Regulation of main ncRNAs by polyphenols: A novel anticancer therapeutic approach.

BACKGROUND: Plant polyphenols have shown promising applications in oncotherapy. Increasing evidence reveals that polyphenols possess the antitumor potential for multiple cancers. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), mainly including small ncRNAs (microRNA) and long ncRNAs (lncRNAs), play critical roles in cancer initiation and progression. PURPOSE: To establish the modulation of ncRNAs by polyphenols as a novel and promising approach in anticancer treatment. STUDY DESIGN: The present research employed ncRNA, miRNA, lncRNA, and regulatory mechanism as keywords to retrieve the literature from PubMed, Web of Science, Science direct, and Google Scholar, in a 20-year period from 2003 to 2023. This study critically reviewed the current literature and presented the regulation of prominent ncRNAs by polyphenols. A comprehensive total of 169 papers were retrieved on polyphenols and their related ncRNAs in cancers. RESULTS: NcRNAs, mainly including miRNA and lncRNA, play critical roles in cancer initiation and progression, which are potential modulatory targets of bioactive polyphenols, such as resveratrol, genistein, curcumin, EGCG, quercetin, in cancer management. The mechanism involved in polyphenol-mediated ncRNA regulation includes epigenetic and transcriptional modification, and post-transcriptional processing. CONCLUSION: Regulatory ncRNAs are potential therapeutic targets of bioactive polyphenols, and these phytochemicals could modulate the level of these ncRNAs directly and indirectly. A better comprehension of the ncRNA regulation by polyphenols in cancers, their functional outcomes on tumor pathophysiology and regulatory molecular mechanisms, may be helpful to develop effective strategies to fight the devastating disease.

A Review of Recent Progress in Drug Doping and Gene Doping Control Analysis.

The illicit utilization of performance-enhancing substances, commonly referred to as doping, not only infringes upon the principles of fair competition within athletic pursuits but also poses significant health hazards to athletes. Doping control analysis has emerged as a conventional approach to ensuring equity and integrity in sports. Over the past few decades, extensive advancements have been made in doping control analysis methods, catering to the escalating need for qualitative and quantitative analysis of numerous banned substances exhibiting diverse chemical and biological characteristics. Progress in science, technology, and instrumentation has facilitated the proliferation of varied techniques for detecting doping. In this comprehensive review, we present a succinct overview of recent research developments within the last ten years pertaining to these doping detection methodologies. We undertake a comparative analysis, evaluating the merits and limitations of each technique, and offer insights into the prospective future advancements in doping detection methods. It is noteworthy that the continual design and synthesis of novel synthetic doping agents have compelled researchers to constantly refine and innovate doping detection methods in order to address the ever-expanding range of covertly employed doping agents. Overall, we remain in a passive position for doping detection and are always on the road to doping control.

Development of Nafion/single-walled carbon nanotube integrated arrays for the rapid detection of salbutamol doping.

Salbutamol (SAL), a drug originally intended for the treatment of bronchial and pulmonary diseases, has repeatedly been used for doping in competitive sports. Herein, an integrated array (NFCNT array) that prepared by template-assisted scalable filtration using Nafion-coated single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) is presented for the rapid field detection of SAL. Spectroscopic and microscopic measurements were used to confirm the introduction of Nafion onto the surface of the array and to analyze the resulting morphological changes. The effects of Nafion addition on the resistance and electrochemical properties of the arrays (e.g., the electrochemically active area, charge-transfer resistance, and adsorption charge) are also discussed in depth. With an electrolyte/Nafion/SWCNT interface and moderate resistance, the NFCNT-4 array prepared containing 0.04 wt% Nafion suspension exhibits the greatest voltammetric response to SAL. Subsequently, a possible mechanism for the oxidation of SAL was proposed, and a calibration curve in the range of 0.1-15 µM was established. Finally, the NFCNT-4 arrays were applied to the detection of SAL in human urine samples with satisfactory recoveries.

Integration of CRISPR/Cas12a and Multiplexed RPA for Fast Detection of Gene Doping.

