Protein-based nanomaterials and nanosystems for biomedical applications: A review

Advanced protein-based nanomaterials and nanosystems (PNNS) have attracted considerable scientific interest in recent decades due to their potential in bio-applications. Nowadays, the constructed PNNS exhibit different properties for various special applications based on the characteristics of different proteins. Herein, in this review article, a systematic summary and discussion focusing on designing multi-functional PNNS are presented. The latest developments in unique synthesis strategies and detailed classification of PNNS are reviewed. The functions of proteins in PNNS for biomedical applications, such as targeting proteins, carriers, enzymes, and fluorescent indicators, are summarized. Finally, the challenges and forward-looking perspectives of PNNS research are provided.     

On the stability of conventional and nano-structured carbon-based catalysts in the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene under industrially relevant conditions

Relevant carbon-based materials, home-made carbon–silica hybrids, commercial activated carbon, and nanostructured multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) were tested in the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene (EB). Special attention was given to the reaction conditions, using a relatively concentrated EB feed (10 vol.% EB), and limited excess of O₂ (O₂:EB = 0.6) in order to work at full oxygen conversion and consequently avoid O₂ in the downstream processing and recycle streams. The temperature was varied between 425 and 475 °C, that is about 150–200 °C lower than that of the commercial steam dehydrogenation process. The stability was evaluated from runs of 60 h time on stream. Under the applied reactions conditions, all the carbon-based materials are apparently stable in the first 15 h time on stream. The effect of the gasification/burning was significantly visible only after this period where most of them fully decomposes. The carbon of the hybrids decomposes completely rendering the silica matrix and the activated carbon bed is fully consumed. Nano structured MWCNT is the most stable; the structure resists the demanding reaction conditions showing an EB conversion of ∼30% (but deactivating) with a steady selectivity of ∼80%. The catalyst stability under the ODH reaction conditions is predicted from the combustion apparent activation energies.     

The rapid selecting of precursor ions and product ions of thirty-four kinds of pesticide for content determination by GC–EI/MS/MS

Pesticide residues caused great threat to human body health, and all countries protected the health of human body by specifying its upper limit. However, pesticide residues were generally very low, similar to trace analysis and as low as millionth or less, the content determination of pesticide residues was a troublesome problem. With the application and promotion of tandem mass spectrometry, it was able to do trace analysis. GC–EI/MS/MS was a common method for the determination of pesticide residues. The multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode was the most common quantitative method used in GC–EI/MS/MS. It has the characteristics of high sensitivity, good reproducibility, high accuracy, strong anti-interference and high ion flux. Multiple-twin precursor ions, product ions and collision energy of thirty-four pesticides were provided for MRM. It could play an important role in developing MRM method for the quantifying of 34 kinds of pesticide. Meanwhile, the development of MRM method for the quantifying of other compounds could also refer to this paper.     

Systematic study of Nd~(3+) on structural properties of ZnO nanocomposite for biomedical applications; in-vitro biocompatibility,bioactivity, photoluminescence and antioxidant properties

Owing to the inconformity in ionic radius between Nd~(3+) and Zn~(2+), the successful incorporation of Nd~(3+) ion into the ZnO nanocrystals still remains a great challenge. In the present study various doping ratios containing 1 wt%, 5 wt%, 7 wt% and 10 wt% of Nd~(3+) doped ZnO nanoparticles(Nd/ZnO NPs) were synthesized in which a bio-layer caped the NPs. SEM/EDX analysis was performed on the ZnO and Nd/ZnO NPs. In addition, the as-synthesized NPs were characterized using X-ray diffraction(XRD), dynamic light scattering(DLS), differential reflectance spectroscopy(DRS) and photoluminescence(PL) spectroscopy.The average size of Nd(5 wt%)/ZnO NPs was in the range of 6.22 and 15 e18 nm based on XRD and SEM techniques, respectively. The measured band gap values for pure ZnO and Nd/ZnO NCs with doping ratios of 1 wt%, 5 wt%, 7 wt% and 9 wt% were equal to 3.46, 3.26, 3.05, 3.25 and 3.29, respectively. After inhalation, nanoparticles first interact with lung surfactant system and accordingly their toxic effects will appear on lungs cells such as A549 cell line. The effect of Nd/ZnO NPs to interact by human A549 cell line was evaluated by means of cell viability test. According to cell viability test the concentrations of 0.3 and 0.5 mg/mL of Nd/ZnO NPs induce a low toxicity. The present study shows that these toxic effects of Nd/ZnO NPs can be rectified by capping its surface via the addition of a bio-layer around particles in order to prevent them from interacting A549 cell line.     

ABTS+ scavenging potency of selected flavonols from Hypericum perforatum L. by HPLC-ESI/MS QQQ: Reaction observation,adduct characterization and scavenging activity determination

