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Rutin is a flavonoid compound with potential for treating Alzheimer's disease, preventing brain damage, mitigating cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury, and exhibiting anti-glioblastoma activity. However, its efficacy is limited by its low solubility, poor bioavailability, and limited permeability across the blood–brain barrier (BBB). To enhance the bioavailability and brain-targeting ability of Rutin, transferrin-modified Rutin liposome (Tf-Rutin-Lip) was developed using liposomes as a delivery system. Rutin liposomes were prepared using the thin-film dispersion method, and the preparation conditions were optimized using the response surface methodology. Then, transferrin (Tf) was incorporated into the liposomes through covalent modification, yielding Tf-Rutin liposomes. The toxicity of these liposomes on bEnd.3 cells, as well as their impact on the tight junctions of these cells, was rigorously evaluated. Additionally, in vitro and in vivo experiments were conducted to validate the brain-targeting efficacy of the Tf-Rutin liposomes. A susceptible detection method was developed to characterize the pharmacokinetics of Tf-Rutin-Lip further. The optimized conditions for the preparation of Tf-Rutin-Lip were determined as follows: a lipid-to-cholesterol ratio of 4.63:1, a drug-to-lipid ratio of 1:45.84, a preparation temperature of 42.7 °C, a hydration volume of 20 mL, a sonication time of 10 min, a surfactant concentration of 80 mg/mL, a DSPE-MPEG-2000 concentration of 5%, and a DSPE-PEG2000-COOH to DSPE-MPEG-2000 molar ratio of 10%. The liposomes did not affect the cell activity of bEnd.3 cells at 24 h and did not disrupt the tight junction of the blood–brain barrier. Tf-modified liposomes were taken up by bEnd.3 cells, which, in turn, passed through the BBB, thus improving liposomal brain targeting. Furthermore, the results of pharmacokinetic experiments showed that the Cmax, AUC0-∞, AUC0-t, MRT0-∞, and t1/2 of Tf-Rutin-Lip increased 1.99-fold, 2.77-fold, 2.58-fold, 1.26-fold, and 1.19-fold compared to those of free Rutin solution, respectively. These findings suggest that Tf-Rutin-Lip is brain-targeted and may enhance the efficacy of Rutin in the treatment of brain disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Zoonotic infections, characterized with huge pathogen diversity, wide affecting area and great society harm, have become a major global public health problem. Early and accurate prediction of their outbreaks is crucial for disease control. The aim of this study was to develop zoonotic diseases risk predictive models based on time-series incidence data and three zoonotic diseases in mainland China were employed as cases. Methods: The incidence data for schistosomiasis, echinococcosis, and leptospirosis were downloaded from the Scientific Data Centre of the National Ministry of Health of China, and were processed by interpolation, dynamic curve reconstruction and time series decomposition. Data were decomposed into three distinct components: the trend component, the seasonal component, and the residual component. The trend component was used as input to construct the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) prediction model, while the seasonal component was used in the comparison of the periods and amplitudes. Finaly, the accuracy of the hybrid LSTM prediction model was comprehensive evaluated. Results: This study employed trend series of incidence numbers and incidence rates of three zoonotic diseases for modeling. The prediction results of the model showed that the predicted incidence number and incidence rate were very close to the real incidence data. Model evaluation revealed that the prediction error of the hybrid LSTM model was smaller than that of the single LSTM. Thus, these results demonstrate that using trending sequences as input sequences for the model leads to better-fitting predictive models. Conclusions: Our study successfully developed LSTM hybrid models for disease outbreak risk prediction using three zoonotic diseases as case studies. We demonstrate that the LSTM, when combined with time series decomposition, delivers more accurate results compared to conventional LSTM models using the raw data series. Disease outbreak trends can be predicted more accurately using hybrid models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To systematically evaluate the evidence relating to acupuncture on the sleep quality of patients with Parkinson's disease. Data sources: Six English-language (PubMed, Cochrane Library, EBSCOhost, Embase, OVID MEDLINE, and Web of Science) and four Chinese-language (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, SinoMed, China Scientific Journals Database, and Wanfang) databases were searched for pertinent studies published from database inception to 11 October 2023. Methods: Two researchers independently screened eligible studies and extracted relevant data using custom data extraction tables. Methodological quality assessment of the included studies was performed using Cochrane Handbook 5.1.0. Meta-analysis was performed using Cochrane Review Manager version 5.4. Results: Twenty-four studies (1701 participants) met inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis showed that acupuncture improved the Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Hamilton Depression Scale, Self-Rating Depression Scale, and Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire 39 scores compared with controls (all P < 0.05). Conclusion: This review showed that acupuncture improved sleep quality, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and quality of life of patients with Parkinson's disease relative to controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the study of biosorption of Pb2+ by lactic acid bacteria, two strains called CN-011 and CN-005 with high tolerance and great adsorption to lead were screened. The minimum bactericidal concentration of lead ions for both CN-011 and CN-005 was 1.45 mmol/L. The optimal culture conditions for the removal of 30 mg/L lead ions were achieved by culturing lactic acid bacteria at an initial pH of 7.0, 37 °C and 120 rpm for 48 h. The adsorption rate of CN-011 and CN-005 for Pb2+ were 85.95% and 86.78%, respectively. In simulated wastewater samples, the average adsorption rate of Pb2+ was 73.38% for CN-011 and 74.15% for CN-005. The mechanism of biosorption was characterized by Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscope—Energy Dispersive Spectrometer, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, which revealed that Pb2+ mainly reacted with hydroxyl ions in peptidoglycan or polysaccharide, and carboxylate radical in teichoic