Fast and on-site detection is important for an effective antigene-doping strategy. However, the current gene doping (GD) evaluation methods require sophisticated instruments and laborious procedures, limiting their field applications. This study proposes a CRISPR/Cas12a-based detection platform (termed CasGDP) combining CRISPR/Cas12a and multiplexed Recombinase Polymerase Amplification (RPA) for rapid evaluation of GD. CasGDP showed high specificity for identifying the putative target genes such as EPO, IGF-1, and GH-1. By using fluorescence as the readout, the method achieved a limit-of-detection of 0.1 nM and 1 aM for unamplified and amplified target plasmids, respectively. Additionally, an in vitro GD cell model was successfully established with the human EPO gene (hEPO). The results indicated that the hEPO gene transfection promoted the hEPO protein expression. Furthermore, trace amounts of EPO transgene spiked in human serum were efficiently measured by CasGDP with fluorescence- and lateral flow device (LFD)-based readouts in 40 min. Finally, we designed a multiplexed microfluidic device and realized simultaneous detection of the three transgenes via LFD embedded in the device. To our knowledge, this is the first work that combines the CRISPR-based system and multiplexed RPA for GD detection. We anticipate CasGDP to be widely used as a rapid, sensitive, and robust tool for GD evaluation.

Global Evolution of Skeletal Muscle Tissue Engineering: A Scientometric Research.

Skeletal muscle tissue engineering (SMTE) is of great significance in the study of skeletal muscle physiology and pathology, which could be used in skeletal muscle graft. The scientometric analysis of SMTE can help researchers to quickly understand the evolutive history, status, novelties, and trend of this field. In this study, we performed a scientometric study that can be used to construct and visualize networks of SMTE using VOSviewer. A total of 1384 documents published between 1994 and 2020 were retrieved and analyzed. Our results showed that number of publications in SMTE has increased slowly from 1994 to 2014 and has increased rapidly from 2015 to 2020. The geographical distribution of publications in terms of total publications about SMTE is concentrated in Europe and the United States. The most productive institution was University of Michigan, while Harvard University and the University of Pittsburgh were ranked the second and third places. SMTE influenced a wide spectrum of disciplines, including Biology and Medicine and Physical Sciences. In addition, the research hotspot of SMTE was expanding from seed cells to the combination with advanced strategies (electrostatic spinning, bioprinting, and materials) for emulating the highly bionic engineered skeletal muscle tissues. This study provided a unique perspective for understanding the history and trends of SMTE, which could help to promote the rapid development of the field. Impact statement Skeletal muscle tissue engineering (SMTE), which acts as an important branch of tissue engineering, hold a great promise in the study of skeletal muscle physiology and pathology. The field of SMTE has developed rapidly in recent decades while still lacking studies based on scientometric methods. This article provided the first scientometric study of SMTE from development trends and evolution of the field. The results indicated that the field of SMTE was experiencing rapid growth and had a significant impact on multiple fields, particularly in Biology and Medicine and Physical Sciences.

[Recent advances in emerging three-dimensional in vitro models for sport-related traumatic brain injury].

Sports-related traumatic brain injury (srTBI) is a traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by sports, which can result in cognitive and motor dysfunction. Currently, research on the molecular mechanism of srTBI and related drug development mainly relies on monolayer culture models and animal models. However, many differences exist in cell populations and inflammatory responses between these models and human pathophysiological processes. Most of the researches derived from the models can't effectively conducted translational research. Emerging three-dimensional (3D) in vitro models bridge the limitations of traditional models in simulating the pathophysiological processes of human srTBI and provide new means to understand srTBI. A literature has reported the research progress of emerging 3D in vitro models in neurological diseases, but there is a lack of systematic summary of the mentioned models in srTBI studies. Here, we review the research progress of emerging 3D in vitro models of srTBI, discuss the advantages and limitations of existing models, and further prospect the future trend of srTBI models. This paper aims to provide a new research perspective for researchers in tissue engineering and sports medicine to study the molecular mechanisms of srTBI and develop neuroprotective drugs.

Rapid generation of hybrid biochemical/mechanical cues in heterogeneous droplets for high-throughput screening of cellular responses.

Cells in their native microenvironment are subjected to varying combinations of biochemical cues and mechanical cues in a wide range. Although many signaling pathways have been found to be responsive for extracellular cues, little is known about how biochemical cues crosstalk with mechanical cues in a complex microenvironment. Here, we introduced heterogeneous droplets on a microchip, which were rapidly assembled by combining wettability-patterned microchip and programmed droplet manipulations, for a high-throughput cell screening of the varying combinations of biochemical cues and mechanical cues. This platform constructed a heterogeneous droplet/microgel array with orthogonal gradual chemicals and materials, which was further applied to analyze the cellular Wnt/ß-catenin signaling in response to varying combinations of Wnt ligands and substrate stiffness. Thus, this device provides a powerful multiplexed bioassay platform for drug development, tissue engineering, and stem cell screening.

