A dual-targeting peptide facilitates targeting anti-inflammation to attenuate atherosclerosis in ApoE-/- mice.

We report a peptidic dual-targeting drug delivery platform (integrins targeting and self-assembly instructed by matrix metalloproteinases) towards inflamed endothelial cells, which improved the anti-inflammatory ability of the loaded drug (i.e., puerarin) in vitro and thus improved the antiatherogenic effect of the loaded drug (i.e., puerarin) in vivo.

Enzyme-Instructed Self-Assembly Enabled Monomer-Excimer Transition to Construct Higher Ordered Luminescent Supramolecular Assembly for Activity-based Bioimaging.

It is challenging to construct high-performing excimer-based luminescent analytic tools at low molecular concentrations. We report that enzyme-instructed self-assembly (EISA) enables the monomer-excimer transition of a coumarin dye (Cou) at low molecular concentrations, and the resulting higher ordered luminescent supramolecular assemblies (i.e., nanofibers) efficiently record the spatiotemporal details of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity in vitro and in vivo. Cou was conjugated to short self-assembly peptides with a hydrophilic ALP-responsive group. By ALP triggering, EISA actuated a nanoparticles-nanofibers transition at low peptide concentrations followed by monomer-excimer transition of Cou. Analysis of structure-property relationships revealed that the self-assembly motif was a prerequisite for peptides to induce the monomer-excimer transition of Cou. Luminescent supramolecular nanofibers of pYD (LSN-pYD) illuminated the intercellular bridge of cancer cells and distinguished cancer cells (tissues) from normal cells (tissues) efficiently and rapidly, promising potential use for the early diagnosis of cancer. This work extends the functions of EISA and provides a new application of supramolecular chemistry.

The Influence of CTAB-Capped Seeds and Their Aging Time on the Morphologies of Silver Nanoparticles.

Contrast to the polydisperse nanorods formed by common seed-mediated growth method without the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) in seed solution, we successfully obtained silver nanoparticles with different morphologies in the same reaction system by addition of CTAB in the seed solution. In this work, an appropriate amount of CTAB was added into the solution to prepare silver seed crystals. The results show that the aging time of silver seeds have a great influence on the sizes and morphologies of silver nanoparticles and thus the shape-controllable silver nanoparticles can be easily achieved by simply changing the seed aging time. The results also support that the selective adsorption ability or adsorption behavior of TSC can be adjusted by adding CTAB in the preparation procedure of silver seeds. We suggest that different aging times generate different effects on the competitive adsorption between CTAB and citrate to induce the orientation growth of silver seeds. As a result, silver nanospheres, nanorods, and triangular nanoplates can be easily prepared in the same system. In addition, we overcome the time limitation about the use of the seeds by adding CTAB into seed solution and make the synthesis of silver or other metal nanoparticles with different morphologies more easily and more efficiently.

Preparation of triangular silver nanoplates by silver seeds capped with citrate-CTA.

Due to the competitive growth on the crystal face of seed, it is always difficult to control the morphology of the formation of nanoparticles precisely by a seed-mediated growth method. Herein, we provided a simple but effective technique to synthesize silver nanotriangles using a new silver seed that is capped with citrate-CTA+ (CTA+ is cetyltrimethyl ammonium cation). Compared to the preparation of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by a conventional seed-mediated method, in this paper, we presented a growth technique with two distinct innovative changes. First, the concentrations of CTAB that we added in silver seed collosol have a significant impact on the size distribution, and silver nanotriangles, nanorods, and nanospheres could be obtained by adjusting the CTAB concentration. Second, the seed prepared by our method has a longer use time, and silver nanotriangles, nanospheres, and nanorods could be prepared by adjusting the aged time of the seed colloid. We have also shown a simple way to control the morphology of silver nanoparticles in almost the same reactive medium by varying the NaOH concentration. Using the new silver seed capped with citrate-CTA+, we obtained triangular silver nanoparticles with relatively high regularity. Based on the limited experimental results and IR analysis, a possible mechanism was preliminarily proposed to explain the formation of the seed and the truncated triangular AgNPs.