Characterization of the odorous constituents and chemical structure of thermally modified rubberwood

Rubberwood is a sustainable timber from tropical plantations, and is widely used in human’s daily routine like furniture and interior decoration. The thermal modification technology can effectively make rubberwood preservative, and improve its dimensional stability, while the odorants emitted from thermally modified rubberwood limited its application and recently has attracted people’s attention. In this study, the effects of thermal modification on odor and key odorous constituents of rubberwood were studied. The volatile odorants were identified by sensory evaluation via gas chromatography–mass spectrometry/olfactometry. To gain profound insights into the contribution of single odorants to the overall odor of heat-treated rubberwood, the odor-active constituents were calculated using relative odor activity values (ROAV) on the basis of odor thresholds. It’s revealed that with increasing temperature, the ROAV of 5-methyl-2-furancarboxaldehyde increased from 0.01 to 2.6 and then decreased to 0.7, and 5-methyl-2-furancarboxaldehyde became the important odorant of thermally modified rubberwood ranged from 155°C to 185°C. The odor of 5-methyl-2-furancarboxaldehyde smelled like chocolate and burnt. The identification of odorants from thermally modified rubberwood could provide theoretical guidelines for further controlling the production technology to produce the low odor thermally modified rubberwood.</p

Bioinspired Design of Stereospecific d‑Protein Nanomimics for High-Efficiency Autophagy Induction

Bioinspired Design of Stereospecific d‑Protein Nanomimics for High-Efficiency Autophagy Inductio

Bioreducible Peptide-Dendrimeric Nanogels with Abundant Expanded Voids for Efficient Drug Entrapment and Delivery

Dendrimer-based nanoplatforms have exhibited wide prospects in the field of nanomedicine for drug delivery, without great success due to many predicaments of cytotoxicity, high cost, and low yield. In this work, we report a feasible strategy on dynamic cross-linkings of low-generation peptide dendrimers into bioreducible nanogels for efficient drug controlled release. With a facile fabrication, the disulfide cross-linking of biocompatible peptide dendrimers successfully possess well-defined and stable nanostructures with abundant expanded voids for efficient molecular encapsulation. More importantly, high reducing condition is capable of triggering the cleavage of disulfide bonds, the disintegration of peptide-dendrimeric nanogels, and stimuli-responsive release of guest molecules. The bioreducible nanogels improve antitumor drug internalization, contribute to endosomal escape, and realize intracellular drug controlled release. The doxorubicin-loaded nanogels afford high antitumor efficiency and reduce the side effects to BALB/c mice bearing 4T1 tumor. Therefore, dynamic cross-linkings of low-generation dendrimers into smart nanogels will be an alternative and promising strategy to resolve the dilemmas of current dendrimer-based nanocarriers as well as develop innovative nanoplatforms