Nanotechnology for diagnosis and therapy of rheumatoid arthritis: Evolution towards theranostic approaches

Rheumatoid arthritis(RA),as a chronic autoimmune disease,damages the bone and cartilage of patients,and even leads to disability.Therefore,the diagnosis and treatment of RA is particularly important.However,due to the complexity of RA,it is difficult to make effective early diagnosis of RA,which is detrimental to RA treatment.Besides,long-term intake of anti-RA drugs can also cause damage to patients' organs.The emergence of nanotechnology provides the new train of thoughts for the diagnosis and treatment of RA.And the combination of diagnosis and therapy is an ideal method to solve the problem of disease management of RA patients.In this review,we summarize the mechanism and microenvironment of RA,discuss the commonly used diagnostic techniques and therapeutic drugs for RA,and review their advantages and disadvantages.New nanotherapy strategies such as drug-carrying nanoparticles,PTT,PDT are listed,and their applications in RA treatment are also summarized.In addition,multimodal imaging,combined therapy and responsive diagnosis and treatment are also summarized as important contents.At last,we also review typical nanocarriers that can be used in the integration of diagnosis and therapy,and discussed their potential applications in RA theranostics.     

Needle-like cobalt phosphide arrays grown on carbon fiber cloth as a binder-free electrode with enhanced lithium storage performance

Cobalt phosphide(CoP) is a promising anode candidate for lithium-ion batteries(LIBs) due to its high specific capacity and low working potential.However,the poor cycling stability and rate performance,caused by low electrical conductivity and huge volume variation,impede the further practical application of CoP anode materials.Herein,we report an integrated binder-free electrode featuring needle-like CoP arrays grown on carbon fiber cloth(CC) for efficient lithium storage.The as-prepared CoP/CC electrode integrates the advantages of 1 D needle-like CoP arrays for efficient electrolyte wettability and fast cha rge transpo rtation,and 3 D CC substrate for superior mechanical stability,flexibility and high conductivity.As a result,the CoP/CC electrode delivers an initial specific capacity of 1283 mAh/g and initial Coulombic effeciencies of 85.4%,which are much higher than that of conventional CoP electrode.Notably,the Co P/CC electrode shows outstanding cycling performance up to 400 cycles at 0.5 A/cm² and excellent rate performance with a discharge capacity of 549 mAh/g even at 5 A/cm².This work demonstrates the great potential of integrated CoP/CC hybrid as efficient bind-free and freestanding electrode for LIBs and future flexible electronic devices.     

Kinetics of glass transition,crystallization and soft magnetic properties of the Fe76.5Nb3B20Cu0.5 glassy alloys

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Differential scanning calorimetry was used to investigate the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of the Fe76.5Nb3B20Cu0.5 glassy alloys. The...     

丹荷颗粒治疗高脂血症质量标志物发现研究

为寻找丹荷颗粒治疗高脂血症的质量标志物,该研究基于丹荷颗粒体内成分分析结果,采用Cytoscape软件构建高脂血症-共有靶点-丹荷颗粒体内成分作用网络,利用DAVID及String数据库分别对共有靶点进行生物过程、通路富集及网络拓扑分析,明确丹荷颗粒降脂作用关键靶点及成分,再建立油酸诱导的HepG2细胞脂质堆积模型验证关键成分的降脂药效,最后结合相关成分在制剂中的含量、稳定性、特征性综合确定质量标志物。结果发现,丹荷颗粒体内成分作用于CES1、ADORA2A、ADORA1、APOB、LDLR、PPARA、PPARG、INSR、ESR2、ESR1共10个高脂血症疾病靶点,主要参与脂质代谢过程以及PPAR、cAMP信号通路,其中LDLR、PPARA、PPARG可能是关键靶点,而网络中与关键靶点直接作用的成分为白藜芦醇、柚皮素。白藜芦醇和柚皮素均可降低油酸诱导的HepG2细胞内脂滴数量,改善细胞脂质堆积严重程度,并显著降低细胞内甘油三酯含量,可能为关键成分;鉴于入体成分白藜芦醇和柚皮素来源于制剂中虎杖苷及柚皮苷,且制剂中虎杖苷及柚皮苷特征明显、含量丰富、稳定,故虎杖苷及柚皮苷可作为丹荷颗粒治疗高脂血症的质量标志物。该研究为丹荷颗粒质量标准的建立提供了合理的候选质控指标。     

全无机钙钛矿太阳电池的制备及稳定性

全无机钙钛矿太阳电池因其热稳定性好、载流子迁移率高,可用于制备叠层电池等优点备受关注。随着人们对全无机钙钛矿太阳电池的深入研究和制备工艺的持续优化,全无机钙钛矿太阳电池的光电转换效率已经突破19%。然而,全无机钙钛矿材料相稳定性较差,这使得实现全无机钙钛矿太阳电池在空气环境下制备和长期使用面临巨大挑战。众多科研工作者通过分析全无机钙钛矿材料的相变机制,有针对性地提出了包括添加剂工程、界面工程和开发全无机钙钛矿量子点电池等多种方式来改善全无机钙钛矿太阳电池的长期稳定性。本综述从全无机钙钛矿材料与电池的结构、活性层制备方法和稳定性研究三个方面总结了近年来关于全无机钙钛矿太阳电池的研究进展。     

