Mitochondria are key organelles in mammalian cells whose dysfunction is linked to various diseases. Drugs targeting mitochondrial proteins provide a highly promising strategy for potential ...therapeutics. Methods for the delivery of small‐molecule drugs to the mitochondria are available, but these are not suitable for macromolecules, such as proteins. Herein, we report the delivery of native proteins and antibodies to the mitochondria using biodegradable silica nanoparticles (BS–NPs). The modification of the nanoparticle surface with triphenylphosphonium (TPP) and cell‐penetrating poly(disulfide)s (CPD) facilitated their rapid intracellular uptake with minimal endolysosomal trapping, providing sufficient time for effective mitochondrial localization followed by glutathione‐triggered biodegradation and of native, functional proteins into the mitochondria.
Selective delivery: Biodegradable silica nanoparticles, decorated with cell‐penetrating poly(disulfide)s and triphenylphosphonium, which enables their transport into the mitochondria, degrade upon encountering glutathione in the mitochondria, thereby releasing encapsulated proteins. This strategy could be useful for the targeted delivery of protein‐based therapeutics.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The increasing demand on internet traffic makes the network operator face a dilemma: How to improve users’ quality of experience (QoE) with limited spectrum resources? In this study, we try to ...alleviate operators’ pressure by exploiting the merits of edge computing and device-to-device (D2D) communication technology. Offloading data or task to the edge can reduce the access delay of users, and the D2D communication technology helps to employ the unlicensed spectrum to transmit data. Furthermore, the information exchange can be completed without the network infrastructure. Considering these facts, we build an edge computing platform, in which devices can automatically switch the transmission pattern based on the communication distance or the strength of signals. We test the transmission performance of two D2D links, Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth, and that of the cellular link, and use the flower identification as a case study to verify the effectiveness of the platform. The experimental results validate that with the assistance of D2D communication technology, the response time is greatly improved compared with using the cellular link.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Antibodies are important biopharmaceuticals, but almost all existing antibody‐based drugs are limited to targeting antigens located at the cell exterior because of the inability of antibodies to ...enter the cell interior. Available methods for intracellular delivery of antibodies have major shortcomings. Herein, we report an approach to encapsulate native antibodies in a biodegradable silica nanoquencher (BS‐qNP), which could undergo efficient cellular uptake and intracellular degradation to release antibodies only under hypoxic conditions. By coating the surface of BS‐qNP with cell‐penetrating poly(disulfide)s (CPD), the delivered antibodies (or other proteins) avoided endolysosomal trapping. Doping of the silica coating with a fluorescent dye and a dark hole quencher further endowed BS‐qNP with hypoxia‐responsive fluorescence turn‐on property. Our antibody delivery system thus provides the first platform capable of stable encapsulation, efficient uptake, on‐demand antibody release, and imaging of release/cell state.
Better delivery is possible: The first hypoxia‐responsive antibody‐encapsulated silica nanoquencher was developed to achieve endocytosis‐independent cell uptake and on‐demand intracellular release of native therapeutic antibodies in cancer cells, with the capability to simultaneously image both antibody release and hypoxic state of cells.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Infectious diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria, especially multidrug‐resistant bacteria, and their global spreading have become serious public health concerns. Early diagnosis and effective ...therapy can efficiently prevent deterioration and further spreading of the infections. There is an urgent need for sensitive, selective, and facile diagnosis as well as therapeutically potent treatment. The emergence of nanotechnology has provided more options for diagnosis and treatments of bacterial infections. Metal nanoparticles and metal oxide nanoparticles have drawn intense attention owing to their unique optical, magnetic, and electrical properties. These versatile metal‐based nanoparticles have great potential for selective detection of bacteria and/or therapy. This review gives an overview of recent efforts on developing various metal‐based nanoparticles for bacterial detection and infection therapy. It begins with an introduction of fundamental concepts and mechanisms in designing diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Representative achievements are selected to illustrate the proof‐of‐concept in vitro and in vivo applications. A brief discussion of challenges and perspective outlook in this field is provided at the end of this review.
Significant progress of using metal‐based nanoparticles for diagnosis and treatment of bacterial infections has been made recently. In this review, various bacterial detection and treatment schemes based on unique properties and antibacterial effects of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles as well as challenges for their potential clinical applications are summarized.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Due to the constraints of agricultural computing resources and the diversity of plant diseases, it is challenging to achieve the desired accuracy rate while keeping the network lightweight. In this ...paper, we proposed a computationally efficient deep learning architecture based on the mobile vision transformer (MobileViT) for real-time detection of plant diseases, which we called plant-based MobileViT (PMVT). Our proposed model was designed to be highly accurate and low-cost, making it suitable for deployment on mobile devices with limited resources. Specifically, we replaced the convolution block in MobileViT with an inverted residual structure that employs a 7×7 convolution kernel to effectively model long-distance dependencies between different leaves in plant disease images. Furthermore, inspired by the concept of multi-level attention in computer vision tasks, we integrated a convolutional block attention module (CBAM) into the standard ViT encoder. This integration allows the network to effectively avoid irrelevant information and focus on essential features. The PMVT network achieves reduced parameter counts compared to alternative networks on various mobile devices while maintaining high accuracy across different vision tasks. Extensive experiments on multiple agricultural datasets, including wheat, coffee, and rice, demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the current best lightweight and heavyweight models. On the wheat dataset, PMVT achieves the highest accuracy of 93.6% using approximately 0.98 million (M) parameters. This accuracy is 1.6% higher than that of MobileNetV3. Under the same parameters, PMVT achieved an accuracy of 85.4% on the coffee dataset, surpassing SqueezeNet by 2.3%. Furthermore, out method achieved an accuracy of 93.1% on the rice dataset, surpassing MobileNetV3 by 3.4%. Additionally, we developed a plant disease diagnosis app and successfully used the trained PMVT model to identify plant disease in different scenarios.
