Integrative transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis in mice reveals the mechanism by which ginseng stem-leaf saponins enhance mucosal immunity induced by a porcine epidemic diarrhea virus vaccination.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a main cause of severe enteric disease in piglets, leading to millions of dollars lost annually in the global pig industry. Parenteral vaccination is limited in generating sufficient mucosal immunity, which is crucial for early defense against PEDV. Here, we orally administered ginseng stem-leaf saponins (GSLS) to mice before parenteral vaccination and found that GSLS significantly enhanced the phagocytosis of dendritic cells, promoted the activities of CD4+ T cells and increased PEDV-specific IgA antibodies in the intestinal mucosa. Transcriptomic results showed that the altered genes following GSLS treatment were mostly related to the immune response and metabolism. In addition, integrated analysis of the transcriptome and metabolome revealed that the mechanism by which GSLS enhances mucosal immunity may be associated with progesterone-related pathways. Further studies are needed to explore the detailed molecular mechanisms.

HPLC-DAD fingerprints combined with chemometric techniques for the authentication of plucking seasons of Laoshan green tea.

Laoshan green teas plucked in summer and autumn were measured by high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (HPLC-DAD). After baseline correction, the fingerprints data were resolved by multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) and a total of 57 components were acquired. Relative concentrations of these components were afterwards applied to distinguish plucking seasons using principal component analysis (PCA), support vector machines (SVM) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). For both SVM and PLS-DA models, the total recognition rates of training set, cross-validation and testing set were 100%, 91.3% and 100%, respectively. Besides, three variable selection methods were employed to determine characteristic components for the authentication of summer and autumn teas. Results showed that PLS-DA model based on three characteristic components selected by VIP possesses identical predictive ability as the original model. This study demonstrated that our proposed strategy is competent for the authentication of plucking seasons of Laoshan green tea.

Folic Acid-Targeted and Cell Penetrating Peptide-Mediated Theranostic Nanoplatform for High-Efficiency Tri-Modal Imaging-Guided Synergistic Anticancer Phototherapy.

A novel nanomaterial with precisely-defined size and shape, biocompatible composition, and excellent stability, which can integrate multi modal targeted imaging and therapy into a single system for visualized therapeutics, has recently attracted significant research interest. Here, we developed a multifunctional nanoplatform based on silica-coated 4-mercaptobenzoic acid-modified gold nanorods (Au NRs) decorated with gold nanoclusters rich in the photosensitizer Ce6 (Au-Ce6 NCs). The nanoparticles also comprised folic acid and cell penetrating peptide molecules anchored on the surface, obtaining the Au@SiO2@Au-cell penetrating peptide nanocomposite. The Au-Ce6 NCs enhanced the photophysical stability, provided numerous bonding sites and offered a large surface-area and interior space to achieve a high drug loading efficiency (up to 55%). The anchored folic acid and cell penetrating peptide synergistically enhanced the efficiency of uptake of nanocomposites by HeLa cells (up to 70.7%) and improved therapeutic efficacy. The nanocomposite also has good water-solubility, excellent biocompatibility, and long-term stability against illumination and exposure to pH 3-12, thus facilitating their bioapplications in cancer theranostics. Here, the nanocomposite was established for high-resolution and noninvasive tri-modal surface-enhanced Raman spectrum/dark-field/fluorescence imaging-guided high-efficiency synergistic photodynamic/photothermal therapy of cancer. Our studies demonstrate that the multifunctional nanocomposite has the potential as a novel and sensitive contrast agent for complementary and synergistic theranostics in the clinic.