Development of a novel humanized anti-TSLP monoclonal antibody, QX008N, and exploration of combination therapy of anti-TSLP antibody and anti-IL-4R antibody.

BACKGROUND: Severe asthma is a complex and chronic respiratory disease, and current conventional treatments are not effective in controlling the patients' condition. Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) is a key regulatory factor in the initiation and maintenance of asthma. Thus, blocking TSLP during allergic inflammation emerges as a promising therapeutic approach; however, novel anti-TSLP therapies remain to be developed. Furthermore, the importance of other signaling molecules, such as IL-4 and IL-13, should be considered. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, the inhibitory effect of binding upstream and downstream signaling molecules has not been assessed. PURPOSE: This study aimed to develop a novel, humanized anti-TSLP antibody and explore the enhancement in its efficacy when combined with anti-IL-4R antibodies to treat asthma. RESULTS: QX008N, derived from a rabbit antibody platform, exhibits a high affinity for TSLP and superior efficacy in blocking TSLP-induced signaling pathways and inflammation in vitro compared with Tezepelumab. In a cynomolgus monkey asthma model, QX008N ameliorated lung function and reduced the levels of eosinophils and IgE. Moreover, the coadministration of QX008N with anti-IL-4R antibodies enhanced the inhibition of inflammatory mediator production triggered via costimulation in vitro. In mouse asthma models, the simultaneous blockade of TSLP and IL-4R using anti-TL4R and anti-TSLP surrogates surpassed the efficacy of monotherapy. To the best of our knowledge, the therapeutic effect of a combination of anti-TSLP and IL-4R antibodies in an asthma model has not yet been reported. CONCLUSION: These results furnish comprehensive preclinical evidence for QX008N as an innovative anti-TSLP therapeutic agent and provide a preliminary rationale for the development of combination therapies that simultaneously target the TSLP and IL-4R signaling pathways.

IGF-1 and myostatin-mediated co-regulation in skeletal muscle and bone of Daurian ground squirrels (Spermophilus dauricus) during different hibernation stages.

Muscle and bone are cooperatively preserved in Daurian ground squirrels (Spermophilus dauricus) during hibernation. As such, we hypothesized that IGF-1 and myostatin may contribute to musculoskeletal maintenance during this period. Thus, we systematically assessed changes in the protein expression levels of IGF-1 and myostatin, as well as their corresponding downstream targets, in the vastus medialis (VM) muscle and femur in Daurian ground squirrels during different stages. Group differences were determined using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results indicated that the co-localization levels of IGF-1 and its receptor (IGF-1R) increased by 50% during the pre-hibernation period (PRE) and by 35% during re-entry into torpor (RET) compared to the summer active period (SA). The phosphorylation level of FOXO1 in the VM muscle increased by 50% in the torpor (TOR) group and by 82% in the inter-bout arousal (IBA) group compared to the PRE group. The phosphorylation level of SGK-1 increased by 54% in the IBA group and by 62% in the RET group compared to the SA group. In contrast, the protein expression of IGF-1 and phosphorylation levels of PI3K, Akt, mTOR, and GSK3ß in the VM muscle showed no obvious differences among the different groups. ß-catenin protein expression was up-regulated by 84% in the RET group compared to the SA group, while the content of IGF-1 protein, correlation coefficients of IGF-1 and IGF-1R, and phosphorylation levels of PI3K, Akt, and GSK3ß in the femur showed no significant differences among groups. Regarding myostatin and its downstream targets, myostatin protein expression decreased by 70% in the RET group compared to the SA group, whereas ActRIIB protein expression and Smad2/3 phosphorylation in the VM muscle showed no obvious differences among groups. Furthermore, Smad2/3 phosphorylation decreased by 58% in the TOR group and 53% in the RET group compared to the SA group, whereas ActRIIB protein expression in the femur showed no obvious differences among groups. Overall, the observed changes in IGF-1 and myostatin expression and their downstream targets may be involved in musculoskeletal preservation during hibernation in Daurian ground squirrels.

