Two Birds with one Stone: Dual-mode immunoassay constructed using a novel emitter ethylene glycol-induced perylene diimide and a multifunctional ANS probe.

Perylene diimide (PDI) is a readily reducible electron-deficient dye that exhibits strong photoluminescent properties, providing new opportunities for synthesizing novel electrochemiluminescence (ECL) emitters. In this study, ethylene glycol (EG) was used to induce the self-assembly of PDI supramolecules for the preparation of ultrathin EG-PDI nanosheets characterized by low crystallinity and weak stacking interaction. Notably, EG-PDI integrates luminescent and catalytic functions into one device, accelerating the interfacial electron transfer and the faster charge transfer kinetics of EG-PDI with K2S2O8. Furthermore, the narrow band gap of EG-PDI facilitates its excitation at an ultra-low potential (-0.3 V). To improve the efficiency of tumor marker analysis, multifunctional Au nanostars (ANS) was introduced both as an energy acceptor of the ECL system and a probe for the photothermal system. Dual-mode immunoassay have demonstrated superior analytical performance in detecting alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), meeting the requirements of modern clinical diagnostics in resource-limited environments.

Recent Developments of Flavonoids with Various Activities.

Flavonoids, a series of compounds with a C6-C3-C6 structure, mostly originate from plant metabolism. Flavonoids have shown beneficial effects on many aspects of human physiology and health. Recently, many flavonoids with various activities have been discovered, which has led to more and more studies focusing on their physiological and pharmacodynamic activities. The anticancer and anti-viral activities especially have gained the attention of many researchers. Therefore, the discovery and development of flavonoids as anti-disease drugs has great potential and may make a significant contribution to fighting diseases. This review focus on the discovery and development of flavonoids in medicinal chemistry in recent years.

Recent Advances in Natural Products with Antiviral Activities.

Virus is a type of noncellular organism, which is simple in structure, small in size and contains only one kind of nucleic acid (RNA or DNA). It must be parasitized in living cells and proliferates by replication. Viruses can infect plants or animals, which leads to many epidemic diseases, such as the current pandemic COVID-19. Viral infectious diseases have brought serious threats to the health of people around the world. Natural products are chemical substances that are usually produced by living organisms and have biological or pharmacological activity. Many of these natural products show antiviral activity. Based on the increasing importance of antiviral research, this paper focuses on the discovery and development of antiviral natural products since 2010.

Research Development, Optimization and Modifications of Anti-cancer Peptides.

Anti-cancer peptides play an important role in the area of cancer inhibition. A variety of anti- cancer peptides have emerged through the extraction and structural modification of peptides from biological tissues. This review provides the research background of anti-cancer peptides, the introduction of the mechanism of anti-cancer peptides for inhibition of cancers, the discovery and development along with optimization and modifications of these peptides in the clinical application. In conclusion, it can be said that anti-cancer peptides will play a major role in the future oncologic clinic.

Development and Challenges of the Discovery of HER2 Inhibitors.

The treatment of cancer has always been a major problem in the world. Some cancers cannot be treated with surgery, but only with cancer drugs. Among many cancer drugs, small molecule inhibitors play an irreplaceable role. HER2 is one of the HER families, and the development of HER2 inhibitors has made a huge contribution to the treatment of cancer. Some HER2 inhibitors are already on the market, and some HER2 inhibitors are undergoing clinical research. The design, synthesis and development of new HER2 inhibitors targeting different targets are also ongoing, and some are even under clinical research. The HER2 inhibitors that are on the market have developed resistance, which brings great challenges to the HER2 inhibitor development in the future. This article reviews the development and challenges of the discovery of HER2 inhibitors.

The Research Progress of DPP-4 Inhibitors.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disease, and diabetes patients have long-term higher blood sugar levels than standard. Most people with diabetes have complications that greatly affect their standard of living. Patients with type 2 DM occupy the vast majority of all diabetes patients. Glucagonlike peptide-1 (GLP-1) secreted by intestinal enteroendocrine L-cells is a small molecule polypeptide, which is glucose concentration-dependent and can effectively reduce blood glucose concentration. Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) is an important target for the treatment of type 2 DM because it can degrade GLP-1. DPP-4 inhibitors can enhance the blood glucose lowering effect of GLP-1 by inhibiting DPP-4. This article summarizes the development of DPP-4 inhibitors from 2015 to 2019, and can provide helpful information for the discovery of novel DPP-4 inhibitors in the future.

Threshold for maximal electroshock seizures (MEST) at three developmental stages in young mice.

Early brain development after birth is extremely dynamic, suggesting that potential functional changes occur during this period. In this study, the maximal electroshock seizure threshold (MEST) was used to explore the electrophysiological variation among three developmental stages in young mice (no more than 5 weeks old). The induced electroshock seizure (ES) behavior of early postnatal mice (1-2-weeks old) differed from that during weaning (3 weeks old) and early puberty (4-5-weeks old). Thus, we further explored their respective characteristic responses to the ES parameters. When the stimulation current (SC) was limited to 4.0 mA, only the 1-2-week-old mice were induced to exhibit ES behavior at voltages of 30 V and 40 V, indicating they were more sensitive to maximal electroshock seizure (MES) (response to lower voltage). Surprisingly, however, they showed substantially lower mortality than the older groups under higher voltage conditions (60, 100, 160, and 200 V), suggesting better tolerance to the SC. We also found that when the current limit decreased to 3.5 mA, the 4-5-week-olds mice exhibited stable ES behavior with low mortality, while for 3-week-olds mice, the SC limit required to be reduced to 1.5 mA. In conclusion, our findings showed that neural sensitivity to MES was significantly different in young mice before puberty. Thus, greater attention should be given to distinguishing the developmental period of mice, especially in electrophysiological examination.