Protein interactions with specific nucleic acid sequences are crucial in cell growth. Inspired by such binding events that often occur at nanoscale biointerface, here a trans‐scale functional interface capable of considerably enhancing in vitro DNA‐enzyme interaction is reported. Using a screen‐printed electrode with nanoroughened carbon surface, the high‐curvature gold nanostructures in a single electrodeposition step can be programmed. In this process, a synergistic effect is found between nanoroughened carbon and polyelectrolyte multilayer enabling the formation of high‐stability and high‐curvature nanostructures. More importantly, these fractal nanostructures effectively overcome neighboring probes aggregation at high density and allow the probes to be more freely accessed by target molecules. As compared to its planar counterparts, this nanostructuring interface demonstrates faster enzymatic dynamics that enables ultrasensitive detection of microRNA with a detection limit of 35 × 10−18 m. Such an efficient trans‐scale biosensing interface has also accurately differentiated the patients with rheumatic arthritis from the health ones, signifying its great potential in precision medicine.

Phosphopeptide enrichment with high selectivity and detection sensitivity is essential for phosphoproteomic studies and remains a long-standing challenge. In this study, new immobilized metal affinity chromatography nanocomposite adsorbents with a phosphonate-functionalized ionic liquid (PFIL) as a surface modifier are successfully prepared via a reaction sequence of amination, quaternization, phosphonate hydrolyzation, and metal immobilization. Taking advantages of integrated features of a flexible and strong tripodal phosphonate chelator, a hydrophilic ionic liquid linker, a large surface area, and the size-exclusion effect, the resulting nanocomposite G@mSiO 2 -PFIL-Ti 4+ exhibits excellent detection sensitivity to enrich phosphorylated peptides from a tryptic β-casein digest (0.15 fmol), and superior enrichment selectivity to capture phosphorylated peptides from a digest mixture of β-casein and bovine serum albumin (a molar ratio of 1:10,000). Strong immobilization of tripodal chelation to metal ions endows the nanocomposite adsorbent with high tolerance to experimental conditions, and thus excellent reusability of the adsorbent has been achieved without remarkable loss of enrichment efficiency for 10 cycles. Due to the excellent size-exclusion effect, high enrichment specificity of G@mSiO 2 -PFIL-Ti 4+ to phosphopeptides has been observed and 23 endogenous phosphopeptides have been captured from human saliva. In addition, 924 phosphopeptides (enrichment specificity, 56.1%) have been identified from the tryptic digest of mouse brain lysate. Particularly, six of 975 phosphorylation sites were Alzheimer's disease-related hyperphosphorylation sites within tau protein. These results demonstrate that G@mSiO 2 -PFIL-Ti 4+ nanocomposite affinity materials show great application potential for a proteomic study of complicated biological samples.

Mitosis and endocytosis are two fundamental cellular processes essential for maintaining a eukaryotic life. Mitosis partitions duplicated chromatin enveloped in the nuclear membrane into two new cells, whereas endocytosis takes in extracellular substances through membrane invagination. These two processes are spatiotemporally separated and seemingly unrelated. However, recent studies have uncovered that endocytic proteins have moonlighting functions in mitosis, and mitotic complexes manifest additional roles in endocytosis. In this review, we summarize important proteins or protein complexes that participate in both processes, compare their mechanism of action, and discuss the rationale behind this multifunctionality. We also speculate on the possible origin of the functional reciprocity from an evolutionary perspective. An introduction to mitosis and endocytic pathwaysEukaryotic cells rely on endocytosis to uptake extracellular materials and their own plasma membrane components, in order to maintain homeostasis and respond to the varying environment [1-3]; they use the process of mitosis to achieve self-duplication and cell fate specification when differentiating [1,4]. These two Abbreviations AP2, adaptor protein-2; APC/C, anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome; CCP, clathrin-coated pit; CCV, clathrin-coated vesicle; CHC, clathrin heavy chains; ch-TOG, colonic and hepatic tumor overexpressed gene; CLC, clathrin light chain; CME, clathrin-mediated endocytosis; CPC, chromosome passenger complex;

No abstract