The amalgam of naive CD4+ T cell transcriptional states is reconfigured by helminth infection to dampen the amplitude of the immune response.

Naive CD4+ T cells in specific pathogen-free (SPF) mice are characterized by transcriptional heterogeneity and subpopulations distinguished by the expression of quiescence, the extracellular matrix (ECM) and cytoskeleton, type I interferon (IFN-I) response, memory-like, and T cell receptor (TCR) activation genes. We demonstrate that this constitutive heterogeneity, including the presence of the IFN-I response cluster, is commensal independent insofar as being identical in germ-free and SPF mice. By contrast, Nippostrongylus brasiliensis infection altered this constitutive heterogeneity. Naive T cell-intrinsic transcriptional changes acquired during helminth infection correlated with and accounted for decreased immunization response to an unrelated antigen. These compositional and functional changes were dependent variables of helminth infection, as they disappeared at the established time point of its clearance in mice. Collectively, our results indicate that the naive T cell pool is subject to dynamic transcriptional changes in response to certain environmental cues, which in turn permutes the magnitude of the immune response.

O-GlcNAcylation of SERCA protects skeletal muscle in hibernating Spermophilus dauricus from disuse atrophy.

Long-term inactivity of skeletal muscle results in muscular disuse atrophy; however, hibernating animals do not experience muscular disuse atrophy during the hibernation period. The molecular mechanism underlining the anti-atrophy effect in these animals is unclear. O-linked N acetyl-ß-D-glucosaminylation (O-GlcNAcylation) and its effect on cell signaling pathways are important mechanisms underlying muscular disuse atrophy; thus, in this study, we investigated O-GlcNAcylation changes during hibernation in Spermophilus dauricus to explore the role of O-GlcNAcylation in the muscle disuse atrophy resistance of hibernating animals. The results showed that during hibernation, the muscle fiber cross-sectional area and ratio of muscle fiber did not change, and the morphological structure of the muscle remained intact, with normal contractile function. The level of O-GlcNAcylation decreased during hibernation, but quickly returned to normal in the periodic arousal stage. The O-GlcNAcylation level of sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase 1 (SERCA1) decreased, whereas its activity increased. The decrease in O-GlcNAcylation of SERCA could result in the decreased binding of phospholamban to SERCA1, thus decreasing its inhibition to SERCA1 activity. This in turn can inhibit muscle cell calcium overload, maintain muscle cell calcium homeostasis, and stabilize the calpain proteolytic pathway, ultimately inhibiting skeletal muscle atrophy. Our results demonstrate that periodic arousal along with returning O-GlcNAcylation level to normal are important mechanisms in preventing disuse atrophy of skeletal muscle during hibernation.

SARS-CoV-2-related bat viruses evade human intrinsic immunity but lack efficient transmission capacity.

Circulating bat coronaviruses represent a pandemic threat. However, our understanding of bat coronavirus pathogenesis and transmission potential is limited by the lack of phenotypically characterized strains. We created molecular clones for the two closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2, BANAL-52 and BANAL-236. We demonstrated that BANAL-CoVs and SARS-CoV-2 have similar replication kinetics in human bronchial epithelial cells. However, BANAL-CoVs have impaired replication in human nasal epithelial cells and in the upper airway of mice. We also observed reduced pathogenesis in mice and diminished transmission in hamsters. Further, we observed that diverse bat coronaviruses evade interferon and downregulate major histocompatibility complex class I. Collectively, our study demonstrates that despite high genetic similarity across bat coronaviruses, prediction of pandemic potential of a virus necessitates functional characterization. Finally, the restriction of bat coronavirus replication in the upper airway highlights that transmission potential and innate immune restriction can be uncoupled in this high-risk family of emerging viruses.