acid or protein on the surface of lactic acid bacteria cell wall. The deposits produced on the bacterial surface were identified as lead oxide and lead nitrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low detection sensitivity of lateral-flow immunochromatography assay (LFIA) based on spherical gold nanoparticle (AuNP) limits its wide applications. In the present study, AuNP dimers with strong plasma scattering and robust signal output were synthesized via the Ag ion soldering (AIS) strategy and used as labeled probes in LFIA to boost the sensitivity without any extra operation process and equipment. The established LFIA exhibited high sensitivity with a limit of detection (LOD) of 2.0 × 102 TCID50/mL for PEDV, which provides 50 times higher sensitivity than commercial LFIA based on spherical colloidal gold. In addition, the AuNP dimer–based LFIA showed strong specificity, good reproducibility, high stability, and good accordance to reverse transcription polymer chain reaction (RT-PCR) when detecting 109 clinical samples. Thus, the AuNP dimers is a promising probe for LFIA and the developed AuNP dimer–based LFIA is suitable for the rapid detection of PEDV in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of CoCl2·6H2O and a series of 4′-(substituted-phenyl)-2,2′:6′,2′′-terpyridine compounds bearing hydrogen (L1), p-methoxyl (L2), p-mesyl (L3), p-methyl (L4), p-bromo (L5), p-iodo (L6), p-phenyl (L7), p-chloro (L8), and p-fluoro (L9) leads to the formation of nine Co-based terpyridine complexes (1–9), which were characterized by elemental analysis and infrared spectroscopy. Their crystals obtained through solution evaporation or a hydrothermal process were investigated by single crystal X-ray diffraction. All complexes are mononuclear with central Co(II) coordinated to two terpyridine ligands to form a sandwich-like structure. The in vitro antiproliferative activity of these complexes against human lung carcinoma cell line (A549), human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (Bel-7042) and human esophageal cancer cell line (Eca-109) was investigated, and a study on their toxicity was carried out on a normal human liver cell line (HL-7702). All complexes exhibit a better antiproliferative activity on cancer cells than the commercialized chemotherapy drug cisplatin. The UV-Vis spectroscopy results reveal that these complexes interact with CT-DNA in the embedding mode. The circular dichroic (CD) analysis confirms their strong affinity binding with CT-DNA and suggests that all compounds stack onto the base pairs of CT-DNA. Biomolecules including B-DNA, survivin protein, and DNA-topoisomerase I were selected to execute molecular docking, and the binding sites of complexes on these biomacromolecules were determined via computational docking analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of Ni(II) sandwich-like coordinated compounds were synthesized by the reaction of nickel dichloride and ten 4′-(4-substituent phenyl)-2′,2′:6′,2″-terpyridine ligands, and their structures were confirmed by elemental analysis, FT-IR, ESI–MS, solid state ultraviolet spectroscopy and X-ray single crystal diffraction analysis. Three human cancer cell lines and a normal human cell line were used for anti-proliferation potential study: human lung cancer cell line (A549), human esophageal cancer cell line (Eca-109), human liver cancer cells (Bel-7402) and normal human liver cells (HL-7702). The results show that these nickel complexes possess good inhibitory effects on the cancer cells, outperforming the commonly used clinical chemotherapy drug cisplatin. Especially, complexes 3 (-methoxyl) and 7 (-fluoro) have strong inhibitory ability against Eca-109 cell line with IC50 values of 0.223 μM and 0.335 μM, complexes 4 and 6 showed certain cell selectivity, and complex 6 can inhibit cancer cells and slightly poison normal cells when the concentration was controlled. The ability of these complexes binding to CT-DNA was studied by UV titration and CD spectroscopy, and CD spectroscopy was also used to study the secondary structural change of BSA under the action of the complexes. The binding of these complexes with DNA, DNA-Topo I and bovine serum protein has been simulated by molecular docking software, and the docking results and optimal binding conformation data showed that they interacted with DNA in the mode of embedded binding, which is consistent with the experimental results. These complexes are more inclined to move to the cleavage site when docking with DNA-Topo I, so as to play a role of enzyme cleavage, while BSA promotes the action of the complexes by binding to effective binding sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation in forestry education is needed to address changing contexts of the positionality of forests. This is particularly significant in the Asia–Pacific region, where deforestation and degradation are high. However, the accessibility of high-quality forestry education to address changing regional and global contexts is lacking. A series of innovative sustainable forest management (SFM) open education resource (OER) courses were developed and implemented to improve the accessibility of SFM education to enhance teaching quality, curriculum, and research capacity of universities in the Asia-Pacific Region. To evaluate the SFM-OER program in terms of student experiences, this study investigated student achievement, perceived success of the pedagogical approach and instructional design, and perceived effectiveness of the learning activities in promoting active and transformative learning through the assessment of a 1,191-course feedback survey between 2018 and 2020, including the global pandemic. This study revealed that the program attracted diverse student demographics, including a higher proportion of female students majoring in forestry, ecology, and other environmental studies. Their primary motivation to participate in the courses was to gain international experience, followed by the flexibility of online learning, mandatory course requirements, and earning course credits. Students were satisfied with the Canvas learning management system. Most students spent less than 5 to 10 h of their weekly time in the course and agreed or strongly agreed that the workloads were manageable. Students reflected positively on various learning activities and assignments, such as watching lecture videos, taking quizzes, reading and summarizing, having discussions, and peer review writing. However, they did not clearly prefer specific learning activities, signifying the importance of using diverse learning activities to satisfy diverse individual learning styles in online settings. This analysis contributes to the further development