Background
This study examines the predictive value of a novel systemic immune‐inflammation index (SII, platelet × neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio) in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients.
Methods
A ...total of 5602 CAD patients who had undergone a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were enrolled. They were divided into two groups by baseline SII score (high SII vs low SII) to analyse the relationship between SII groups and the long‐term outcome. The primary outcomes were major cardiovascular events (MACE) which includes nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), nonfatal stroke and cardiac death. Secondary outcomes included a composite of MACE and hospitalization for congestive heart failure.
Results
An optimal SII cut‐off point of 694.3 × 109 was identified for MACE in the CAD training cohort (n = 373) and then verified in the second larger CAD cohort (n = 5602). Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that a higher SII score (≥694.3) was independently associated with increased risk of developing cardiac death (HR: 2.02; 95% CI: 1.43‐2.86), nonfatal MI (HR: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.09‐1.85), nonfatal stroke (HR: 1.96; 95% CI: 1.28‐2.99), MACE (HR: 1.65; 95% CI: 1.36‐2.01) and total major events (HR: 1.53; 95% CI: 1.32‐1.77). In addition, the SII significantly improved risk stratification of MI, cardiac death, heart failure, MACE and total major events than conventional risk factors in CAD patients by the significant increase in the C‐index (P < .001) and reclassification risk categories by significant NRI (P < .05) and IDI (P < .05).
Conclusions
SII had a better prediction of major cardiovascular events than traditional risk factors in CAD patients after coronary intervention.
Exosomes are nanoscale extracellular vesicles that play an important role in many biological processes, including intercellular communications, antigen presentation, and the transport of proteins, ...RNA, and other molecules. Recently there has been significant interest in exosome-related fundamental research, seeking new exosome-based biomarkers for health monitoring and disease diagnoses. Here, we report a separation method based on acoustofluidics (i.e., the integration of acoustics and microfluidics) to isolate exosomes directly from whole blood in a label-free and contact-free manner. This acoustofluidic platform consists of two modules: a microscale cell-removal module that first removes larger blood components, followed by extracellular vesicle subgroup separation in the exosome-isolation module. In the cell-removal module, we demonstrate the isolation of 110-nm particles from a mixture of micro- and nanosized particles with a yield greater than 99%. In the exosome-isolation module, we isolate exosomes from an extracellular vesicle mixture with a purity of 98.4%. Integrating the two acoustofluidic modules onto a single chip, we isolated exosomes from whole blood with a blood cell removal rate of over 99.999%. With its ability to perform rapid, biocompatible, label-free, contact-free, and continuous-flow exosome isolation, the integrated acoustofluidic device offers a unique approach to investigate the role of exosomes in the onset and progression of human diseases with potential applications in health monitoring, medical diagnosis, targeted drug delivery, and personalized medicine.
The study of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) offers pathways to develop new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers that benefit cancer treatments. In order to fully exploit and interpret the information ...provided by CTCs, the development of a platform is reported that integrates acoustics and microfluidics to isolate rare CTCs from peripheral blood in high throughput while preserving their structural, biological, and functional integrity. Cancer cells are first isolated from leukocytes with a throughput of 7.5 mL h−1, achieving a recovery rate of at least 86% while maintaining the cells' ability to proliferate. High‐throughput acoustic separation enables statistical analysis of isolated CTCs from prostate cancer patients to be performed to determine their size distribution and phenotypic heterogeneity for a range of biomarkers, including the visualization of CTCs with a loss of expression for the prostate specific membrane antigen. The method also enables the isolation of even rarer, but clinically important, CTC clusters.
A platform that integrates acoustics and microfluidics to isolate rare circulating tumor cells from peripheral blood in high throughput while preserving their structural, biological, and functional integrity is developed. The platform utilizes divider design to modify fluid velocity profile thus improving separation accuracy, and a hybrid poly(dimethylsiloxane)–glass resonator design to form an acoustic resonator, thus improving separation throughput.
