Cation-π Interaction-Enhanced Self-Healing Injectable Hydrogels for Gastric Perforation Repair.

Surgical operations are the preferred treatment for gastric perforation (GP) but incur postoperative complications such as gastrointestinal adhesions and bacterial infections, leading to inefficient wound healing and serious complications that may even threaten the life of the patient. Developing hydrogel dressings capable of adapting to the gastric environment (acid) and decreasing visceral adhesions and bacterial infections after GP treatment is crucial. In this article, we developed an injectable, self-healing hydrogel using cation-π interactions between protonated amines and aromatic rings under acidic conditions and explored it for GP repair. The hydrogels demonstrate exceptional self-healing capabilities under acidic conditions and can be effectively tailored for the gastric environment. In addition, the hydrogel demonstrated significant efficacy in preventing gastrointestinal adhesion, reducing inflammation, promoting angiogenesis, and effectively facilitating wound healing in a rat GP model. This novel hydrogel demonstrates adaptability to the gastric environment, rendering it highly promising for potential applications in gastric trauma healing.

Preclinical study and phase II trial of adapting low-dose radiotherapy to immunotherapy in small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) provide modest but unsatisfactory benefits for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC). Developing strategies for treating ES-SCLC is critical. METHODS: We preliminarily explored the outcomes of salvage low-dose radiotherapy (LDRT) plus ICI on refractory SCLC patients. Next, we evaluated the combinational efficacy in murine SCLC. The tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) was analyzed for mechanistic study. Subsequently, we conducted a multicenter, prospective phase II trial that administered concurrent thoracic LDRT plus chemoimmunotherapy to treatment-naive ES-SCLC patients (MATCH trial, NCT04622228). The primary endpoint was confirmed objective response rate (ORR), and the key secondary endpoints included progression-free survival (PFS) and safety. FINDINGS: Fifteen refractory SCLC patients treated with LDRT plus ICI were retrospectively reviewed. The ORR was 73.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 44.9-92.2). We identified a specific dose of LDRT (15 Gy/5 fractions) that exhibited growth retardation and improved survival in murine SCLC when combined with ICIs. This combination recruited a special T cell population, TCF1+ PD-1+ CD8+ stem-like T cells, from tumor-draining lymph nodes into the TIME. The MATCH trial showed a confirmed ORR of 87.5% (95% CI, 75.9-94.8). The median PFS was 6.9 months (95% CI, 5.4-9.3). CONCLUSIONS: These findings verified that LDRT plus chemoimmunotherapy was safe, feasible, and effective for ES-SCLC, warranting further investigation. FUNDING: This research was funded by West China Hospital (no. ZYJC21003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 82073336), and the MATCH trial was fully funded by Roche (China) Holding Ltd. (RCHL) and Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (SRPL).

The HEPS synchrotron unleashes new medical frontiers.

The High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) in Beijing achieved a beam energy of 6 GeV. This milestone enables groundbreaking advances in health sciences and various research fields, promising new insights into biological and quantum processes.

Limosilactobacillus fermentum TY-S11 ameliorates hypercholesterolemia via promoting cholesterol excretion and regulating gut microbiota in high-cholesterol diet-fed apolipoprotein E-deficient mice.

Hypercholesterolemia is a metabolic disease characterized by elevated cholesterol level in the blood, which is a risk factor for many diseases. Probiotic intervention may be one of the ways to improve hypercholesterolemia. In this study, three strains with better cholesterol removal ability were selected from 60 strains of lactic acid bacteria, and were orally administered to apolipoprotein E-deficient mice on a high-cholesterol diet. Among the three strains, only Limosilactobacillus fermentum TY-S11, which was isolated from the intestine of a longevity person, significantly improved serum and liver lipid levels in hypercholesterolemic mice. Further study found that L. fermentum TY-S11 promoted the excretion of cholesterol in the feces and inhibited the absorption of cholesterol in the small intestine. As for gut microbiota, the results showed that L. fermentum TY-S11 not only prevented the reduction of diversity caused by high-cholesterol diet, but also increased the contents of short-chain fatty acids in feces. These results confirmed the ameliorative effect of L. fermentum TY-S11 on hypercholesterolemia.

3D printing of interferon γ-preconditioned NSC-derived exosomes/collagen/chitosan biological scaffolds for neurological recovery after TBI.