of student-centered pedagogical development for online learning and provides insight into the ways forward for online higher forestry education, while repurposing existing OER courses in a post-Covid-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Six silver hexafluoroantimonate complexes (1–6) with 4′-(4′-substituted-phenyl)-2,2′:6′,2′′-terpyridine compounds bearing hydrogen (L1), methyl (L2), methylsulfonyl (L3), chloro (L4), bromo (L5) and iodo (L6) were prepared and characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, IR, elemental analysis and single crystal X-ray diffraction. All the compounds exhibit interesting photoluminescence properties in the solid state and solution. In vitro data demonstrate that all of them show higher antiproliferative activities than cisplatin against three human carcinoma cell lines, A549, Eca-109 and MCF-7. Compound 3 exhibits the lowest IC50 value (2.298 μM) against A549 cell lines, which is 2.963 μM for 4 against Eca-109 and 1.830 μM for 1 against MCF-7. For silver halogen-substituted terpyridine compounds, their anticancer activities decrease following the sequence of –Cl, –Br, and –I substituents. The comparison results show that their anticancer activity is significantly higher than that of their free ligands. The DNA interaction was studied by fluorescence titration, circular dichroism spectroscopy and molecular modeling methods. Spectrophotometric results reveal that the compounds have strong affinity binding with DNA as intercalators and molecular docking studies indicate that the binding is contributed by the π–π stacking and hydrogen bonds. The DNA binding ability of the complexes has been correlated with their anticancer activities, which could potentially provide a new rationale for the future design of terpyridine-based metal complexes with antitumor potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study aimed to systematically evaluate the effect of acupuncture in patients with obstructive sleep apnea–hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS). Literature search of four Chinese databases and six English databases for studies published from the inception of each database to March 1, 2022 and identify relevant studies published in Chinese or English. Related randomized controlled trials of acupuncture for the treatment of OSAHS were included to analyze the efficacy of acupuncture. Two researchers independently reviewed all of the retrieved studies to screen for eligible studies and extract the required relevant data. Included studies were subjected to a methodological quality assessment using the Cochrane Manual 5.1.0, and to a meta‐analysis using Cochrane Review Manager version 5.4. A total of 19 studies with 1365 participants were examined. Compared with the control group, the apnea–hypopnea index, lowest oxygen saturation, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, interleukin‐6, tumor necrosis factor α, and nuclear factor κ‐B indicators all exhibited statistically significant changes. Thus, acupuncture was effective in alleviating the state of hypoxia and sleepiness and reduced the inflammatory response and disease severity among reported patients with OSAHS. Therefore, acupuncture could be widely used in the clinical treatment of OSAHS patients as a complementary strategy and warrants further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reactions of copper chloride and 4′-(4′-substituted-phenyl)-2,2′:6′,2′′-terpyridine ligands bearing nitro (L1), methyl (L2), phenyl (L3), tolyl (L4) and carboxyl (L5) gave five copper compounds (1–5) which have mononuclear structures with their Cu(II) ions five-coordinate in the irregular square pyramidal geometries. Their in vitro biological properties were evaluated by CCK-8 assay, which show remarkable proliferation inhibitive properties on the cancer cell lines including A549, Eca-109, and Bel-7402, and two human normal cell lines (HL-7702 and HLF). The values of IC50 indicate better anticancer activities of these compounds than that of cisplatin. Compound 2 with methyl group exhibits the best anticancer activity, with IC50 value < 2.5 µM on all the tested cancer cells. The interactions of the compounds with DNA were evaluated using UV–Vis absorption titrations, circular dichroism spectroscopy, and DNA viscosity. The complexes show significant insertion binding with DNA sequences and strong intercalator binding mode with DNA sequences. Compounds 1–5 interact with the functional groups of DNA through π···π stacking, van der Waals interactions, hydrophobic interactions, and hydrogen bonds as determined by molecular docking. In addition, strong binding interactions between the five copper(II) complexes and bovine serum albumin (BSA) were studied by fluorescence titration and circular dichroism spectroscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eleven manganese 4′-substituted-2,2′:6′,2″-terpyridine complexes (1a–1c and 2a–2h) with three non-oxygen-containing substituents (L1a–L1c: phenyl, naphthalen-2-yl and naphthalen-1-yl, L1a–L1c) and eight oxygen-containing substituents (L2a–L2h: 4-hydroxyl-phenyl, 3-hydroxyl-phenyl, 2-hydroxyl-phenyl, 4-methoxyl-phenyl, 4-carboxyl-phenyl, 4-(methylsulfonyl)phenyl, 4-nitrophenyl and furan-2-yl) were prepared and characterized by IR, elemental analysis or single crystal X-ray diffraction. In vitro data demonstrate that all of these show higher antiproliferative activities than cisplatin against five human carcinoma cell lines: A549, Bel-7402, Eca-109, HeLa and MCF-7. Compound 2d presents the strongest antiproliferative effect against A549 and HeLa cells, with IC50 values being 0.281 μM and 0.356 μM, respectively. The lowest IC50 values against Bel-7402 (0.523 μM) Eca-109 (0.514 μM) and MCF-7 (0.356 μM) were obtained for compounds 2h, 2g and 2c, respectively. Compound 2g with a nitro group showed the best results on the whole, with relevantly low IC50 values against all the tested tumor cells. The DNA interactions with these compounds were studied by circular dichroism spectroscopic and molecular modeling methods. Spectrophotometric results revealed that the compounds have strong affinities in binding with DNA as intercalators, and the binding induces DNA conformational transition. Molecular docking studies indicate that the binding is contributed by the π–π stacking and hydrogen bonds. The anticancer activities of the compounds are correlated with their DNA binding ability, and the modification of oxygen-containing substituents significantly enhanced the anticancer activity, which could provide a new rationale for the future design of terpyridine-based metal complexes with antitumor potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the emerging technology of cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) has grown rapidly along with the many medical applications of cold plasma (e.g., cancer, skin disease, tissue repair, etc.). Plasma-activated liquids (e.g., culture media, water, or normal saline, previously exposed to plasma) are being studied as cancer treatments, and due to their advantages, many researchers prefer plasma-activated liquids as an alternative to CAP in the treatment of cancer. In this study, we showed that plasma-activated-saline (PAS) treatment significantly inhibited tumor growth, as compared with saline, in melanoma, and a low-pH environment had little effect on tumor growth in vivo. In addition, based on an ultra-high-performance liquid tandem chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS) analysis of tumor cell metabolism, the glycerophospholipid metabolic pathway was the most susceptible metabolic pathway to PAS treatment in melanoma in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, PAS also inhibited cell proliferation in vivo in oral tongue squamous-cell cancer and non-small-cell lung cancer. There were few toxic side effects in the three animal models, and the treatment was deemed safe to use. In the future, plasma-activated liquids may serve as a potential therapeutic approach in the treatment of cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuroprotection is critical to rescue injured neural tissues and prevent secondary injuries but current clinical neuroprotection options are alarmingly limited. Following neural injury, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are aberrantly accumulated due to overactivation of glutamate, a major neurotransmitter in the vertebrate nervous system, leading to massive neural cell death. Antioxidant defense of neuronal cells is inherently repressed and poorly compensated by current pharmacological antioxidants. Here, we explore whether cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) with its ROS tuned near their physiological concentrations may be neuroprotective. Using a neural cell model, we show that a single treatment of a helium CAP jet for 4–10 s induces a pulsed elevation by 220% of reduced glutathione, the main ROS-scavenging system in cells, and substantially increase the viability of glutamate-damaged cells, demonstrating neuroprotection against glutamate excitotoxicity. By correlating peroxynitrite, hydrogen peroxide and nitric oxide produced by CAP to literature evidence of their neuroprotective activity when acting alone, we suggest that micromolar-level peroxynitrite and 30–70-µM hydrogen peroxide produced from the CAP jet trigger their known and dose-dependent pathways for activating the cellular antioxidant defense. Collectively, our data show that CAP offers a novel and potentially potent strategy to neuroprotection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eleven copper chloride coordination compounds (1–11) with 4′-(4′-substituted-phenyl)-2,2′:6′,2′′-terpyridine ligands bearing hydrogen (L1), cyano (L2), p-hydroxyl (L3), m-hydroxyl (L4), o-hydroxyl (L5), methoxyl (L6), iodo (L7), bromo (L8), chloro (L9), fluoro (L10) or methylsulfonyl (L11) were prepared and characterized by IR spectroscopy, elemental analysis and single crystal X-ray diffraction. Antiproliferative activities against tumor cells were investigated and DNA interactions were studied by circular dichroism spectroscopy and molecular modeling methods. In vitro data demonstrate that all the compounds exhibit higher antiproliferative activities as compared to cisplatin against five human carcinoma cell lines: A549, Bel-7402, Eca-109, HeLa and MCF-7. Compound 6 with methoxyl shows the best anti-proliferation activity. Spectrophotometric results reveal the strong affinity of the compounds for binding with DNA as intercalators and induce DNA conformational transitions. The results of molecular docking studies show that the compounds interact with DNA through π–π stacking, van der Waals forces, hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds. The binding energies between compound 11 and three macromolecules, including DNA duplex, oligonucleotide and DNA–Topo I complex, are the lowest. The binding stability of compounds containing hydroxyl, methoxy and methylsulfonyl groups with biological macromolecules mainly relies on the hydrogen bonds. The ability of a compound to form hydrogen bonds can promote its binding to biological targets, thereby exhibiting high antiproliferative activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of the hazardous microbial species in pond sewage is a serious threat to the aquatic environment and human health, and an effective purification method is urgently needed. Here, we reported the evaluation and purification effect of sewage by a custom‐built air surface discharge plasma. Results show that the most sensitive bacterial flora mainly includes Cyanobium, Candidatus, and Proteobacteria, based on inactivation map by the DNA sequence. The inactivation of microbial species by plasma treatment would reach beyond 5‐log reduction and the water turbidity would be effectively improved. Identification of the significance of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species with scavengers indicates that the purification effect is closely linked to the key agents ONOO− and H2O2. This study would contribute to an in‐depth insight into decontamination and provide a potential alternative for sewage purification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold atmospheric plasma, including plasma jet and surface plasma, can promote the apoptosis of cancer cells without causing significant damage to surrounding normal cells, which was hopeful to be applied to the clinical cancer therapy. However, experimental plasma devices used directly to clinical experiments has challenges in technology and methods, especially the difference in killing tumor cells efficiency of these two common plasma sources. Therefore, it is great necessity to explore the differences in treating tumors between different plasma sources. This paper achieved good killing efficiency by using two kinds of cold atmospheric plasma generating devices, namely plasma jet and surface plasma treatment along acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The results showed that the He plasma jet kills leukemia cells more efficiently than surface plasma with the same voltage and frequency and the same time. By GC-TOFMS and metabolomics analysis, this paper compared the differential metabolites of leukemia cells treated by two plasma devices and the key metabolic pathways closely related to differential metabolites. Simultaneously, we found alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism