Metal nanoclusters (NCs) as a new class of phosphors have attracted a great deal of interest owing to their unique electronic structure and subsequently molecule-like optical properties. However, limited successes have been achieved in producing the NCs with excellent luminescent performance. In this paper, we demonstrate the significant luminescence intensity enhancement of 1-dodecanethiol (DT)-capped Cu NCs via self-assembly strategy. By forming compact and ordered assemblies, the original nonluminescent Cu NCs exhibit strong emission. The flexibility of self-assembly allows to further control the polymorphism of Cu NCs assemblies, and hence the emission properties. Comparative structural and optical analysis of the polymorphic NCs assemblies permits to establish a relationship between the compactness of assemblies and the emission. First, high compactness reinforces the cuprophilic Cu(I)···Cu(I) interaction of inter- and intra-NCs, and meanwhile, suppresses intramolecular vibration and rotation of the capping ligand of DT, thus enhancing the emission intensity of Cu NCs. Second, as to the emission energy that depends on the distance of Cu(I)···Cu(I), the improved compactness increases average Cu(I)···Cu(I) distance by inducing additional inter-NCs cuprophilic interaction, and therewith leads to the blue shift of NCs emission. Attributing to the assembly mediated structural polymorphism, the NCs assemblies exhibit distinct mechanochromic and thermochromic luminescent properties. Metal NCs-based white light-emitting diodes are further fabricated by employing the NCs assemblies with blue-green, yellow, and red emissions as phosphors.

CsPbX (X = Cl, Br, I) nanocrystals (NCs) are competitive emitting materials for illumination and display because of their outstanding photophysical properties. However, the conventional synthetic approaches suffer from low yields, complex procedures, and toxic chemicals. In this work, we demonstrate a one-step microwave-assisted approach to prepare CsPbX NCs. The homogeneous heating and rapid temperature increment of microwave preparation facilitate the growth of CsPbX NCs, producing the NCs with high photoluminescence quantum yields up to 90%, narrow emission full-width at half-maximum, and emission color tunable from blue to red. By optimizing the preparation conditions of the microwave-assisted approach, CsPbX NCs with cation- and halide anion-controlled emission properties, tunable reaction rate, and enhanced stability are prepared. Light-emitting diode (LED) prototypes are further fabricated by employing the as-prepared CsPbX NCs as the color conversion materials on commercially available 365 nm GaN LED chips.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the most serious chronic complications of diabetes; 20–40% of diabetic patients develop into end stage renal disease (ESRD). However, exact pathogenesis of DN is not fully clear and we have great difficulties in curing DN; poor treatment of DN led to high chances of mortality worldwide. A lot of western medicines such as ACEI and ARB have been demonstrated to protect renal function of DN but are not enough to delay or retard the progression of DN; therefore, exploring exact and feasible drug is current research hotspot in medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used to treat and control diabetes and its complications such as DN in a lot of scientific researches, which will give insights into the mechanism of DN, but they are not enough to reveal all the details. In this paper, we summarize the applications of herbal TCM preparations, single herbal TCM, and/or monomers from herbal TCM in the treatment of DN in the recent 10 years, depicting the renal protective effects and the corresponding mechanism, through which we shed light on the renal protective roles of TCM in DN with a particular focus on the molecular basis of the effect and provide a beneficial supplement to the drug therapy for DN.

Luminescent Cu nanoclusters (NCs) are potential phosphors for illumination and display, but the difficulty in achieving full-color emission greatly limits practical applications. On the basis of our previous success in preparing Cu NC self-assembly architectures with blue-green and yellow emission, in this work, Cu NC self-assembly architectures with strong red emission are prepared by replacing alkylthiol ligands with aromatic thiols. The introduction of aromatic ligands is able to influence the ligand-to-metal charge transfer and/or ligand-to-metal-metal charge transfer, thus permitting the tuning of the emission color and enhancing of the emission intensity. The emission color can be tuned from yellow to dark red by choosing the aromatic ligands with different conjugation capabilities, and the photoluminescence quantum yield is up to 15.6%. Achieving full-color emission Cu NC self-assembly architectures allows the fabrication of Cu NC-based white light-emitting diodes.

