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This review has focused on the development of mRNA nano-vaccine and the biochemical interactions of anti-COVID-19 mRNA vaccines with various disease conditions and age groups. It studied five major groups of individuals with different disease conditions and ages, including allergic background, infarction background, adolescent, and adult (youngsters), pregnant women, and elderly. All five groups had been reported to have background-related adverse effects. Allergic background individuals were observed to have higher chances of experiencing allergic reactions and even anaphylaxis. Individuals with an infarction background had a higher risk of vaccine-induced diseases, e.g. pneumonitis and interstitial lung diseases. Pregnant women were seen to suffer from obstetric and gynecological adverse effects after receiving vaccinations. However, interestingly, the elderly individuals (> 65 years old) had experienced milder and less frequent adverse effects compared to the adolescent (<19 and >9 years old) and young adulthood (19–39 years old), or middle adulthood (40–59 years old) age groups, while middle to late adolescent (14–17 years old) was the riskiest age group to vaccine-induced cardiovascular manifestations. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical morphologies widely exist in natural and biomimetic materials, which impart preferential functions including liquid and mass transport, energy conversion, and signal transmission for various applications. While notable progress has been made in the design and manufacturing of various hierarchical materials, the state-of-the-art approaches suffer from limited materials selection, high costs, as well as low processing throughput. Herein, by harnessing the configurable elastic crack engi-neering-controlled formation and configuration of cracks in elastic materials, an effect normally avoided in various industrial processes, the present invention provides a facile and powerful technique to enable the faithful transfer of arbitrary hierarchical structures with broad material com-patibility and structural and functional integrity. The present invention provides a cost-effective, large-scale production method of a variety of flexible, inexpensive, and transparent 3D hierarchical and biomimetic materials.

Developing versatile and robust surfaces that mimic the skins of living beings to regulate air/liquid/solid matter is critical for many bioinspired applications. Despite notable achievements, such as in the case of developing robust superhydrophobic surfaces, it remains elusive to realize simultaneously topology-specific superwettability and multipronged durability owing to their inherent tradeoff and the lack of a scalable fabrication method. Here, we present a largely unexplored strategy of preparing an all-perfluoropolymer (Teflon), nonlinear stability-assisted monolithic surface for efficient regulating matters. The key to achieving topology-specific superwettability and multilevel durability is the geometric-material mechanics design coupling superwettability stability and mechanical strength. The versatility of the surface is evidenced by its manufacturing feasibility, multiple-use modes (coating, membrane, and adhesive tape), long-term air trapping in 9-m-deep water, low-fouling droplet transportation, and self-cleaning of nanodirt. We also demonstrate its multilevel durability, including strong substrate adhesion, mechanical robustness, and chemical stability, all of which are needed for real-world applications. © 2023

The mammalian tunica albuginea (TA) is characterized by a double-layer orthogonal structure composed of stacked parallel wavy collagen fibers. During an erection, these fibers undergo sequential straightening and stretching to mediate the soft-to-firm transition. Inspired by the delicate strain-adaptive structure of natural TA, we propose an artificial TA (ATA) composed of a strain-stiffening hydrogel consisting of aligned yet crimped fibers. This delicate structure is produced via the stretching of an isotropic polyvinyl alcohol gel followed by covalent cross-linking. ATA possesses several key mechanical features of natural TA, including rapid strain stiffening over small intervals of deformation, excellent fatigue resistance to sustain cyclic bursts, and high toughness to withstand pointwise acupuncture during suturing. Furthermore, ATA displays the capability to repair injuries and restore normal erectile function of the TA-damaged penile tissue in a pig model. Our study demonstrates that ATA has great promise for penile injury repair.