was most correlated with a key differential metabolite, glutamine. It was found that the glutaminase activity of He plasma jet group was lower than that of surface plasma group, which might be a reason for He plasma jet group to kill tumor cells better. It was also worth noting that relative quantity of glucose metabolites of plasma jet treatment group was lower than that of surface plasma treatment group. This study provides the basis for clinical trials for future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a novel technology which is widely used in the biomedical field and has developed quickly over the past few years, especially in cancer therapy. Compared to traditional anti-cancer approaches, CAP treatment shows a selective anti-cancer mode which makes CAP a promising anti-cancer treatment modality. However, the underlying mechanism of this selective cytotoxicity is not fully elaborated. In this study, we demonstrated that A375 human melanoma cells were more sensitive to CAP treatment than HaCaT cells and compared the differences in metabolites of these two cell lines after CAP treatment. Using ultra-high performance liquid tandem chromatography quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS) approach, we identified 361 changes (metabolites) in HaCaT cells and 1531 changes in A375 cells. Further research using KEGG pathway analysis found that purine metabolism and Pantothenate and CoA biosynthesis were highly correlated with changes of HaCaT cells and A375 cells after CAP treatment. Our results shed light on the mechanism of selective cytotoxicity in the metabolites' aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) immunochromatographic assay (ICA) has been developed for rapid, ultrasensitive, and quantitative detection of rotavirus in feces using double Raman molecule-labeled Au-core Ag-shell nanoparticles. The Raman signals are generated by 5,5′-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) and the intensity of the characteristic peak at 1334−1 cm was detected as the analytical signal. The Raman signals were enhanced by the SERS-enhanced effect of both Au and Ag, the large amount of Raman molecules, and the hot-spot effect in the narrow gap between the Au core and Ag shell. The SERS ICA can quantitatively detect rotavirus in a concentration range of 8- 40,000 pg/mL, with detection limits of 80 pg/mL and 8 pg/mL based on naked eye observation and SERS signal detection, respectively. No cross-reaction was observed from other common pathogens. The standard deviation of the intra- and inter-batch repetitive tests is less than 10%, and the coincidence between SERS ICA and RT-qPCR as well as commercial colloidal gold ICA is 100%. The results indicated that this SERS ICA is able to quantitatively detect rotavirus in feces in 20 min with high sensitivity, selectivity, reproducibility, and accuracy and might be a promising method for the early detection of rotavirus in clinical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Six zinc(II) complexes, [Zn(OCOPh)2LR] (R = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) were synthesized by the reaction of zinc benzoate and six para-substituted 4-phenyl-terpyridine complexes and their structures were confirmed by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H NMR and X-ray single crystal diffraction analysis. Their photoluminescent properties in solid and in solutions of DMSO were studied. Three human cancer cell lines were used for antiproliferative potential: human lung cancer cell line (A549), human esophageal cancer cell line (Eca-109) and human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). The results have shown that these zinc complexes have good inhibitory effects on cancer cells, which are better than that of the commonly used clinical drug cisplatin. The ability of the complexes to binding to CT-DNA was studied by UV spectroscopy and fluorescence titration, while the interaction between the complexes and CT-DNA, AT6, GC6 short-chain DNA sequences and G-quadruplex were analyzed by circular dichroism (CD). It is found that these complexes can bind to DNA, and the binding mode is mainly intercalator. The docking of the complexes with the DNA fragment was simulated using molecular docking software. All the results clearly display that the substituents at these ligands of the complexes have the substitution effects on the properties of photoluminescence, antiproliferative potential and DNA binding study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reactions between halogen substituted terpyridine ligands F- (L1), Cl- (L2), Br- (L3) and I-4′-phenyl-terpyridine (L4) and ZnBr2 or ZnI2 led to the formation of complexes [Zn(Br)2L1] (1), [Zn(i)2L1] (2), [Zn(Br)2L2] (3), [Zn(i)2L2] (4), [Zn(Br)2L3] (5), [Zn(i)2L3] (6), [Zn(Br)2L4] (7), and [Zn(i)2L4] (8), respectively, which were characterized by elemental analysis, 1H NMR, IR and single crystal X-ray diffraction. Their photoluminescence properties, solution stabilities, hydrophilicity/lipophilicity properties and anti-proliferative activity against three cancer cell lines as well as structure–function relationships are analyzed. All the complexes, which show high solution stabilities and lipophilicity under determination conditions, reveal much higher antiproliferative activities than cisplatin against the human lung carcinoma cell line (A549), human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (Bel-7042) and human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) in vitro. Fluorescence spectroscopy and circular dichroic analysis reveal that the compounds have strong affinity binding with ctDNA and stack onto the base pairs of the ctDNA. The results obtained are further explained in terms of the electronic properties of the compounds by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, and it is found that the halogen anions play critical roles in the antitumor activity of these compounds. Their affinities to HSP90 proteins, ALK, EGFR and HER2 kinases and the binding sites on these proteins have been determined by computational docking analysis, and the results indicate that the only form of their binding is van der Waals forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correction for 'Silver complexes with substituted terpyridines as promising anticancer metallodrugs and their crystal structure, photoluminescence, and DNA interactions' by Jiahe Li et al., Dalton Trans., 2023, 52, 9607–9621, https://doi.org/10.1039/D2DT03463H. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whale sounds may mix several elements including whistle, click, and creak in the same vocalization, which may overlap in time and frequency, so it leads to conventional signal separation techniques challenging to be applied for the signal extraction. Unlike conventional signal separation techniques which are based on the frequency bands, such as WT and EMD, tunable-Q wavelet transform (TQWT) can separate the objected signal into particular components with different structures according to its oscillation property and eliminate in-band noise using the basis pursuit method. Considering the characteristics of oscillatory and transient impulse, we propose a novel signal separation method for whale whistle and click extraction. The proposed method is performed by the following two steps: first, TQWT is used to construct the dictionary for sparse representation. Secondly, the whale click and whistle construction are performed by designing the basis pursuit denoising (BPD) algorithm. The proposed method has been compared with one of the popular signal decomposition techniques, i.e., the EMD method. The experimental results show that the proposed method has a better performance of click and whistle signal separation in comparison with the EMD algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a rapidly developed technology that has been widely applied in biomedicine especially in cancer treatment. Due to the generation of various active species in plasma, CAP could induce various tumor cells death and showed a promising potential in cancer therapy. To enhance the biological effects of gas plasma, changing the discharging parameters is the most commonly used method, yet increasing discharging power will lead to a higher possibility of simultaneously damage surrounding tissues. In this study, by adding nontoxic concentration of additional nitrite and nitrate in the medium, we found that anti-tumor effect of CAP treatment was enhanced in the same discharging parameters. By microplate reader and cell flow cytometer we measured several extracellular and intracellular RONS and found that ONOO- was mostly correlated with the enhanced cancer cell killing effect. We proposed that more nitrogen supplies such as nitrite and nitrate could increase the production of RNS especially ONOO- and resulted in a better killing effect to cancer cells. Our results provided a new strategy to enhance the antitumor effect by plasma jet treatment without changing the discharging parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the effects of the pulse polarity on the plasma jet’s discharge characteristics, particularly, on the production of the reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) and the inactivation efficiency of myeloma cells, for the purpose of identifying and elucidating the correlation between the dose of RONS and cell viability. Experimental results reveal that the positive plasma jet has a longer length than that for negative plasma jet with the equivalent pulse power. The positive pulse plasma jet would produce higher production of the excited reactive species (OH(A), N2(C), N2+(B), He(3s3S), O(3p5P)), the positive ions (N+, O+, N2+, O2+), and the aqueous species O2−, OH, and ONOO−, while negative plasma jet would generate higher concentration of the negative ions (OH−, O2−, NO2−, NO2−) and the aqueous species NO2− and NO3−. Additionally, the myeloma cells treated by positive plasma jet results in more cell apoptosis and more CD95 expression compared to negative plasma jet, indicating the impact for the cell apoptosis is more significant in the cellular response to the positive plasma jet. By comparing and analyzing the different doses of RONS to the responses of myeloma cells under positive and negative pulse plasma jet, our findings suggest the cell viability has a positive correlation with the concentration of the concentration of ONOO− and the concentration ratio of H2O2 to NO2−, implying the high concentrations for ONOO− and H2O2 might be responsible for the inactivation of myeloma cancer cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS and RNS) generated by cold atmospheric-pressure plasma could damage genomic DNA, although the precise types of these DNA damage induced by plasma are poorly characterized. Understanding plasma-induced DNA damage will help to elucidate the biological effect of plasma and guide the application of plasma in ROS-based therapy. In this study, it was shown that ROS and RNS generated by physical plasma could efficiently induce DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs) in bacteria, yeast, and human cells. An in vitro assay showed that plasma treatment resulted in the formation of covalent DPCs by activating proteins to crosslink with DNA. Mass spectrometry and hydroperoxide analysis detected oxidation products induced by plasma. DPC formation were alleviated by singlet oxygen scavenger, demonstrating the importance of singlet oxygen in this process. These results suggested the roles of DPC formation in DNA damage induced by plasma, which could improve the understanding of the biological effect of plasma and help to develop a new strategy in plasma-based therapy including infection and cancer therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major cause of serious nosocomial infections, and recurrent MRSA infections primarily result from the survival of persister cells after antibiotic treatment. Gas plasma, a novel source of ROS (reactive oxygen species) and RNS (reactive nitrogen species) generation, not only inactivates pathogenic microbes but also restore the sensitivity of MRSA to antibiotics. This study further found that sublethal treatment of MRSA with both plasma and plasma-activated saline increased the antibiotic sensitivity and promoted the eradication of persister cells by tetracycline, gentamycin, clindamycin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, rifampicin, and vancomycin. The short-lived ROS and RNS generated by plasma played a primary role in the process and induced the increase of many species of ROS and RNS in MRSA cells. Thus, our data indicated that the plasma treatment could promote the effects of many different classes of antibiotics and act as an antibiotic sensitizer for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacteria involved in infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-cytotoxic and green-emitting fluorescent hydrogels were constructed from a cellulose solution containing Ba2MgSi2O7:Eu2+ green phosphor in a NaOH/urea aqueous system. The structure, optical properties and cytotoxicity of these hydrogels were studied. The Ba2MgSi2O7:Eu2+ phosphor particles were dispersed evenly in the cellulose hydrogel matrix. Good luminescent properties of Ba2MgSi2O7:Eu2+ phosphor were maintained in the hydrogels, leading to strong green emission under ultraviolet excitation. Fluorescent hydrogels have no obvious cytotoxicity