A Molecular Logic Gate Enables Unconventional Super-resolution Same-Day Imaging of Lysosome Membrane in Live Cells.

Lysosomes are acidic membrane-bound organelles that aid digestion, excretion, and cell renewal. The lysosomal membranes are essential for maintaining lysosomal functions and cellular homeostasis. In this work, we developed a molecular "NOR" logic gate, , by introducing malachite green into the spirocyclic rhodamine.

Intracellular mechanistic insights into cRGD-modified BiSe nanofoams for enhanced photothermal therapy via exocytosis inhibition.

The cRGD peptide surface coating strategy for photothermal therapy nanoplatforms shows great promise in developing safe and effective cancer therapies. However, the precise intracellular mechanisms of these platforms remain unclear due to the complexity of intracellular trafficking and nano-bio interactions. This study investigates the nano-bio interactions of BiSe nanofoams, a representative photothermal therapy nanoplatform, coated with cRGD peptide in cancer cells, focusing on endocytosis, exocytosis, and cellular trafficking.

Neural functional rehabilitation: exploring neuromuscular reconstruction technology advancements and challenges.

Neural machine interface technology is a pioneering approach that aims to address the complex challenges of neurological dysfunctions and disabilities resulting from conditions such as congenital disorders, traumatic injuries, and neurological diseases. Neural machine interface technology establishes direct connections with the brain or peripheral nervous system to restore impaired motor, sensory, and cognitive functions, significantly improving patients' quality of life. This review analyzes the chronological development and integration of various neural machine interface technologies, including regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces, targeted muscle and sensory reinnervation, agonist-antagonist myoneural interfaces, and brain-machine interfaces.

Campylobacter jejuni-derived cytolethal distending toxin promotes colorectal cancer metastasis.

Various forms of solid tumors harbor intracellular bacteria, but the physiological consequences of these microorganisms are poorly understood. We show that Campylobacter is significantly enriched in primary colorectal cancer (CRC) lesions from patients with metastasis. Campylobacter jejuni-derived cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) promotes CRC metastasis through JAK2-STAT3-MMP9 signaling in liver or pulmonary metastatic mice models, as confirmed in C.

Application and Challenge of Metalloporphyrin Sensitizers in Noninvasive Dynamic Tumor Therapy.

Dynamic tumor therapies (mainly including photodynamic therapy (PDT) and sonodynamic therapy (SDT)) offer new approaches to cancer treatment. They are often characterized by their noninvasive nature, high selectivity, and low toxicity. Sensitizers are crucial for dynamic therapy.

Breaking Latent Infection: How ORF37/38-Deletion Mutants Offer New Hope against EHV-1 Neuropathogenicity.

Equid alphaherpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) has been linked to the emergence of neurological disorders, with the horse racing industry experiencing significant impacts from outbreaks of equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy (EHM). Building robust immune memory before pathogen exposure enables rapid recognition and elimination, preventing infection. This is crucial for effectively managing EHV-1.

Artemisinin inhibits neuronal ferroptosis in Alzheimer's disease models by targeting KEAP1.

Ferroptosis, a form of cell death characterized by lipid peroxidation, is involved in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer´s disease (AD). Recent studies have shown that a first-line antimalarial drug artemisinin is effective to counteract AD pathology. In this study, we investigated the protective effect of artemisinin against neuronal ferroptosis and the underlying mechanisms.

Multimodal Resonances of a Rectangular Planar Dielectric Elastomer Actuator and Its Application in a Robot with Soft Bristles.

Inspired by the fact that flying insects improve their power conversion efficiency through resonance, many soft robots driven by dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) have achieved optimal performance via first-order modal resonance. Besides first-order resonance, DEAs contribute to multiple innovative functions such as pumps that can make sounds when using multimodal resonances. This study presents the multimodal resonance of a rectangular planar DEA (RPDEA) with a central mass bias.

Zinc and Inflammatory Bowel Disease: From Clinical Study to Animal Experiment.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract (GI) with a high incidence rate globally, and IBD patients are often accompanied by zinc deficiency. This review aims to summarize the potential therapeutic value of zinc supplementation in IBD clinical patients and animal models. Zinc supplementation can relieve the severity of IBD especially in patients with zinc deficiency.

Unraveling the complexity of rapid eye movement microstates: insights from nonlinear EEG analysis.

Although rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is conventionally treated as a unified state, it comprises two distinct microstates: phasic and tonic REM. Recent research emphasizes the importance of understanding the interplay between these microstates, hypothesizing their role in transient shifts between sensory detachment and external awareness. Previous studies primarily employed linear metrics to probe cognitive states, such as oscillatory power, while in this study, we adopt Lempel-Ziv Complexity (LZC), to examine the nonlinear features of electroencephalographic (EEG) data from the REM microstates and to gain complementary insights into neural dynamics during REM sleep.

Understanding cellulose pyrolysis via ab initio deep learning potential field.

Comprehensive and dynamic studies of cellulose pyrolysis reaction mechanisms are crucial in designing experiments and processes with enhanced safety, efficiency, and sustainability. The details of the pyrolysis mechanism are not readily available from experiments but can be better described via molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. However, the large size of cellulose molecules challenges accurate ab initio MD simulations, while existing reactive force field parameters lack precision.

Initial cyclic-di-GMP upregulation triggers sporadic cellular expansion leading to improved cellular survival.

