Mesoporous sodium four-coordinate aluminosilicate nanoparticles modulate dendritic cell pyroptosis and activate innate and adaptive immunity

Pyroptosis is a programmed cell death widely studied in cancer cells for tumour inhibition, but rarely in dendritic cell (DC) activation for vaccine development. Here, we report the synthesis of sodium stabilized mesoporous aluminosilicate nanoparticles as DC pyroptosis modulators and antigen carriers. By surface modification of sodium-stabilized four-coordinate aluminium species on dendritic mesoporous silica nanoparticles, the resultant Na-^IVAl-DMSN significantly activated DC through caspase-1 dependent pyroptosis via pH responsive intracellular ion exchange. The released proinflammatory cellular contents further mediated DC hyperactivation with prolonged cytokine release. In vivo studies showed that Na-^IVAl-DMSN induced enhanced cellular immunity mediated by natural killer (NK) cells, cytotoxic T cells, and memory T cells as well as humoral immune response. Our results provide a new principle for the design of next-generation nanoadjuvants for vaccine applications.

Na-^IVAl-DMSN acts as both antigen carriers and modulators to “hyperactivate” dendritic cells (DCs) via potassium (K⁺) efflux dependent pyroptosis, eventually leading to enhanced adaptive and innate immunity.     

Facile Fabrication of 1-Methylimidazole/Cu Nanozyme with Enhanced Laccase Activity for Fast Degradation and Sensitive Detection of Phenol Compounds

Facile construction of functional nanomaterials with laccase-like activity is important in sustainable chemistry since laccase is featured as an efficient and promising catalyst especially for phenolic degradation but still has the challenges of high cost, low activity, poor stability and unsatisfied recyclability. In this paper, we report a simple method to synthesize nanozymes with enhanced laccase-like activity by the self-assembly of copper ions with various imidazole derivatives. In the case of 1-methylimidazole as the ligand, the as-synthesized nanozyme (denoted as Cu-MIM) has the highest yield and best activity among the nanozymes prepared. Compared to laccase, the K_m of Cu-MIM nanozyme to phenol is much lower, and the v_max is 6.8 times higher. In addition, Cu-MIM maintains excellent stability in a variety of harsh environments, such as high pH, high temperature, high salt concentration, organic solvents and long-term storage. Based on the Cu-MIM nanozyme, we established a method for quantitatively detecting phenol concentration through a smartphone, which is believed to have important applications in environmental protection, pollutant detection and other fields.     

Construction of Enzyme-Responsive Micelles Based on Theranostic Zwitterionic Conjugated Bottlebrush Copolymers with Brush-on-Brush Architecture for Cell Imaging and Anticancer Drug Delivery

Bottlebrush copolymers with different chemical structures and compositions as well as diverse architectures represent an important kind of material for various applications, such as biomedical devices. To our knowledge, zwitterionic conjugated bottlebrush copolymers integrating fluorescence imaging and tumor microenvironment-specific responsiveness for efficient intracellular drug release have been rarely reported, likely because of the lack of an efficient synthetic approach. For this purpose, in this study, we reported the successful preparation of well-defined theranostic zwitterionic bottlebrush copolymers with unique brush-on-brush architecture. Specifically, the bottlebrush copolymers were composed of a fluorescent backbone of polyfluorene derivate (PFONPN) possessing the fluorescence resonance energy transfer with doxorubicin (DOX), primary brushes of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA), and secondary graft brushes of an enzyme-degradable polytyrosine (PTyr) block as well as a zwitterionic poly(oligo (ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether methacrylate-co-sulfobetaine methacrylate) (P(OEGMA-co-SBMA)) chain with super hydrophilicity and highly antifouling ability via elegant integration of Suzuki coupling, NCA ROP and ATRP techniques. Notably, the resulting bottlebrush copolymer, PFONPN₉-g-(PHEMA₁₅-g-(PTyr₁₆-b-P(OEGMA₆-co-SBMA₆)₂)) (P₂) with a lower MW ratio of the hydrophobic side chains of PTyr and hydrophilic side chains of P(OEGMA-co-SBMA) could self-assemble into stabilized unimolecular micelles in an aqueous phase. The resulting unimolecular micelles showed a fluorescence quantum yield of 3.9% that is mainly affected by the pendant phenol groups of PTyr side chains and a drug-loading content (DLC) of approximately 15.4% and entrapment efficiency (EE) of 90.6% for DOX, higher than the other micelle analogs, because of the efficient supramolecular interactions of π–π stacking between the PTyr blocks and drug molecules, as well as the moderate hydrophilic chain length. The fluorescence of the PFONPN backbone enables fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) with DOX and visualization of intracellular trafficking of the theranostic micelles. Most importantly, the drug-loaded micelles showed accelerated drug release in the presence of proteinase K because of the enzyme-triggered degradation of PTyr blocks and subsequent deshielding of P(OEGMA-co-SBMA) corona for micelle destruction. Taken together, we developed an efficient approach for the synthesis of enzyme-responsive theranostic zwitterionic conjugated bottlebrush copolymers with a brush-on-brush architecture, and the resulting theranostic micelles with high DLC and tumor microenvironment-specific responsiveness represent a novel nanoplatform for simultaneous cell image and drug delivery.     