Hypericum perforatum L. (HPL) has been used as a beneficial herb on menopause related syndromes for many years due to its antioxidant activity by inhibiting lipid oxidation. The major bioactive gradients of HPL are flavonoids. To date, extensive researches have been focused on its antioxidant effects, however, their exact antioxidant properties remain unclear. For this purpose, this study monitored the antioxidant ability of four common and representative HPL flavonols (rutin, hyperoside, quercitrin and quercetin) to interfere with the reaction of 2, 2′-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) free radical (ABTS⁺) based on the kinetic spectrophotometric free radical processing measurement method. In addition, to characterize the antioxidant reaction paths, the above-mentioned products were identified by high performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization/mass spectrometer triple quad (HPLC–ESI/MS QQQ) analysis, which was superior to gas chromatography–mass spectrometer (GC–MS) in that no derivation resulted. After the adduct products were identified in the MS2 scan mode, a multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) based LC–MS method for the ABTS⁺ scavenging determination was developed and validated. The results of free radical scavenging kinetic evaluation showed that the ABTS⁺ scavenging process of the four flavonols was relatively slow and steady. The degradation products of reactions between flavonols and ABTS⁺ were mainly a combination of flavonols with the ABTS molecule by reducing 3-ethyl-6-benzothiazolinone imine. Flavonols substituted by glycosides tended to follow a RDA cleavage fragmentation path. With a good linearity regression coefficient (r² = 0.995) and a good accuracy of 96.5–106.2%, the free radical scavenging ability of rutin, hyperoside, quercitrin and quercetin was 19.0%, 36.1%, 40.2% and 39.5%, respectively. The kinetic scavenging features and specific fragment features deduced here of the four flavonols in vitro could shed light on HPL's antioxidant properties.     

Diverse bio-sensing and therapeutic applications of plasmon enhanced nanostructures

Substantial advancements have been observed over the years in the research and development of Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR). A variety of current and future applications involving anisotropic plasmonic nanoparticles include biosensors, photothermal therapies, photocatalysis, and various other fields. Amongst various other applications, plasmonic enhancements are deployed in Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) mediated bio-sensing, absorption spectroscopy based analyte quantification, and fluorescence spectroscopy-based biomolecular detection up to femtomolar level and even on the level of single molecules. LSPR based healthcare diagnostics and therapeutics have grown much faster than expected, with an increased number of published original research articles and reviews. Despite the extensive literature available, a comprehensive review with a focused emphasis on recent advances in the field of plasmonic particle anisotropy, plasmonic nanostructure, plasmonic coupling mediated enhanced LSPR intensity and their diverse applications in biosensing is needed. This article focuses on LSPR properties of anisotropic nanostructures like spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNP), gold nanorod (AuNR), gold nanostar (AuNs), gold nanorattles (AuNRT), gold nanoholes (AuNH), dimeric nanostructures and their role in plasmonic enhancements for targeted biosensing and therapeutic research. The contemporary state of the art biosensing development around SERS has also been discussed. A detailed literature analysis of recent development in micro-surgery, photothermal tumor killing, biosensor development for detection up to single molecule level, high-efficiency drug delivery are covered in this article. Furthermore, recent and advanced technologies including Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS), Surface Enhanced Resonance Raman Spectroscopy (SERRS), and Surface Enhanced Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SESORS) are presented citing their importance in biosensing. We complement this review article with relevant theoretical frameworks to understand finer nuances within the literature that is discussed.     

Supervised two-step feature extraction for structured representation of text data

Training data matrix used for classification of text documents to multiple categories is characterized by large number of dimensions while the number of manually classified training documents is relatively small. Thus the suitable dimensionality reduction techniques are required to be able to develop the classifier. The article describes two-step supervised feature extraction method that takes advantage of projections of terms into document and category spaces. We propose several enhancements that make the method more efficient and faster than it was presented in our former paper. We also introduce the adjustment score that enables to correct defected targets or helps to identify improper training examples that bias extracted features.     

pH‐ and NIR Light‐Responsive Micelles with Hyperthermia‐Triggered Tumor Penetration and Cytoplasm Drug Release to Reverse Doxorubicin Resistance in Breast Cancer

The acquisition of multidrug resistance (MDR) is a major hurdle for the successful chemotherapy of tumors. Herein, a novel hybrid micelle with pH and near‐infrared (NIR) light dual‐responsive property is reported for reversing doxorubicin (DOX) resistance in breast cancer. The hybrid micelles are designed to integrate the pH‐ and NIR light‐responsive property of an amphiphilic diblock polymer and the high DOX loading capacity of a polymeric prodrug into one single nanocomposite. At physiological condition (i.e., pH 7.4), the micelles form compact nanostructure with particle size around 30 nm to facilitate blood circulation and passive tumor targeting. Meanwhile, the micelles are quickly dissociated in weakly acidic environment (i.e., pH ≤ 6.2) to release DOX prodrug. When exposed to NIR laser irradiation, the hybrid micelles can trigger notable tumor penetration and cytosol release of DOX payload by inducing tunable hyperthermia effect. In combination with localized NIR laser irradiation, the hybrid micelles significantly inhibit the growth of DOX‐resistant MCF‐7/ADR breast cancer in an orthotopic tumor bearing mouse model. Taken together, this pH and NIR light‐responsive micelles with hyperthermia‐triggered tumor penetration and cytoplasm drug release can be an effective nanoplatform to combat cancer MDR.     

响应面法优化鹿茸胶原蛋白制备抗氧化肽的水解条件

以鹿茸中下段胶原蛋白为酶解底物,用木瓜蛋白酶酶解制备小分子抗氧化肽,以清除1,1-二苯基-2-苦基肼基(DPPH?)自由基的能力为指标,采用响应面法优化酶水解条件。结果表明,最优实验条件为时间56 min,酶添加量1.40wt%,pH=5.60,温度60℃。该条件下所得抗氧化肽对DPPH?自由基的清除率为83.09%。用超滤膜、半制备色谱柱和超高效液相色谱?质谱联用仪分级分离获得分子量0.2?0.6 kDa的具有最高抗氧化活性的多肽,其具有与头段类似的保健功效,更易被人体吸收,且易进一步加工和储存。