Anticancer effects of PEP06 (TB01) in combination with Trifluridine/Tipiracil (TAS-102) in a xenograft model of human colorectal cancer.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer globally, with advanced stages presenting significant treatment challenges. Recently years, drug combination therapy has become a promising strategy for cancer treatment.

Objective: To evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of the combination of the anti-angiogenic drug PEP06 (TB01) and the cytotoxic drug Trifluridine/Tipiracil (TAS-102) in human CRC HCT-116 xenograft mouse model.

Constrained Heterogeneous CoFeO/ZnO/PMS Fenton-Like System for Industrial Wastewater Remediation with Recyclability and Zero Metal Loss.

Although heterogeneous Fenton-like processes have attracted widespread attention in wastewater treatment, the mass leached active ions lead to secondary pollution and confuse the demarcation of reaction region. By constructing a constrained completely heterogeneous system and highlighting its reaction region concentrated within the slipping plane of particles, this work achieves efficient organic pollutants degradation without leaching of any free active metal components. Based on the Poisson-Boltzmann equation and electric double layer model, the specific existing of the constrained region is confirmed, and this neglected reaction region between solid interface and slipping plane in traditional heterogeneous Fenton-like reaction is clarified firstly.

Tunable Mechanically Interlocked Semi-Crystalline Networks.

High-performance polymers based on dynamic chemistry have been widely explored for multi-field advanced applications. However, noncovalent sacrificial bond-mediated energy dissipation mechanism causes a trade-off between mechanical toughness and resilience. Herein, we achieved the synchronous boost of seemingly conflicting material properties including mechanical robustness, toughness and elasticity via the incorporation of mechanical chemistry into traditional semi-crystalline networks.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy: a half-century historical perspective.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has evolved significantly over fifty years into a powerful analytical technique. This review aims to achieve five main goals. (1) Providing a comprehensive history of SERS's discovery, its experimental and theoretical foundations, its connections to advances in nanoscience and plasmonics, and highlighting collective contributions of key pioneers.

Discovery of -Trifluoromethylated Noscapines as Novel and Potent Agents for the Treatment of Glioblastoma.

The search for new and effective chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM) represents an unmet need in drug discovery. Herein, a class of novel -trifluoromethylated noscapines has been disclosed. Among them, 9'-bromo--trifluoromethyl noscapine displayed superior anti-GBM potency.

Mass Transfer-Enhanced Photothermal Membranes with Synergistic Light Utilization for High-Turbidity Wastewater Purification.

The photo-Fenton process faces significant limitations in treating high-turbidity, colored wastewater due to light attenuation and impurity interference (blocked mass transfer). To address these issues, we developed a suspended photothermal Fenton membrane by loading a photothermal catalyst on a hydrophobically modified cotton filter paper, enabling precise suspension 1 mm below the water surface. This design achieved 89.

Highly Sensitive In Vivo Imaging of Bacterial Infections with a Hydrophilicity-Switching, Self-Immobilizing, Near-Infrared Fluorogenic β-Lactamase Probe Enriched within Bacteria.

The emergence of antibiotic resistance, particularly bacterial resistance to β-lactam antibiotics, the most widely prescribed therapeutic agents for infectious diseases, poses a significant threat to public health worldwide. The discovery of effective therapies against antibiotic-resistant pathogens has become an urgent need, necessitating innovative approaches to accelerate the identification and development of novel antibacterial agents. On the other hand, the expression of the β-lactam-hydrolyzing enzyme (β-lactamase), the major cause of bacterial resistance to β-lactam antibiotics, provides a distinctive opportunity to visualize bacterial infection, evaluate the efficacy of existing antibiotics, screen for novel antibacterial agents, and optimize drug dosing regimens in live animals.

Dissipative particle dynamics simulations on the self-assembly of rod-coil asymmetric diblock molecular brushes bearing responsive side chains.