Bacterial second messenger c-di-GMP upregulation is associated with the transition from planktonic to sessile microbial lifestyle, inhibiting cellular motility, and virulence. However, in-depth elucidation of the cellular processes resulting from c-di-GMP upregulation has not been fully explored. Here, we report the role of upregulated cellular c-di-GMP in promoting planktonic cell growth of Escherichia coli K12 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1.

The mechanisms of multidrug resistance of breast cancer and research progress on related reversal agents.

Chemotherapy is the mainstay in the treatment of breast cancer. However, many drugs that are commonly used in clinical practice have a high incidence of side effects and multidrug resistance (MDR), which is mainly caused by overexpression of drug transporters and related enzymes in breast cancer cells. In recent years, researchers have been working hard to find newer and safer drugs to overcome MDR in breast cancer.

Zein-Based Nanoparticles Improve the Therapeutic Efficacy of a TrkB Agonist toward Alzheimer's Disease.

The brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)/TrkB pathway plays a crucial role in neural plasticity and neuronal survival but is often deficient in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD). CF3CN acts as a specific TrkB agonist that displays therapeutic effects in the AD mouse model, but its brain/plasma ratio (B/P ratio) distribution is not satisfactory. To increase its brain exposure, we synthesized several derivatives and employed nanoparticle (NP) formulation to optimize the most potent #2 derivative's in vivo PK profiles.

Intensity-dependent gamma electrical stimulation regulates microglial activation, reduces beta-amyloid load, and facilitates memory in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Gamma sensory stimulation may reduce AD-specific pathology. Yet, the efficacy of alternating electrical current stimulation in animal models of AD is unknown, and prior research has not addressed intensity-dependent effects.

Methods: The intensity-dependent effect of gamma electrical stimulation (GES) with a sinusoidal alternating current at 40 Hz on Aβ clearance and microglia modulation were assessed in 5xFAD mouse hippocampus and cortex, as well as the behavioral performance of the animals with the Morris Water Maze.

Tailoring the Amphiphilic Structure of Zwitterionic AIE Photosensitizers to Boost Antitumor Immunity.

Although photodynamic therapy (PDT) for thorough cancer treatment is hindered by the limited generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) with short lifetime from photosensitizers, PDT-induced antitumor immune response remedies the defects. Previous studies show that inducing immunogenic cell deaths is an attractive approach to activate antitumor immunity, which confers a robust adjuvanticity to dying cancer cells. In this work, amphiphilic luminogens with aggregation-induced emission characteristics (AIEgens) are rationally designed and synthesized.

Recent Progress in Polyethylene-enhanced Organic Phase Change Composite Materials for Energy Management.

Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are utilized to regulate temperature and store thermal energy in various industries such as infrastructure, electronics, solar power, and more. However, they face several limitations, such as leakage, poor thermal properties, incompatibility, as well as high flammability. Polyethylene (PE) is one of many polymers explored to enhance the desirable properties of PCMs, due to their versatile properties such as high strength, durability, chemical resistance, and low cost.

The effect of the subthreshold oscillation induced by the neurons' resonance upon the electrical stimulation-dependent instability.

Repetitive electrical nerve stimulation can induce a long-lasting perturbation of the axon's membrane potential, resulting in unstable stimulus-response relationships. Despite being observed in electrophysiology, the precise mechanism underlying electrical stimulation-dependent (ES-dependent) instability is still an open question. This study proposes a model to reveal a facet of this problem: how threshold fluctuation affects electrical nerve stimulations.

Enhancing Prosthetic Control through High-Fidelity Myoelectric Mapping with Molecular Anchoring Technology.

Myoelectric control utilizes electrical signals generated from the voluntary contraction of remaining muscles in an amputee's stump to operate a prosthesis. Precise and agile control requires low-level myoelectric signals (below 10% of maximum voluntary contraction, MVC) from weak muscle contractions such as phantom finger or wrist movements, but imbalanced calcium concentration in atrophic skin can distort the signals. This is due to poor ionic-electronic coupling between skin and electrode, which often causes excessive muscle contraction, fatigue, and discomfort during delicate tasks.

A Soft Robot Driven by a Spring-Rolling Dielectric Elastomer Actuator with Two Bristles.

Confined space searches such as pipeline inspections are widely demanded in various scenarios, where lightweight soft robots with inherent compliance to adapt to unstructured environments exhibit good potential. We proposed a tubular soft robot with a simple structure of a spring-rolled dielectric elastomer (SRDE) and compliant passive bristles. Due to the compliance of the bristles, the proposed robots can work in pipelines with inner diameters both larger and smaller than the one of the bristles.

Ascertaining the optimal myoelectric signal recording duration for pattern recognition based prostheses control.

Introduction: Electromyogram-based pattern recognition (EMG-PR) has been widely considered an essentially intuitive control method for multifunctional upper limb prostheses. A crucial aspect of the scheme is the EMG signal recording duration (SRD) from which requisite motor tasks are characterized per time, impacting the system's overall performance. For instance, lengthy SRD inevitably introduces fatigue (that alters the muscle contraction patterns of specific limb motions) and may incur high computational costs in building the motion intent decoder, resulting in inadequate prosthetic control and controller delay in practical usage.

Targeted EpCAM-binding for the development of potent and effective anticancer proteins.

Protein-based cancer therapies are considered an alternative to conventional anticancer regimens, providing multifunctional properties while showing low toxicity. However, its widespread use is limited by absorption and instability issues, resulting in higher dosage requirements and a prolonged onset of bioactivity to elicit the desired response. Here, we developed a non-invasive antitumor treatment using designed ankyrin repeat protein (DARPin)-anticancer protein-conjugate that specifically targets the cancer biomarker, epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM).