No abstract

We report on a smartphone spectrometer for colorimetric biosensing applications. The spectrometer relies on a sample cell with an integrated grating substrate, and the smartphone's built-in light-emitting diode flash and camera. The feasibility of the smartphone spectrometer is demonstrated for detection of glucose and human cardiac troponin I, the latter in conjunction with peptide-functionalized gold nanoparticles.

Methanol-to-olefins (MTO), the most important catalytic process producing ethylene and propylene from non-oil feedstocks (coal, natural gas, biomass, CO2, etc.), is hindered by rapid catalyst deactivation due to coke deposition. Common practice to recover catalyst activity, i.e. removing coke via air combustion or steam gasification, unavoidably eliminates the active hydrocarbon pool species (HCPs) favoring light olefins formation. Density functional theory calculations and structured illumination microscopy reveal that naphthalenic cations, active HCPs enhancing ethylene production, are highly stable within SAPO-34 zeolites at high temperature. Here, we demonstrate a strategy of directly transforming coke to naphthalenic species in SAPO-34 zeolites via steam cracking. Fluidized bed reactor-regenerator pilot experiments show that an unexpectedly high light olefins selectivity of 85% is achieved in MTO reaction with 88% valuable CO and H2 and negligible CO2 as byproducts from regeneration under industrial-alike continuous operations. This strategy significantly boosts the economics and sustainability of MTO process.

Autophagy resembles a recycling process in which proteins, organelles, or regions of the cytoplasm are enveloped and degraded. We have found that two of the central autophagy proteins, MAP1LC3 (microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3, also described as LC3) and UVRAG (UV radiation resistance associated/UV radiation associated gene), complex with PGRMC1/S2R (progesterone receptor membrane component 1, also known as sigma-2 receptor). PGRMC1 is a cytochrome that is induced in cancer and is essential for tumor formation, invasion, and metastasis. Autophagy contributes to the turnover of long-lived and/or ubiquitinated proteins and the clearance of damaged organelles, and we have shown that PGRMC1 promotes both processes. Inhibition of PGRMC1 by RNAi or small molecule inhibitors causes autophagy substrates to increase and aberrant mitochondria to accumulate. We propose that this disruption of autophagy upon PGRMC1 inhibition increases AMPK activation, elevating the levels of TSC1 (tuberous sclerosis complex) and TSC2 and inactivating MTOR and RPS6KB/p70S6K, causing cleaved MAP1LC3B levels to increase. Thus, PGRMC1 binds to key components of the autophagy machinery and is required for the degradative activity of autophagy.

Peptide-functionalized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are extensively utilized in colorimetric assays for rapid and sensitive detection of various biomedical and environmental targets. Although extensively used as colorimetric reporting systems, the role of the size and concentration of the AuNPs has not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, a 12-mer cardiac troponin I (cTnI)-specific peptide CALNN-Peg4-FYS­HSF­HEN­WPS was immobilized on AuNPs of different size and concentration via the CALNN anchoring sequence. A relationship was established between the total surface area of the AuNPs (binding availability) and response (centroid shift). Moreover, a colorimetric assay for cTnI operating under optimized conditions (36 nm AuNPs) yielded a limit of detection of 0.2 ng/mL (8.4 pM) when tested in diluted serum samples with an assay time of 10 min. This encouraging result opens up for further development of AuNP assays in early diagnosis of cardiac injury.

Botulinum neurotoxin is considered as one of the most toxic food-borne substances and is a potential bioweapon accessible to terrorists. The development of an accurate, convenient, and rapid assay for botulinum neurotoxins is therefore highly desirable for addressing biosafety concerns. Herein, novel biotinylated peptide substrates designed to mimic synaptosomal-associated protein 25 (SNAP-25) are utilized in gold nanoparticle-based assays for colorimetric detection of botulinum neurotoxin serotype A light chain (BoLcA). In these proteolytic assays, biotinylated peptides serve as triggers for the aggregation of gold nanoparticles, while the cleavage of these peptides by BoLcA prevents nanoparticle aggregation. Two different assay strategies are described, demonstrating limits of detection ranging from 5 to 0.1 nM of BoLcA with an overall assay time of 4 h. These hybrid enzyme-responsive nanomaterials provide rapid and sensitive detection for one of the most toxic substances known to man.

No abstract

Palladium-catalyzed enantioselective C(sp)-H activation of ferrocenyl ketones is achieved through utilizing catalytic, inexpensive l-tert-leucine as a chiral transient directing group. The transformation allows rapid access to ferrocene scaffolds simultaneously possessing planar- and stereogenic central chirality, widely applied in the ferrocene-based chiral ligand families.