Search

The fomite transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has drawn attention because of its highly contagious nature. Therefore, surfaces that can prevent coronavirus contamination are an urgent and unmet need during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. Conventional surfaces are usually based on superhydrophobic or antiviral coatings. However, these coatings may be dysfunctional because of biofouling, which is the undesired adhesion of biomolecules. A superhydrophobic surface independent of the material content and coating agents may serve the purpose of antibiofouling and preventing viral transmission. Doubly reentrant topology (DRT) is a unique structure that can meet the need. This study demonstrates that the DRT surfaces possess a striking antibiofouling effect that can prevent viral contamination. This effect still exists even if the DRT surface is made of a hydrophilic material such as silicon oxide and copper. To the best of our knowledge, this work first demonstrates that fomite transmission of viruses may be prevented by minimizing the contact area between pathogens and surfaces even made of hydrophilic materials. Furthermore, the DRT geometry per se features excellent antibiofouling ability, which may shed light on the applications of pathogen elimination in alleviating the COVID‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serum alpha‐fetoprotein and radiologic imaging are the most commonly used tests for early diagnosis and dynamic monitoring of treatment response in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the accuracy of these tests is limited, and they may not reflect the underlying biology of the tumor. Thus, developing highly accurate novel HCC biomarkers reflecting tumor biology is a clinically unmet need. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have long been proposed as a noninvasive biomarker in clinical oncology. Most CTC assays utilize immunoaffinity‐based, size‐based, and/or enrichment‐free mechanisms followed by immunocytochemical staining to characterize CTCs. The prognostic value of HCC CTC enumeration has been extensively validated. Subsets of CTCs expressing mesenchymal markers are also reported to have clinical significance. In addition, researchers have been devoting their efforts to molecular characterizations of CTCs (e.g. genetics and transcriptomics) as molecular profiling can offer a more accurate readout and provide biological insights. As new molecular profiling techniques, such as digital polymerase chain reaction, are developed to detect minimal amounts of DNA/RNA, several research groups have established HCC CTC digital scoring systems to quantify clinically relevant gene panels. Given the versatility of CTCs to provide intact molecular and functional data that reflects the underlying tumor, CTCs have great potential as a noninvasive biomarker in HCC. Large‐scale, prospective studies for HCC CTCs with a standardized protocol are necessary for successful clinical translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcriptomic profiling of tumor tissues introduces a large database, which has led to improvements in the ability of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. However, performing tumor transcriptomic profiling in the clinical setting is very challenging since the procurement of tumor tissues is inherently limited by invasive sampling procedures. Here, the feasibility of purifying hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from clinical patient samples is demonstrated with improved molecular integrity using Click Chips in conjunction with a multimarker antibody cocktail. The purified CTCs are then subjected to messenger RNA profiling by NanoString nCounter platform, targeting 64 HCC‐specific genes, which are generated from an integrated data analysis framework with eight tissue‐based prognostic gene signatures from seven publicly available HCC transcriptomic studies. After bioinformatics analysis and comparison, the HCC CTC‐derived gene signatures show high concordance with HCC tissue‐derived gene signatures from the Cancer Genome Atlas database, suggesting that HCC CTCs purified by Click Chips can enable the translation of HCC tissue molecular profiling into a noninvasive setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tumor‐derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) play essential roles in intercellular communication during tumor growth and metastatic evolution. Currently, little is known about the possible roles of tumor‐derived EVs in sarcoma because the lack of specific surface markers makes it technically challenging to purify sarcoma‐derived EVs. In this study, a specific purification system is developed for Ewing sarcoma (ES)‐derived EVs by coupling covalent chemistry‐mediated EV capture/release within a nanostructure‐embedded microchip. The purification platform—ES‐EV Click Chip—takes advantage of specific anti‐LINGO‐1 recognition and sensitive click chemistry‐mediated EV capture, followed by disulfide cleavage‐driven EV release. Since the device is capable of specific and efficient purification of intact ES EVs with high purity, ES‐EV Click Chip is ideal for conducting downstream functional studies of ES EVs. Absolute quantification of the molecular hallmark of ES (i.e., EWS rearrangements) using reverse transcription Droplet Digital PCR enables specific quantification of ES EVs. The purified ES EVs can be internalized by recipient cells and transfer their mRNA cargoes, exhibiting their biological intactness and potential role as biological shuttles in intercellular communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarcoma-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: Coupling Nanostructured Microchips with Covalent Chemistry Enables Purification of Sarcoma-Derived Extracellular Vesicles for Downstream Functional Studies (Adv. Funct. Keywords: covalent chemistry; extracellular vesicles; microfluidics; nanostructured substrates; sarcoma EN covalent chemistry extracellular vesicles microfluidics nanostructured substrates sarcoma 1 1 1 12/03/20 20201201 NES 201201 In article number 2003237, Meiping Zhao, Hsian-Rong Tseng, Yazhen Zhu, and co-workers present a device for the purification of Ewing sarcoma-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) by coupling LINGO-1 antibodies with the covalent chemistry-mediated EV capture/release mechanism using a nanostructure-embedded microchip. Covalent chemistry, extracellular vesicles, microfluidics, nanostructured substrates, sarcoma. [Extracted from the article]