The self-assembly behaviors of rod-coil asymmetric diblock molecular brushes (ADMBs) bearing responsive side chains in a selective solvent are investigated dissipative particle dynamics simulations. By systematically varying the polymerization degree, copolymer concentration, and side chain length, several morphological phase diagrams were constructed. ADMB assemblies exhibited a rich variety of morphologies, including cylindrical micelles, spherical micelles, nanowires, polyhedral micelles, ellipsoid micelles, and large compound micelles.

Axially Chiral Phenanthroline Ligand-Enabled Pd-Catalyzed Asymmetric Amination and Alkylation of Aryl-Substituted Morita-Baylis-Hillman Adducts.

Highly enantioselective allylic amination and alkylation of racemic sterically hindered aryl-substituted Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) adducts have been achieved by using an in situ formed Pd-catalyst from an axially chiral phenanthroline ligand. This dynamic kinetic asymmetric transformation (DYKAT) is compatible with cyclic and acyclic secondary amines, dialkyl malonates, β-keto esters, acetylacetone, and malononitrile, affording the corresponding chiral products, such as β-amino acid esters, in up to 95% yield and with up to a 99:1 enantiomeric ratio.

Deep Learning-Assisted Design of Novel Donor-Acceptor Combinations for Organic Photovoltaic Materials with Enhanced Efficiency.

Designing donor (D) and acceptor (A) structures and discovering promising D-A combinations can effectively improve organic photovoltaic (OPV) device performance. However, to obtain excellent power conversion efficiency (PCE), the trial-and-error structural design in the infinite chemical space is time-consuming and costly. Herein, a deep learning (DL)-assisted design framework for OPV materials is proposed.

Probing Cell Membrane Tension Using DNA Framework-Encoded Vibration-Induced Emission Molecular Assemblies.

Mechanosensitive fluorescent probes are valuable tools for detecting changes in cellular mechanics and viscosity. While numerous mechanosensitive probes have been developed, the construction of molecular assemblies for probing cellular mechanics remains largely unexplored, possibly due to the challenges of designing assemblies with synergistic and integrated functionalities. Here, we report the design and synthesis of mechanosensitive molecular assemblies by integrating DNA frameworks with vibration-induced emission (VIE) probes to enable live-cell membrane tension imaging.

Delivery of Encapsulated Intelligent Engineered Probiotic for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Therapy.

Engineered bacterial therapy holds enormous potential for treating intestinal diseases, employing synthetic biology techniques to achieve localized drug delivery within intestines. However, effective delivery of engineered bacteria to lesion sites and ensuring sustained colonization remain challenging. Here, a mucus encapsulated microsphere gel (MM) delivery system is developed to encapsulate genetically engineered bacteria capable of detecting and treating enteritis.

Efficient Quasi-Homogenous Photocatalysis Enabled by Molecular Nanophotocatalysts with Donor-Acceptor Motif.

Polymer semiconductors have attracted much attention for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, but they typically exhibit micrometer-sized particles in water-suspension, causing severe loss in light absorption and exciton recombination. Here a molecular nanophotocatalyst featuring a donor-acceptor motif is presented that solution is processed via a facile stirring nanoprecipitation method assisted by hydrophilic surfactants, enabling an efficient quasi-homogenous hydrogen evolution. In contrast to the original bulk powder (heterogeneous system), these quasi-homogenous nanophotocatalysts exhibit significantly improved light-harvesting, water-wettability, and exciton dissociation, resulting in distinctly enhanced (by four-order-of-magnitude) photocatalytic hydrogen evolution rate.

Probing Deep Hydrogen Polysulfides Fluctuations In Vivo by Engineering Activatable Fluorescence Reporters with Second Near-Infrared Window Emission.

Deep and comprehensive understanding of the intricate biochemical processes mediated by HS ( ≥ 1), but not HS, is of paramount importance. A few fluorescent probes have been developed with the intention of addressing this issue. However, there is currently no evidence of any activatable NIR-II fluorescent probes for HS-specific imaging over HS.

Reversible Circularly Polarized Luminescence Inversion and Emission Color Switching in Photo-Modulated Supramolecular Polymer for Multi-Modal Information Encryption.

