Chemical Research in Chinese Universities最新文献

Improving the technical performance of related industrial products is an efficient strategy to reducing the application quantities and environmental burden for toxic chemicals. A novel polyfluoroalkyl surfactant potassium 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4-octafluoro-4-(perfluorobutoxy)butane-1-sulfonate(F404) was synthesized by a commercializable route. It had a surface tension(γ) of 18.2 mN/m at the critical micelle concentration(CMC, 1.04 g/L), significantly lower than that of perfluorooctane sulfonate(PFOS, ca. 33.0 mN/m, 0.72 g/L), and exhibited remarkable suppression of chromium-fog at a dose half that of PFOS. The half maximal inhibitory concentration(IC₅₀) values in HepG2 cells and the lethal concentration of 50%(LC50) in zebrafish embryos after 72 hpf indicated a lower toxicity for F404 in comparison to PFOS. In a UV/sulphite system, 89.3% of F404 were decomposed after 3 h, representing a defluorination efficiency of 43%. The cleavage of the ether C-O bond during the decomposition would be expected to form a short chain·C₄F₉ as the position of the ether C-O in the F404 fluorocarbon chains is C4-O5. The ether unit is introduced in the perfluoroalkyl chain to improve water solubility, biocompatibility and degradation, thereby minimizing the environmental burden.

Electronic supplementary material: Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s40242-023-3030-4.

The development of stimuli-responsive nanodevices with high efficiency and specificity is very important in biosensing, drug delivery, and so on. DNAzymes are a class of DNA molecules with the specific catalytic activity. Owing to their unique catalytic activity and easy design and synthesis, the construction and application of DNAzymes-based nanodevices have attracted much attention in recent years. In this review, the classification and properties of DNAzyme are first introduced. The construction of several common kinds of DNAzyme-based nanodevices, such as DNA motors, signal amplifiers, and logic gates, is then systematically summarized. We also introduce the application of DNAzyme-based nanodevices in sensing and therapeutic fields. In addition, current limitations and future directions are discussed.

Cationic water-based polyurethane(CWPU) was synthesized to explore aloe-emodin modifies to obtain CWPU materials with better comprehensive performance. It provides a simple way to synthesize antibacterial waterborne polyurethane, which is to introduce the end-blocking group of herbal extracts into the structure. It contains synergistic antibacterial effect of herbal antibacterial and quaternary ammonium ion on Escherichia coli. It makes the material resist the erosion of bacterial, and increase the service life of materials. When the pH value of the environment changes, the UV absorbance of the aloe-emodin modified cationic water-based polyurethane(AE-CWPU) also changes. Therefore, within a certain detection range, AE-CWPU has great applications in the field of smart response materials. The modified thermodynamic properties have been improved, and the mechanical properties basically maintained the maximum stress, and the elongation at break was reduced.

Functional nucleic acids(FNAs) refer to a type of oligonucleotides with functions over the traditional genetic roles of nucleic acids, which have been widely applied in screening, sensing and imaging fields. However, the potential application of FNAs in biomedical field is still restricted by the unsatisfactory stability, biocompatibility, biodistribution and immunity of natural nucleic acids(DNA/RNA). Xeno nucleic acids(XNAs) are a kind of nucleic acid analogues with chemically modified sugar groups that possess improved biological properties, including improved biological stability, increased binding affinity, reduced immune responses, and enhanced cell penetration or tissue specificity. In the last two decades, scientists have made great progress in the research of functional xeno nucleic acids, which makes it an emerging attractive biomedical application material. In this review, we summarized the design of functional xeno nucleic acids and their applications in the biomedical field.

The rabies virus is a neurotropic virus that causes fatal diseases in humans and animals. Although studying the interactions between a single rabies virus and the cell membrane is necessary for understanding the pathogenesis, the internalization dynamic mechanism of single rabies virus in living cells remains largely elusive. Here, we utilized a novel force tracing technique based on atomic force microscopy(AFM) to record the process of single viral entry into host cell. We revealed that the force of the rabies virus internalization distributed at (65±25) pN, and the time was identified by two peaks with spacings of (237.2±59.1) and (790.3±134.4) ms with the corresponding speed of 0.12 and 0.04 µm/s, respectively. Our results provide insight into the effects of viral shape during the endocytosis process. This report will be meaningful for understanding the dynamic mechanism of rabies virus early infection.

