Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) disruption is an important pathophysiological process of acute ischemic stroke (AIS), resulting in devastating malignant brain edema and hemorrhagic transformation. The rapid activation of immune cells plays a critical role in BBB disruption after ischemic stroke. Infiltrating blood-borne immune cells (neutrophils, monocytes, and T lymphocytes) increase BBB permeability, as they cause microvascular disorder and secrete inflammation-associated molecules. In contrast, they promote BBB repair and angiogenesis in the latter phase of ischemic stroke. The profound immunological effects of cerebral immune cells (microglia, astrocytes, and pericytes) on BBB disruption have been underestimated in ischemic stroke. Post-stroke microglia and astrocytes can adopt both an M1/A1 or M2/A2 phenotype, which influence BBB integrity differently. However, whether pericytes acquire microglia phenotype and exert immunological effects on the BBB remains controversial. Thus, better understanding the inflammatory mechanism underlying BBB disruption can lead to the identification of more promising biological targets to develop treatments that minimize the onset of life-threatening complications and to improve existing treatments in patients. However, early attempts to inhibit the infiltration of circulating immune cells into the brain by blocking adhesion molecules, that were successful in experimental stroke failed in clinical trials. Therefore, new immunoregulatory therapeutic strategies for acute ischemic stroke are desperately warranted. Herein, we highlight the role of circulating and cerebral immune cells in BBB disruption and the crosstalk between them following acute ischemic stroke. Using a robust theoretical background, we discuss potential and effective immunotherapeutic targets to regulate BBB permeability after acute ischemic stroke.

Wound therapy remains a clinical challenge. Incorporation of growth factors (GFs) into heparin-functionalized polymer hydrogel is considered as a promising strategy to improve wound healing efficiency. However, different GFs incorporation into the same heparin-based hydrogels often lead to different wound healing effects, and the underlying GF-induced wound healing mechanisms still remain elusive. Herein, we developed a thermos-sensitive heparin-poloxamer (HP) hydrogel to load and deliver different GFs (aFGF and bFGF) for wound healing in vivo. The resulting GFs-based hydrogels with and without HP hydrogels were systematically evaluated and compared for their wound healing efficiency by extensive in vivo tests, including wound closure rate, granulation formation, re-epithelization, cell proliferation, collagen, and angiogenesis expressions. While all GFs-based dressings with and without HP hydrogels exhibited better wound healing efficacy than controls, both HP-aFGF and HP-bFGF hydrogels demonstrated their superior healing activity to improve wound closure, granulation formation, re-epithelization, and blood vessel density by up-regulation of PCNA proliferation and collagen synthesis, as compared to GF dressings alone. More importantly, HP-aFGF dressings exhibited the higher healing efficacy than HP-bFGF dressings, indicating that different a/bFGF surface properties lead to different binding and release behaviors in HP hydrogels, both of which will affect different wound healing efficiency. On the basis of experimental observations, the working mechanisms of different healing effects of HP-GFs on full skin removal wound were proposed. This work provides different views of the design and development of an effective hydrogel-based delivery system for GFs toward rapid wound healing.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

A practical method for the amidation of aldehydes with economic ammonium chloride or amine hydrochloride salts has been developed for the synthesis of a wide variety of amides by using inexpensive copper sulfate or copper(I) oxide as a catalyst and aqueous tert-butyl hydroperoxide as an oxidant. This amidation reaction is operationally straightforward and provides primary, secondary, and tertiary amides in good to excellent yields for most cases utilizing inexpensive and readily available reagents under mild conditions. In situ formation of amine salts from free amines extends the substrate scope of the reaction. Chiral amides are also synthesized from their corresponding chiral amines without detectable racemization. The practicality of this amide formation reaction has been demonstrated in an efficient synthesis of the antiarrhythmic drug N-acetylprocainamide.

Pd nanoparticles supported on ZIF-8 (PdNPs/ZIF-8) are described as an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for the aminocarbonylation of bromoarenes in the presence of phosphines and iodoarenes under phosphine-free conditions. The catalyst can be readily prepared and is air-stable. The palladium loading can be as low as 1 wt %, and the catalyst was recycled four times with negligible change in catalytic performance. A variety of pharmaceutically important amides was readily synthesized. A TON of 2540 was easily achieved in a batch reaction by scaling up to a gram scale. The catalyst reported can also be applied to the synthesis of cyclic and primary amides as well as an alkoxycarbonylation reaction to form an ester.

Hydrogen sulfide (HS), together with nitric oxide and carbon monoxide, has been recognized as an important gasotransmitter. It plays an essential physiological role in regulating cyto-protective signal process, and HS-based therapy is considered as the next generation of promising therapeutic strategies for many biomedical applications, such as the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Through electrospinning of polycaprolactone (PCL) containing JK1, a novel pH-controllable HS donor, nanofibers with HS releasing function, PCL-JK1, are fabricated. This fibrous scaffold showed a pH-dependent HS releasing behavior, i.e., lower pH induced greater and faster HS release. In addition, the HS release of JK1 was prolonged by the fibrous matrix as shown by decreased releasing rates compared to JK1 in solutions. In addition, in vitro studies indicated that PCL-JK1 exhibited excellent cyto-compatibility, similar to PCL fibers. Finally, we investigated PCL-JK1 as a wound dressing toward a cutaneous wound model in vivo and found that PCL-JK1 could significantly enhance the wound repair and regeneration compared with the control PCL scaffold, likely due to the release of HS, which results in a broad range of physiologically protective functions toward the wound.