Biologically plausible computing systems require fine‐grain tuning of analog synaptic characteristics. In this study, lithium‐doped silicate resistive random access memory with a titanium nitride ...(TiN) electrode mimicking biological synapses is demonstrated. Biological plausibility of this RRAM device is thought to occur due to the low ionization energy of lithium ions, which enables controllable forming and filamentary retraction spontaneously or under an applied voltage. The TiN electrode can effectively store lithium ions, a principle widely adopted from battery construction, and allows state‐dependent decay to be reliably achieved. As a result, this device offers multi‐bit functionality and synaptic plasticity for simulating various strengths in neuronal connections. Both short‐term memory and long‐term memory are emulated across dynamical timescales. Spike‐timing‐dependent plasticity and paired‐pulse facilitation are also demonstrated. These mechanisms are capable of self‐pruning to generate efficient neural networks. Time‐dependent resistance decay is observed for different conductance values, which mimics both biological and artificial memory pruning and conforms to the trend of the biological brain that prunes weak synaptic connections. By faithfully emulating learning rules that exist in human's higher cortical areas from STDP to synaptic pruning, the device has the capacity to drive forward the development of highly efficient neuromorphic computing systems.
In this study, lithium‐doped silicate resistive random access memory with a titanium nitride (TiN) electrode is shown to mimic biological synapses. The TiN electrode effectively stores lithium ions, a principle widely adopted from battery construction, and enables reliable state‐dependent decay. This device offers multi‐bit functionality and synaptic plasticity, short‐term memory and long‐term memory, spike‐timing‐dependent plasticity and paired‐pulse facilitation.
Microfluidic fluorescence‐activated cell sorters (μFACS) have attracted considerable interest because of their ability to identify and separate cells in inexpensive and biosafe ways. Here a ...high‐performance μFACS is presented by integrating a standing surface acoustic wave (SSAW)‐based, 3D cell‐focusing unit, an in‐plane fluorescent detection unit, and an SSAW‐based cell‐deflection unit on a single chip. Without using sheath flow or precise flow rate control, the SSAW‐based cell‐focusing technique can focus cells into a single file at a designated position. The tight focusing of cells enables an in‐plane‐integrated optical detection system to accurately distinguish individual cells of interest. In the acoustic‐based cell‐deflection unit, a focused interdigital transducer design is utilized to deflect cells from the focused stream within a minimized area, resulting in a high‐throughput sorting ability. Each unit is experimentally characterized, respectively, and the integrated SSAW‐based FACS is used to sort mammalian cells (HeLa) at different throughputs. A sorting purity of greater than 90% is achieved at a throughput of 2500 events s−1. The SSAW‐based FACS is efficient, fast, biosafe, biocompatible and has a small footprint, making it a competitive alternative to more expensive, bulkier traditional FACS.
Miniaturization and integration of a fluorescence‐activated cell sorter is achieved by using standing surface acoustic waves for both cell focusing and deflection, and using integrated optical fibers for detection. The small‐footprint standing surface acoustic wave‐based fluorescence‐activated cell sorter demonstrates high throughput, biocompatibility, biosafety, and accuracy.
Precise and selective manipulation of colloids and biological cells has long been motivated by applications in materials science, physics and the life sciences. Here we introduce our harmonic ...acoustics for a non-contact, dynamic, selective (HANDS) particle manipulation platform, which enables the reversible assembly of colloidal crystals or cells via the modulation of acoustic trapping positions with subwavelength resolution. We compose Fourier-synthesized harmonic waves to create soft acoustic lattices and colloidal crystals without using surface treatment or modifying their material properties. We have achieved active control of the lattice constant to dynamically modulate the interparticle distance in a high-throughput (>100 pairs), precise, selective and reversible manner. Furthermore, we apply this HANDS platform to quantify the intercellular adhesion forces among various cancer cell lines. Our biocompatible HANDS platform provides a highly versatile particle manipulation method that can handle soft matter and measure the interaction forces between living cells with high sensitivity.