The effect of fasting plasma glucose on in-hospital mortality after acute myocardial infarction in patients with and without diabetes: findings from a prospective, nationwide, and multicenter registry.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the predictive value of fasting plasma glucose (FPG) for in-hospital mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) with different glucose metabolism status. METHODS: We selected 5,308 participants with AMI from the prospective, nationwide, multicenter CAMI registry, of which 2,081 were diabetic and 3,227 were nondiabetic. Patients were divided into high FPG and low FPG groups according to the optimal cutoff values of FPG to predict in-hospital mortality for diabetic and nondiabetic cohorts, respectively. The primary endpoint was in-hospital mortality. RESULTS: Overall, 94 diabetic patients (4.5%) and 131 nondiabetic patients (4.1%) died during hospitalization, and the optimal FPG thresholds for predicting in-hospital death of the two cohorts were 13.2 mmol/L and 6.4 mmol/L, respectively. Compared with individuals who had low FPG, those with high FPG were significantly associated with higher in-hospital mortality in diabetic cohort (10.1% vs. 2.8%; odds ratio [OR] = 3.862, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.542-5.869) and nondiabetic cohort (7.4% vs. 1.7%; HR = 4.542, 95%CI: 3.041-6.782). After adjusting the potential confounders, this significant association was not changed. Furthermore, FPG as a continuous variable was positively associated with in-hospital mortality in single-variable and multivariable models regardless of diabetic status. Adding FPG to the original model showed a significant improvement in C-statistic and net reclassification in diabetic and nondiabetic cohorts. CONCLUSIONS: This large-scale registry indicated that there is a strong positive association between FPG and in-hospital mortality in AMI patients with and without diabetes. FPG might be useful to stratify patients with AMI.

A fine-grained reversible data hiding in encrypted domain based on the cipher-text redundancy of encryption process.

Considering the granularity of embedded data in the design of reversible data hiding scheme has important research significance for the permission control and management of multi-granularity information. To broaden the application possibilities of encrypted data in cloud environments, the researchers propose a fine-grained reversible data hiding method leveraging the cipher-text redundancy of ElGamal encryption. Initially, prior to the encryption process, pixels are organized into a full binary tree based on fine-grained access permissions. Subsequently, a chaotic sequence generator is employed to assign distinct embedding keys to each layer of the full binary tree according to the access permissions. Following this, an XOR operation is conducted between the embedding key and the corresponding secret information in each layer to derive the target features of the cipher-text, facilitating subsequent fine-grained data hiding. Throughout the ElGamal encryption process, iterative manipulation of the random variable ensures alignment between the cipher-text output and the target feature, enabling the embedding of secret information across different layers. This approach facilitates the fine-grained blind extraction of secret information from an encrypted state, thereby expanding the potential applications of cipher-text by extracting information without revealing the original data. Furthermore, the scheme enhances information security through distributed storage and conceals the presence of information hiding by leveraging the separability of lossless decryption and information extraction. Simulation results demonstrate that secret information of three granularities can be embedded and extracted without interference within a three-layer full binary structure, with a maximum embedding capacity of up to 1.75 bpp.

A photothermal effect-based chiral sensor for chiral discrimination and sensitive detection.

Chiral analysis with simple devices is of great importance for analytical chemistry. Based on the photothermal (PT) effect, a simple chiral sensor with a portable laser device as the light source and a thermometer as the detection tool was developed for the chiral recognition of tryptophan (Trp) isomers and the sensitive sensing of one isomer (L-Trp). Gold nanorods (GNRs), which have outstanding photo-thermal conversion ability due to their localized surface plasma resonance (LSPR) effect, are used as PT reagents, and biomacromolecules bovine serum albumin (BSA) are used as natural chiral sources, and thus, GNRs@BSA was obtained through Au-S bonds. The resultant GNRs@BSA displays higher affinity toward L-Trp than D-Trp owing to the inherent chirality of BSA. Under the irradiation of near-infrared (NIR) light, the temperature of GNRs@BSA//L-Trp is greatly lower than that of GNRs@BSA//D-Trp due to its greatly decreased thermal conductivity, and thus chiral discrimination of Trp isomers can be achieved. In addition, the developed PT effect-based chiral sensor can be used for sensitive detection of L-Trp, and the linear range and limit of detection (LOD) are 1 µM-10 mM and 0.43 µM, respectively.