Articular cartilage (AC) plays an unquestionable role in joint movements but unfortunately the healing capacity is restricted due to its avascular and acellular nature. While cartilage tissue engineering has been lifesaving, it is very challenging to remodel the complex cartilage composition and architecture with gradient physio–mechanical properties vital to proper tissue functions. To address these issues, a better understanding of the intrinsic AC properties and how cells respond to stimuli from the external microenvironment must be better understood. This is essential in order to take one step closer to producing functional cartilaginous constructs for clinical use. Recently, biopolymers have aroused much attention due to their versatility, processability, and flexibility because the properties can be tailored to match the requirements of AC. This review highlights polymeric scaffolds developed in the past decade for reconstruction of zonal AC layers including the superficial zone, middle zone, and deep zone by means of exogenous stimuli such as physical, mechanical, and biological/chemical signals. The mimicked properties are reviewed in terms of the biochemical composition and organization, cell fate (morphology, orientation, and differentiation), as well as mechanical properties and finally, the challenges and potential ways to tackle them are discussed. © 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

This study aimed to develop a robust approach for the early diagnosis and treatment of tumors. Short circular DNA nanotechnology synthesized a stiff and compact DNA nanotubes (DNA-NTs) framework. TW-37, a small molecular drug, was loaded into DNA-NTs for BH3-mimetic therapy to elevate the intracellular cytochrome-c levels in 2D/3D hypopharyngeal tumor (FaDu) cell clusters. After anti-EGFR functionalization, the DNA-NTs were tethered with a cytochrome-c binding aptamer, which can be applied to evaluate the elevated intracellular cytochrome-c levels via in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). The results showed that DNA-NTs were enriched within the tumor cells via anti-EGFR targeting with a pH-responsive controlled release of TW-37. In this way, it initiated the triple inhibition of “BH3, Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, and Mcl-1”. The triple inhibition of these proteins caused Bax/Bak oligomerization, leading to the perforation of the mitochondrial membrane. This led to the elevation of intracellular cytochrome-c levels, which reacted with the cytochrome-c binding aptamer to produce FRET signals. In this way, we successfully targeted 2D/3D clusters of FaDu tumor cells and achieved the tumor-specific and pH-triggered release of TW-37, causing tumor cell apoptosis. This pilot study suggests that anti-EGFR functionalized, TW-37 loaded, and cytochrome-c binding aptamer tethered DNA-NTs might be the hallmark for early tumor diagnosis and therapy.

Despite the advantages of digital nucleic acid analysis (DNAA) in terms of sensitivity, precision, and resolution, current DNAA methods commonly suffer a limitation in multiplexing capacity. To address this issue, a droplet encoding-pairing enabled DNAA multiplexing strategy is developed, wherein unique tricolor combinations are deployed to index individual primer droplets. The template droplets and primer droplets are sequentially introduced into a microfluidic chip with a calabash-shaped microwell array and are pairwise trapped and merged in the microwells. Pre-merging and post-amplification image analysis with a machine learning algorithm is used to identify, enumerate, and address the droplets. By incorporating the amplification signals with droplet encoding information, simultaneous quantitative detection of multiple targets is achieved. This strategy allows for the establishment of flexible multiplexed DNAA by simply adjusting the primer droplet library. Its flexibility is demonstrated by establishing two multiplexed (8-plex) droplet digital loop-mediated isothermal amplification (mddLAMP) assays for individually detecting lower respiratory tract infection and urinary tract infection causative pathogens. Clinical sample analysis shows that the microbial detection outcomes of the mddLAMP assays are consistent with those of the conventional assay. This DNAA multiplexing strategy can achieve flexible high-order multiplexing on demand, making it a desirable tool for high-content pathogen detection.

