Headpiece-assisted DNA data storage in solution and solid.

A headpiece was introduced in the construction of a DNA-based data storage platform. It was demonstrated that the involvement of the headpiece could largely improve the stability, recovery, resistance to DNA contamination, and accuracy in sequencing and data retrieval.

Biomimetic Surface Engineering to Modulate the Coffee-Ring Effect for Amyloid-β Detection in Rat Brains.

Surface engineering of nanoparticles has been widely used in biosensing and assays, where sensitivity was mainly limited by plasmonic colour change or electrochemical responses. Here, we report a novel biomimetic sensing strategy involving protein-modified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), where the modulation strategy was inspired by gastropods in inhibition of coffee-ring effects in their trail-followings. The so-called coffee-ring effect presents the molecular behaviour of AuNPs to a macroscopic ring through aggregation, and thus greatly improves sensitivity.

ABPP-CoDEL: Activity-Based Proteome Profiling-Guided Discovery of Tyrosine-Targeting Covalent Inhibitors from DNA-Encoded Libraries.

DNA-encoded chemical library (DEL) has been extensively used for lead compound discovery for decades in academia and industry. Incorporating an electrophile warhead into DNA-encoded compounds recently permitted the discovery of covalent ligands that selectively react with a particular cysteine residue. However, noncysteine residues remain underexplored as modification sites of covalent DELs.

Benzo[]isoxazole Derivatives as Hypoxia-Inducible Factor (HIF)-1α Inhibitors.

Hypoxia-inducible factor, also known as HIF, is a transcriptional factor universally found in mammalian cells. HIF-1 is one of the HIF-families and acts as a heterodimer consisting of α and β subunits. It is found to play significant roles in pathologic conditions such as tumor development and metastasis.

Modular Assembly of MXene Frameworks for Noninvasive Disease Diagnosis via Urinary Volatiles.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urine are valuable biomarkers for noninvasive disease diagnosis. Herein, a facile coordination-driven modular assembly strategy is used for developing a library of gas-sensing materials based on porous MXene frameworks (MFs). Taking advantage of modules with diverse composition and tunable structure, our MFs-based library can provide more choices to satisfy gas-sensing demands.

Tailoring Oxygen-Containing Groups on Graphene for Ratiometric Electrochemical Measurements of Ascorbic Acid in Living Subacute Parkinson's Disease Mouse Brains.

Ascorbic acid (AA), a major antioxidant in the central nervous system (CNS), is involved in withstanding oxidative stress that plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Exploring the AA disturbance in the process of PD is of great value in understanding the molecular mechanism of PD. Herein, by virtue of a carbon fiber electrode (CFE) as a matric electrode, a three-step electrochemical process for tailoring oxygen-containing groups on graphene was well designed: potentiostatic deposition was carried out to fabricate graphene oxide on CFE, electrochemical reduction that assisted in removing the epoxy groups accelerated the electron transfer kinetics of AA oxidation, and electrochemical oxidation that increased the content of the carbonyl group (C═O) generated an inner-reference signal.

Prescribing Silver Chirality with DNA Origami.

Metal nanostructures of chiral geometry interacting with light via surface plasmon resonances can produce tailorable optical activity with their structural alterations. However, bottom-up fabrication of arbitrary chiral metal nanostructures with precise size and morphology remains a synthetic challenge. Here we develop a DNA origami-enabled aqueous solution metallization strategy to prescribe the chirality of silver nanostructures in three dimensions.

Metal-Bridged Graphene-Protein Supraparticles for Analog and Digital Nitric Oxide Sensing.

Self-limited nanoassemblies, such as supraparticles (SPs), can be made from virtually any nanoscale components, but SPs from nanocarbons including graphene quantum dots (GQDs), are hardly known because of the weak van der Waals attraction between them. Here it is shown that highly uniform SPs from GQDs can be successfully assembled when the components are bridged by Tb ions supplementing van der Waals interactions. Furthermore, they can be coassembled with superoxide dismutase, which also has weak attraction to GQDs.

Diverse Nanoassemblies of Graphene Quantum Dots and Their Mineralogical Counterparts.

Complex structures from nanoparticles are found in rocks, soils, and sea sediments but the mechanisms of their formation are poorly understood, which causes controversial conclusions about their genesis. Here we show that graphene quantum dots (GQDs) can assemble into complex structures driven by coordination interactions with metal ions commonly present in environment and serve a special role in Earth's history, such as Fe and Al . GQDs self-assemble into mesoscale chains, sheets, supraparticles, nanoshells, and nanostars.

