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The demand for green and non-toxic hair dyes has continued to grow in recent years as the majority of consumers prefer natural and healthy products. There are a series of pigments in nature that are used for color pigmentation and dyeing, such as melanin in animals and curcumin in plants. Accordingly, these nature-inspired novel hair dyes are recognized as having the potential to replace conventional hair dyes for their bio-friendly and less irritating properties. Although several nature-inspired hair dye products and their potential properties, including antistatic, antioxidant, and antibacterial properties, have been proposed, their complex pigmentation mechanisms are not fully understood. The present feature article covers several nature-inspired pigments and strives to summarize the possible pigmentation mechanisms for hair dyeing. A special focus was given to the color-tuning techniques of these novel hair dyes, such as optimization of polymerization, pigment compounding, and tuning of the energy level structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polydopamine (PDA) is a fascinating bioinspired material for the construction of diverse functional materials. In particular, the growing trend of PDA hydrogels clearly reveals the global significance and the intense interest of scientific research in this field. The abundant functional groups make PDA serve as the important structural units for covalent or/and non-covalent interactions with polymers, and anchoring of transition metal ions for hydrogels formation. With these benefits, PDA not only endows hydrogels with various functions such as adhesion, photothermal effect, ultraviolet protection, antioxidant ability, antibacterial properties, but also has been rapidly incorporated into a wide range of applications across the biomedical, environment, energy, and electronic fields. This review strives to provide a comprehensive overview of the relevant advances in the field of bioinspired PDA hydrogels. We start to introduce the PDA as the structural units in hydrogels and dedicate a lot of space to discuss their design and PDA functions in the hydrogels. Furthermore, these functions would bring about various interesting applications of the hydrogels. Some key issues in this emerging field have been also exhibited into discussion which will inspire our thinking in functional hydrogels design. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & Aims The hallmarks of hepatic ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, a common clinical problem that occurs during liver surgical procedures, include severe cell death and inflammatory responses that contribute to early graft failure and a higher incidence of organ rejection. Unfortunately, effective therapeutic strategies are limited. Tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR)-associated factor (TRAF) 3 transduces apoptosis and/or inflammation-related signaling pathways to regulate cell survival and cytokine production. However, the role of TRAF3 in hepatic I/R-induced liver damage remains unknown. Methods Hepatocyte- or myeloid cell-specific TRAF3 knockdown or transgenic mice were subjected to an I/R model in vivo , and in vitro experiments were performed by treating primary hepatocytes from these mice with hypoxia/reoxygenation stimulation. The function of TRAF3 in I/R-induced liver damage and the potential underlying mechanisms were investigated through various phenotypic analyses and biological approaches. Results Hepatocyte-specific, but not myeloid cell-specific, TRAF3 deficiency reduced cell death, inflammatory cell infiltration, and cytokine production in both in vivo and in vitro hepatic I/R models, whereas hepatic TRAF3 overexpression resulted in the opposite effects. Mechanistically, TRAF3 directly binds to TAK1, which enhances the activation of the downstream NF-κB and JNK pathways. Importantly, inhibition of TAK1 almost completely reversed the TRAF3 overexpression-mediated exacerbation of I/R injury. Conclusions TRAF3 is a novel hepatic I/R mediator that promotes liver damage and inflammation via TAK1-dependent activation of the JNK and NF-κB pathways. Inhibition of hepatic TRAF3 may represent a promising approach to protect the liver against I/R injury-related diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing an engineering system that is both environmentally and economically sustainable is a challenging task. Designers need to cope with socio-technical uncertainties and design systems to provide high performance during long lifecycles. Flexibility in engineering design provides ways to address such challenges by making engineering systems changeable in the face of uncertainty. It is difficult, however, to identify suitable system elements for designing flexibility, especially when subjected to multiple sources of uncertainty and complex interdependency between socio-technical and systems elements. This paper considers embedding flexibility into the engineering design as a mechanism to ensure better sustainability and to improve economic performance in long-term lifecycles. The main contribution is a novel methodology to identify valuable opportunities to embed flexibility as a way to deal pro-actively with uncertainty in market and environment. The proposed methodology integrates Bayesian network into engineering system design to effectively model complex change propagation in the flexibility identification process. It helps structure concept generation activities by identifying candidate areas to embed flexibility in the system. It compares favorably to other concept generation methods (e.g., prompting, brainstorming) that require modeling and evaluation of a large number of concepts generated in order to identify the ones offering better performance. It differs from other flexibility enabler identification methods by considering indirect as well as direct dependencies, in addition to the probabilistic nature and risk resulting from possible changes. Another contribution is the demonstration application of the proposed methodology through the analysis of a waste-to-energy technology in Singapore based on anaerobic digestion. Results show that the expected net present value of the flexible design concepts provides more than 10 % improvement over a fixed benchmark design in terms of economic lifecycle performance. This design is conducive of better economic sustainability via additional power generation and better use of resources. Results also indicate that the flexible design can reduce downside risks and capitalize on upside opportunities significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of intracellular delivery systems for bioactive peptides remains challenging. Herein, we report a facile strategy to address this issue by conjugating peptides with benzaldehyde-tethered fluorous tags to generate dynamic peptide amphiphiles via a hydrazone bond for efficient cytosolic delivery. Those dynamic peptide fluoroamphiphiles could self-assemble into nanoparticles that readily cross the cell membrane. Using this strategy, several bioactive peptides were efficiently internalized by cancer cells and released into the cytosol to exert their biological functions, which showed much higher efficacies than non-fluorous lipids and cell penetrating peptide decorated peptides. Moreover, the fluorous tagged proapoptotic peptide was able to efficiently inhibit tumor growth in vivo. This report provides a new family of fluorous tags based on benzaldehyde for efficient cytosolic peptide delivery. [Display omitted] • This report provides a new family of fluorous tags based on benzaldehyde for efficient cytosolic peptide delivery. • The dynamic peptide fluoroamphiphile could self-assemble into nanoparticles that readily cross the cell membrane. • The fluorous tagged proapoptotic peptide were able to efficiently inhibit tumor growth in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal-phenolic networks (MPNs) which integrate the benefits from natural phenolic molecules and metal ions have widely emerged as versatile coating materials in various fields. Although a wide range of MPN utilizations from biomedicine to environment has been well documented, the use of MPNs in the field of flame retardant is still in the infancy. To achieve this goal, tannic acid (TA)-FeIII MPNs as highly efficient and green flame retardant was designed to coating on the surfaces of polyurethane (PU) foams. Due to the excellent carbonization, superior free radical scavenging ability of TA, and condensed-phase action provided by FeIII for catalysing the charring process during combustion, the MPNs coated PU foams could achieve promising flame retardancy performances. Further investigations also indicated that the coated TA-FeIII MPN could successfully inhibit the release rate and total amount of heat and smoke, and the volatilization of harmful gases during the combustion process had also been successfully reduced. This study illustrates a promising and green strategy towards the surface engineering of many substrates by MPNs coating for flame-retardant applications. [Display omitted] • An efficient and green strategy for preparing flame-retardant coatings using metal-phenolic networks. • Excellent carbonization and superior free radical scavenging ability leading promising flame retardancy performances. • The simple surface modification well preserving the mechanical properties of composite materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]