Iodine/soluble starch cryogel: An iodine-based antiseptic with instant water-solubility, improved stability, and potent bactericidal activity.

Iodine (I2) as a broad-spectrum antiseptic has been widely used for treating bacterial infections. However, I2 has low water-solubility and sublimes under ambient conditions, which limits its practical antibacterial applications. The highly specific and sensitive reaction between I2 and starch discovered 200 years ago has been extensively applied in analytical chemistry, but the antibacterial activity of the I2-starch complex is rarely investigated. Herein, we develop a novel type of iodine-based antiseptics, iodine-soluble starch (I2-SS) cryogel, which can dissolve in water instantly and almost completely kill bacteria in 10 min at 2 µg/mL of I2. Although KI3 and the commercially available povidone­iodine (I2-PVP) solutions show similar antibacterial efficacy, the high affinity of I2 to SS largely enhances the shelf stability of the I2-SS solution with ∼73 % I2 left after one-week storage at room temperature. In sharp contrast, ∼8.5 % and âˆ¼2.5 % I2 are detected in KI3 and I2-PVP solutions, respectively. Mechanistic study reveals that the potent antibacterial effect of I2-SS originates from its attack on multiple bacterial targets. The outstanding antibacterial activity, capability of accelerating wound healing, and good biocompatibility of I2-SS are verified through further in vivo experiments. This work may promote the development of next-generation iodine-based antiseptics for clinical use.

Intestinal Delivery of Probiotics: Materials, Strategies, and Applications.

Probiotics with diverse and crucial properties and functions have attracted broad interest from many researchers, who adopt intestinal delivery of probiotics to modulate the gut microbiota. However, the major problems faced for the therapeutic applications of probiotics are the viability and colonization of probiotics during their processing, oral intake, and subsequent delivery to the gut. The challenges of simple oral delivery (stability, controllability, targeting, etc.) have greatly limited the use of probiotics in clinical therapies. Nanotechnology can endow the probiotics to be delivered to the intestine with improved survival rate and increased resistance to the adverse environment. Additionally, the progress in synthetic biology has created new opportunities for efficiently and purposefully designing and manipulating the probiotics. In this article, a brief overview of the types of probiotics for intestinal delivery, the current progress of different probiotic encapsulation strategies, including the chemical, physical, and genetic strategies and their combinations, and the emerging single-cell encapsulation strategies using nanocoating methods, is presented. The action mechanisms of probiotics that are responsible for eliciting beneficial effects are also briefly discussed. Finally, the therapeutic applications of engineered probiotics are discussed, and the future trends toward developing engineered probiotics with advanced features and improved health benefits are proposed.

Knocking down AR promotes osteoblasts to recruit prostate cancer cells by altering exosomal circ-DHPS/miR-214-3p/CCL5 pathway.

ABSTRACT: Tumor-derived exosomes have been shown to play a key role in organ-specific metastasis, and the androgen receptor regulates prostate cancer (PCa) progression. It is unclear whether the androgen receptor regulates the recruitment of prostate cancer cells to the bone microenvironment, even bone metastases, through exosomes. Here, we found that exosomes isolated from PCa cells after knocking down androgen receptor (AR) or enzalutamide treatment can facilitate the migration of prostate cancer cells to osteoblasts. In addition, AR silencing or treatment with the AR antagonist enzalutamide may increase the expression of circular RNA-deoxyhypusine synthase (circ-DHPS) in PCa cells, which can be transported to osteoblasts by exosomes. Circ-DHPS acts as a competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) against endogenous miR-214-3p to promote C-C chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) levels in osteoblasts. Increasing the level of CCL5 in osteoblasts could recruit more PCa cells into the bone microenvironment. Thus, blocking the circ-DHPS/miR-214-3p/CCL5 signal may decrease exosome-mediated migration of prostate cancer cells to osteoblasts.

Carbon Dots as Drug Delivery Vehicles for Antimicrobial Applications: A Minireview.

Carbon dots are small carbon nanoparticles with intrinsic photoluminescence. Because of the advantages such as good biocompatibility and water dispersity, many researchers have applied carbon dots as delivery platforms of antimicrobial agents. Compared with the free small-molecule antimicrobial agents alone, the carbon dot-based systems may exhibit enhanced antimicrobial activity, increased stability, improved cellular uptake, and reduced side effects. This review will mainly discuss the antimicrobial agent-loaded carbon dots for various antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral applications. The current limitations and future research directions in the related field are also proposed. It is hoped that this review will have implications for the future development of functional carbon dots for various practical antimicrobial uses.