The reconstruction of neural function and recovery of chronic damage following traumatic brain injury (TBI) remain significant clinical challenges. Exosomes derived from neural stem cells (NSCs) offer various benefits in TBI treatment. Numerous studies confirmed that appropriate preconditioning methods enhanced the targeted efficacy of exosome therapy. Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) possesses immunomodulatory capabilities and is widely involved in neurological disorders. In this study, IFN-γ was employed for preconditioning NSCs to enhance the efficacy of exosome (IFN-Exo, IE) for TBI. miRNA sequencing revealed the potential of IFN-Exo in promoting neural differentiation and modulating inflammatory responses. Through low-temperature 3D printing, IFN-Exo was combined with collagen/chitosan (3D-CC-IE) to preserve the biological activity of the exosome. The delivery of exosomes via biomaterial scaffolds benefited the retention and therapeutic potential of exosomes, ensuring that they could exert long-term effects at the injury site. The 3D-CC-IE scaffold exhibited excellent biocompatibility and mechanical properties. Subsequently, 3D-CC-IE scaffold significantly improved impaired motor and cognitive functions after TBI in rat. Histological results showed that 3D-CC-IE scaffold markedly facilitated the reconstruction of damaged neural tissue and promoted endogenous neurogenesis. Further mechanistic validation suggested that IFN-Exo alleviated neuroinflammation by modulating the MAPK/mTOR signaling pathway. In summary, the results of this study indicated that 3D-CC-IE scaffold engaged in long-term pathophysiological processes, fostering neural function recovery after TBI, offering a promising regenerative therapy avenue.

FATE: Learning Effective Binary Descriptors with Group Fairness.

Hashing has received significant interest in large-scale data retrieval due to its outstanding computational efficiency. Of late, numerous deep hashing approaches have emerged, which have obtained impressive performance. However, these approaches can contain ethical risks during image retrieval. To address this, we are the first to study the problem of group fairness within learning to hash and introduce a novel method termed Fairness-aware Hashing with Mixture of Experts (FATE). Specifically, FATE leverages the mixture-of-experts framework as the hashing network, where each expert contributes knowledge from an individual viewpoint, followed by aggregation using the gating mechanism. This strongly enhances the model capability, facilitating the generation of both discriminative and unbiased binary descriptors. We also incorporate fairness-aware contrastive learning, combining sensitive labels with feature similarities to ensure unbiased hash code learning. Furthermore, an adversarial learning objective condition on both deep features and hash codes is employed to further eliminate group biases. Extensive experiments on several benchmark datasets validate the superiority of the proposed FATE compared with various state-of-the-art approaches.

Codonopsis pilosula polysaccharides (CPP) intervention alleviates sterigmatocystin (STC)-induced liver injury and gut microbiota dysbiosis.

Codonopsis pilosula polysaccharides (CPP), the main active ingredient of Codonopsis pilosula, has gained significant attention as a liver-protective agent. Previous studies have demonstrated that CPP could alleviate gut microbiota dysbiosis in colitis or obese mice. However, the effects of CPP on mycotoxin-induced liver injury and gut microbiota dysbiosis are still poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to investigate the protective effects of CPP on sterigmatocystin (STC)-induced liver injury, as well as its regulatory effects on gut microbiota. Our results revealed that CPP intervention significantly alleviated STC-induced liver injury, as evidenced by decreased liver index, reduced liver histopathological changes, and modulation of related molecular markers. Additionally, we found that CPP could alleviate liver injury by reducing liver inflammation and oxidative stress, inhibiting hepatocyte apoptosis, and regulating lipid metabolism. Notably, we also observed that CPP could alleviate STC-induced gut microbiota dysbiosis by modulating the diversity and richness of gut microbiota, suggesting that gut microbiota modulation may also serve as a mechanism for CPP-mediated remission of liver injury. In summary, our study not only provided a new theoretical basis for understanding the hepatotoxicity of STC and the protective effects of CPP against STC-induced liver injury, but also provided new perspectives for the application of CPP in the fields of food, healthcare products, and medicine.

Semi-Supervised Informer for the Compound Fault Diagnosis of Industrial Robots.

