2 research outputs found
Self-Assembled DNA Dendrimer Nanoparticle for Efficient Delivery of Immunostimulatory CpG Motifs
Dendrimer-like DNA
nanostructures have attractive properties such as mechanical stability,
highly branched nanostructure, customized sizes, and biocompatibility.
In this study, we construct programmable DNA dendrimeric nanoparticles
as efficient vehicles to deliver immunostimulatory cytosine-phosphate-guanosine
(CpG) sequences for activation of the immune response. DNA dendrimers
decorated with CpG-containing hairpin-loops triggered stronger immune
response characterized by pro-inflammatory cytokines production, in
contrast to DNA dendrimers loading linear CpG. After further modification
with TAT peptide, a typical cell-penetrating peptide, on the surface
of the nanocarriers, CpG loops-loaded DNA dendrimers showed the enhanced
cell internalization and cytokines production. The TAT-DNA dendrimer-CpG
loops constructs did not affect the viability of immune cells and
no detectable cytotoxicity was observed. Our results demonstrate that
the DNA dendrimers can serve as designable and safe vehicles for delivery
of immune modulators and anticancer drugs
Desorption Separation Ionization Mass Spectrometry (DSI-MS) for Rapid Analysis of COVID-19
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic,
which
has witnessed over 772 million confirmed cases and over 6 million
deaths globally, the outbreak of COVID-19 has emerged as a significant
medical challenge affecting both affluent and impoverished nations.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the disease mechanism
and to implement rapid detection methods. To address this, we employed
the desorption separation ionization (DSI) device in conjunction with
a mass spectrometer for the efficient detection and screening of COVID-19
urine samples. The study encompassed patients with COVID-19, healthy
controls (HC), and patients with other types of pneumonia (OP) to
evaluate their urine metabolomic profiles. Subsequently, we identified
the differentially expressed metabolites in the COVID-19 patients
and recognized amino acid metabolism as the predominant metabolic
pathway involved. Furthermore, multiple established machine learning
algorithms validated the exceptional performance of the metabolites
in discriminating the COVID-19 group from healthy subjects, with an
area under the curve of 0.932 in the blind test set. This study collectively
suggests that the small-molecule metabolites detected from urine using
the DSI device allow for rapid screening of COVID-19, taking just
three minutes per sample. This approach has the potential to expand
our understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of COVID-19
and offers a way to rapidly screen patients with COVID-19 through
the utilization of machine learning algorithms