Gold nanorods coated with self-assembled silk fibroin for improving their biocompatibility and facilitating targeted photothermal-photodynamic cancer therapy.

Gold nanorods (AuNRs) have shown great potential as photothermal agents for cancer therapy. However, the biosafety of AuNRs ordinarily synthesized using a cationic ligand assistance procedure has always been a subject of controversy, which limits their application in tumor therapy. In this study, we propose a novel strategy to enhance the biocompatibility of AuNRs by constructing a biological coating derived from silk fibroin (SF) on their surface.

Single-cell multi-omics deciphers hepatocyte dedifferentiation and illuminates maintenance strategies.

Due to the similarity to human hepatocytes, porcine hepatocytes play an important role in hepatic research and drug evaluation. However, once hepatocytes were cultured in vitro, it was often prone to dedifferentiate, resulting in the loss of their characteristic features and normal functions, which impede their application in liver transplantation and hepatotoxic drugs evaluation. Up to now, this process has yet to be thoroughly investigated from the single-cell resolution and multi-omics perspective.

Correcting mitochondrial loss mitigates NOTCH1-related aortopathy in mice.

Loss-of-function mutations in NOTCH1 were previously linked to thoracic aortopathy, a condition for which non-surgical treatment options are limited. Based on clinical proteome analysis, we hypothesized that mitochondrial fusion and biogenesis in aortic smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are crucial for regulating the progression of NOTCH1-related aortopathy. Here we demonstrate that SMC-specific Notch1 knockout mice develop aortic pathology, including stiffening, dilation and focal dissection.

Programmed cell death in nasopharyngeal carcinoma: Mechanisms and therapeutic targets.

Programmed cell death is a type of autonomic and orderly cell death mode controlled by genes that maintain homeostasis and growth. Tumor is a typical manifestation of an imbalance in environmental homeostasis in the human body. Currently, several tumor treatments are designed to trigger the death of tumor cells.