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In this work, a La

The clinical success of cisplatin ushered in a new era of the application of metallodrugs. When it comes to practice, however, drug resistance, tumor recurrence, and drug systemic toxicity make it implausible to completely heal the patients. Herein, we successfully transform an electron acceptor [1, 2, 5]thiadiazolo[3,4

Herein, a fluorescence "on-off" system was developed for monitoring carbendazim (CBZ) residues in fruit samples, based on glutathione-gold nanoclusters (GSH-Au NCs) and silver ions (Ag

Overcoming multiple biological barriers, including circulation time in vivo, tumor vascular endothelium, reticuloendothelial system (RES), extracellular matrix (ECM), etc., is the key to improve the therapeutic efficacy of drug delivery systems in treating tumors. Inspired by the ability of natural erythrocytes to cross multiple barriers, in this study, a biomimetic delivery system named NE@DOX-Ang2 was developed for enhancing the chemotherapy of breast cancer, which employed nano-erythrocyte (NE) encapsulating doxorubicin (DOX) and surface modification with a targeted angiopep-2 peptide (Ang2). NE@DOX-Ang2 enhanced the capacity to cross biological barriers in a three-dimensional (3D) tumor spheroid model and in vivo in mice. Compared with a conventional drug delivery system of liposomes, the half-life of NE@DOX-Ang2 increased approximately 2.5 times. Moreover, NE@DOX-Ang2 exhibited excellent tumor-targeting ability and antitumor effects in vitro and in vivo. Briefly, the prepared nano-erythrocyte drug carrier has features of favorable biocompatibility and low immunogenicity and the advantage of prolonging the half-life of drugs, which may provide a novel perspective for development of clinically available nanomedicines.

In the present study, a multicolor conversion strategy based on gold nanorods (AuNRs) assisted silver mirror reaction is developed for visual quantification of formaldehyde (HCHO). The method involves the silver deposition on the surface of AuNRs via the reduction reaction of Tollens' reagent in the presence of HCHO. The peak shifts of the longitudinal localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and color variations of AuNRs solution are sensitive to the thickness of silver layer deposited on the surface of AuNRs. Under the optimized conditions, there is a good linear relationship between the peak shift and the concentration of HCHO (for both liquid sample and gas sample) in a wide range of concentration, thus an AuNRs based colorimetric assay for quantitative analysis of HCHO is established. Moreover, a series of consecutive color changes (from mauve to dusty blue, nattier blue, blue, mazarine blue, dark green, clay bank and finally orange red) responding to the presence and amount of HCHO enables visual semi-quantitative determination of HCHO within 15 min, and the clearly discernible dosage scale is as low as 0.10 μM. This assay exhibits desirable selectivity for HCHO over several common interfering organic molecular species and potential gas interferents, which has been successfully applied to measure the concentration of HCHO indoor.

This study presents a viable colorimetric assay for sensitive sensing of sulfide ions (S2−) using triangular gold nanoplates (AuNPLs) as nanoprobes. The sensing mechanism is based on regulating the etching process of AuNPLs upon the addition of different concentration of S2−. In the presence of Cu2+ and I−, the AuNPLs would be etched by triiodide ions (I3−) produced from the redox reaction between Cu2+ and I−, resulting in the transformation of the shape of AuNPLs from triangular into sphere and blue shifted localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). However, in the presence of S2−, a preferential reaction between Cu2+ and S2− occurred, and the inhibition of the formation of I3− prevented the AuNPLs from being etched. Correspondingly, a red shift of LSPR can be observed with an increase of the concentration of S2−, accompanying a readily distinguishable color transition that goes from pink to purplish red, purple, bluish purple and blue. The color alterations allow for a visual estimation of the concentrations of S2−, and the lowest visual concentration through naked-eyes was 0.1 μM. A good linear relationship (R2 = 0.997) between the peak shifts and the concentration of S2− was obtained in the range of 0.02–1.5 μM, and the limit of detection (3 s/k) by UV–vis spectroscopy was as low as 16 nM. The as-established assay displayed excellent selectivity, which was successfully applied for analysis of S2− in environmental water samples.