A novel type of flexible fiber/wearable supercapacitor that is composed of two fiber electrodes - a helical spacer wire and an electrolyte - is demonstrated. In the carbon-based fiber supercapacitor (FSC), which has high capacitance performance, commercial pen ink is directly utilized as the electrochemical material. FSCs have potential benefits in the pursuit of low-cost, large-scale, and efficient flexible/wearable energy storage systems.

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α-Galactosylceramide (αGalCer) stimulates NKT cells and has antitumor activity in mice. Murine NKT cells may directly kill tumor cells and induce NK cell cytotoxicity, but the mechanisms are not well defined. Newly developed human CD1d/αGalCer tetrameric complexes were used to obtain highly purified human αGalCer-reactive NKT cell lines (>99%), and the mechanisms of NKT cell cytotoxicity and activation of NK cells were investigated. Human NKT cells were cytotoxic against CD1d− neuroblastoma cells only when they were rendered CD1d+ by transfection and pulsed with αGalCer. Four other CD1d− tumor cell lines of diverse origin were resistant to NKT cells, whereas Jurkat and U937 leukemia cell lines, which are constitutively CD1d+, were killed. Killing of the latter was greatly augmented in the presence of αGalCer. Upon human CD1d/αGalCer recognition, NKT cells induced potent cytotoxicity of NK cells against CD1d− neuroblastoma cell lines that were not killed directly by NKT cells. NK cell activation depended upon NKT cell production of IL-2, and was enhanced by secretion of IFN-γ. These data demonstrate that cytotoxicity of human NKT cells can be CD1d and ligand dependent, and that TCR-stimulated NKT cells produce IL-2 that is required to induce NK cell cytotoxicity. Thus, NKT cells can mediate potent antitumor activity both directly by targeting CD1d and indirectly by activating NK cells.

Tumor infiltration with Vα24-invariant NKT cells (NKTs) associates with favorable outcome in neuroblastoma and other cancers. Although NKTs can be directly cytotoxic against CD1d + cells, the majority of human tumors are CD1d -. Therefore, the role of NKTs in cancer remains largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that CD68 + tumor-associated monocytes/macrophages (TAMs) represented the majority of CD1d-expressing cells in primary human neuroblastomas. TAMs stimulated neuroblastoma growth in human cell lines and their xenografts in NOD/SCID mice via IL-6 production. Indeed, TAMs produced IL-6 in primary tumors and in the BM of patients with metastatic neuroblastoma. Gene expression analysis using TaqMan low-density arrays of 129 primary human neuroblastomas without MYCN amplification revealed that high-level expression of TAM-specific genes (CD14, CD16, IL6, IL6R, and TGFB1) was associated with poor 5-year event-free survival. While NKTs were not cytotoxic against neuroblastoma cells, they effectively killed monocytes pulsed with tumor cell lysate. The killing of monocytes was CD1d restricted because it was inhibited by a CD1d-specific mAb. Cotransfer of human monocytes and NKTs to tumor-bearing NOD/SCID mice decreased monocyte number at the tumor site and suppressed tumor growth compared with mice transferred with monocytes alone. Thus, killing of TAMs reveals what we believe to be a novel mechanism of NKT antitumor activity that relates to the disease outcome.

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are excellent platforms with tailored functionalities in photocatalysis. There are still challenges in increasing the photochemical performance of COFs. Therefore, we designed and prepared a series of COFs for photocatalytic hydrogen generation. Varying different ratios of βketoenamine to imine moieties in the linkages could differ the ordered structure, visible light harvesting, and bandgap. Overall, βketoenamine-linked COFs exhibited much better photocatalytic activity than those COFs having both β-ketoenamine and imine moieties on account of a nonquenched excited state and more favorable HOMO level in the photoinduced oxidation reaction from the former. Specifically, after in situ growth of β-ketoenamine-linked COFs onto NH 2 −Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene via covalent connection, the heterohybrid showed an obvious improvement in photocatalytic H 2 evolution because of strong covalent coupling, electrical conductivity, and efficient charge transfer. This integrated linkage evolution and covalent hybridization approach advances the development of COF-based photocatalysts.

Materials displaying room‐temperature phosphorescence (RTP) have been attracting wide attention in recent years due to their distinctive characteristics including long emissive lifetime and large Stokes shift, and their various applications. Most synthesized RTP materials are metal complexes that display enhanced intersystem crossing and crystallization is a common way to restrict nonradiative transition. Amorphous metal‐free RTP materials, which do not rely on expensive and toxic metals and can be prepared in a straightforward fashion, have become an important branch of the field. This Minireview summarizes recent progress in amorphous RTP materials according to the approaches used to immobilize phosphors: host–guest interactions, molecule doping, copolymers, and small‐molecule self‐assembly. Some existing challenges and insightful perspectives are given at the end of the Minireview, which should benefit the future design and development of amorphous metal‐free RTP materials.

CD1d-restricted Vα24-Jα18–invariant natural killer T cells (iNKTs) are potentially important in tumor immunity. However, little is known about their localization to tumors. We analyzed 98 untreated primary neuroblastomas from patients with metastatic disease (stage 4) for tumor-infiltrating iNKTs using TaqMan® reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and immunofluorescent microscopy. 52 tumors (53%) contained iNKTs, and oligonucleotide microarray analysis of the iNKT+ and iNKT− tumors revealed that the former expressed higher levels of CCL2/MCP-1, CXCL12/SDF-1, CCL5/RANTES, and CCL21/SLC. Eight tested neuroblastoma cell lines secreted a range of CCL2 (0–21.6 ng/ml), little CXCL12 (≤0.1 ng/ml), and no detectable CCL5 or CCL21. CCR2, the receptor for CCL2, was more frequently expressed by iNKT compared with natural killer and T cells from blood (P < 0.001). Supernatants of neuroblastoma cell lines that produced CCL2 induced in vitro migration of iNKTs from blood of patients and normal adults; this was abrogated by an anti-CCL2 monoclonal antibody. CCL2 expression by tumors was found to inversely correlate with MYCN proto-oncogene amplification and expression (r = 0.5, P < 0.001), and MYCN-high/CCL2-low expression accurately predicted the absence of iNKTs (P < 0.001). In summary, iNKTs migrate toward neuroblastoma cells in a CCL2-dependent manner, preferentially infiltrating MYCN nonamplified tumors that express CCL2.

Functional materials displaying tunable emission and long-lived luminescence have recently emerged as a powerful tool for applications in information encryption, organic electronics and bioelectronics. Herein, we present a design strategy to achieve color-tunable ultralong organic room temperature phosphorescence (UOP) in polymers through radical multicomponent cross-linked copolymerization. Our experiments reveal that by changing the excitation wavelength from 254 to 370 nm, these polymers display multicolor luminescence spanning from blue to yellow with a long-lived lifetime of 1.2 s and a maximum phosphorescence quantum yield of 37.5% under ambient conditions. Moreover, we explore the application of these polymers in multilevel information encryption based on the color-tunable UOP property. This strategy paves the way for the development of multicolor bio-labels and smart luminescent materials with long-lived emission at room temperature.