Gold Nanoparticle Delivery of Glut1 siRNA Facilitates Glucose Starvation Therapy in Lung Cancer.

Glucose transporter protein-1 (Glut1), is highly expressed in many cancer types and plays a crucial role in cancer progression through enhanced glucose transport. Its overexpression is associated with aggressive tumor behavior and poor prognosis. Herein, the nucleic acids modified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was synthesized to deliver small interfering RNA (siRNA) against Glut1 by microRNA 21 (miR-21) triggers toehold-mediated strand displacement reaction for lung cancer starvation therapy. Overexpression of miR-21 triggers toehold-mediated strand displacement, releasing the siRNA to knockdown of Glut1 in cancer cell instead of normal cell. Furthermore, the glucose oxidase-like activity of the AuNPs accelerates intracellular glucose consumption, promoting cancer cell starvation. The engineered AuNPs@anti-miR-21/siGlut1 complex inhibits cancer cell proliferation, xenograft tumor growth and promotes apoptosis through glucose starvation and ROS cascade signaling, underscoring its potential as an effective therapeutic strategy for lung cancer.

Fluorophore and nanozyme-functionalized DNA walking: A dual-mode DNA logic biocomputing platform for microRNA sensing in clinical samples.

Inspired by the programmability and modifiability of nucleic acids, point-of-care (POC) diagnostics for nucleic acid target detection is evolving to become more diversified and intelligent. In this study, we introduce a fluorescent and photothermal dual-mode logic biosensing platform that integrates catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA), toehold-mediated stand displacement reaction (SDR) and a DNA walking machine. Dual identification and signal reporting modules are incorporated into DNA circuits, orchestrated by an AND Boolean logic gate operator and magnetic beads (MBs). In the presence of bispecific microRNAs (miRNAs), the AND logic gate activates, driving the DNA walking machine, and facilitating the collection of hairpin DNA stands modified with FAM fluorescent group and CeO2@Au nanoparticles. The CeO2@Au nanoparticles, served as a nanozyme, can oxidize TMB into oxidation TMB (TMBox), enabling a near-infrared (NIR) laser-driven photothermal effect following the magnetic separation of MBs. This versatile platform was employed to differentiate between plasma samples from breast cancer patients, lung cancer patients, and healthy donors. The thermometer-readout transducers, derived from the CeO2@Au@DNA complexes, provided reliable results, further corroborated by fluorescence assays, enhancing the confidence in the diagnostics compared to singular detection method. The dual-mode logic biosensor can be easily customized to various nucleic acid biomarkers and other POC signal readout modalities by adjusting recognition sequences and modification strategies, heralding a promising future in the development of intelligent, flexible diagnostics for POC testing.

Universal Detection and Imaging for Multiple Targets by Coupling Target-Primed Nicking-Enhanced Rolling Circle Amplification with Self-Powered DNAzyme Walker.

Although promising in monitoring low-abundance analytes, most of the DNAzyme walker is only responsive to a specific target. Herein, a universal, ready-to-use platform is developed by coupling nicking-enhanced rolling circle amplification and a self-powered DNAzyme walker (NERSD). It addressed the issues that DNAzyme strands need to be specifically designed for different biosensing system, allowing highly sensitive analysis of various targets with the same DNAzyme walker components. It is also specific owing to target-dependent ligation of the padlock probe and precise cleavage of a substrate by a DNAzyme strand. As typically demonstrated, the strategy has an equivalent capacity with the qRT-PCR kit in distinguishing plasma miR-21 levels of breast cancer patients from normal subjects and is able to differentiate intracellular miR-21 and ATP levels by confocal imaging. The approach characteristic of programmability, flexibility, and generality indicated the potential in all kinds of biosensing and imaging platform.

A Large-Scale COVID-19 Twitter Chatter Dataset for Open Scientific Research-An International Collaboration.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread worldwide, an unprecedented amount of open data is being generated for medical, genetics, and epidemiological research. The unparalleled rate at which many research groups around the world are releasing data and publications on the ongoing pandemic is allowing other scientists to learn from local experiences and data generated on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a need to integrate additional data sources that map and measure the role of social dynamics of such a unique worldwide event in biomedical, biological, and epidemiological analyses. For this purpose, we present a large-scale curated dataset of over 1.12 billion tweets, growing daily, related to COVID-19 chatter generated from 1 January 2020 to 27 June 2021 at the time of writing. This data source provides a freely available additional data source for researchers worldwide to conduct a wide and diverse number of research projects, such as epidemiological analyses, emotional and mental responses to social distancing measures, the identification of sources of misinformation, stratified measurement of sentiment towards the pandemic in near real time, among many others.

Ln3+-Triggered self-assembly of a heterotrimer collagen mimetic peptide into luminescent nanofibers.

Type I collagen, the most abundant and arguably the most complex molecule in the human body, is an ABB heterotrimer that self-assembles to form well-defined nanofibers. We herein for the first time report the construction of peptides that could simultaneously mimic the heterotrimer composition and the self-assembly features of Type I collagen.

Analyzing Spanish News Frames on Twitter during COVID-19-A Network Study of El País and El Mundo.

