Nanosensor-Based Flexible Electronic Assisted with Light Fidelity Communicating Technology for Volatolomics-Based Telemedicine.

Telemedicine provides an attractive vision for tele-monitoring human health conditions and, thus, offers the opportunity for timely preventing chronic disease. A key limitation of promoting telemedicine in clinic application is the lack of a noninvasive med-tech and effective monitoring platform, which should be wearable and capable of high-performance tele-monitoring of health risk. Here we proposed a volatolomics-based telemedicine for continuously and noninvasively assessing human health status through continuously tracking the variation of volatile markers derived from human breath or skin. Particularly, a nanosensor-based flexible electronic was specifically designed to serve as a powerful platform for implementing the proposed cost-effective healthcare. An all-flexible and highly packed makeup (all functional units were integrated in a 2*2*0.19 cm3 plate) enables an electronic, compact configuration and the capability of resisting negative impact derived from customers' daily movement. Notably, the nanosensor-based electronic demonstrates high specificity, quick response rate (t90% = 4.5 s), and desirable low detection limit (down to 0.117 ppm) in continuous tele-monitoring chronic-disease-related volatile marker (e.g., acetone). Assisted by the power saved light fidelity (Li-Fi) communicating technology, a clinic proof on the specifically designed electronic for noninvasively and uninterrupted assessing potential health risk (e.g., diabetics) is successfully implemented, with the accuracy of around 81%. A further increase in the accuracy of prewarning is predicted by excluding the impact of individual differences such as the gender, age, and smoking status of the customer. These promising pilot results indicate a bright future for the tailor-made nanosensing-device-supported volatolomics-based telemedicine in preventing chronic diseases and increasing patients' survival rate.

Cuprous Oxide Based Chemiresistive Electronic Nose for Discrimination of Volatile Organic Compounds.

This paper reports a facile functionalization method on a metal-oxide semiconductor and a cuprous oxide (Cu2O) based chemiresistive electronic nose for the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). A library of functionalized Cu2O nanospheres was developed through silanization using chemically diverse organosilanes. An electronic nose was fabricated with unmodified Cu2O nanospheres and five types of functionalized Cu2O nanospheres as the sensing elements. The electronic nose showed stable and rapid resistance responses to 25-200 ppm model VOCs, with the operating temperature of 180 °C. Single VOCs and ternary VOC mixtures could be discriminated by the electronic nose, and six types of tea leaves were also proved to be distinguishable as an illustration of the application of the electronic nose. We expected that the silanization could provide a simple approach for material diversification and the electronic nose would have further application in identification and discrimination of complex gas samples.

Light-Regulated Electrochemical Reaction Assisted Core-Shell Heterostructure for Detecting Specific Volatile Markers with Controllable Sensitivity and Selectivity.

Breath analysis has been considered a noninvasive, safe, and reliable way to diagnose cancer at very early stage. Rapid detection of cancer volatile markers in breath samples via a portable sensing device will lay the foundation of future early cancer diagnosis. Nevertheless, unsatisfactory sensitivity and specificity of these sensing devices restrain the clinical application of breath analysis. Herein, we proposed the strategy of designing the light-regulated electrochemical reaction assisted core-shell heterostructure to address the issue of concern; that is, the photoactive shell will be designed for trigging the light-regulated electrochemical reaction and enhancing the sensitivity while a catalytic active core will play the function of removing interference gases. After screening of various core candidates, Fe2O3 was found to exhibit relatively low conversion rate to 3-methylhexane, which is one of the representative volatile markers for breath analysis, suggesting that mutual interference would be eliminated by Fe2O3. Based on this assumption, an electrochemical sensor comprising core-shell Fe2O3@ZnO-SE (vs Mn-based RE) was fabricated and sensing properties to 6 kinds of volatile markers was evaluated. Interestingly, the thickness of ZnO shell significantly influenced the response behavior; typically, the Fe2O3@ZnO with shell thickness of 4.8 nm offers the sensor high selectivity to 3-methylhexane. In contrast, significantly mutual response interference is observed for the Fe2O3@ZnO with extremely thick/thin shell. Particularly, sensing properties are greatly enhanced upon illumination; a detection limit to 3-methylhexane can even be as low as 0.072 ppm which will be useful in clinic application. Besides, the high selectivity of the sensor to 3-methylhexane is further confirmed by the testing of simulated breath samples. In summary, we anticipate that the strategy proposed in this research will be a starting point for artificially tailoring the sensitivity and selectivity of future sensing devices.

Transcriptome analysis of leaves, roots and flowers of Panax notoginseng identifies genes involved in ginsenoside and alkaloid biosynthesis.

BACKGROUND: Panax notoginseng (Burk.) F.H. Chen is one of the most highly valued medicinal plants in the world. The major bioactive molecules are triterpene saponins, which are also known as ginsenosides. However, its large genome size has hindered the assembly of a draft genome by whole genome sequencing. Hence, genomic and transcriptomic details about P. notoginseng, especially its biosynthetic pathways and gene expression in different parts of the plant, have remained largely unknown until now. RESULTS: In this study, RNA sequencing of three different P. notoginseng tissues was performed using next generation DNA sequencing. After assembling the high quality sequencing reads into 107,340 unigenes, biochemical pathways were predicted and 9,908 unigenes were assigned to 135 KEGG pathways. Among them, 270 unigenes were identified to be involved in triterpene saponin biosynthesis. In addition, 350 and 342 unigenes were predicted to encode cytochrome P450s and glycosyltransferases, respectively, based on the annotation results, some of which encode enzymes responsible for the conversion of the triterpene saponin backbone into different ginsenosides. In particular, one unigene predominantly expressed in the root was annotated as CYP716A53v2, which probably participates in the formation of protopanaxatriol from protopanaxadiol in P. notoginseng. The differential expression of this gene was further confirmed by real-time PCR. CONCLUSIONS: We have established a global transcriptome dataset for P. notoginseng and provided additional genetic information for further genome-wide research and analyses. Candidate genes involved in ginsenoside biosynthesis, including putative cytochrome P450s and glycosyltransferases were obtained. The transcriptomes in different plant tissues also provide invaluable resources for future study of the differences in physiological processes and secondary metabolites in different parts of P. notoginseng.