Tumor microenvironment responsive nano-herb and CRISPR delivery system for synergistic chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

Chemoresistance remains a significant challenge for effective breast cancer treatment which leads to cancer recurrence. CRISPR-directed gene editing becomes a powerful tool to reduce chemoresistance by reprogramming the tumor microenvironment. Previous research has revealed that Chinese herbal extracts have significant potential to overcome tumor chemoresistance. However, the therapeutic efficacy is often limited due to their poor tumor targeting and in vivo durability. Here we have developed a tumor microenvironment responsive nanoplatform (H-MnO2(ISL + DOX)-PTPN2@HA, M(I + D)PH) for nano-herb and CRISPR codelivery to reduce chemoresistance. Synergistic tumor inhibitory effects were achieved by the treatment of isoliquiritigenin (ISL) with doxorubicin (DOX), which were enhanced by CRISPR-based gene editing to target protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 2 (PTPN2) to initiate long-term immunotherapy. Efficient PTPN2 depletion was observed after treatment with M(I + D)PH nanoparticles, which resulted in the recruitment of intratumoral infiltrating lymphocytes and an increase of proinflammatory cytokines in the tumor tissue. Overall, our nanoparticle platform provides a diverse technique for accomplishing synergistic chemotherapy and immunotherapy, which offers an effective treatment alternative for malignant neoplasms.

Photo-Thermal Conversion and Raman Sensing Properties of Three-Dimensional Gold Nanostructure.

Three-dimensional plasma nanostructures with high light-thermal conversion efficiency show the prospect of industrialization in various fields and have become a research hotspot in areas of light-heat utilization, solar energy capture, and so on. In this paper, a simple chemical synthesis method is proposed to prepare gold nanoparticles, and the electrophoretic deposition method is used to assemble large-area three-dimensional gold nanostructures (3D-GNSs). The light-thermal water evaporation monitoring and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurements of 3D-GNSs were performed via theoretical simulation and experiments. We reveal the physical processes of local electric field optical enhancement and the light-thermal conversion of 3D-GNSs. The results show that with the help of the efficient optical trapping and super-hydrophilic surface properties of 3D-GNSs, they have a significant effect in accelerating water evaporation, which was increased by nearly eight times. At the same time, the three-dimensional SERS substrates based on gold nanosphere particles (GNSPs) and gold nanostar particles (GNSTs) had limited sensitivities of 10-10 M and 10-12 M to R6G molecules, respectively. Therefore, 3D-GNSs show strong competitiveness in the fields of solar-energy-induced water purification and the Raman trace detection of organic molecules.

Two new species of ant-loving beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae) from Jiulong National Wetland Park, China.

Continued collecting efforts at the Jiulong National Wetland Park, Zhejiang, East China revealed two additional species of the ant-loving beetle subfamily Pselaphinae (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae): Trisiniotus jiulong sp. nov. and Arthromelodes lianghongbini sp. nov. Both new species are diagnosed, described, and their important characters are illustrated.

Circular RNAs: Promising biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a group of non-coding RNA characterized by the presence of covalent bonds linking 3' and 5' ends, act as miRNA sponges to participate in the tumorigenesis. Being stable, conserved and cell- or tissue-specific, circRNAs have shown their potentials as molecular markers for cancer. Convenient and noninvasive approaches may be developed based on the roles of circRNAs to diagnose or predict the prognosis of tumors. Although most of the potential mechanisms are not entirely clear, circRNAs have shown a universal and critical role in regulating cellular processes of cancers. This review summarized the classification, formation, characteristics, detection, and biological functions of circRNAs. We proposed the possibility of using circRNAs as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.