A Perfect Pair: Stabilized Black Phosphorous Nanosheets Engineering with Antimicrobial Peptides for Robust Multidrug Resistant Bacteria Eradication.

Black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets emerged as promising 2D nanomaterial that have been applied to eradicate antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, their applications are limited by intrinsic ambient instability. Here, the ε-poly-l-lysine (ε-PL)-engineered BP nanosheets are constructed via simple electrostatic interaction to cater the demand for passivating BP with amplified antibacterial activity. The dual drug-delivery complex named BP@ε-PL can closely anchor onto the surface of bacteria, leading to membrane disintegration. Subsequently, in situ hyperthermia generated by BP under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation can precisely eradicate pathogenic bacteria. In vitro antibacterial studies verify the rapid disinfection ability of BP@ε-PL against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) within 15 min. Moreover, ε-PL can serve as an effective protector to avoid chemical degradation of bare BP. The in vivo antibacterial study shows that a 99.4% antibacterial rate in a MRSA skin infection model is achieved, which is accompanied by negligible toxicity. In conclusion, this work not merely provides a new conjecture for protecting the BP, but also opens a novel window for synergistic antibiotic-resistant bacteria therapy based on antimicrobial peptides and 2D photothermal nanomaterial.

The Possible Mechanisms of HSV-TK/Hyperthermia Combined with 131I-antiAFPMcAb-GCV Nanospheres to Treat Hepatoma.

Our previous findings showed a good therapeutic effect of the combination of suicide gene HSV-TK, nuclide 131I, and magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) on hepatoma by using magnetic nanoparticles as linkers, far better than any monotherapy involved, with no adverse effects. This combination therapy might be an eligible strategy to treat hepatic cancer. However, it is not clear how the combination regimen took the therapeutic effects. In the current study, to explore the possible mechanisms of radionuclide-gene therapy combined with MFH to treat hepatoma at tissue, cellular, and molecular levels and to provide theoretical and experimental data for its clinical application, we examined the apoptosis induction of the combination therapy and investigated the expression of the proteins related to apoptosis such as survivin, livin, bcl-2, p53, and nucleus protein Ki67 involved in cell proliferation, detected VEGF, and MVD involved in angiogenesis of tumor tissues and analyzed the pathologic changes after treatment. The results showed that the combination therapy significantly induced the hepatoma cell apoptosis. The expression of survivin, VEGF, bcl-2, p53, livin, Ki67, and VEGF proteins and microvascular density (MVD) were all decreased after treatment. The therapeutic mechanisms may be involved in the downregulation of Ki67 expression leading to tumor cell proliferation repression and inhibition of survivin, bcl-2, p53, and livin protein expression inducing tumor cell apoptosis, negatively regulating VEGF protein expression, and reducing vascular endothelial cells, which results in tumor angiogenesis inhibition and microvascular density decrease and tumor cell necrosis. These findings offer another basic data support and theoretical foundation for the clinical application of the combination therapy.

Modulating fcc and hcp Ruthenium on the Surface of Palladium-Copper Alloy through Tunable Lattice Mismatch.

Herein, we report an epitaxial-growth-mediated method to grow face-centered cubic (fcc) Ru, which is thermodynamically unfavorable in the bulk form, on the surface of Pd-Cu alloy. Induced by the galvanic replacement between Ru and Pd-Cu alloy, a shape transformation from a Pd-Cu@Ru core-shell to a yolk-shell structure was observed during the epitaxial growth. The successful coating of the unconventional crystallographic structure is critically dependent on the moderate lattice mismatch between the fcc Ru overlayer and PdCu3 alloy substrate. Further, both fcc and hexagonal close packed (hcp) Ru can be selectively grown through varying the lattice spacing of the Pd-Cu substrate. The presented findings provide a new synthetic pathway to control the crystallographic structure of metal nanomaterials.