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Building Z-scheme heterojunctions with an electron bridge is a favored function for increasing photocatalytic activity. A facile approach for preparing g-C3N4/Ag@AgCl ternary heterojunctions by co-precipitation and photoreduction was established in this work. First, via co-precipitation, AgCl was modified on the surface of g-C3N4 to create a broad contact area between AgCl and g-C3N4. The AgCl is then reduced to Ag via an in-situ photoreduction technique, resulting in the formation of a ternary composite. The experimental results showed that when g-C3N4 modified 25% of the Ag@AgCl, that is, g-C3N4/Ag@AgCl-25 had the best photocatalytic performance, 94.9% of TC was degraded within 240 min, and the reaction rate to TC was 0.1214 min-1, which was 4.49 times and 8.12 times higher than that of g-C3N4 and Ag/AgCl, respectively. The excellent photocatalytic performance of g-C3N4/Ag@AgCl is attributed to the LSPR effect of Ag NPs and O-doping g-C3N4, which broadens the absorbance performance of g-C3N4, the establishment of Z-type heterojunctions between AgCl NPs and g-C3N4 NSs and Ag NPs as an electron transport bridge accelerate the photogenerated electrons transfer between AgCl and g-C3N4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A supramolecular complex of bovine serum albumin (BSA) with acid cyanine 5R (AC 5R, C.I. acid blue 113, C.I.: 26360) has been shown to form in Tris-HCl buffer solution [...]

An elegant atomic layer deposition (ALD) method has been employed for the controllable preparation of a uniform Fe2O3-coated graphene nanostructure (Fe2O3@graphene). The Fe2O3 coating thickness of the Fe2O3@graphene nanostructure can be tuned by varying the cycle number of Fe2O3 ALD. The produced Fe2O3@graphene composites are characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry (CV). It is revealed that Fe2O3 is effectively deposited on the surface of graphene. Combined with the high affinity and specificity of an aptamer, a simple, rapid and sensitive electrochemical aptasensor was successfully fabricated for thrombin detection. The resulting electrochemical aptasensor displays a linear response to thrombin in the 1.0 × 10−11 to 4.0 × 10−9 M concentration range with the detection limit of 1.0 × 10−12 M (at an S/N of 3). The described controllable multifunctional graphene nanomaterials from ALD are expected to be applied in a biosensing platform which will exhibit wide applications in biological, medical, and environmental fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semaphorins constitute a diverse family of widely expressed transmembrane, diffusible, and GPI-linked proteins with versatile physiologic functions in orchestrating nerve system development, immune homeostasis, angiogenesis, and cell metabolism. Accumulating evidence highlights semaphorins as essential regulators of tumorigenesis by coordinating the cell-cell communications in the tumor microenvironment. Semaphorin 4C (SEMA4C) is a member of the fourth class of semaphorins with high affinity to Plexin-B2 and its interplay with cancer has long been a significant knowledge gap. Here, this perspective summarizes the recent progress in the understanding of SEMA4C in cancer and comprehensively delineates the discovery of SEMA4C in lymphatic vessels of breast cancer, the mechanisms by which SEMA4C promotes the invasiveness, proliferation, metastasis, and drug resistance of breast cancer, and the explorations of leveraging serum SEMA4C in breast cancer detection, highlighting SEMA4C as a critical driver of breast cancer progression, an effective biomarker for breast cancer diagnosis, and potential therapeutic target for breast cancer treatment.

The formation of a novel complex with cyclodextrin was investigated for the separation of cinchona alkaloids including the diastereomeric pairs of quinine, quinidine, cinchonine, and cinchonidine. The optimized separation of mixed cinchona alkaloids was obtained using 18 mM tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane, 3 mM Cu(II), and 20 mM hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin at pH 5.7 with an applied voltage of 20 kV. Under these conditions, the four cinchona alkaloids were completely separated with resolution values between 9.08 and 3.94. The linear dynamic ranges for the analytes were from 10 to 1000 µg/mL with separation in less than 30 minutes. This method was used for the analysis of cinchona bark, quinine injection, and tonic water. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Large‐volume sample stacking (LVSS) is commonly used as an effective online preconcentration method in capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE). In this paper, the method LVSS combined with CZE has been proposed to analyze camptothecin alkaloids. Optimum separation can be achieved in the following conditions: pH 9.0; 25m m borate buffer containing 20 m m sulfobutylether‐β‐cyclodextrin and 20 m m ionic liquid 1‐ethyl‐3‐methyllimidazole l‐lactate; applied voltage 20 kV; and capillary temperature 25 °C. The LVSS was optimized as hydrodynamic injection 4 s at 5.0 psi and the polarity switching time was 0.17 min. Under the above conditions, the analytes could be separated completely in <20 min and the detector response was increased compared with conventional hydrodynamic injection. The limits of detection were between 0.20 and 0.78 μg/L. A good linearity was obtained with correlation coefficients from 0.9991 to 0.9997. The recoveries ranged from 97.72 to 103.2% and the results demonstrated excellent accuracy. In terms of the migration time and peak area, the experiment was reproducible. The experimental results indicated that baseline separation can be obtained and this method is suitable for the quantitative determination of camptothecin alkaloids in real samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]