Naked-eye based point-of-care detection of E.coli O157: H7 by a signal-amplified microfluidic aptasensor.

Fast and sensitive detection of E.coli O157: H7 is significantly essential for clinical management as well as for transmission prevention during disease outbreaks. Though many types of detection strategies have been implemented for measuring E.coli O157: H7, most of them still rely on complex instruments or tedious/laborious setups, which restrict their applications in resource-limited scenarios. Herein, we introduce an eye-based microfluidic aptasensor (EA-Sensor) for fast detection of E.coli O157: H7 without the assist of any instruments. We demonstrate the perfect coupling of aptamer sensing, hybridization chain reaction (HCR)-amplification and a distance-based visualized readout to quantitatively determine the pathogen concentration. We first used gel-electrophoresis assay to evaluate the system and the results proved that E.coli O157: H7 was well recognized by the aptamer and HCR could increase the signal by about 100 folds. In addition, the Aptamer specificity and signal-amplification ability were verified on the EA-Sensor for sensing E.coli O157: H7 by naked eyes. Furthermore, we demonstrated that E.coli O157: H7 in milk could be accurately and conveniently measured with good performance. With the benefits of operation integration and strategy integration, our EA-Sensor shows advantages of high specificity, easy operation, efficient amplification and visualized readout, which offers a favorable point-of-care tool for E.coli O157: H7 or other pathogen detection in resource-constrained settings.

Fabrication and application of noble metal nanoclusters as optical sensors for toxic metal ions.

Atomically precise noble metal nanoclusters with ultrasmall physical sizes in the subnanometer range have emerged as a new class of probing fluorophores and have attracted considerable research interest because of their intrinsic physical, chemical, optical, biological, and electrical properties, such as stability, biocompatibility, and molecule-like photoluminescence. In comparison with traditional fluorophores such as organic dyes and quantum dots, noble metal nanoclusters have significant advantages, including low toxicity toward the environment and biological tissues, high stability when exposed to irradiation, and small size, that make them more suitable for biological sensing or biological labeling applications. Several reviews have summarized the fabrication of noble metal nanoclusters, including gold, silver, copper, and bimetallic nanoclusters. However, these reviews focused either on various facile preparation methods or multidisciplinary application areas. Here, we focus on the application of noble metal nanoclusters as optical sensing materials for toxic metal ions, including new synthetic approaches and discussion of the detection mechanism. We briefly summarize the development of metal cation monitoring technology that uses ultrasmall nanoclusters as the sensing probes. We also provide a fresh opinion on research expectations in the field of inorganic nanoscience and nanotechnology Finally, perspectives for future research hot topics are discussed.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry analysis of glycans with co-derivatization of asparaginyl-oligosaccharides.

As one of the most prevalent and complex post-translational modifications in biological systems, proteins glycosylation has drawn considerable attention in recent decades. Dissociation of the carbohydrates from glycoproteins may be the prerequisite step of glycomics experiments, which commonly performed by specific proteolysis. In this study, an alternative strategy was reported with nonspecific proteolysis in coupling with co-derivatization of TMPP-Ac and methylamidation for glycan moieties analysis by MALDI-MS. With the co-derivatization, a permanent positive charge was introduced to the Asn-glycans and the carboxylic groups were neutralized by methylamidation simultaneously. As a result, approximately 20 and 50-fold enhancement in the detection sensitivity was achieved for asialo-Asn and disialo-Asn respectively in comparison to their native counterparts. Ultimately, this developed strategy was successfully validated using three model glycoproteins, including ribonuclease B, ovalbumin and transferrin.

Recent advances in microchip electrophoresis for amino acid analysis.

With the maturation of microfluidic technologies, microchip electrophoresis has been widely employed for amino acid analysis owing to its advantages of low sample consumption, reduced analysis time, high throughput, and potential for integration and automation. In this article, we review the recent progress in amino acid analysis using microchip electrophoresis during the period from 2007 to 2012. Innovations in microchip materials, surface modification, sample introduction, microchip electrophoresis, and detection methods are documented, as well as nascent applications of amino acid analysis in single-cell analysis, microdialysis sampling, food analysis, and extraterrestrial exploration. Without doubt, more applications of microchip electrophoresis in amino acid analysis may be expected soon.