Constructing circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials that exhibit dynamic handedness inversion and emissive color modulation for multimodal information encryption presents both a significant challenge and a compelling opportunity. Here, we have developed a pyridinethiazole acrylonitrile-cholesterol derivative (Z-PTC) that exhibits wavelength-dependent photoisomerization and photocyclization, enabling dynamic handedness inversion and emissive color modulation in supramolecular assemblies with decent CPL activity. Coordination with Ag ions form the Z-PTC Ag supramolecular polymer (SP), which assembles into nanotubes displaying enhanced positive yellow-green CPL.

Protocol for the symmetry manipulation of gyroidal mesostructures through the binary self-assembly of block copolymer and cationic surfactant.

New symmetries of the gyroid (G) surfaces are the key to their intriguing properties. Here, we present a protocol to create a tetragonal gyroid substructure (shifted tG) outside the traditional cubic symmetry of G surfaces. We describe steps for employing a binary self-assembly system consisting of block copolymers and surfactants.

Diversified ring expansion of saturated cyclic amines enabled by azlactone insertion.

Saturated N-heterocycles are ubiquitous structures among natural products and biologically active compounds. Therefore, the development of synthetic methods for the construction of N-heterocycles is of great importance in the synthetic community. Altering the ring system of these motifs to analogues with different ring sizes by employing molecular editing techniques would be highly appealing in medicinal chemistry.

A practical approach to quantitative analytical surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

Many of the features of SERS, such as its high sensitivity, molecular specificity and speed of analysis make it attractive as an analytical technique. However, SERS currently remains a specialist technique which has not yet entered the mainstream of analytical chemistry. Therefore, this review draws out the underlying principles for analytical SERS and provides practical tips and tricks for SERS quantitation.

Sacrificing Surfactants to Improve Oil Recovery: A Fluid Density Functional Theory Study.

In the chemically enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) processes, heavy components in crude oil, such as asphaltenes, adhere to reservoir rocks, significantly impeding crude oil extraction. Surfactants are frequently utilized to improve oil recovery due to their ability to reduce interfacial tension (IFT) and modify surface wettability. Nevertheless, indiscriminate surfactant usage may result in resource wastage and hinder the attainment of optimal recovery outcomes.

In situ licensing of mesenchymal stem cell immunomodulatory function via BMP-2 induced developmental process.

The immunomodulatory function of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is plastic and susceptible to resident microenvironment in vivo or inflammatory factors in vitro. We propose a unique method to enhance the immunoregulatory functions of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) through an artificially controllable in vivo inflammatory microenvironment generated by biomaterials loaded with BMP-2 that induce bone development. MSCs activated through this method effectively induce M1 macrophage polarization toward the M2 phenotype, promote differentiation of naïve T cells into regulatory T cells, and inhibit the proliferation of activated T cells via prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) secretion.

Design, synthesis and therapeutic evaluation of novel antimalarial derivatives based on the clinical antitumor candidate drug Quisinostat.

In previous studies, we identified the clinical antitumor drug candidate Quisinostat is a potent Plasmodium falciparum histone deacetylase (PfHDAC) inhibitor with significant activity against drug-resistant malaria but with severe toxicity. To delve deeper into its antimalarial potential, herein we designed and synthesized 36 novel analogues of Quisinostat and systematically evaluated their antimalarial activities and cytotoxicity. Among them, compounds 33 and 37 could effectively eliminate both wild-type and multidrug resistant P.

A new family of thiolate-bridged bimetallic complexes featuring a benzimidazole moiety: synthesis, structure and redox reactivity.

Thiolate-bridged bimetallic complexes have attracted considerable attention owing to their extensive applications in bioinspired catalysis as biological metalloenzymes. Compared with bimetallic complexes supported by common thiolate ligands, those featuring functional groups that may adopt different patterns to coordinate to the metal centers are usually difficult to access, limiting their exploration. The benzimidazole moiety is a multi-faceted functional group; for example, it can act as a biomolecule-responsive ligand for the development of transition metal complexes with anticancer and antitumor properties.