Electronic supplementary material: Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s40242-022-2069-y.

The interaction between biomolecules with their target ligands plays a great role in regulating biological functions. Aptamers are short oligonucleotide sequences that can specifically recognize target biomolecules via structural complementarity and thus regulate related biological functions. In the past ten years, aptamers have made great progress in target biomolecule recognition, becoming a powerful tool to regulate biological functions. At present, there are many reviews on aptamers applied in biomolecular recognition, but few reviews pay attention to aptamer-based regulation of biological functions. Here, we summarize the approaches to enhancing aptamer affinity and the advancements of aptamers in regulating enzymatic activity, cellular immunity and cellular behaviors. Furthermore, this review discusses the challenges and future perspectives of aptamers in target recognition and biological functions regulation, aiming to provide some promising ideas for future regulation of biomolecular functions in a complex biological environment.

Highly selective, sensitive, and stable biosensors are essential for the molecular level understanding of many physiological activities and diseases. Electrochemical aptamer-based (E-AB) sensor is an appealing platform for measurement in biological system, attributing to the combined advantages of high selectivity of the aptamer and high sensitivity of electrochemical analysis. This review summarizes the latest development of E-AB sensors, focuses on the modification strategies used in the fabrication of sensors and the sensing strategies for analytes of different sizes in biological system, and then looks forward to the challenges and prospects of the future development of electrochemical aptamer-based sensors.

Background: Antipsychotic medications can impair vision in patients with schizophrenia. However, little is known regarding the pharmacodynamics of antipsychotics in the primary visual cortex. We aimed to study the pharmacodynamics of antipsychotics in the visual cortex in a murine model.

Methods: We used an adapted 2-photon imaging technique to observe changes in calcium dynamics induced by 4 antipsychotics (olanzapine, risperidone, aripiprazole, and amisulpride) in the primary visual cortex of healthy and schizophrenic C57BL/6 mice. Visual function was further assessed by using a novel object recognition test.

Results: All 4 antipsychotics decreased calcium activity in the primary visual cortex and reduced visual recognition test scores in healthy and schizophrenic mice. The most potent drug was olanzapine, followed by risperidone, aripiprazole, and amisulpride. All drugs showed significant differences between groups.

Conclusion: Our pilot study demonstrated that antipsychotics impair visual cortical function. This finding underscores the importance of monitoring for visual adverse events in patients receiving antipsychotic medications to treat schizophrenia.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation(ECMO) has emerged as a viable treatment in severe cases of acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute respiratory failure, and adult respiratory distress syndrome. However, thromboembolic events stemming from the use of ECMO devices results in significant morbidity and mortality rates; the inner surface of the ECMO tubing comes into contact with the blood and can readily initiate coagulation. In addition, the tubing needs to be continually replaced due to thromboses on the inner tube wall, which not only increases the risk of infection but also the economic burden. Despite considerable effort, a surface modification strategy that effectively addresses these challenges has not yet been realized. In this study, we developed an integrated hollow core-shell-shell hydrogel tube of gelatin/alginate/acrylamide-bacterial nanocellulose(GAA) that meets the anticoagulant requirements for the inner tubing layer as well as the highly elastic soft material needed for the outer layer. Using static blood from healthy volunteers, we confirmed that the platelets or coagulation is not stimulated by the GAA tubing. Importantly, experiments with dynamic blood also demonstrated that the inner layer of the tubing does not elicit blood clotting. The one-pot-synthesized process may provide guidance for the design of anticoagulation tubes used clinically.

Electronic supplementary material: Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s40242-021-1267-3.

Dip-pen nanolithography is an emerging and attractive surface modification technique that has the capacity to directly and controllably write micro/nano-array patterns on diverse substrates. The superior throughput, resolution, and registration enable DPN an outstanding candidate for biological detection from the molecular level to the cellular level. Herein, we overview the technological evolution of DPN in terms of its advanced derivatives and DPN-enabled versatile sensing patterns featuring multiple compositions and structures for biosensing. Benefitting from uniform, reproducible, and large-area array patterns, DPN-based biosensors have shown high sensitivity, excellent selectivity, and fast response in target analyte detection and specific cellular recognition. We anticipate that DPN-based technologies could offer great potential opportunities to fabricate multiplexed, programmable, and commercial array-based sensing biochips.