The Marriage of Protein and Lanthanide: Unveiling a Time-Resolved Fluorescence Sensor Array Regulated by pH toward High-Throughput Assay of Metal Ions in Biofluids.

A protein/lanthanide complex (BSA/Tb)-based sensor array in two different pH buffers has been designed for high-throughput recognition and time-resolved fluorescence (TRF) detection of metal ions in biofluids. BSA, which acted as an antenna ligand, can sensitize the fluorescence of Tb (i.e.

Colorimetric Detection of Carcinogenic Aromatic Amine Using Layer-by-Layer Graphene Oxide/Cytochrome c Composite.

Graphene and its derivatives were found to be efficient modulators of enzymes in various systems. However, the modulating mechanism was not well discussed for long time. Inspired by the artificial enzyme-enhancing property of graphene oxide (GO) toward cytochrome c (cyt.

Chiral Ceramic Nanoparticles and Peptide Catalysis.

The chirality of nanoparticles (NPs) and their assemblies has been investigated predominantly for noble metals and II-VI semiconductors. However, ceramic NPs represent the majority of nanoscale materials in nature. The robustness and other innate properties of ceramics offer technological opportunities in catalysis, biomedical sciences, and optics.

Nanomolar sensitive colorimetric assay for Mn using cysteic acid-capped silver nanoparticles and theoretical investigation of its sensing mechanism.

A new facile, rapid, sensitive and selective colorimetric assay is proposed for the determination of manganese ions (Mn) utilizing cysteic acid (CA)-capped silver nanoparticles (CA-AgNPs) as colorimetric probes. The CA-AgNPs were prepared by reducing AgNO with NaBH in the presence of CA as the capping ligand. The presence of Mn induces the quick aggregation of CA-AgNPs, associated with notable color changes of the CA-AgNPs solution from yellow to dark green.

Chiral Graphene Quantum Dots.

Chiral nanostructures from metals and semiconductors attract wide interest as components for polarization-enabled optoelectronic devices. Similarly to other fields of nanotechnology, graphene-based materials can greatly enrich physical and chemical phenomena associated with optical and electronic properties of chiral nanostructures and facilitate their applications in biology as well as other areas. Here, we report that covalent attachment of l/d-cysteine moieties to the edges of graphene quantum dots (GQDs) leads to their helical buckling due to chiral interactions at the "crowded" edges.

A single-wavelength-emitting ratiometric probe based on phototriggered fluorescence switching of graphene quantum dots.

Ratiometric fluorescent probes are of great importance in research, because a built-in correction for environmental effects can be provided to reduce background interference. However, the traditional ratiometric fluorescent probes require two luminescent materials with different emission bands. Herein a novel ratiometric probe based on a single-wavelength-emitting material is reported.

DNA-based sensitization of Tb3+ luminescence regulated by Ag+ and cysteine: use as a logic gate and a H2O2 sensor.

A simple and facile strategy was developed for regulating the luminescence of Tb(3+) sensitized by DNA, in which Ag(+) and cysteine (Cys) act as activators. The Ag(+)/Cys-mediated reversible luminescence changes in the Tb(3+)-DNA sensing system enabled the design of a DNA INHIBIT logic gate and a H2O2 sensor in a time-resolved luminescence format.

Hybrid nanotube-graphene junctions: spin degeneracy breaking and tunable electronic structure.

Hybrid carbon nanostructures have attracted enormous interest due to their structural stability and unique physical properties. Geometric and physical properties of a carbon nanotube (CNT)-graphene nanoribbon (GNR) hybrid system were investigated via first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The nanotube-graphene junction (NTGJ), where the GNR directly links to the CNT by covalent bonds, shows novel electronic dependence on the structural parameters of the building-blocks, such as chirality, nanotube diameter and width of the nanoribbon.

A novel composite of graphene quantum dots and molecularly imprinted polymer for fluorescent detection of paranitrophenol.

A novel fluorescent sensor based on graphene quantum dots (GQDs) was synthesized for determination of paranitrophenol (4-NP) in water sample, where molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was incorporated in GQDs-based sensing system for the first time. A simple hydrothermal method was used to fabricate silica-coated GQDs. The final composite was developed by anchoring the MIP layer on the silica-coated GQDs using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane as functional monomer and tetraethoxysilane as crosslinker.

Boronic acid functionalized graphene quantum dots as a fluorescent probe for selective and sensitive glucose determination in microdialysate.

3-Aminobenzeneboronic acid functionalized graphene quantum dots (APBA-GQDs) were synthesized and used as a selective and sensitive sensing system for glucose. Combined with microdialysis, glucose was monitored successfully in vivo in the striatum of rat.