The increasing deployment of industrial robots in manufacturing requires accurate fault diagnosis. Online monitoring data typically consist of a large volume of unlabeled data and a small quantity of labeled data. Conventional intelligent diagnosis methods heavily rely on supervised learning with abundant labeled data. To address this issue, this paper presents a semi-supervised Informer algorithm for fault diagnosis modeling, leveraging the Informer model's long- and short-term memory capabilities and the benefits of semi-supervised learning to handle the diagnosis of a small amount of labeled data alongside a substantial amount of unlabeled data. An experimental study is conducted using real-world industrial robot monitoring data to assess the proposed algorithm's effectiveness, demonstrating its ability to deliver accurate fault diagnosis despite limited labeled samples.

Motion-robust free-running volumetric cardiovascular MRI.

PURPOSE: To present and assess an outlier mitigation method that makes free-running volumetric cardiovascular MRI (CMR) more robust to motion. METHODS: The proposed method, called compressive recovery with outlier rejection (CORe), models outliers in the measured data as an additive auxiliary variable. We enforce MR physics-guided group sparsity on the auxiliary variable, and jointly estimate it along with the image using an iterative algorithm. For evaluation, CORe is first compared to traditional compressed sensing (CS), robust regression (RR), and an existing outlier rejection method using two simulation studies. Then, CORe is compared to CS using seven three-dimensional (3D) cine, 12 rest four-dimensional (4D) flow, and eight stress 4D flow imaging datasets. RESULTS: Our simulation studies show that CORe outperforms CS, RR, and the existing outlier rejection method in terms of normalized mean square error and structural similarity index across 55 different realizations. The expert reader evaluation of 3D cine images demonstrates that CORe is more effective in suppressing artifacts while maintaining or improving image sharpness. Finally, 4D flow images show that CORe yields more reliable and consistent flow measurements, especially in the presence of involuntary subject motion or exercise stress. CONCLUSION: An outlier rejection method is presented and tested using simulated and measured data. This method can help suppress motion artifacts in a wide range of free-running CMR applications.

New insights into the destabilization of fat globules in ultra-instantaneous UHT milk induced by added plasmin: Molecular mechanisms and the effect of membrane structure on plasmin action.

Residual plasmin activity in whole ultra-instantaneous UHT (UI-UHT) milk causes rapid fat rise during storage, seriously affecting consumers' purchase intentions. In this work, the molecular mechanisms underlying fat destabilization in whole UI-UHT milk by added plasmin were investigated based on the hydrolysis behavior of interfacial proteins. By using SDS-PAGE and peptidomic analysis, we found that the hydrolysis of interfacial proteins by plasmin led to a decrease in the amount and coverage of interfacial proteins and an increase in zeta-potential value, causing the flocculation and coalescence of fat globules. Moreover, the hydrolysis pattern varied in different categories of interfacial proteins by plasmin. In total, 125 peptides in all samples were identified. Plasmin tended to hydrolyze most major milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) proteins into protein fragments (>10 kDa) rather than peptides (<10 kDa). In contrast, peptides derived from caseins were more preferentially identified within a relatively short incubation time. It was the co-hydrolysis of caseins and some major MFGM proteins as anchors that destroyed the stability of MFGM. Furthermore, studies on the effect of trilayer membrane structure remaining at the interface on the hydrolysis rate of major MFGM proteins by plasmin revealed that ADPH and BTN were very sensitive to plasmin action, while PAS 7 was very resistant to plasmin action. Overall, membrane structure reduced the susceptibility of some major MFGM proteins to plasmin and provided protective effects. Therefore, this study provided important insights into the hydrolysis behavior of interfacial proteins in whole UI-UHT milk induced by plasmin.

A hyaluronic acid hydrogel as a mild photothermal antibacterial, antioxidant, and nitric oxide release platform for diabetic wound healing.