in a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) proliferation test, and have potential use in in vivo applications like optical imaging and drug delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species produced by cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) are considered to be the most important species for biomedical applications, including cancer treatment. However, it is not known which species exert the greatest biological effects, and the nature of their interactions with tumor cells remains ill-defined. These questions were addressed in the present study by exposing human mesenchymal stromal and LP-1 cells to reactive oxygen and nitrogen species produced by CAP and evaluating cell viability. Superoxide anion (O2−) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were the two major species present in plasma, but their respective concentrations were not sufficient to cause cell death when used in isolation; however, in the presence of iron, both species enhanced the cell death-inducing effects of plasma. We propose that iron containing proteins in cells catalyze O2− and H2O2 into the highly reactive OH radical that can induce cell death. The results demonstrate how reactive species are transferred to liquid and converted into the OH radical to mediate cytotoxicity and provide mechanistic insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying tumor cell death by plasma treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing role of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in various biological applications has led to a number of studies on the cytotoxicity of solution-phase CNTs, but few studies are available concerning the cytotoxicity of CNT films. Herein, we studied the potential health effect of CNT films fabricated with three commercial surfactants (sodium cholate, sodium dodecyl sulfate, and triton X-100). Multi-walled carbon nanotube-surfactant dispersions were coated onto substrates through air-spray technique. Cellular morphology, MTT assays, as well as the expression of TNF-α and IL-1β of RAW 264.7 cells cultured on the spray-coated CNT films were evaluated for cytotoxicity. It was found that the cytotoxicity of the CNT films was largely dependent on the type of surfactant used and could be significantly reduced by mild washing steps. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A, 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biofilm infections in wounds seriously delay the healing process, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a major cause of wound infections. In addition to inactivating micro-organisms, low-temperature gas plasma can restore the sensitivity of pathogenic microbes to antibiotics. However, the combined treatment has not been applied to infectious diseases. In this study, low-temperature gas plasma treatment promoted the effects of different antibiotics on the reduction of S. aureus biofilms in vitro. Low-temperature gas plasma combined with rifampicin also effectively reduced the S. aureus cells in biofilms in the murine wound infection model. The blood and histochemical analysis demonstrated the biosafety of the combined treatment. Our findings demonstrated that low-temperature gas plasma combined with antibiotics is a promising therapeutic strategy for wound infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, the evaluation and purification effect of sewage treated by air surface discharge plasma is reported. The inactivation and purification effects are closely linked to the key agents ONOO- and H SB 2 sb O SB 2 sb . B Outside Front Cover b : The effective purification method for the hazardous microbial species in sewage is urgent needed. [Extracted from the article]

Biofilms formed by multidrug-resistant bacteria are a major cause of hospital-acquired infections. Cold atmospheric-pressure plasma (CAP) is attractive for sterilization, especially to disrupt biofilms formed by multidrug-resistant bacteria. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is not clear. In this study, CAP effectively reduced the living cells in the biofilms formed by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and 6 min treatment with CAP reduced the S. aureus cells in biofilms by 3.5 log10. The treatment with CAP caused the polymerization of SaFtsZ and SaClpP proteins in the S. aureus cells of the biofilms. In vitro analysis demonstrated that recombinant SaFtsZ lost its self-assembly capability, and recombinant SaClpP lost its peptidase activity after 2 min of treatment with CAP. Mass spectrometry showed oxidative modifications of a cluster of peaks differing by 16 Da, 31 Da, 32 Da, 47 Da, 48 Da, 62 Da, and 78 Da, induced by reactive species of CAP. It is speculated that the oxidative damage to proteins in S. aureus cells was induced by CAP, which contributed to the reduction of biofilms. This study elucidates the biological effect of CAP on the proteins in bacterial cells of biofilms and provides a basis for the application of CAP in the disinfection of biofilms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Bladder cancer is the most common urinary system carcinoma, with more than 430,000 new cases diagnosed every year. More than 25% of patients are classed as having muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). MIBC is a serious clinical problem and is fatal for the majority of patients. In this work, we focus on the feasibility of plasma-activated saline (PAS) as a potential therapeutic approach for the treatment of MIBC. For this purpose, we evaluated the anticancer effect of PAS on two human bladder cancer cell lines (T24 and J82) in vitro and in vivo. Our initial results demonstrated that the PAS can provide a novel and valuable therapeutic effect for the local treatment of MIBC. We believe that the results presented in this paper will be of interest to many scientists in the field of bladder cancer treatment and plasma biomedicine. Muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) is a fast-growing and aggressive malignant tumor in urinary system. Since chemotherapy and immunotherapy are only useable with a few MIBC patients, the clinical treatment of MIBC still faces challenges. Here, we examined the feasibility of plasma-activated saline (PAS) as a fledgling therapeutic strategy for MIBC treatment. Our data showed that plasma irradiation could generate a variety of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) in saline. In vivo tests revealed that pericarcinomatous tissue injection with PAS was effective at preventing subcutaneous bladder tumor growth, with no side effects to the visceral organs after long-term administration, as well as having no obvious influence on the various biochemistry