NaYF(4):Yb,Er@SiO(2)@Ag core-shell nanocomposites were prepared to investigate metal-enhanced upconversion luminescence. Two sizes (15 and 30 nm) of Ag nanoparticles were used. The emission intensity ...of the upconversion nanocrystals was found to be strongly modulated by the presence of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) on the outer shell layer of the nanocomposites. The extent of modulation depended on the separation distance between Ag NPs and upconversion nanocrystals. The optimum upconversion luminescence enhancement was observed at a separation distance of 10 nm for Ag NPs with two different sizes (15 and 30 nm). A maximum upconversion luminescence enhancement of 14.4-fold was observed when 15 nm Ag nanoparticles were used and 10.8-fold was observed when 30 nm Ag NPs were used. The separation distance dependent emission intensity is ascribed to the competition between energy transfer and enhanced radiative decay rates. The biocompatibility of the nanocomposites was significantly improved by surface modification with DNA. The biological imaging capabilities of these nanocomposites were demonstrated using B16F0 cells.
The design of drug delivery systems capable of minimal endolysosomal trapping, controlled drug release, and real‐time monitoring of drug effect is highly desirable for personalized medicine. Herein, ...by using mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) coated with cell‐penetrating poly(disulfide)s and a fluorogenic apoptosis‐detecting peptide (DEVD‐AAN), we have developed a platform that could be uptaken rapidly by mammalian cells via endocytosis‐independent pathways. Subsequent loading of these MSNs with small molecule inhibitors and antisense oligonucleotides resulted in intracellular release of these drugs, leading to combination inhibition of endogenous miR‐21 activities which was immediately detectable by the MSN surface‐coated peptide using two‐photon fluorescence microscopy.
Combine and detect: Mesoporous silica nanoparticles are coated with cell‐penetrating poly(disulfide)s and a fluorogenic apoptosis‐detecting peptide. The result is a theranostic drug delivery system for endocytosis‐independent delivery/controlled release of combination drugs for the inhibition of endogenous miR‐21 with simultaneous detection of subsequent drug effects by two‐photon fluorescence microscopy.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Cu2O–Au nanocomposites (NCs) with tunable coverage of Au were prepared by a facile method of mixing gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) with copper(I) oxide nanowires (Cu2O NWs) in various ratios. These ...Cu2O–Au NCs display tunable optical properties, and their photocatalytic properties were dependent on the coverage density of Au NPs. The photocatalytic activity of Cu2O–Au NCs was examined by photodegradation of methylene blue. The presence of Au NPs enhanced the photodegradation efficiency of Cu2O NCs. The photocatalytic efficiency of Cu2O–Au NCs initially increased with the increasing coverage density of Au NPs and then decreased as the surface of Cu2O became densely covered by Au NPs. The enhanced photocatalytic efficiency was ascribed to enhanced light absorption (by the surface plasmon resonance) and the electron sink effect of the Au NPs.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Plasmon enhancement of optical properties is both fundamentally important and appealing for many biological and photonic applications. Although metal-enhanced two-photon excitation fluorescence has ...been demonstrated in the solid substrates, there is no report on metal enhanced overall two-photon excitation fluorescence in the colloid system. Here we systematically investigated gold nanorod enhanced one- and two-photon excitation fluorescence of a porphyrin molecule, T790. The separation distance between the metal core and T790 was varied by adjusting the silica shell thickness from 13 to 42 nm. One- and two-photon excitation fluorescence intensities of T790 were found to strongly depend on the thickness of silica shell that separates gold nanorod and T790. The optimum one- and two-photon excitation fluorescence enhancement was found to occur at shell thicknesses of 34 and 20 nm, with enhancement factors of 2.1 and 11.8, respectively. Fluorescence lifetime of T790 steadily decreased as the shell thickness decreased. The observed two-photon excitation fluorescence enhancement is ascribed to a combination effect of local electric field amplification and competition between increased radiative and non-radiative decay rates. Core-shell nanoparticles that displayed enhanced two-photon excitation fluorescence were also found to exhibit significantly improved singlet oxygen generation capability under two-photon excitation. The applications of these nanoparticles as effective agents for two-photon cell imaging and nano-photosensitizers for two-photon photodynamic therapy with improved efficiency have also been demonstrated in HepG2 cancer cells. The combined advantages of enhanced two-photon excitation fluorescence and two-photon induced singlet oxygen generation make these core-shell nanoparticles as attractive agents for two-photon imaging guided two-photon photodynamic therapy.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
In this paper, we investigate the content deployment problem from precaching and device-to-device communication perspectives. In the precaching stage, contents are prefetched and stored in edge nodes ...to be quickly provided to end users. In the device-to-device communication process, intermediate nodes face a dilemma in deciding whether to cache contents coming from or going to neighboring nodes to accelerate the content delivery. We call the former proactive caching and the latter reactive caching. We then design ProRec, a unified caching framework, by jointly considering the two cases with the goal of maximizing the content hit ratio. ProRec first addresses the optimization problem using the method of Lagrangian multipliers and obtains a general solution to the optimal content copies. Second, a greedy solution, proven to achieve the optimum with a probability of at least
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, is used to cache and replace contents. Finally, an edge computing simulation platform that includes real and synthetic traces is built as a case study to verify the effectiveness of ProRec. The numerical results show that it simultaneously improves the cache hit ratio and content delivery delay.