Computational Insight into Biotransformation Profiles of Organophosphorus Flame Retardants to Their Diester Metabolites by Cytochrome P450

Biotransformation of organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) mediated by cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) has a potential correlation with their toxicological effects on humans. In this work, we employed five typical OPFRs including tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCIPP), tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCIPP), tri(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP), triethyl phosphate (TEP), and 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate (EHDPHP), and performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations to clarify the CYP-catalyzed biotransformation of five OPFRs to their diester metabolites. The DFT results show that the reaction mechanism consists of Cα-hydroxylation and O-dealkylation steps, and the biotransformation activities of five OPFRs may follow the order of TCEP ≈ TEP ≈ EHDPHP > TCIPP > TDCIPP. We further performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to unravel the binding interactions of five OPFRs in the CYP3A4 isoform. Binding mode analyses demonstrate that CYP3A4-mediated metabolism of TDCIPP, TCIPP, TCEP, and TEP can produce the diester metabolites, while EHDPHP metabolism may generate para-hydroxyEHDPHP as the primary metabolite. Moreover, the EHDPHP and TDCIPP have higher binding potential to CYP3A4 than TCIPP, TCEP, and TEP. This work reports the biotransformation profiles and binding features of five OPFRs in CYP, which can provide meaningful clues for the further studies of the metabolic fates of OPFRs and toxicological effects associated with the relevant metabolites.     

Antiinflammation Derived Suzuki-Coupled Fenbufens as COX-2 Inhibitors: Minilibrary Construction and Bioassay

A small fenbufen library comprising 18 compounds was prepared via Suzuki Miyara coupling. The five-step preparations deliver 9–17% biphenyl compounds in total yield. These fenbufen analogs exert insignificant activity against the IL-1 release as well as inhibiting cyclooxygenase 2 considerably. Both the para-amino and para-hydroxy mono substituents display the most substantial COX-2 inhibition, particularly the latter one showing a comparable activity as celecoxib. The most COX-2 selective and bioactive disubstituted compound encompasses one electron-withdrawing methyl and one electron-donating fluoro groups in one arene. COX-2 is selective but not COX-2 to bioactive compounds that contain both two electron-withdrawing groups; disubstituted analogs with both resonance-formable electron-donating dihydroxy groups display high COX-2 activity but inferior COX-2 selectivity. In silico simulation and modeling for three COX-2 active—p-fluoro, p-hydroxy and p-amino—fenbufens show a preferable docking to COX-2 than COX-1. The most stabilization by the p-hydroxy fenbufen with COX-2 predicted by theoretical simulation is consistent with its prominent COX-2 inhibition resulting from experiments.     

综合微光测试系统的总体设计

描述一种微光像增强器综合测试系统的总体设计。设计采用了组合结构，使系统只用单一的光源就可以测试微光像增强器九项光量子类和几何类的参数，具有以往几台常规测试仪器功能的总和。系统对各参数测量的不确定度２～４％。     

Effect of H impurity on misfit dislocation in Ni-based single-crystal superalloy： molecular dynamic simulations

The effect of H impurity on the misfit dislocation in Ni-based single-crystal superalloy is investigated using the molecular dynamic simulation.It includes the site preferences of H impurity in single crystals Ni and Ni 3 Al,the interaction between H impurity and the misfit dislocation and the effect of H impurity on the moving misfit dislocation.The calculated energies and simulation results show that the misfit dislocation attracts H impurity which is located at the γ/γˊinterface and Ni₃ Al and H impurity on the glide plane can obstruct the glide of misfit dislocation,which is beneficial to improving the mechanical properties of Ni based superalloys.     

Improvement of the Performance of an Acousto-Optical Q-Switched Nd:YAG 946 nm Laser Using a Convex–Plane Cavity

We improve the performance of an acousto-optical Q-switched Nd:YAG 946 nm laser using a convex–plane cavity. We obtain the highest output average power of 2.3 W with a pulse width of 15.3 ns in a 10 kHz 946 nm laser with a convex–plane cavity. The maximum peak power 15.0 kW is about three times higher than that in a plane–plane cavity. Also we investigate the output performances of the pulsed 946 nm laser with the convex–plane cavity at 20 and 50 kHz.     

气粒混合物非灰辐射特性合并宽窄谱带K分布模型

气粒混合物辐射问题具有全场性、非灰性、耦合性等特点,准确预估高温燃气/粒子非灰辐射特性是非常重要的。本文将合并宽窄谱带K分布模础(CWNBCK)与离散坐标法(DOM)结合,开展了非灰气粒混合物辐射换热问题的模拟工作,分别验证了一维和三维情况下应用该模型的准确性,给出不同工况下的热流源项、壁面热流或辐射热流等。结果表明:该模型能够给出与SNB模型精度基本相同的结果,考虑其计算效率的提高,可以在工程实际中应用该模型计算非灰气粒混合物辐射换热。     

Interaction of molecules of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid and its structural analogs with human serum albumin

We have used fluorescence spectroscopy methods to show that imidacloprid and its structural analogs form complexes with human serum albumin (HSA). The nature of the spectral changes in the ligand×protein systems and the calculated complexation parameters suggest that these low molecular weight compounds mainly bind to a specific section of the protein molecule, near the tryptophan residue in the 214 position of the polypeptide chain. We have found that the association constants are on the order of 10⁴ M⁻¹, and the affinity of the ligands for HSA varies in the series 6-chloronicotinic acid > 6-methoxynicotinic acid = imidacloprid > the keto analog of imidacloprid. The major contribution to the complexation energy probably comes from hydrophobic interaction forces with participation of the aromatic pyridine ring of the ligands, while additional enhancement of ligand-protein affinity can be provided by the nitroimine group of imidacloprid. Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 75, No. 6, pp. 859–866, November–December, 2008.