While COVID-19 is becoming one of the most severe public health crises in the twenty-first century, media coverage about this pandemic is getting more important than ever to make people informed. Drawing on data scraped from Twitter, this study aims to analyze and compare the news updates of two main Spanish newspapers El País and El Mundo during the pandemic. Throughout an automatic process of topic modeling and network analysis methods, this study identifies eight news frames for each newspaper's Twitter account. Furthermore, the whole pandemic development process is split into three periods-the pre-crisis period, the lockdown period and the recovery period. The networks of the computed frames are visualized by these three segments. This paper contributes to the understanding of how Spanish news media cover public health crises on social media platforms.

A large-scale COVID-19 Twitter chatter dataset for open scientific research -- an international collaboration.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its march around the world, an unprecedented amount of open data is being generated for genetics and epidemiological research. The unparalleled rate at which many research groups around the world are releasing data and publications on the ongoing pandemic is allowing other scientists to learn from local experiences and data generated in the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a need to integrate additional data sources that map and measure the role of social dynamics of such a unique world-wide event into biomedical, biological, and epidemiological analyses. For this purpose, we present a large-scale curated dataset of over 152 million tweets, growing daily, related to COVID-19 chatter generated from January 1st to April 4th at the time of writing. This open dataset will allow researchers to conduct a number of research projects relating to the emotional and mental responses to social distancing measures, the identification of sources of misinformation, and the stratified measurement of sentiment towards the pandemic in near real time.

Análise bibliométrica e de rede dos 40 anos da revista psicologia: ciência e profissão / Bibliometric and network analysis of the 40 years of the journal psicologia: ciência e profissão / Análisis bibliométrico y de redes de los 40 años de la revista psicologia: ciência e profissão

Resumo No ano de celebração dos 40 anos da revista Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão cabe verificar como esta revista foi delineando a sua própria história e do campo da Psicologia no Brasil. Neste sentido, o presente artigo teve como objetivo delimitar os principais autores, instituições e palavras-chave que trouxeram a revista até o momento atual. Partindo de uma análise bibliométrica e de redes, obteve-se como resultado os temas, autores e instituições que tiveram protagonismo e a interação entre esses atores. As conclusões apontam que a revista assume uma postura epistemológica pluralista e que tanto os aspectos científicos como os relacionados a práticas e atuação dos profissionais se mantêm ao longo desses 40 anos.

Abstract In the year of celebration of the 40th anniversary of the journal Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão (Psychology: Science and Profession), it is necessary to review how this journal has been outlining its own history and the field of Psychology in Brazil. In this sense, this article aimed to delimit which were the main authors, institutions and keywords that brought the journal to the present moment. Based on a bibliometric and network analysis, it was obtained as a result which themes, authors and institutions had protagonism and interaction among these actors. The conclusions indicate that the journal assumes a pluralist epistemological posture and that both the scientific aspects and those related to the practices and performance of professionals are maintained throughout these 40 years.

Resumen En el año en que se celebra el 40º aniversario de la revista Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão (Psicología: Ciencia y Profesión), es necesario revisar cómo esta revista ha ido perfilando su propia historia y el campo de la Psicología en el Brasil. En este sentido, este artículo pretendía delimitar cuáles fueron los principales autores, instituciones y palabras clave que llevaron a la revista al momento actual. Basándose en un análisis bibliométrico y de redes, se obtuvo como resultado qué temas, autores e instituciones eran los principales e interacción entre estos actores. Las conclusiones indican que la revista asume una postura epistemológica pluralista y que tanto los aspectos científicos como los relacionados con las prácticas y el desempeño de los profesionales se mantienen a lo largo de estos 40 años.

Morphology of Osteogenesis Imperfecta Collagen Mimetic Peptide Assemblies Correlates with the Identity of Glycine-Substituting Residue.

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a hereditary bone disorder with various phenotypes ranging from mild multiple fractures to perinatal lethal cases, and it mainly results from the substitution of Gly by a bulkier residue in type I collagen. Triple-helical peptide models of Gly mutations have been widely utilized to decipher the etiology of OI, although these studies are mainly limited to characterizing the peptide features, such as stability and conformation in the solution state. Herein, we have constructed a new series of triple-helical peptides DD(GPO)5 ZPO(GPO)4 DD (Z=Ala, Arg, Asp, Cys, Glu, Ser, and Val) mimicking the most common types of observed OI cases. The inclusion of special terminal aspartic acids enables these collagen mimetic peptides to self-assemble to form nanomaterials upon the trigger of lanthanide ions. We have for the first time systematically evaluated the effect of different OI mutations on the aggregated state of collagen mimetic peptides. We have revealed that the identity of the Gly-substituting residue plays a determinant role in the morphology and secondary structure of the collagen peptide assemblies, showing that bulkier residues tend to result in a disruptive secondary structure and defective morphology, which lead to more severe OI phenotypes. These findings of osteogenesis imperfecta collagen mimetic peptides in the aggregation state provide novel perspectives on the molecular mechanism of osteogenesis imperfecta, and may aid the development of new therapeutic strategies.

Global behaviour of an age-infection-structured HIV model with impulsive drug-treatment strategy.

In this paper, we develop an HIV model that considers the dependence of HIV/AIDS progress on infection age (duration since infection), chronological age and impulsive antiretroviral treatment. The analytical results show that there exists a globally asymptotically stable infection-free state when the impulsive period T and drug-treatment proportion p satisfy R(0)(p,T)<1. The numerical simulation results indicate that there exist T and p such that R(0)(p,T)<1. Due to pulses, it would be difficult to obtain the optimal pulse interval in the age distribution of population. However, our results demonstrate the effect of the impulsive drug-treatment strategy on the dynamics of HIV/AIDS.