碳量子点的荧光发射机制

碳量子点(CQDs)一般是指粒径小于10 nm的零维碳材料,因其具有优良的光学特性而在生物成像、光学器件、生物复合材料和生物传感等领域得到广泛应用,并有望成为未来应用最广泛的一种碳材料。CQDs的光学特性受粒径、表面官能团及合成的条件(如温度、溶剂的种类和pH等)的影响,为了精准调控其光学性能以及进一步扩大其应用范围,需对其光致发光(Photoluminescence,PL)机制进行详细研究。然而,CQDs的PL机制尚不完全明确,目前,已提出的PL机制有量子限域效应、表面态发射、碳核和荧光分子、多环芳烃分子发射、自陷激子模型、表面偶极子发射中心、聚集发射中心、多发射中心、缓慢的溶剂弛豫和溶剂化效应等。但这些发光机制都只能在一定程度上解释CQDs的部分PL现象,还没有一种机制能解释CQDs的所有PL现象,严重制约了对CQDs光学特性的调控。本文对CQDs不同的PL机制进行分类和总结,希望为进一步阐明其PL机制及实现CQDs 光学特性的可控调节提供参考。     

Thermo-oxidative degradation of Nylon 1010 films: Colorimetric evaluation and its correlation with material properties

The thermo-oxidative aging behaviors of Nylon 1010 films were studied by various analytical methods, such as measuring the chromaticity, relative viscosity, carbonyl index, UV absorbance at 280 nm and elongation at break of the aged films. The thermo-oxidative aging plots of the results obtained via these various methods at different temperatures are subjected to the time-temperature superposition analysis, which are found to be well superposed. The b^* values are used as X axis and the other results, i.e., relative viscosity, carbonyl index, UV absorbance at 280 nm and elongation at break, are used as Y axis, respectively. The relationship between the b^* values and the other results is obtained, from which we can derive the changes of physical and chemical properties at different b^* values. Since the b^* values can be quickly determined by using a portable spectrophotometer, the on-line evaluation of the thermo-oxidative aging of Nylon 1010 can be realized.     

Six-step synthesis of Leonurine and toxicity study on zebrafish

Leonurine (1), an important ingredient in leonurus sibiricus L., can be used for some gynecological disease. We have developed a concise and efficient synthetic route of Leonurine, which can be optimized for mass production. Commercially available compound 6 and 2,3-dihydrofuran (7) were used as starting materials. And the toxicity study on zebrafish shows that Leonurine would promote the hatching of zebrafish embryos at low concentration and result in acute death or chronic lethal toxicity at high concentration.     

Understanding the thermal stability of human serum proteins with the related near-infrared spectral variables selected by Monte Carlo-uninformative variable elimination

Understanding the thermal stability of the proteins in human serum is essential since human serum is the important source of pharmaceutical proteins. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was applied to the investigation of thermal changes in secondary structure and hydration of human serum proteins. However, as a multicomponent system, the overlap of the broad NIR bands makes the structural analysis very difficult directly using the spectra of serum samples. Therefore, continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was used to improve the resolution of NIR spectra, and Monte Carlo-uninformative variable elimination (MC-UVE) method was applied to the selection of the variables associated with the proteins for the structural analysis. The variables (5956, 5867, 5815, 5747, 4525, 4401, 4359 and 4328 cm^-1) related to protein secondary structures and those (7074, 6951, 6827 and 6700 cm^-1) connected with water species were selected. Then, the thermal stability was analyzed through the intensity variations of the selected variables with temperature from 30 ℃ to 80 ℃. It was found that the variation of the spectral variables related to both α-helix and β-sheetchanges apparently around 60 ℃, indicating the beginning of the thermal denaturation and the transition from α-helix to β-sheet. Moreover, an obvious change was found around 60 ℃ for the content of the water specie S₃, i.e., the water cluster containing three hydrogen bonds. The result demonstrates that MC-UVE can identify the protein-related NIR spectral variables, and the water species may be a marker for investigation of the structural change of proteins in biochemical systems.     

Experimental Study on Purification of Diesel Particulate Matter by Non-thermal Plasma Technology

In order to investigate the effects of non-thermal plasma (NTP) on diesel particulate matter (PM), an engine test bench was built up. An engine exhaust particle sizer (EEPS) was introduced to analyze the emission concentration and size distribution of PM and a thermo-gravimetric analyzer was used to analyze the effects of NTP on the composition of the particulate matter in the exhaust gas. The results show that the size distribution interval of the particle mass concentration falls behind that of the quantity concentration under various loads. When the diesel engine operating speed is 2400 rpm and the load is 25%, after NTP, the proportions of the nucleation mode particles and the accumulative mode particles exhibit a small fluctuation while the proportion of ultrafine particles decreases by 10% due to their large quantity concentration. Under the dual effect of DPF and NTP, the particle quantity concentration decreases by 98%. In order to investigate the effect of NTP on the composition of the PM, a thermo-gravimetric analysis of the particles obtained before and after NTP was carried out. The results show that the proportion of volatile matter falls by 16.05% and solid carbon accounts for an increase of 7.29%. NTP has the ability to improve reduction activity of particles and make particles easier to be oxidized at a lower temperature.