Surface ligand dynamics of colloidal quantum dots (QDs) has been revealed as an important issue for determining QDs performance in their synthesis and postsynthesis treatment, such as ligand-related photoluminescence, colloidal stability, and so forth. However, this issue is less associated with the preparation of highly luminescent nanocomposites, which usually leads to poor performance and repeatability. In this work, on the basis of the studies about surface ligand dynamics of aqueous QDs, highly luminescent QDs-cellulose composites are prepared and employed to fabricate high color purity light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Detailed investigations indicate that the species of QD capping ligands and in particular the temperature are the key for controlling the ligand dynamics. The preparation of nanocomposites using less dynamic ligand-modified QDs at low temperature overcomes the conventional problems of QD aggregation, low QD content, luminescence quenching and shift, thus producing highly luminescent QDs-cellulose composites. This protocol is available for a variety of aqueous QDs, such as CdS, CdSe, CdTe, and CdSe(x)Te(1-x), which permits the design and fabrication of QD-based LEDs using the nanocomposites as color conversion layer on a blue emitting InGaN chip.

Sox2 expression is necessary for cell proliferation and evasion of apoptosis in prostate cancer cells and TGF-α could regulate Sox2 and survivin expression by activating the EGFR/PI3K/AKT pathway.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is characterized by an abrupt decline in renal function, resulting in an inability to secrete waste products and maintain electrolyte and water balance, and is associated with high risks of morbidity and mortality. This study retrospectively analyzed clinical data, treatment, and prognosis of 271 hospitalized patients (172 males and 99 females) diagnosed with AKI from December, 2008 to December, 2011. In addition, this study explored the association between the cause of AKI and prognosis, severity and treatment of AKI. The severity of AKI was classified according to the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) criteria. Renal recovery was defined as a decrease in a serum creatinine level to the normal value. Prerenal, renal, and postrenal causes accounted for 36.5% (99 patients), 46.5% (126 patients) and 17.0% (46 patients), respectively, of the incidence of AKI. Conservative, surgical, and renal replacement treatments were given to 180 (66.4%), 30 (11.1%) and 61 patients (22.5%), respectively. The overall recovery rate was 21.0%, and the mortality rate was 19.6%. Levels of Cl−, Na+ and carbon dioxide combining power decreased with increasing severity of AKI. Cause and treatment were significantly associated with AKI prognosis. Likewise, the severity of AKI was significantly associated with cause, treatment and prognosis. Multivariate logistic regression analysis found that respiratory injury and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) were associated with AKI patient death. Cause, treatment and AKIN stage are associated with the prognosis of AKI. Respiratory injury and MODS are prognostic factors for death of AKI patients.

The elegance and efficiency by which chloroplasts harvest solar energy and conduct energy transfer have been a source of inspiration for chemists to mimic such process. However, precise manipulation to obtain orderly arranged antenna chromophores in constructing artificial chloroplast mimics was a great challenge, especially from the structural similarity and bioaffinity standpoints. Here we reported a design strategy that combined covalent and noncovalent interactions to prepare a protein-based light-harvesting system to mimic chloroplasts. Cricoid stable protein one (SP1) was utilized as a building block model. Under enzyme-triggered covalent protein assembly, mutant SP1 with tyrosine (Tyr) residues at the designated sites can couple together to form nanostructures. Through controlling the Tyr sites on the protein surface, we can manipulate the assembly orientation to respectively generate 1D nanotubes and 2D nanosheets. The excellent stability endowed the self-assembled protein architectures with promising applications. We further integrated quantum dots (QDs) possessing optical and electronic properties with the 2D nanosheets to fabricate chloroplast mimics. By attaching different sized QDs as donor and acceptor chromophores to the negatively charged surface of SP1-based protein nanosheets via electrostatic interactions, we successfully developed an artificial light-harvesting system. The assembled protein nanosheets structurally resembled the natural thylakoids, and the QDs can achieve pronounced FRET phenomenon just like the chlorophylls. Therefore, the coassembled system was meaningful to explore the photosynthetic process in vitro, as it was designed to mimic the natural chloroplast.