indices of the blood in mice. The in vitro studies indicated that adding 30% PAS in cell culture media causes oxidative damage to the bladder transitional cells T24 and J82 through enhancing the intracellular ROS level, and eventually induces cancer cells' apoptosis by activating the ROS-mediated Fas/CD95 pathway. Therefore, for an intracavity tumor, these initial observations suggest that the soaking of the tumor tissue with PAS by intravesical perfusion may be a novel treatment option for bladder cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has been widely used in biomedicine during the last two decades. While direct plasma treatment has been reported to promote wound healing, its application can be uneven and inconvenient. In this study, we first activated water with a portable dielectric barrier discharge plasma device and evaluated the inactivation effect of plasma-activated water (PAW) on several kinds of bacteria that commonly infect wounds. The results show that PAW can effectively inactivate these bacteria. Then, we activated tap water and examined the efficacy of PAW on wound healing in a mouse model of full-thickness skin wounds. We found that wound healing in mice treated with PAW was significantly faster compared with the control group. Histological analysis of the skin tissue of mice wounds showed a significant reduction in the number of inflammatory cells in the PAW treatment group. To identify the possible mechanism by which PAW promotes wound healing, we analyzed changes in the profiles of wound bacteria after PAW treatment. The results show that PAW can significantly reduce the abundance of wound bacteria in the treatment group. The results of biochemical blood tests and histological analysis of major internal organs in the mice show that PAW had no obvious side effects. Taken together, these results indicate that PAW may be a new and effective method for promoting wound healing without side effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of ZnCl2 complexes (compounds 1–10) with 4′-(substituted-phenyl)-2,2′:6′,2′′-terpyridine that bears hydrogen (L1), p-methyl (L2), p-methoxy (L3), p-phenyl (L4), p-tolyl (L5), p-hydroxyl (L6), m-hydroxyl (L7), o-hydroxyl (L8), p-carboxyl (L9), or p-methylsulfonyl (L10) were prepared and then characterized by 1H NMR, electrospray mass-spectra (ESI-MS), IR, elemental analysis, and single crystal X-ray diffraction. In vitro cytotoxicity assay was used to monitor the antiproliferative activities against tumor cells. Absorption spectroscopy, fluorescence titration, circular dichroism spectroscopy, and molecular modeling studied the DNA interactions. All of the compounds display interesting photoluminescent properties and different maximal emission peaks due to the difference of the substituent groups. The cell viability studies indicate that the compounds have excellent antiproliferative activity against four human carcinoma cell lines, A549, Bel-7402, MCF-7, and Eca-109, with the lowest IC50 values of 0.33 (10), 0.66 (6), 0.37 (7), and 1.05 (7) μM, respectively. The spectrophotometric results reveal that the compounds have strong affinity binding with DNA as intercalator and induce DNA conformational transition. Molecular docking studies indicate that the binding is contributed by the π...π stacking and hydrogen bonds, providing an order of nucleotide sequence binding selectivity as ATGC > ATAT > GCGC. These compounds intercalate into the base pairs of the DNA of the tumor cells to affect their replication and transcription, and the process is supposed to play an important role in the anticancer mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a typically fatal malignancy and new drug and treatment need to be developed for a better survival outcome. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a novel technology, which has been widely applied in biomedicine, especially in various of cancer treatment. However, the changes in cell metabolism after CAP treatment of leukemia cells have been rarely studied. Methods: In this study, we investigated the metabolite profiling of plasma treatment on leukemia cells based on Gas Chromatography Tandem Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (GC-TOFMS). Simultaneously, we conducted a series of bioinformatics analysis of metabolites and metabolic pathways with significant differences after basic data analysis. Results: 800 signals were detected by GC–TOF mass-spectrometry and then evaluated using PCA and OPLS-DA. All the differential metabolites were listed and the related metabolic pathways were analyzed by KEGG pathway. The results showed that alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism had a significant change after plasma treatment. Meanwhile, d-glutamine and d-glutamate metabolism were significantly changed by CAP. Glutaminase activity was decreased after plasma treatment, which might lead to glutamine accumulation and leukemia cells death. Conclusions: We found the above two metabolic pathways vulnerable to plasma treatment, which might result in leukemia cells death and might be the cornerstone of further exploration of plasma treatment targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite new progress of chemotherapy in multiple myeloma (MM) clinical treatment, MM is still a refractory disease and new technology is needed to improve the outcomes and prolong the survival. Cold atmospheric plasma is a rapidly developed technology in recent years, which has been widely applied in biomedicine. Although plasma could efficiently inactivate various tumor cells, the effects of plasma on tumor cell metabolism have not been studied yet. Methods: In this study, we investigated the metabolite profiling of He plasma treatment on myeloma tumor cells by gas-chromatography time-of-flight (GC-TOF) mass-spectrometry. Meanwhile, by bioinformatic analysis such as GO and KEGG analysis we try to figure out the metabolism pathway that was significantly affected by gas plasma treatment. Results: By GC-TOF mass-spectrometry, 573 signals were detected and evaluated using PCA and OPLS-DA. By KEGG analysis we listed all the differential metabolites and further classified into different metabolic pathways. The results showed that beta-alanine metabolism pathway was the most significant change after He gas plasma treatment in myeloma cells. Besides, propanoate metabolism and linoleic acid metabolism should also be concerned during gas plasma treatment of cancer cells. Conclusions: Cold atmospheric plasma treatment could significantly alter the metabolite profiling of myeloma tumor cells, among which, the beta-alanine metabolism pathway is the most susceptible to He gas plasma treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]