Yolk–Shell Nanostructured Fe₃O₄@NiSiO₃ for Selective Affinity and Magnetic Separation of His-Tagged Proteins

Recent developments of nanotechnology encourage novel materials for facile separations and purifications of recombinant proteins, which are of great importance in disease diagnoses and treatments. We find that Fe₃O₄@NiSiO₃ with yolk–shell nanostructure can be used to specifically purify histidine-tagged (His-tagged) proteins from mixtures of lysed cells with a recyclable process. Each individual nanoparticle composes by a mesoporous nickel silicate shell and a magnetic Fe₃O₄ core in the hollow inner, which is featured by its great loading efficiency and rapid response toward magnetic fields. The abundant Ni²⁺ cations on the shell provide docking sites for selective coordination of histidine and the reversible release is induced by excess imidazole solution. Because of the Fe₃O₄ cores, the separation, concentration, and recycling of the nanocomposites become feasible under the controls of magnets. These characteristics would be highly beneficial in nanoparticle-based biomedical applications for targeted-drug delivery and biosensors

Facile Synthesis of Enzyme-Inorganic Hybrid Nanoflowers and Its Application as a Colorimetric Platform for Visual Detection of Hydrogen Peroxide and Phenol

This study reports a facile approach for the synthesis of horseradish peroxidise (HRP)-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers by self-assembly of HRP and copper phosphate (Cu₃(PO₄)₂·3H₂O) in aqueous solution. Several reaction parameters that affect the formation of the hybrid nanoflowers were investigated and a hierarchical flowerlike spherical structure with hundreds of nanopetals was obtained under the optimum synthetic conditions. The enzymatic activity of HRP embedded in hybrid naonflowers was evaluated based on the principle of HRP catalyzing the oxidation of <i>o</i>-phenylenediamine (OPD) in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂). The results showed that 506% enhancement of enzymatic activity in the hybrid nanoflowers could be achieved compared with the free HRP in solution. Taking advantages of the structural feature with catalytic property, a nanoflower-based colorimetric platform was newly designed and applied for fast and sensitive visual detection of H₂O₂ and phenol. The limits of detection (LODs) for H₂O₂ and phenol were as low as 0.5 μM and 1.0 μM by the naked-eye visualization, which meet the requirements of detection of both analytes in clinical diagnosis and environmental water. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of low-level H₂O₂ in spiked human serum and phenol in sewage, respectively. The recoveries for all the determinations were higher than 92.6%. In addition, the hybrid nanoflowers exhibited excellent reusability and reproducibility in cycle analysis. These primary results demonstrate that the hybrid nanoflowers have a great potential for applications in biomedical and environmental chemistry

Synthesis, Characterization, and Thermodynamic Properties of the Rare Earth Coordination Complex [Sm(C₆H₄NO₂)₂·C₉H₆NO]

This article reports the synthesis and thermodynamic properties of a novel rare earth coordination complex, samarium chloride hexahydrate (SmCl₃·6H₂O) with nicotinic acid (C₆H₅NO₂) and 8-hydroxylquinoline (C₉H₇NO), whose composition and structure were characterized by elemental analysis, molar conductance, thermogravimetric analysis (TG–DTG), UV spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, and X-ray powder diffraction. During the process of coordination, C₆H₅NO₂ was bidentate-coordinated with the rare earth ion (Sm³⁺) through an acidic group that was formed by removing the proton; the hydroxyl oxygen atom and heterocyclic nitrogen atom of C₉H₆NO^– formed a chelate ring with Sm³⁺ for coordination. The X-ray powder diffraction pattern demonstrated that the crystal type of [Sm­(C₆H₄NO₂)₂·C₉H₆NO] is similar to that of C₅H₁₁NO₂, with the cell parameters <i>a</i> = 5.426 nm, <i>b</i> = 22.105 nm, and <i>c</i> = 5.277 nm. At a constant temperature of 298.15 K, the dissolution enthalpies of the reactants and products of the coordination reaction in the optimized calorimetric solvent were determined with an advanced solution–reaction isoperibol microcalorimeter. The standard molar enthalpy change of the coordination reaction was determined to be Δ_r<i>H</i>_m^Θ = (167.49 ± 0.39) kJ·mol^–1. The standard molar enthalpy of formation of the title complex, [Sm­(C₆H₄NO₂)₂·C₉H₆NO], was estimated to be Δ_f<i>H</i>_m^Θ[Sm­(C₆H₄NO₂)₂·C₉H₆NO(s), 298.15 K] = −(1483.4 ± 2.4) kJ·mol^–1, from a combination of the experimental values of enthalpies of dissolution and some other auxiliary thermodynamic data through a designed thermochemical cycle based on a supposed chemical reaction

GSTA3 Attenuates Renal Interstitial Fibrosis by Inhibiting TGF-Beta-Induced Tubular Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Fibronectin Expression - Fig 4

<p><b>A) Effects of knocking down GSTA3 on EMT in NRK-52E cells.</b> After a 6 h incubation of cells with siRNA-Lipofectamine 2000 complex, the cells were maintained with normal DMEM for an additional 18 h. Cells were treated with TGF-β1 and harvested for GSTA3, FN, E-cadherin, α-SMA and megalin protein expression after 48 h. <b>B) Effects of modulation of GSTA3 over-expression on EMT in TGF-β1 treated NRK-52E cells.</b> After the transfected cells were treated with 10 ng/ml TGF-β1 for 48 h, GSTA3, FN, E-cadherin, α-SMA, megalin and p-Smad2/3 protein expression were analyzed by western blot. Results are presented as the means±S.E. of three independent experiments. *p<0.05 vs. control; #p<0.05 vs. TGF-β1.</p

Dysfunction of multiple co-expressed microRNAs in a common disease.