Serum IgE profiles in Chinese pollinosis patients with grass pollen sensitisation.

PURPOSE: Pollen from trees, grasses, and weeds is a common allergen source. The characteristics of pollen allergy in China are obviously different from Europe. Most studies have focused on tree and weed pollen, but there is a paucity of data on grass pollen sensitisation in China. Therefore, we used component-resolved diagnostics to investigate the serum-specific immunoglobulin E (sIgE) to grass pollen in Chinese patients with pollinosis. METHODS: We retrospectively analysed 547 patients with pollen allegy from an outpatient Allergy Department in Beijing, China. All the patients answered questionnaires about their clinical allergy histories. Total immunoglobulin E (IgE) and sIgE levels to grass pollen (Bermuda, Timothy grass) were quantified by ImmunoCAP using 0.35 kUA/L as a threshold for positivity. RESULTS: Of the 547 pollinosis patients, 389 (71.1%) showed a positive sIgE reaction to either grass pollen, or both. The prevalence of food allergy was significantly lower in patients with grass pollen sensitisation. Among the 389 patients with grass pollen sensitisation, the prevalence of sIgE to allergen extracts of bermuda, mugwort, ragweed, plane, hop, ash, birch, and timothy grass was 97%, 96%, 94%, 88%, 88%, 84%, 78%, and 78%, respectively. However, only 134/389 (34%) were positive for Cyn d 1, 29/389 (7%) for Phl p 1, and 8/389 (2%) for Phl p 5b. For pollinosis patients, 62/547 (11%) were sIgE-positive for cross-reactive carbohydrate determinants (CCDs), and their grass pollen-sIgE was also positive. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of in vitro IgE sensitisation to grass pollen extract is high in Chinese patients with pollinosis. But mostly spurious and characterized by IgE sensitisation to profilins and CCD, induced by other pollen. Component-resolved diagnostics is an extremely useful tool precise diagnostics of pollen allergy in China.

Regional Differences in Food Allergies.

The prevalence of food allergies is increasing worldwide. To understand the regional specificities of food allergies and develop effective therapeutic interventions, extensive regional epidemiological studies are necessary. While data regarding incidence, prevalence, regional variation, and treatment in food allergies are available for western countries, such studies may not be available in many Asian countries. China accounts for almost 20% of the world's population and has a vast ethnic diversity, but large-scale meta-analyses of epidemiological studies of food allergy in China are lacking. A literature search revealed 22 publications on the prevalence of food allergy in Chinese populations. A review of these studies showed that the prevalence of food allergies in China is comparable to that in western countries, even though the Chinese diet is vastly different from that of the West and may vary even greatly within China, and finally, specific antigenic triggers of food allergy vary between China and the West and also within China. Current clinical management of food allergy in China includes allergen-specific immunotherapy, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, and Western medicine. This study demonstrates an unmet need in China for a thorough investigation of the prevalence of food allergies in China, the specific foods involved, and characterization of the specific antigenic triggers of food allergy with respect to ethnicity, age, and diet in China.

The Acute Effects of Cigarette Smoking on the Functional State of High Density Lipoprotein.

BACKGROUND: Cigarette smoking disturbs plasma lipid level and lipoprotein metabolism; however, the effects of smoking on the functional state of high density lipoprotein (HDL) are still not clear. This study aimed to determine the antioxidant and antichemotactic properties of HDL and HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux in healthy subjects after cigarette smoking. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Healthy male subjects, including nonsmokers (n = 16) and chronic smokers (n = 8), were enrolled. After smoking 8 cigarettes within 2 hours, plasma HDL was isolated and tested. Copper-induced low density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation was used to determine the antioxidant ability of HDL. The concentration of serum amyloid A was measured by Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay. Chemotaxis was detected by transwell assay. HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux was measured using fluorescent cholesterol analog. RESULTS: LDL baseline oxidation state was higher in chronic smokers than that in nonsmokers. Meanwhile, HDL-induced cholesterol efflux in macrophages in chronic smokers was significantly enhanced compared with that in nonsmokers. After acute smoking, both the antioxidant and antichemotactic ability of HDL declined in nonsmokers. However, in healthy chronic smokers, the effect of HDL on the susceptibility of LDL to oxidation was compensatorily enhanced. Nevertheless, their bodies were still in a higher oxidation state. Also, acute smoking did not affect HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux significantly in both nonsmokers and chronic smokers. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that acute smoking attenuates the antioxidant and antichemotactic abilities of HDL in nonsmokers. Chronic smokers are in a higher oxidative state, although the antioxidant function of their HDL is compensatorily enhanced.