Double Photosystems-Based ‘Z-Scheme’ Photoelectrochemical Sensing Mode for Ultrasensitive Detection of Disease Biomarker Accompanying Three-Dimensional DNA Walker

A new double photosystems-based ‘Z-scheme’ photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensing platform is designed for ultrasensitive detection of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) by coupling with a three-dimensional (3D) DNA walker. Two photosystems consist of CdS quantum dots (photosystem I; PS I) and BiVO₄ photoactive materials (photosystem II; PS II), whereas gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) photodeposited on high-active {010} facets of BiVO₄ are used as the electron mediators to promote electron transfer from conduction band of PS II to valence band of PS I. 3D DNA walker-based amplification strategy is carried out between hairpin DNA1 conjugated onto the AuNP, hairpin DNA2 labeled with CdS quantum dot (QD-H2), and DNA walker complementary with the PSA aptamer modified to a magnetic bead (Apt-MB). Upon addition of target, DNA walker strand is displaced from DNA walker/Apt-MB to open hairpin DNA1 on AuNP@BiVO₄. In the presence of QD-H2, DNA walker induces the hybridization of DNA1 with DNA2 on the gold nanoparticles step by step, thereby resulting in the assembly of CdS QDs on the AuNP@BiVO₄ to form Z-scheme double photosystems with strong photocurrent. Under optimum conditions, the Z-scheme PEC sensing system exhibits good photocurrent responses toward target PSA within the working range of 0.01–50 ng mL^–1 at a low detection limit of 1.5 pg mL^–1. Good reproducibility and accuracy are acquired for analysis of target PSA and human serum specimens relative to the commercial PSA ELISA kit. Importantly, our strategy provides a new horizon for photoelectrochemical in vitro diagnostics

Additional file 3: Figure S2. of Adipose tissue-derived stem cells ameliorate hyperglycemia, insulin resistance and liver fibrosis in the type 2 diabetic rats

The non-fasting blood glucose after the combination treatment of HFD and STZ for 6 weeks. (n = 6 per group; **p < 0.01). HFD high-fat diet, STZ, streptozotocin. (TIF 135 kb

Light-Enhanced Hypoxia-Response of Conjugated Polymer Nanocarrier for Successive Synergistic Photodynamic and Chemo-Therapy

The tumor hypoxic environment as well as photodynamic therapy (PDT)-induced hypoxia could severely limit the therapeutic efficacy of traditional PDT. Fortunately, the smart integration of hypoxia-responsive drug delivery system with PDT might be a promising strategy to enhance the PDT efficiency that is hindered by the hypoxic environment. Herein, a novel azobenzene (AZO) containing conjugated polymers (CPs)-based nanocarriers (CPs-CPT-Ce6 NPs) was constructed for the combination of PDT with chemotherapy, as well as to enhance the hypoxia-responsive drug release by light. The conjugated polymer chains, used as a matrix to prepare the CPs-CPT-Ce6 NPs, were beneficial for loading hydrophobic photosensitizers and chemotherapy drugs, to improve their cellular uptake. Moreover, the AZO group (−NN−) in CPs, which can be reduced and cleaved by azoreductase (a typical biomarker of hypoxia) under the hypoxic environment of tumor cells, acts as the hypoxia-responsive linker component. Upon laser irradiation, the CPs-CPT-Ce6 NPs could produce ROS for PDT and then facilitate the enhancement of tumor hypoxic condition, which could further promote the dissociation of CPs via reductive cleavage of AZO bridges to subsequently release cargos (chemotherapeutic drug, CPT) and then significantly enhance the killing effects to tumor cells that were resistant to PDT. Both in vitro and in vivo studies confirmed the improvement of synergistic therapeutic effects of our CPs-CPT-Ce6 NPs. This cascade responsive approach provides an excellent complementary mode for PDT and could open new insights for constructing programmable and controllable responsive systems in biomedical applications