<p>(A) The distribution of the number of miRNA pairs sharing a common disease from random selections of miRNA pairs. The number observed in the real conserved co-expression pairs (located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those in the randomly selected miRNA pairs (<i>p-value</i><0.001). (B) The distribution of the number of miRNA pairs sharing a common disease from random selections of disease miRNAs. The number observed in the real conserved co-expression pairs (located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those from the randomly selected disease miRNAs (<i>p-value</i><0.001). (C) The numbers of miRNAs associated with different human diseases in each sub-network.</p

Effect of GSTA3 on NRK-52E cellular ROS.

<p>A) ROS level of knocking down GSTA3 in NRK-52E; B) ROS level of treatment with 10 ng/ml TGF-β1 for 15min in GSTA3 over-expression cells. C) SOD activity knocking down GSTA3 in NRK-52E; D) SOD activity of treatment with 10 ng/ml TGF-β1 for 15min in GSTA3 over-expression cells. Results are presented as the means±S.E. of 3 independent experiments. *p<0.05 vs. control; ^#p<0.05 vs. TGF-β1.</p

Effective and Selective Cell Retention and Recovery from Whole Blood by Electroactive Thin Films

Hematogenous metastatic spread causes most cancer patient deaths. Because circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are highly relevant to early metastatic spread, the capture or detection of these cells provides a diagnostic tool for patients with metastatic conditions. Herein, we demonstrate a programmable electroactive multilayered material platform with a smart electrically induced “switch” that captures CTCs from biological plasma with high efficiency and releases the captured cells flexibly. The released cells are still viable and proliferative, which facilitates the detection of trace levels of CTCs by amplification. Furthermore, the inherent rough characteristics of the nanoparticle-composed interface can promote capture efficiency and cell purification by integration with a simple microfluidic device. This elegant, inexpensive, and versatile platform for cell sorting and enrichment makes subsequent molecular and cell biological analysis achievable. The strategy has broad implications for favoring fundamental cancer biology research, for the diagnosis and monitoring of cancer individually, and for advanced intervention based on blood purification

Functional relationships of 182 conserved co-expressed miRNA pairs.

<p>(A) Genomic distances of the observed miRNA pairs, which are significantly shorter than the distances of non co-expressed miRNA pairs (Wilcoxon rank sum test, <i>p-value</i><2.2e-16). (B) Probability density of the number of miRNA pairs that belong to the same cluster from randomly selected miRNA pairs. The count observed in the real co-expressed miRNA pairs (50, located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those in the random pairs (<i>p-value</i><0.001). (C) Probability density of the number of miRNA pairs that share common TFs from randomly selected miRNA pairs. The count observed in the real co-expressed miRNA pairs (47, located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those in the random pairs (<i>p-value</i><0.001). (D) Probability density of the number of miRNA pairs belonging to the same family from randomly selected miRNA pairs. The count observed in the real co-expressed miRNA pairs (44, located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those in the random pairs (<i>p-value</i><0.001). (E) The number of miRNA pairs with significantly overlapping targets in the real conserved co-expression pairs (132, located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those in the randomly selected miRNA pairs (<i>p-value</i> = 0.001). (F) The number of miRNA pairs with common targets significantly involved in at least one biological process in the real conserved co-expression pairs (88, located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those in the randomly selected miRNA pairs (<i>p-value</i> = 0.022). (G) The number of miRNA pairs with significantly overlapping expression-related genes in the real conserved co-expression pairs (81, located by the blue arrow) is significantly higher than those in the randomly selected miRNA pairs (<i>p-value</i> = 0.034).</p

Nucleotide sequences of the primers used for real-time polymerase chain reaction.

<p>Nucleotide sequences of the primers used for real-time polymerase chain reaction.</p

Structure Effects of 2D Materials on α‑Nickel Hydroxide for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

To engineer low-cost, high-efficiency, and stable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts, structure effects should be primarily understood. Focusing on this, we systematically investigated the relationship between structures of materials and their OER performances by taking four 2D α-Ni­(OH)₂ as model materials, including layer-stacked bud-like Ni­(OH)₂-NB, flower-like Ni­(OH)₂-NF, and petal-like Ni­(OH)₂-NP as well as the ultralarge sheet-like Ni­(OH)₂-NS. For the first three (layer-stacking) catalysts, with the decrease of stacked layers, their accessible surface areas, abilities to adsorb OH^–, diffusion properties, and the intrinsic activities of active sites increase, which accounts for their steadily enhanced activity. As expected, Ni­(OH)₂-NP shows the lowest overpotential (260 mV at 10 mA cm^–2) and Tafel slope (78.6 mV dec^–1) with a robust stability over 10 h among the samples, which also outperforms the benchmark IrO₂ (360 mV and 115.8 mV dec^–1) catalyst. Interestingly, Ni­(OH)₂-NS relative to Ni­(OH)₂-NP exhibits even faster substance diffusion due to the sheet-like structure, but shows inferior OER activity, which is mainly because the Ni­(OH)₂-NP with a smaller size possesses more active boundary sites (higher reactivity of active sites) than Ni­(OH)₂-NS, considering the adsorption properties and accessible surface areas of the two samples are quite similar. By comparing the different structures and their OER behaviors of four α-Ni­(OH)₂ samples, our work may shed some light on the structure effect of 2D materials and accelerate the development of efficient OER catalysts