An electrochemical sensor based on molecularly imprinted poly(o-phenylenediamine) for the detection of thymol.

A molecularly imprinted electrochemical sensor was facilely fabricated for the detection of thymol (THY). o-Phenylenediamine (oPD) was used as the functional monomer and electropolymerized on the surface of the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) by using THY as the templates. After the THY templates were removed with 50 % (v/v) ethanol, imprinted cavities complementary to the templates were formed within the poly(o-phenylenediamine) (PoPD) films. The resultant molecularly imprinted PoPD/GCE (MI-PoPD/GCE) was used for the detection of THY, and a wide linear range from 0.5 to 100 µM with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.084 µM were obtained under the optimal conditions. The developed MI-PoPD/GCE also displays high selectivity, reproducibility and stability for THY detection. Finally, the content of THY in the real samples was accurately determined by the as-fabricated MI-PoPD/GCE, demonstrating its high practicability and reliability.

π-π+ Interaction Promoting the Absorption of Electroactive Chiral Selectors into the Cavity of Conductive Covalent Organic Framework for Enantioselective Sensing of Electrochemically Silent Molecules.

To date, achieving enantioselective electroanalysis for electrochemically silent chiral molecules is still highly desired. Here, an ionic covalent organic framework (COF) consisting of the pyridinium cation was derived from the tripyridinium Zincke salt and 1,4-phenylenediamine in a one-pot reaction. The electrochemical measurements revealed that the ionic backbone contributed to the electron transfer with a low charge transfer resistance. Besides, the π-π+ interaction between the pyridinium cation and ferrocenyl unit can promote the absorption of electroactive chiral ferrocenyl reagents into the hole of COF, so as to afford the electrochemical signals by themselves, replacing the testing enantiomers. As a result, the electroactive complex used as an electrochemical platform was highly effective at enantiomerically recognizing amino alcohols (prolinol, valinol, leucinol, and alaninol) and amino acids (methionine, serine, and penicillamine), giving the ratios of current intensity between l- and d-enantiomers in the range of 1.46-1.72. Moreover, the density functional theory calculations determined the possible intermolecular interactions between the testing enantiomers and chiral selector: namely, hydrogen bonds and electrostatic attractions. Overall, the present work offers an effective strategy to enlarge the electrochemical scope for chiral recognition based on electroactive chiral COFs.

Plasticity changes in iron homeostasis in hibernating Daurian ground squirrels (Spermophilus dauricus) may counteract chronically inactive skeletal muscle atrophy.

Disuse-induced muscular atrophy is frequently accompanied by iron overload. Hibernating animals are a natural animal model for resistance to disuse muscle atrophy. In this paper, we explored changes in skeletal muscle iron content of Daurian ground squirrels (Spermophilus dauricus) during different periods of hibernation as well as the regulatory mechanisms involved. The results revealed that compared with the summer active group (SA), iron content in the soleus muscle (SOL) decreased (- 65%) in the torpor group (TOR), but returned to normal levels in the inter-bout arousal (IBA); splenic iron content increased in the TOR group (vs. SA, + 67%), decreased in the IBA group (vs. TOR, - 37%). Expression of serum hepcidin decreased in the TOR group (vs. SA, - 22%) and returned to normal levels in the IBA groups; serum ferritin increased in the TOR group (vs. SA, + 31%), then recovered in the IBA groups. Soleus muscle transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1) expression increased in the TOR group (vs. SA, + 83%), decreased in the IBA group (vs. TOR, - 30%); ferroportin 1 increased in the IBA group (vs. SA, + 55%); ferritin increased in the IBA group (vs. SA, + 42%). No significant differences in extensor digitorum longus in iron content or iron metabolism-related protein expression were observed among the groups. Significantly, all increased or decreased indicators in this study returned to normal levels after the post-hibernation group, showing remarkable plasticity. In summary, avoiding iron overload may be a potential mechanism for hibernating Daurian ground squirrels to avoid disuse induced muscular atrophy. In addition, the different skeletal muscle types exhibited unique strategies for regulating iron homeostasis.

