Waste-to-Resource Strategy to Fabricate Functionalized MOFs Composite Material Based on Durian Shell Biomass Carbon Fiber and Fe3O4 for Highly Efficient and Recyclable Dye Adsorption.

Recently, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are porous inorganic-organic hybrid materials consisting of metal ions (clusters or secondary building units) and organic ligands through coordination bonds, have attracted wide attention because of their high surface area, huge ordered porosity, uniform structural cavities, and excellent thermal/chemical stability. In this work, durian shell biomass carbon fiber and Fe3O4 functionalized metal-organic framework composite material (durian shell fiber-Fe3O4-MOF, DFM) was synthesized and employed for the adsorption removal of methylene blue (MB) from wastewater. The morphology, structure, and chemical elements of the DFM material were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) techniques. Adsorption conditions such as pH, adsorption time, and temperature were optimized. The adsorption isotherm and kinetics results show that the adsorption process of DFM material to MB is more in line with the Freundlich model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Using these models, the maximum adsorption capacity of 53.31 mg/g was obtained by calculation. In addition, DFM material could be easily reused through an external magnet and the removal rate of MB was still 80% after five adsorption cycles. The obtained results show that DFM composite material, as an economical, environmentally friendly, recyclable new adsorbent, can simply and effectively remove MB from wastewater.

Surface Permeability of Membrane and Catalytic Performance Based on Redox-Responsive of Hybrid Hollow Polymeric Microcapsules.

"Smart" polymeric microcapsules with excellent permeability of membranes have drawn considerable attention in scientific and industrial research such as drug delivery carriers, microreactors, and artificial organelles. In this work, hybrid hollow polymeric microcapsules (HPs) containing redox-active gold-sulfide bond were prepared with bovine serum albumin, inorganic metal cluster (AuNCs), and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) conjugates by using Pickering emulsion method. HPs were transferred from water-in-oil to water-in-water by adding PEGbis(N-succinimidylsuccinate). To achieve redox-responsive membrane, the Au-S bond units incorporated into the microcapsules' membranes, allowed us to explore the effects of a new stimuli, that is, the redox Au-S bond breaking on the microcapsules' membranes. The permeability of these hybrid hollow polymeric microcapsules could be sensitively tuned via adding environment-friendly hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), resulting from a fast fracture of Au-S bond. Meanwhile, AuNCs and conjugates could depart from the microcapsules, and enhance the permeability of the membrane. Based on the excellent permeability of the membrane, phosphatase was encapsuled into HPs and p-nitrophenyl phosphate as a substrate. After adding 1 × 10-2 and 1 × 10-4 M H2O2, the catalytic efficiency was nearly 4.06 and 2.22 times higher than that of HPs in the absence of H2O2, respectively. Hence, the unique redox-responsive HPs have potential applications in biocatalytic reaction, drug delivery, and materials as well as in bioscience.

Minocycline hydrochloride ointment combined with Vitapex paste is effective for middle-aged and elderly patients with combined periodontal-endodontic lesions.

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to determine the efficacy of minocycline hydrochloride ointment (MHO) combined with Vitapex paste on middle-aged and elderly patients with combined periodontal-endodontic lesions (CPELs) and its effect on the inflammatory factors. METHODS: The data of 88 elderly patients with CPELs treated in the First Affiliated Hospital of Gannan Medical University from March 2020 to March 2022 were analyzed retrospectively. Among them, the patients treated with MHO and iodoform zinc oxide clove oil paste were assigned into the control group (n = 42) and the rest of the patients treated by MHO and Vitapex paste were assigned to the study group (n = 46). The inflammatory factors, periodontal indexes and efficacy were determined and compared between the two groups. The MOS 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) was adopted to evaluate the quality of life (QoL) of patients before and after treatment. Additionally, the adverse reactions of the two groups during treatment were analyzed and compared. The prognosis of the two groups of patients was analysed, and factors impacting their prognosis was analysed through the Logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Before treatment, the levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß) were not significantly different between the two groups (all P > 0.05), while after treatment, these levels in both groups decreased significantly, with notably lower levels in the study group than those in the control group (all P < 0.05). Before treatment, the gingival index (GI), plaque index (PLI), probing depth (PD) and bleeding index (BD) of the two groups were similar (all P > 0.05); however, after treatment, the levels of GI, PD, PLI and BI of both groups decreased significantly (all P < 0.05), with more notable decreases in the study group than those in the control group (all P < 0.05). The study group showed a significantly higher overall response rate than the control group (P < 0.05). Before treatment, the SF-36 scores of the two groups were not significantly different (P > 0.05), while after treatment, both groups had significantly increased SF-36 scores, and the score in study group was significantly higher than the control group (P < 0.05). In addition, the incidence of adverse reactions was not notably different between the two groups (P > 0.05). According to univariate analysis, age, dental lesion grade, course of disease, and persistent dull pain were the risk factors affecting the prognosis of patients. According to multivariate analysis, dental lesion grade was the independent risk factor affecting the prognosis. CONCLUSION: MHO combined with Vitapex paste is effective for middle-aged and elderly patients with CPELs, which can effectively inhibit the patients' inflammatory reaction and improve their periodontal condition and QoL, with a low adverse reaction rate, so it is worthy of clinical promotion.