Hyaluronic acid (HA)-based biopolymer hydrogels are promising therapeutic dressings for various wounds but still underperform in treating diabetic wounds. These wounds are extremely difficult to heal and undergo a prolonged and severe inflammatory process due to bacterial infection, overexpression of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and insufficient synthesis of NO. In this study, a dynamic crosslinked hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogel dressing (Gel-HAB) loaded with allomelanin (AMNP)-N, N'-dis-sec-butyl-N, N'-dinitroso-1, 4-phenylenediamine (BNN6) nanoparticles (AMNP-BNN6) was developed for healing diabetic wounds. The dynamic acylhydrazone bond formed between hydrazide-modified HA (HA-ADH) and oxidized HA (OHA) makes the hydrogel injectable, self-healing, and biocompatible. The hydrogel, loaded with AMNP-BNN6 nanoparticles, exhibits promising ROS scavenging ability and on-demand release of nitric oxide (NO) under near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation to achieve mild photothermal antibacterial therapy (PTAT) (∼ 48 °C). Notably, the Gel-HAB hydrogel effectively reduced the oxidative stress level, controlled infections, accelerated vascular regeneration, and promoted angiogenesis, thereby achieving rapid healing of diabetic wounds. The injectable self-healing nanocomposite hydrogel could serve as a mild photothermal-enhanced antibacterial, antioxidant, and nitric oxide release platform for the treatment of diabetic wounds.

A sandwiched Co4-added polyoxometalate for efficient visible light-driven hydrogen evolution.

A new Co4-added polyoxometalate (CoAP) Cs4[(Co(H2O)5)2{(µ2-Co(H2O)4)2Co4(H2O)2(B-α-GeW9O34)2}]·6H2O (1) has been made using a lacunary directing strategy under hydrothermal conditions. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis demonstrated that 1 is a one-dimensional (1D) chain, in which CoAP is linked by cobalt-oxygen octahedra to form a 1D structure with excellent chemical stability. The visible light-driven H2 evolution test demonstrated that 1 has high activity, with an H2 evolution rate of 1485.95 µmol h-1 g-1. PXRD and FT-IR tests demonstrated that compound 1 exhibits excellent heterogeneous catalytic stability.

Study on synergistic hydrogen generation from aluminum-based composites in different forms of water.

The environmental suitability of hydrogen storage materials is significantly influenced by the way aluminum reacts synchronously with water, ice, and water steam. The straightforward ball milling process was used to synthesize Al-based composite materials with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or graphene oxide (GO). The reactivity of the composites in various types of water was investigated. The Al/Bi/CNT and Al/Bi/GO composites may react in liquid water, low-temperature ice, and high-temperature steam. The hydrolysis promotion of Al-based composites by CNTs is superior to that of GO, whether in liquid water at 20 °C or ice at -20 °C. The maximum hydrogen generation rate of Al/Bi/CNT composites can reach 34.6 mL g-1 s-1 at 20 °C. The hydrogen generation volume of Al/Bi/CNT can reach 700 mL g-1 in 15 min on ice at -20 °C. Moreover, the ignition temperature and ignition delay time of Al/Bi/CNT are shorter than those of Al/Bi/GO in high-temperature steam. The hydrogen generation volume from Al/Bi/CNT at 200 °C can reach 853 mL g-1. These may originate from the unique one-dimensional nanostructure of CNTs, which provides more surface area or reaction sites during the hydrolysis of the composite.

High-Yield Synthesis of Hierarchical SAPO-34 by Recrystallization Method for Efficient Methanol-to-Olefin Reactions.

Prolonging the lifetime of SAPO-34 catalysts and enhancing their olefin selectivity in methanol-to-olefin (MTO) reactions are critical yet challenging objectives. Here, a series of hierarchical SAPO-34 catalysts were synthesized using a straightforward recrystallization method. The incorporation of triethylamine into the recrystallization mother liquor facilitated the formation of mesopores, achieving a high solid yield of up to 90%. Notably, the addition of phosphoric acid and ammonium polyvinyl phosphate alcohol during the recrystallization process significantly enhanced the crystallinity and regularity of the hierarchical SAPO-34 crystals, consequently increasing the mesopore size. Due to the substantially improved mass transfer efficiency and moderated acidity, the SP34-0.14P-0.06R catalysts exhibited a prolonged operational life of 344 min and 80.3% selectivity of ethylene and propylene at a WHSV of 2h-1. This performance markedly surpasses that of the parent SP34 catalyst, which demonstrated a lifetime of 136 min and a selectivity of 78.0%. Remarkably, the SP34-0.14P-0.06R maintained a lifetime of 166 minutes even at a high WHSV of 10h-1, which is more than 5-fold greater than that of the original microporous SP34. This research offers valuable insights into the design and development of hierarchically porous zeolites with high yields, enhancing the efficiency of MTO reactions and other applications.

Ordering Bimetallic Cu-Pd Catalysts onto Orderly Mesoporous SrTiO3-Crystal Nanotubular Networks for Efficient Carbon Dioxide Photoreduction.