Abstract
Van der Waals heterobilayers of transition metal dichalcogenides with spin–valley coupling of carriers in different layers have emerged as a new platform for exploring spin/valleytronic ...applications. The interlayer coupling was predicted to exhibit subtle changes with the interlayer atomic registry. Manually stacked heterobilayers, however, are incommensurate with the inevitable interlayer twist and/or lattice mismatch, where the properties associated with atomic registry are difficult to access by optical means. Here, we unveil the distinct polarization properties of valley-specific interlayer excitons using epitaxially grown, commensurate WSe
2
/MoSe
2
heterobilayers with well-defined (AA and AB) atomic registry. We observe circularly polarized photoluminescence from interlayer excitons, but with a helicity opposite to the optical excitation. The negative circular polarization arises from the quantum interference imposed by interlayer atomic registry, giving rise to distinct polarization selection rules for interlayer excitons. Using selective excitation schemes, we demonstrate the optical addressability for interlayer excitons with different valley configurations and polarization helicities.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) and lipoproteins are abundant and co-exist in blood. Both have been proven to be valuable as diagnostic biomarkers and for therapeutics. However, EVs and lipoproteins are ...both on the submicron scale and overlap in size distributions. Conventional methods to separate EVs and lipoproteins are inefficient and time-consuming. Here we present an acoustofluidic-based separation technique that is based on the acoustic property differences of EVs and lipoproteins. By using the acoustofluidic technology, EVs and subgroups of lipoproteins are separated in a label-free, contact-free, and continuous manner. With its ability for simple, rapid, efficient, continuous-flow isolation, our acoustofluidic technology could be a valuable tool for health monitoring, disease diagnosis, and personalized medicine.
Display omitted
•The novel amphiphilic AIEgen copolymers based and NIPAM and tetraphenylethylene (TPE) for fluorescence sensor were fabricated.•Multi-stimuli responsive fluorescence of AIE copolymers ...were investigated under various external stimuli (at different temperatures and acid/base conditions).•Ultrafast, remarkably sensitive and selective Cu2+ detection in aqueous media and test strips were achieved based on the TPE fluorescence quenching via photoinduced electron transfer (PET) phenomena.•Owing to good water solubilities, amphiphilic copolymers P1 and P2 (containing only 1.6 and 0.6 % molar ratios of AIEgen) exhibit significant sensing towards Cu2+ with very prominent limit of detection values (LOD = 57 and 72 nM, respectively)
Novel multi-stimuli responsive fluorescence sensors based on amphiphilic copolymers containing hydrophilic N-isopropylmethacrylamide (NIPAM) and AIEgenic tetraphenylethylene-dipicolylamine (TPEDPA) monomers attached to side-chains of copolymers are synthesized. Two copolymers poly(NIPAM)x-co-(TPEDPA)y prepared by free radical polymerization with different molar ratios of monomers NIPAM and TPEDPA (i.e., x:y = 60:1 and 175:1 for P1 and P2, respectively) show good solubilities in organic solvents and water, which exhibit strong cyan fluorescence at 466 nm in aggregation and solid states due to AIE behaviors of TPE units. Upon various external stimuli (temperatures and acid/base conditions), P1 and P2 possess excellent reversible thermo- and pH-responsive fluorescence turn-off/on cyan emissions of TPE units. In addition, with DPA receptor, P1 and P2 are applied as ultrafast, selective and sensitive fluorescence probes for copper ion detection in water based on the TPE fluorescence quenching via photoinduced electron transfer (PET) phenomena, which can be recovered by the addition of disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate solution. Owing to good water solubilities, amphiphilic copolymers P1 and P2 (containing only 1.6 and 0.6 % molar ratios of AIEgen) exhibit significant sensing towards Cu2+ with very prominent limit of detection values (LOD = 57 and 72 nM, respectively), which are much better than that of hydrophobic monomer TPEDPA (590 nM). Moreover, the fluorescence quenching of TPE units due to PET phenomena is further confirmed by theoretical calculations. Additionally, as an excellent quenching fluorescence sensor with good biocompatibility of P1, its recognition of copper ion and bio-imaging applications in living cells are also reported in this research.
PDF