Facile Synthesis of Poly(DMAEMA-co-MPS)-coated Porous Silica Nanocarriers as Dual-targeting Drug Delivery Platform: Experimental and Biological Investigations.

Inorganic structures with functionalized polymers play essential roles in diverse biological trends. Herein, thermal and CO2 dual-stimuli nanomaterials composed of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) anchored with two grafted copolymers: poly(3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane) "PMPS" & poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) "PDMAEMA" were synthesized via one-step reaction and characterized by BET as well as BJH methods to estimate pore sizes, pore volumes, and surface areas. The smart PDMAEMA acted as an active gatekeeper to adjust the loading or in vitro release processes of a fungicidal drug-loaded inside the mesopores by altering temperature or CO2 of the tested environment. Furthermore, treating the nanomaterials by CO2 for a few minutes was found to have a bactericidal effect with promising results as indicated by the disk diffusion technique. In general, the positive biological activity against selected strains of bacteria and fungi indicates that these particles may be helpful for engineering more efficient antifungal or antibacterial agents for pharmaceutical applications.

Multicellularity-interweaved bone regeneration of BMP-2-loaded scaffold with orchestrated kinetics of resorption and osteogenesis.

Synchronization of material resorption and new bone formation is vital to achieve harmonious bone regeneration in the treatment of large bone defects. To exposit the resorption/osteogenesis properties in the guided bone repairing, rhBMP-2-loaded trimodal macro/micro/nano-porous bioactive glass scaffolds (TMS-rhBMP-2) were set as substrate model. We penetratingly investigated the particular function of hierarchical structure and incorporated rhBMP-2 in the resorption/osteogenesis, and dissected the cellular interplay throughout the regenerative procedure. The results suggested that rhBMP-2 significantly facilitated osteoclastogenesis-mediated scaffold degradation and strikingly up-regulated mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)-involved osteogenesis in vitro. Further gene microarray and related proteins expression indicated that in the presence of rhBMP-2, MSCs rather than differentiated MSCs could exert synergistic effects on osteoclastogenesis, osteoclasts maturation and resorptive function; meanwhile, rhBMP-2-induced MSCs osteogenesis was also strengthened by the osteoclasts. In vivo micro-CT, X-ray, kinetic and histological analyses qualitatively and quantitively demonstrated the optimized coupling of bioresorption/osteogenesis and the most rapid regeneration in TMS-rhBMP-2. Consequently, with rhBMP-2 acted as ignitor and MSCs/osteoclasts interaction as booster, a harmonious bone regeneration was obtained. Besides, long-term magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in virtue of Gd3+ suggested that the degradation products mainly distributed in liver and spleen, verifying the accumulation/discharge profiles and safety application of TMS-rhBMP-2 system in vivo. This study will not merely provide guidance for the design of clinical bone repairing materials, but shed substantial light on the multicell-mediated tissue regeneration.

The construction of thiol-functionalized DNAsomes with small molecules response and protein release.

In this work, a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) polymer (PNIPAAm) was prepared via the photoinduced reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization using Ru(bpy)3Cl2·6H2O as photoinitiator. The design and spontaneous assembly of thiol-functionalized DNA-Thiol/PNIPAAm polymeric capsule (DNAsomes) by water-in-oil Pickering emulsion method and effective response with small molecules (Sybr green and phenanthrene) were described. The intermediate product, DNA-Thiol/PNIPAAm conjugates and DNAsomes were characterized by using 1H NMR, dynamic light scattering (DLS), SEM, TEM and UV-vis methods. The obtained results indicated that DNA-Thiol/PNIPAAm constructs assembled in a Pickering emulsion could produce DNA-based spherical DNAsomes with typically 3.3-267.7 µm in diameter. The DNAsomes showed a vesicle formation approximately 2 µm in diameter, resulting in phenanthrene molecule intercalating with DNAsomes. The phenomenon indicated that the DNA-Thiol/PNIPAAm conjugates may have potential applications in recognition polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules. The membrane of the DNAsomes could effective response toward small molecules such as Sybr green or phenanthrene, and DNAsomes has release capability of protein (BSA) under reductive agent glutathione (GSH). Our results highlight the potential of integrating aspects of supramolecular and polymer chemistry into the design and construction of DNA-polymeric capsule, guest molecule encapsulation, control delivery of drugs, recognition organic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules and gene-directed capsule synthesis.