Artificial photosynthesis of fuels has garnered significant attention, with SrTiO3 emerging as a potential candidate for photocatalysis due to its exceptional physicochemical properties. However, selectively converting CO2 into fuels with desired reaction products remains a grand challenge. Herein, we design an updated method via an aging strategy based on the electrospinning technique to synthesize a single-crystalline Al-doped SrTiO3 nanotubular networks with self-assembled orderly mesopores, further modified by Cu-Pd alloy. It exhibits both high crystallinity and superior cross-linked mesoporous structures, effectively facilitating charge carrier transfer, photon utilization, and mass transfer, with a remarkable enhancement from 0.025 mmol·h-1·m-2 to 1.090 mmol·h-1·m-2 in the CO production rate. Meanwhile, the ordered arrangement of Cu and Pd atoms on the (111) surface can promote the rate-determining step (*CO2 to *COOH), which is also responsible for its good activity. The presence of CuO in the reaction confers a significant advantage for CO desorption, leading to a remarkable CO selectivity of 95.54%. This work highlights new insights into developing advanced heterogeneous photocatalysts.

SEA Anemone-inspired Conducting Polymer Sensing Platform for Integrated Detection of Tumor Protein Marker and Circulating Tumor Cell.

Combining the detection of tumor protein markers with the capture of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) represents an ultra-promising approach for early tumor detection. However, current methodologies have not yet achieved the necessary low detection limits and efficient capture. Here, we introduced a novel polypyrrole nanotentacles sensing platform featuring anemone-like structures capable of simultaneously detecting protein biomarkers and capturing CTCs. The incorporation of nanotentacles significantly enhanced the electrode surface area, providing abundant active sites for antibody binding. This enhancement allowed detecting nucleus matrix protein22 (NMP22) and bladder tumor antigen (BTA) with 2.39 and 3.12 pg/mL detection limit, respectively. Furthermore, our developed sensing platform effectively captured MCF-7 cells in blood samples with a detection limit of fewer than 10 cells/mL, attributed to the synergistic multivalent binding facilitated by the specific recognition antibodies and the positive charge on the nanotentacles surface. This sensing platform demonstrated excellent detection capabilities and outstanding capture efficiency, offering a simple, accurate, and efficient strategy for early tumor detection. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Nickel-Iron-Layered Double Hydroxide Electrocatalyst with Nanosheets Array for High Performance of Water Splitting.

Developing high-performance and cost-competitive electrocatalysts have great significance for the massive commercial production of water-splitting hydrogen. Ni-based electrocatalysts display tremendous potential for electrocatalytic water splitting. Herein, we synthesize a novel NiFe-layered double hydroxide (LDH) electrocatalyst in nanosheets array on high-purity Ni foam. By adjusting the Ni/Fe ratio, the microstructure, and even the behavior of the electrocatalyst in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), changes significantly. The as-obtained material shows a small overpotential of 223 mV at 10 mAcm-2 as well as a low Tafel slope of 48.9 mV·dec-1 in the 1 M KOH electrolyte. In addition, it can deliver good stability for at least 24 h of continuous working at 10 mAcm-2. This work proposes a strategy for engineering catalysts and provides a method for the development of other Ni-based catalysts with excellent performance.

Low-intensity ultrasound ameliorates brain organoid integration and rescues microcephaly deficits.

Human brain organoids represent a remarkable platform for modeling neurological disorders and a promising brain repair approach. However, the effects of physical stimulation on their development and integration remain unclear. Here, we report that low-intensity ultrasound significantly increases neural progenitor cell proliferation and neuronal maturation in cortical organoids. Histological assays and single-cell gene expression analyses reveal that low-intensity ultrasound improves the neural development in cortical organoids. Following organoid grafts transplantation into the injured somatosensory cortices of adult mice, longitudinal electrophysiological recordings and histological assays reveal that ultrasound-treated organoid grafts undergo advanced maturation. They also exhibit enhanced pain-related gamma-band activity and more disseminated projections into the host brain than the untreated groups. Finally, low-intensity ultrasound ameliorates neuropathological deficits in a microcephaly brain organoid model. Hence, low-intensity ultrasound stimulation advances the development and integration of brain organoids, providing a strategy for treating neurodevelopmental disorders and repairing cortical damage.