Chlorin e6 Conjugated Poly(dopamine) Nanospheres as PDT/PTT Dual-Modal Therapeutic Agents for Enhanced Cancer Therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), using a combination of chemical photosensitizers (PS) and light, has been successfully applied as a noninvasive therapeutic procedure to treat tumors by inducing apoptosis or necrosis of cancer cells. However, most current clinically used PS have suffered from the instability in physiological conditions which lead to low photodynamic therapy efficacy. Herein, a highly biocompatible poly­(dopamine) (PDA) nanoparticle conjugated with Chlorin e6 (referenced as the PDA-Ce6 nanosphere) was designed as a nanotherapeutic agent to achieve simultaneous photodynamic/photothermal therapy (PDT/PTT). Compared to the free Ce6, the PDA-Ce6 nanosphere exhibited significantly higher PDT efficacy against tumor cells, because of the enhanced cellular uptake and subsequently greater reactive oxygen species (ROS) production upon laser irradiation at 670 nm. Meanwhile, the PDA-Ce6 nanosphere could be also used as a photoabsorbing agent for PTT, because of the excellent photothermal conversion ability of PDA nanoparticle under laser irradiation at 808 nm. Moreover, our prepared nanosphere had extremely low dark toxicity, while excellent phototoxicity under the combination laser irradiation of 670 and 808 nm, both <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i>, compared to any single laser irradiation alone. Therefore, our prepared PDA-Ce6 nanosphere could be applied as a very promising dual-modal phototherapeutic agent for enhanced cancer therapy in future clinical applications

Proteome Differences between Hepatitis B Virus Genotype-B- and Genotype-C-Induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma Revealed by iTRAQ-Based Quantitative Proteomics

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the main cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in southeast Asia where HBV genotype B and genotype C are the most prevalent. Viral genotypes have been reported to significantly affect the clinical outcomes of HCC. However, the underlying molecular differences among different genotypes of HBV virus infected HCC have not been revealed. Here, we applied isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) technology integrated with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) analysis to identify the proteome differences between the HBV genotypes B- and C-induced HCC. In brief, a total of 83 proteins in the surrounding noncancerous tissues and 136 proteins in the cancerous tissues between HBV genotype-B- and genotype-C-induced HCC were identified, respectively. This information revealed that there might be different molecular mechanisms of the tumorigenesis and development of HBV genotypes B- and C-induced HCC. Furthermore, our results indicate that the two proteins ARFIP2 and ANXA1 might be potential biomarkers for distinguishing the HBV genotypes B- and C-induced HCC. Thus, the quantitative proteomic analysis revealed molecular differences between the HBV genotypes B- and C-induced HCC, and might provide fundamental information for further deep study

Gadolinium-doped hollow CeO₂-ZrO₂ nanoplatform as multifunctional MRI/CT dual-modal imaging agent and drug delivery vehicle

<p>Developing multifunctional nanoparticle-based theranostic platform for cancer diagnosis and treatment is highly desirable, however, most of the present theranostic platforms are fabricated via complicated structure/composition design and time-consuming synthesis procedures. Herein, the multifunctional Gd/CeO₂-ZrO₂/DOX-PEG nanoplatform with single nano-structure was fabricated through a facile route, which possessed MR/CT dual-model imaging and chemotherapy ability. The nanoplatform not only exhibited well-defined shapes, tunable compositions and narrow size distributions, but also presented a well anti-cancer effect and MR/CT imaging ability. Therefore, the Gd/CeO₂-ZrO₂/DOX-PEG nanoplatform could be applied for chemotherapy as well as dual-model MR/CT imaging.</p

Additional file 3 of Pyroptosis related genes signature predicts prognosis and immune infiltration of tumor microenvironment in hepatocellular carcinoma

Additional file 3: Supplementary Fig. S1. The expression and interaction of 42 PRGs. (A) PPI network showing the interactions of the PRGs (interaction score = 0.9). (B) The correlation network of the PRGs (red line: positive correlation; blue line: negative correlation. The depth of the colors reflects the strength of the relevance)

Additional file 2 of Pyroptosis related genes signature predicts prognosis and immune infiltration of tumor microenvironment in hepatocellular carcinoma

Additional file 2

Additional file 5 of Pyroptosis related genes signature predicts prognosis and immune infiltration of tumor microenvironment in hepatocellular carcinoma

Additional file 5: Supplementary Fig. S3. The correlation of gene expression with each type of immune cell infiltration

Additional file 4 of Pyroptosis related genes signature predicts prognosis and immune infiltration of tumor microenvironment in hepatocellular carcinoma

Additional file 4: Supplementary Fig. S2. The Volcano plots of DEGs between HCC tissues and adjacent tissues