A facile approach for the reduction of 4­nitrophenol and degradation of congo red using gold nanoparticles or laccase decorated hybrid inorganic nanoparticles/polymer-biomacromolecules vesicles.

Catalytic reduction of toxic 4­nitrophenol to 4­aminophenol and dye wastewater treatment over rapid, convenient gold nanoparticles or laccase decorated hybrid vesicles catalysts has attracted much attention. In current work, a stable building block was designed with inorganic gold nanoparticles and nano-conjugates; and a hybrid giant vesicles (AuNPs@vesicles) was self-assembled by using Pickering emulsion method. The vesicles were characterized by SEM, TEM, UV-vis and DLS measurements. The results showed that a temperature-responsive multifunctional building block based on BSA-PNIPAAm and gold nanoparticles was obtained. DLS results also indicated that the length of chains on the surface of AuNPs could change shorter with increasing of temperature (>32 °C) and also obtain an average diameter to ~190 nm. A substrate-rich (high concentration of 4­nitrophenol) microenvironment can be created around AuNPs, which can dramatically accelerate the interfacial AuNPs-catalyzed reactions. The AuNPs@vesicles as catalyst in the presence of freshly prepared NaBH4 has excellent catalytic performance for reduction of 4­nitrophenol (almost 100%). After laccase was capsulated into AuNPs@vesicles, the obtained active hybrid laccase⊂AuNPs@vesicles demonstrated high catalytic decolouration efficiency (>98.5%, nearly 2.3 times higher than that of free laccase) and excellent reusability. The possible mechanisms of reduction of 4­nitrophenol and dye decolouration was proposed. These novel giant vesicles could provide some new opportunities in wastewater treatment, bottom-up synthetic biology, bioinspired microstorage/microreactor and drug/gene delivery.

Biodegradable N, O-carboxymethyl chitosan/oxidized regenerated cellulose composite gauze as a barrier for preventing postoperative adhesion.

Tissue adhesion is one of the most common complications after surgery (especially after abdominal surgery), causing notable influences after the damaged tissue has healed. A physical barrier placed between the wound site and the adjacent tissues is a convenient and highly effective technique to minimize or prevent abdominal adhesions. In this work, the N, O-carboxymethyl chitosan/oxidized regenerated cellulose (N, O-CS/ORC) composite gauze was prepared. The N, O-CS/ORC composite gauze is degradable; in addition, the gauze exhibits excellent antimicrobial functionality against S. aureus and E. coli bacteria. Moreover, the notable hemostatic efficacy of the N, O-CS/ORC composite gauze was confirmed in rabbit livers/ears as models. The results showed that the N, O-CS/ORC composite gauze is nontoxic toward normal cells and can restrain the adhesion of fibroblast cells, thereby indicating its potential use in preventing tissue adhesion. In addition, the rat models for abdominal defect-cecum abrasion were used to evaluate the efficacy of N, O-CS/ORC composite gauze in preventing tissue adhesions after surgery. The results indicated that the N, O-CS/ORC composite gauze can significantly prevent postsurgical peritoneal adhesions. Finally, the potential anti-adhesion mechanism of the N, O-CS/ORC composite gauze, which may attribute to the combination of barrier function and instinct activity of N, O-CS and ORC, was investigated.

Multifunctional and Programmable Modulated Interface Reactions on Proteinosomes.

A multiresponsive microcapsule has been synthesized by incorporating photoswitchable spiropyran units and the thermoresponsive monomer N-isopropylacrylamide into membrane lumens. By using functionalized light or thermoresponsive groups, this multifunctional microcapsule can modulate programmed release and interface reactions between lipase and fluorescein diacetate, alkaline phosphatase and fluorescein diphosphate, and others. Exposing this multifunctional microcapsule in a programmed controlled way allowed us to develop schematics to understand complicated interface interactions on protocells.