high- and low-temperature resistance is of great significance for practical applications; however, that is very challenging, especially by using an efficient method. Herein, mechanically strong and flexible aerogel fibers with remarkable thermal insulation performance are reported, which are achieved by constructing stiff-soft topological polymer networks and a multilevel hollow porous structure.

Amino modified nanofibers anchored to Prussian blue nanoparticles selectively remove Cs from water.

To improve the selective separation performance of silica nanofibers (SiO NFs) for cesium ions (Cs) and overcome the defects of Prussian blue nanoparticles (PB NPs), PB/SiO-NH NFs were prepared to remove Cs from water. Among them, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) underwent an alkylation reaction with SiO, resulting in the formation of a dense Si-O-Si network structure that decorated the surface of SiO NFs. Meanwhile, the amino functional groups in APTES combined with Fe and then reacted with Fe to form PB NPs, which anchored firmly on the aminoated SiO NFs surface.

Injectable hybrid hydrogels enable enhanced combination chemotherapy and roused anti-tumor immunity in the synergistic treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Chemotherapy and immunotherapy have shown no significant outcome for unresectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Multi-drug combination therapy has become a consensus in clinical trials to explore how to arouse anti-tumor immunity and meanwhile overcome the poorly tumoricidal effect and the stroma barrier that greatly hinders drug penetration. To address this challenge, a comprehensive strategy is proposed to fully utilize both the ferroptotic vulnerability of PDAC to potently irritate anti-tumor immunity and the desmoplasia-associated focal adhesion kinase (FAK) to wholly improve the immunosuppressive microenvironment via sustained release of drugs in an injectable hydrogel for increasing drug penetration in tumor location and averting systematic toxicity.

Detection of free DNA based on metal-enhanced fluorescence triggered by CRISPR-Cas12a and colorimetric analysis.

The CRISPR-Cas system has been found to be extremely sensitive and there is an urgent demand to extend its potential in bioassays. Herein, we developed a novel nanobiosensor to detect the human papillomavirus 16 genes (HPV-16 DNA), which is triggered by CRISPR-Cas12a to amplify the fluorescence signal by metal-enhanced fluorescence (CAMEF). Along with the changing of the fluorescence signal, the aggregation of the substrate of MEF also leads to a change in the color of the mixture solution, enabling dual signal detection with the fluorescence and the naked eye.

Genetic Analysis of Adaptive Traits in Spring Wheat in Northeast China.

The dissection of the genetic architecture and the detection of the loci for adaptive traits are important for marker-assisted selection (MAS) for breeding. A spring wheat diversity panel with 251 cultivars, mainly from China, was obtained to conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to detect the new loci, including the heading date (HD), maturating date (MD), plant height (PH), and lodging resistance (LR). In total, 41 loci existing in all 21 chromosomes, except for 4A and 6B, were identified, and each explained 4.

Bufalin suppresses hepatocellular carcinogenesis by targeting M2 macrophage-governed Wnt1/β-catenin signaling.

Background: The interplay of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and tumor cells plays a key role in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and provides an important target for HCC therapy. The communication between them is still on the investigation. Bufalin, the active component derived from the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Chansu, has been evidenced to possess anti-HCC activity by directly suppressing tumor cells, while its immunomodulatory effect on the tumor microenvironment (TME) is unclear.

Linker-Guided Growth of Single-Crystal Covalent Organic Frameworks.

The core features of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are crystallinity and porosity. However, the synthesis of single-crystal COFs with monomers of diverse reactivity and adjustment of their pore structures remain challenging. Here, we show that linkers that can react with a node to form single-crystal COFs can guide other linkers that form either COFs or amorphous polymers with the node to gain single-crystal COFs with mixed components, which are homogeneous on the unit cell scale with controlled ratios.

Enzyme-Activatable Near-Infrared Photosensitizer with High Enrichment in Tumor Cells Based on a Multi-Effect Design.

Enzyme-activatable near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probes and photosensitizers (PSs) have emerged as promising tools for molecular imaging and photodynamic therapy (PDT). However, in living organisms selective retention or even enrichment of these reagents after enzymatic activation at or near sites of interest remains a challenging task. Herein, we integrate non-covalent and covalent retention approaches to introduce a novel "1-to-3" multi-effect strategy-one enzymatic stimulus leads to three types of effects-for the design of an enzyme-activatable NIR probe or PS.

Prognostic and predictive biomarkers for anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody therapy in RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: RAS mutations affect prognosis in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) and have been identified as strong negative predictive markers for anti-epidermal growth factor receptor monoclonal antibody (anti-EGFR mAb) therapy, but many tumors containing wild-type RAS genes still do not respond to these therapies. Some additional biomarkers may have prognostic or predictive roles, but conclusions remain controversial.

Methods: We performed a meta-analysis and systematic review of randomized controlled trials comparing anti-EGFR mAb therapy with alternative therapy that investigated the prognostic and predictive impact of additional biomarkers in RAS wild-type (wt) mCRC patients.

PHD3 inhibits colon cancer cell metastasis through the occludin-p38 pathway.

Prolyl hydroxylase 3 (PHD3) hydroxylates HIFα in the presence of oxygen, leading to HIFα degradation. PHD3 inhibits tumorigenesis. However, the underlying mechanism is not well understood.

Growth and Local Structures of Single Crystalline Flakes of Three-Dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks in Water.

Due to the enormous chemical and structural diversities and designable properties and functionalities, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) hold great promise as tailored materials for industrial applications in electronics, biology, and energy technologies. They were typically obtained as partially crystalline materials, although a few single-crystal three-dimensional (3D) COFs have been obtained recently with structures probed by diffraction techniques. However, it remains challenging to grow single-crystal COFs with controlled morphology and to elucidate the local structures of 3D COFs, imposing severe limitations on the applications and understanding of the local structure-property correlations.

Development of a Variable-Configuration Bionic Robotic Fish.

Bionic robotic fish have advantages over traditional underwater propulsion. Most of the existing studies have been conducted with only one type of fish as a bionic object, but a single propulsion mode may not be able to achieve the different needs of underwater operations. In this paper, we designed a pneumatic variable-configuration soft bionic fish and completed the overall structure design.

Multiple miRNA Detection through a Suspended Microbead Array Encoded by Triple-Color Upconversion Luminescent Nanotags via Bi-Beam Splitter Hybrid-Multitrap Optical Tweezers.

In recent years, optical tweezers have become a novel tool for biodetection, and to improve the inefficiency of a single trap, the development of multitraps is required. Herein, we constructed a set of hybrid multitrap optical tweezers with the balance of stability and flexibility by the combination of two different beam splitters, a diffraction optical element (DOE) and galvano mirrors (GMs), to capture polystyrene (PS) microbeads in aqueous solutions to create an 18-trap suspended array. A sandwich hybridization strategy of DNA-miRNA-DNA was adopted to detect three kinds of target miRNAs associated with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), in which different upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) with red, green, and blue emissions were applied as luminescent tags to encode the carrier PS microbeads to further indicate the levels of the targets.

Advances in Natural Polymer-Based Transdermal Drug Delivery Systems for Tumor Therapy.

As an alternative to traditional oral and intravenous injections with limited efficacy, transdermal drug delivery (TDD) has shown great promise in tumor treatment. Over the past decade, natural polymers have been designed into various nanocarriers due to their excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, and easy availability, providing more options for TDD. In addition, surface functionalization modification of the rich functional groups of natural polymers, which in turn are developed into targeted and stimulus-responsive functional materials, allows precise delivery of drugs to tumor sites and release of drugs in response to specific stimuli.