Harnessing the ability to precisely and reproducibly manipulate bioparticles such as DNA, cells, and molecules at the microscale, microfluidic is a technology using soft lithography, additive manufacturing and other advanced methods to process or manipulate small (10–9 to 10–18 l) amounts of fluids, using channels with dimensions of tens to hundreds of micrometers. Because of intensive developments in the past decades, microfluidic system has replaced laboratory bench-top technology on a miniature chip-scale device for biological analysis in many fields. Application of microfluidic tools is particularly favored in biosensing that requires rapid analysis with low cost and high specificity. In this article, we classify the biosensing target into four parts, including nucleic acid, protein, small molecules, and cell. The achievements associated with these technological advances and their respective applications to date are reviewed from a broad perspective, and future directions that may emerge from the current state of the art are discussed.

Precise single-cell control and release generally rely on complicated and costly peripheral equipment (e.g., optical systems). Herein, we developed a microfluidic single-cell array chip for single-cell capture, selection and export using simple principles at low cost. The microfluidic chip consists of a single-cell trapping layer and a corresponding cell selection layer that drives the movement of single cells by electrolytic microbubbles. We verified the feasibility of generating microbubbles with an addressable 10 x 10 microelectrode array. We obtained high cell trapping efficiency (~91%) and demonstrated the process of exporting the micro-objects.

The combination of photothermal therapy (PTT) and immune tumor therapy has emerged as a promising avenue for cancer treatment. However, the insufficient immune response caused by inefficient immunogenic cell death (ICD) inducers and thermal resistance, immunosuppression, and immune escape resulting from the hypoxic microenvironment of solid tumors severely limit its efficacy. Herein, we report an ultrasound and laser-promoted dual-gas nano-generator (calcium carbonate-polydopamine-manganese oxide nanoparticles, CPM NPs) for enhanced photothermal/immune tumor therapy through reprogramming tumor hypoxic microenvironment. In this system, CPM NPs undergo reactive decomposition in a moderately acidic tumor, resulting in the generation of calcium, manganese ions, carbon dioxide (CO2), and oxygen (O2). Calcium and manganese ions act as adjuvants that trigger an immune response. The cancer cell membrane rupture caused by sudden burst of bubbles (CO2 and O2) under ultrasound stimulation and the photothermal properties of PDA also contributed to the ICD effect. The generation of O2 alleviates tumor hypoxia and thus reduces hypoxia-induced heat resistance and immunosuppressive effects, thereby improving the therapeutic efficacy of combination PTT and immune therapy. The present study provides a novel approach for the fabrication of a safe and effective tumor treatment platform for future clinical applications. Copyright © 2022 Li, Gao, Liu, Hu, Li, Sun, Wang, Wu, Kim, Ramalingam, Xie and Wang.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is gaining wide attention recently. It is particularly effective in fabricating topographically complicated structures on a small scale. However, the library of 3D printable material is highly limited which heavily hindered its further applications. Herein, we developed a convenient method to replicate the 3D-printed structures into different functional materials. Consequently, many unprintable materials can be readily made into arbitrary geometry without reengineering their printability nor developing new 3D printing methods. These materials are thermally curable, chemically crosslinkable, or liquid/solid phase change at mild temperatures, such as polydimethylsiloxane, polyacrylamide, and paraffin. 3D structures with multiscale sizes and topographic complexity including a trifurcating network, an octahedron lattice, a Mario figure and a tetrahedron framework array were used for demonstration here. Our method shows a high fidelity during the replication and the replica can remain the high-resolution of feature from a two-photon polymerization 3D printer, which can generate 3D structures with resolution down to 1 mu m or even smaller. In addition, electroless plating of metal in the internal walls of the mold can allow us to further shrink feature sizes in the final replica, which suggests an approach to obtain resolutions beyond the 3D printer at the start.

Microfluidic devices to efficiently remove particulate matter (PM) in air are provided, as are methods of fabricating and using the same. A device can include a channel having a structure configured to generate chaotic advective flow in air within the channel. The channel structure can include a plurality of SHMs disposed within the channel, where each SHM comprises a plurality of grooves each having a width of 200µm or less and a spacing between each groove of 200 µm or less. The plurality of SHMs can be configured to introduce microvortices in air flow within the channel.