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Protein and peptide drugs orally suffer from extremely low bioavailability principally for the complicated gastrointestinal environment along with the difficulty of passing through the mucus layer and the underlying epithelium. In our work, we fabricated mesoporous silica nanoparticles with modification groups (MSN-NH2@COOH/CPP5) that effectively penetrated the mucus layer and passed through the intestinal epithelium by mimicking the virus surface. Naked nanoparticles were prepared with inner pores of 6 nm diameter to allow efficient insulin loading and coated with the cationic cell-penetrating KLPVM peptide and the anionic glutaric anhydride to yield hydrophilic MSN-NH2@COOH/CPP5 with a ζ-potential of -0.49 mV. The apparent permeability coefficient of virus-mimicking nanoparticles was 14.61 × 10-5 cm/s. The virus-mimicking nanoparticles showed dramatically lower binding to mucin and faster penetration of the mucus layer than positively charged nanoparticles (MSN@NH2) with a ζ-potential of +35.00 mV. The KLPVoparticles for oral delivery of protein and peptide drugs.Heparan sulfate (HS) has important emerging roles in oncogenesis, which represents potential therapeutic strategies for human cancers. However, due to the complexity of the HS signaling network, HS-targeted synthetic cancer therapeutics has never been successfully devised. To conquer the challenge, we developed HS-instructed self-assembling peptides by decorating the “Cardin-Weintraub” sequence with aromatic amino acids. The HS-binding interactions induce localized accumulation of synthetic peptides triggering molecular self-assembly in the vicinity of highly expressed Heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) on the cancer cell membrane. The nanostructures hinder the binding of HSPG with metastasis promoting protein-heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HBEGF) inhibiting the activation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). Our study proved that HS-instructed self-assembly is a promising synthetic therapeutic strategy for targeted cancer migration inhibition.Recently, trivalent chromium ion doped phosphors have exhibited significant application potential in broadband near-infrared (NIR) phosphor-converted light-emitting diodes (pc-LEDs). However, developing an NIR phosphor with both broad emission bandwidth and excellent luminescence thermal stability is still a great challenge. Coelenterazine Here, we demonstrate an NIR phosphor, ScF3Cr3+, which can fulfill both conditions simultaneously. The prepared phosphors show broadband emission in the range of 700 to 1100 nm, with a full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 140 nm peaking at 853 nm. These phosphors also demonstrate an excellent luminescence thermal stability (the emission intensity of ScF3Cr3+ keeps 85.5% at 150 °C compared with the value at room temperature). An NIR pc-LED based on blue LED chips was fabricated and tested. The results show that the NIR pc-LED can yield strong broadband NIR emission. This work not only provides a promising phosphor for the application of NIR pc-LEDs but also has important guiding significance for effect of synthesis conditions on the luminescence properties of Cr3+-doped fluorides.LiZnSb is a Zintl phase that has been predicted to be a good material in thermoelectric applications for a long time. However, experimental work indicated that the synthesized LiZnSb materials were p type, and their maximum zT value is only 0.08 at 525 K. CaZn0.4Ag0.2Sb, which belongs to the LiGaGe structure type and is also closely associated with the LiZnSb structure, did show high zT plateaus in a wide range of temperature, with the mixed transition metal Zn/Ag sites regulated. By comparing their crystallographic and electronic band structures, it is evident that the interlayered distances in both compounds have a great effect on the regulation of the corresponding electrical transport properties. When alloying CaZn0.4Ag0.2Sb with LiZnSb, solid solutions form within a specific range, which led to a marked enhancement in the Seebeck coefficient through the orbital alignment and carrier concentration optimization. In addition, a low thermal conductivity was obtained owing to the reduced electronic component. With the above optimization, a maximum zT value of ∼1.3 can be realized for (CaZn0.4Ag0.2Sb)0.87(LiZnSb)0.13 at 873 K, more than twice that of the pristine CaZn0.4Ag0.2Sb and about 10-fold compared to that of LiZnSb. This work may shed new light on the optimization of thermoelectric properties based on Zintl phases, for which the crystal structures are usually very complicated and a direct correlation between the structures and properties is difficult to make.Nanoparticles possess exceptional optical, magnetic, electrical, and chemical properties. Several applications, ranging from surfaces for optical displays and electronic devices, to energy conversion, require large-area patterns of nanoparticles. Often, it is crucial to maintain a defined arrangement and spacing between nanoparticles to obtain a consistent and uniform surface response. In the majority of the established patterning methods, the pattern is written and formed, which is slow and not scalable. Some parallel techniques, forming all points of the pattern simultaneously, have therefore emerged. These methods can be used to quickly assemble nanoparticles and nanostructures on large-area substrates into well-ordered patterns. Here, we review these parallel methods, the materials that have been processed by them, and the types of particles that can be used with each method. We also emphasize the maximal substrate areas that each method can pattern and the distances between particles. Finally, we point out the advantages and disadvantages of each method, as well as the challenges that still need to be addressed to enable facile, on-demand large-area nanopatterning.It is of great importance to develop useful methods to evaluate interfacial coupling strength noninvasively for exploring and optimizing heterointerface functionality. Recently, organic-inorganic van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures (HSs) composed of organic semiconductors and transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMD) have shown great potential for developing next-generation flexible optical, electrical, and optoelectrical devices. Since vdW coupling dominates the property of such a vdW HS, it is crucial to develop a method to evaluate its interfacial coupling strength noninvasively. In this work, by combining electrical force microscopy (EFM) and Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopic measurements, we were able to directly probe the coupling strength between monolayer MoSe2 and a copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) thin film. Especially, we also found a new Raman mode in HS due to the Davydov splitting of the CuPc thin film via strong interfacial coupling between the two materials. This new Raman mode was thus utilized as a probe to reveal the modulation of the coupling strength by changing post-treatment conditions.