Visual and electrochemical chiral discrimination of tryptophan isomers with shikimic acid chiral ionic liquids-copper ions complex.

Efficient discrimination of amino acids (AAs) isomers is of significant importance for life science and analytical chemistry. Here, a dual-mode chiral discrimination strategy is proposed for visual and electrochemical chiral discrimination of tryptophan (Trp) isomers. Shikimic acid chiral ionic liquids (SCIL) is coordinated with copper ions (Cu2+), and the obtained SCIL-Cu2+ can form ternary complexes with the Trp isomers. Owing to the inherent chirality of SCIL and the reverse homochirality of L-Trp and D-Trp, the ternary complex of SCIL-Cu-D-Trp has higher stability than SCIL-Cu-L-Trp, as revealed by the calculated stability constants (K) and changes in Gibbs free energy (ΔG). The difference in the stability can be utilized for the chiral discrimination of L-Trp and D-Trp, resulting in discernible differences in colors and the electrochemical signals of the Trp isomers. Besides Trp, the isomers of phenylalanine (Phe) can also be discriminated by the proposed dual-mode chiral discrimination strategy with the SCIL-Cu2+ complex.

SNR of a combined mode-locked fiber laser generating conventional and dissipative solitons.

In this paper, we utilized a combined mode-locked fiber laser including a saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) and nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) to generate conventional solitons (CSs) and dissipative solitons (DSs), respectively, in order to investigate the difference in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between the outputs of these two types of solitons in artificial and natural saturators. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrated that, under the shared pump power, the DSs from the NPE-based mode-locked fiber output exhibited a higher SNR of approximately 60 dB, compared to the CSs from the SESAM-based mode-locked fiber output of 45 dB. Furthermore, we conducted theoretical analysis of these results. We believe that this work can provide new approaches for SNR improvement research in the fields of passively mode-locked fiber lasers.

Use of Ball Drop Casting and Surface Modification for the Development of Amine-Functionalized Silica Aerogel Globules for Dynamic and Efficient Direct Air Capture.

Amine-functionalized silica aerogel globules (AFSAGs) were first synthesized via a simple ball drop casting method followed by amine grafting. The effect of grafting time on the structure and CO2 adsorption performance of the AFSAGs was investigated. The CO2 adsorption performance was comprehensively studied by breakthrough curves, adsorption capacity and rates, surface amine loading and density, amine efficiency, adsorption halftime, and cyclic stability. The results demonstrate that prolonging the grafting time does not lead to a significant increase in surface amine content owing to pore space blockage by superabundant amine groups. The CO2 adsorption performance shows obvious dependence on surface amine density, determined by both the surface amine content and specific surface area, and working temperature. AFSAGs with a grafting time of 24 h (AFSAG24) with a moderate surface amine density have optimal CO2 adsorption capacities, which are 1.78 and 2.14 mmol/g at 25 °C with dry and humid 400 ppm CO2, respectively. The amine efficiency of AFSAG24 with low CO2 concentrations, 0.38-0.63 with dry 400 ppm-1% CO2, is the highest among the reported amine-functionalized adsorbents. After estimation with different diffusion models, the CO2 adsorption process of AFSAG24 is governed by film diffusion and intraparticle diffusion. In the range of 1-4 mm, the ball size does not affect the CO2 adsorption capacity of AFSAG24 obviously. AFSAG24 offers significant advantages for practical direct air capture compared with its state-of-the-art counterparts, such as high dynamic adsorption capacity and amine efficiency, excellent stability, and outstanding adaptation to the environment.

