Tumor-associated exosomes in cancer progression and therapeutic targets.

Exosomes are small membrane vesicles that are released by cells into the extracellular environment. Tumor-associated exosomes (TAEs) are extracellular vesicles that play a significant role in cancer progression by mediating intercellular communication and contributing to various hallmarks of cancer. These vesicles carry a cargo of proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and other biomolecules that can be transferred to recipient cells, modifying their behavior and promoting tumor growth, angiogenesis, immune modulation, and drug resistance.

Cross-species signaling pathways analysis inspire animal model selections for drug screening and target prediction in vascular aging diseases.

Age is a significant contributing factor to the occurrence and progression of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Pharmacological treatment can effectively alleviate CVD symptoms caused by aging. However, 90% of the drugs have failed in clinics because of the loss of drug effects or the occurrence of the side effects.

Sound conditioning strategy promoting paracellular permeability of the blood-labyrinth-barrier benefits inner ear drug delivery.

The therapeutic effects of pharmaceuticals depend on their drug concentrations in the cochlea. Efficient drug delivery from the systemic circulation into the inner ear is limited by the blood-labyrinth-barrier (BLB). This study investigated a novel noninvasive sound conditioning (SC) strategy (90 dB SPL, 8-16 kHz, 2 h sound exposure) to temporally enhance BLB permeability in a controllable way, contributing to maximizing the penetration of pharmaceuticals from blood circulation into the cochlea.

Risk assessment of norovirus and hepatitis A virus in strawberries imported into China.

Norovirus (NoV) and hepatitis A virus (HAV) pose a considerable health risk worldwide. In recent years, many cases of virus infection caused by virus-contaminated strawberries have occurred worldwide. This study applied a critical control point system to analyze the main hazards during the production and marketing of strawberries imported into China and explore the key control points in the whole process.

Ultrasound-enhanced cascade chemodynamic tumor nanotherapy with lactic acid-enabled hydrogen peroxide self-production.

Chemodynamic therapy (CDT) is an effective therapeutic modality for cancer treatment with the action of a catalytic Fenton-like chemoreactive process. To furnish sufficient hydrogen peroxide (HO) for CDT, catalysts similar to superoxide dismutase are designed to be in cooperation with nanoplatforms. In this work, we rationally integrate lactate oxidase (LOD) with ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (USPION) to achieve high efficiency of the cascade Fenton reaction for efficient tumor therapy.

Mitochondria-specific nanocatalysts for chemotherapy-augmented sequential chemoreactive tumor therapy.

Endogenic tumor chemodynamic therapy (CDT) is emerging as a tumor-therapeutic strategy featuring in situ treatments with high efficiency and specificity based on the Fenton reaction principle. Considering the limitation of monotherapy and relatively insufficient intracellular level of endogenous hydrogen peroxide (HO) in tumor tissues, a mitochondria-specific nanocatalyst composed of cisplatin prodrug and gallic acid-ferrous (GA-Fe(II)) nanocomposites is successfully fabricated to fulfill chemotherapy-augmented sequential chemoreactive tumor therapy. The bioactive cisplatin elevates the level of endogenous HO through the activation of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase (NOX)-related cascaded reactions, and the GA-Fe(II) nanocomposites possessing sustainable Fenton catalytic activity subsequently catalyzes HO into highly reactive and toxic hydroxyl radicals to substantially inhibit tumor progression.

From mouse to mouse-ear cress: Nanomaterials as vehicles in plant biotechnology.

Biological applications of nanomaterials as delivery carriers have been embedded in traditional biomedical research for decades. Despite lagging behind, recent significant breakthroughs in the use of nanocarriers as tools for plant biotechnology have created great interest. In this Perspective, we review the outstanding recent works in nanocarrier-mediated plant transformation and its agricultural applications.

Chemoreactive Nanotherapeutics by Metal Peroxide Based Nanomedicine.

The advances of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine enable the triggering of in situ chemical reactions in disease microenvironment for achieving disease-specific nanotherapeutics with both intriguing therapeutic efficacy and mitigated side effects. Metal peroxide based nanoparticles, as one of the important but generally ignored categories of metal-involved nanosystems, can function as the solid precursors to produce oxygen (O) and hydrogen peroxide (HO) through simple chemical reactions, both of which are the important chemical species for enhancing the therapeutic outcome of versatile modalities, accompanied with the unique bioactivity of metal ion based components. This progress report summarizes and discusses the most representative paradigms of metal peroxides in chemoreactive nanomedicine, including copper peroxide (CuO), calcium peroxide (CaO), magnesium peroxide (MgO), zinc peroxide (ZnO), barium peroxide (BaO), and titanium peroxide (TiO) nanosystems.

The Coppery Age: Copper (Cu)-Involved Nanotheranostics.

As an essential trace element in the human body, transitional metal copper (Cu) ions are the bioactive components within the body featuring dedicated biological effects such as promoting angiogenesis and influencing lipid/glucose metabolism. The recent substantial advances of nanotechnology and nanomedicine promote the emerging of distinctive Cu-involved biomaterial nanoplatforms with intriguing theranostic performances in biomedicine, which are originated from the biological effects of Cu species and the physiochemical attributes of Cu-composed nanoparticles. Based on the very-recent significant progresses of Cu-involved nanotheranostics, this work highlights and discusses the principles, progresses, and prospects on the elaborate design and rational construction of Cu-composed functional nanoplatforms for a diverse array of biomedical applications, including photonic nanomedicine, catalytic nanotherapeutics, antibacteria, accelerated tissue regeneration, and bioimaging.

Biology of MiR-17-92 Cluster and Its Progress in Lung Cancer.

MicroRNAs, a class of short endogenous RNAs, acting as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, mostly silence gene expression via binding imperfectly matched sequences in the 3'UTR of target mRNA. MiR-17-92, a highly conserved gene cluster, has 6 members including miR-17, miR-18a, miR-19a, miR-20a, miR-19b-1 and miR-92a. The miR-17-92 cluster, regarded as oncogene, is overexpressed in human cancers.