Postsynthetic Modification Strategy for Constructing Electrochemiluminescence-Active Chiral Covalent Organic Frameworks Performing Efficient Enantioselective Sensing.

Electrochemiluminescence (ECL), integrating the characteristics of electrochemistry and fluorescence, has the advantages of high sensitivity and low background. However, only a few studies have been reported for enantioselective sensing based on the ECL-active platform because of the huge challenges in constructing tunable chiral ECL luminophores. Here, we developed a facile strategy to design and prepare ECL-active chiral covalent organic frameworks (COFs) Ph-triPy+-(R)-Ru(II) for enantioselective sensing. In such an artificial structure, the ionic skeleton of COFs was beneficial to the electron transfer on the working electrode surface and the chiral Ru-ligand was used as the chiral ECL-active luminophore. It was found that Ph-triPy+-(R)-Ru(II) coupled with sodium persulfate (Na2S2O8) as the coreactant exhibited obvious ECL signals. More importantly, a clear difference toward l- and d-enantiomers was observed in the response of the ECL intensity, resulting in a uniform recognition law. That is, for amino alcohols, d-enantiomers (1 mM) measured by Ph-triPy+-(R)-Ru(II) showed a higher ECL intensity compared with l-enantiomers. Differently, amino acids (1 mM) gave an inverse recognition phenomenon. The ECL intensity ratios between l- and d-enantiomers (1 mM) are in the range of 1.25-1.94 for serine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, valine, leucine, leucinol, and valinol. What is more interesting is that the ECL intensity was closely related to the concentration of l-amino alcohols and d-amino acids, whereas their inverse configurations remained unchanged. In a word, the present concept demonstrates a feasible direction toward chiral ECL-active COFs and their potential for efficient enantioselective sensing.

A Liquid-Liquid Interfacial Strategy for Construction of Electroactive Chiral Covalent-Organic Frameworks with the Aim to Enlarge the Testing Scope of Chiral Electroanalysis.

Although electroactive chiral covalent-organic frameworks (CCOFs) are considered an ideal platform for chiral electroanalysis, they are rarely reported due to the difficult selection of suitable precursors. Here, a facile strategy of liquid-liquid interfacial polymerization was carried out to synthesize the target electroactive CCOFs Ph-Py+-(S,S)-DPEA·PF6- and Ph-Py+-(R,R)-DPEA·PF6-. That is, a trivalent Zincke salt (4,4',4″-(benzene-1,3,5-triyl)tris(1-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)pyridin-1-ium)) trichloride (Ph-Py+-NO2) and enantiopure 1,2-diphenylethylenediamine (DPEA) were dissolved in water and chloroform, respectively. The Zincke reaction occurs at the interface, resulting in uniform porosity. As expected, the cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry measurements showed that the tripyridinium units of the CCOFs afforded obvious electrochemical responses. When Ph-Py+-(S,S)-DPEA·PF6- was modified onto the surface of a glassy carbon electrode as a chiral sensor, the molecules, which included tryptophan, aspartic acid, serine, tyrosine, glutamic acid, mandelic acid, and malic acid, were enantioselectively recognized in the response of the peak current. Very importantly, the discriminative electrochemical signals were derived from Ph-Py+-(S,S)-DPEA·PF6-. The best peak current ratios between l- and d-enantiomers were in the range of 1.31-2.68. Besides, a good linear relationship between peak currents and enantiomeric excess (ee) values was established, which was successfully harnessed to determine the ee values for unknown samples. In a word, the current work provides new insight and potential of electroactive CCOFs for enantioselective sensing in a broad range.

Preclinical assessments of safety and tumorigenicity of very high doses of allogeneic human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells.

Human umbilical cord-mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) have been widely investigated as a new therapeutic agent to treat injuries and inflammatory-mediated and autoimmune diseases. Previous studies have reported on the safety of low-dose infusion of hUC-MSCs, but information on the cell behaviour at higher doses and frequency of injection of the cells remains uncertain. The aim of the present study was to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of hUC-MSCs by Cytopeutics® (Selangor, Malaysia) from low to an extremely high dose in different monitoring periods in healthy BALB/c mice as well as assessing the tumorigenicity of the cells in B-NDG SCID immunocompromised mice. Umbilical cord from two healthy human newborns was obtained and the isolation of the hUC-MSCs was performed based on previous established method. Assessment of the cells at different doses of single or multiple administrations was performed on healthy BALB/c mice in dose range finding, sub-acute (7 d and 28 d) and sub-chronic periods (90 d). Tumorigenicity potential of Cytopeutics® hUC-MSCs was also evaluated on B-NDG immunocompromised mice for 26 wk. Single or multiple administrations of Cytopeutics® hUC-MSCs up to 40 × 106 cells per kilogramme of body weight (kg BW) were found to have no adverse effect in terms of clinical symptoms, haematology and other laboratory parameters, and histology examination in healthy BALB/c mice. hUC-MSCs were also found to reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and TNF-α) in a dose-dependent manner. No sign of tumor formation was observed in B-NDG mice in the 26-wk tumorigenicity assessment. Single or multiple administration of allogenic Cytopeutics® hUC-MSCs was safe even at very high doses, is non-tumorigenic and did not cause adverse effects in mice throughout the evaluation periods. In addition, Cytopeutics® hUC-MSCs exhibited immunomodulatory effect in a dose-dependent manner.

A chiral metal-organic framework/cyclodextrin sensing interface for the chiral discrimination of tryptophan enantiomers.

A chiral metal-organic framework (CMOF) was synthesized by introducing L-histidine (L-His) to zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) and then grafting with carboxymethyl-ß-cyclodextrin (CM-ß-CD). Compared with L-His-ZIF-8, the CM-ß-CD-functionalized L-His-ZIF-8 (L-His-ZIF-8-CD) showed significantly enhanced discrimination ability for the tryptophan (Trp) enantiomers owing to the inherent chirality of CM-ß-CD. The specificity of the chiral interface was also studied, and the results indicated that the discrimination ability for Trp enantiomers is significantly stronger than that for the enantiomers of cysteine (Cys) and tyrosine (Tyr), which might be due to the better matching between the indole ring of Trp and the chiral cavity of CM-ß-CD.

Chiral Ru-Based Covalent Organic Frameworks as An Electrochemiluminescence-Active Platform for the Enantioselective Sensing of Amino Acids.

Although several studies related with the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) technique have been reported for chiral discrimination, it still has to face some limitations, namely, complex synthetic pathways and a relatively low recognition efficiency. Herein, this study introduces a facile strategy for the synthesis of ECL-active chiral covalent organic frameworks (COFs) employed as a chiral recognition platform. In this artificial structure, ruthenium(II) coordinated with the dipyridyl unit of the COF and enantiopure cyclohexane-1,2-diamine was harnessed as the ECL-active unit, which gave strong ECL emission in the presence of the coreactant reagent (K2S2O8). When the as-prepared COF was used as a chiral ECL-active platform, clear discrimination was observed in the response of the ECL intensity toward l- and d-enantiomers of amino acids, including tryptophan, leucine, methionine, threonine, and histidine. The biggest ratio of the ECL intensity between different configurations was up to 1.75. More importantly, a good linear relationship between the enantiomeric composition and the ECL intensity was established, which was successfully employed to determine the unknown enantiomeric compositions of the real samples. In brief, we believe that the proposed ECL-based chiral platform provides an important reference for the determination of the configuration and enantiomeric compositions.