Spherical superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles have been developed as T 2 -negative contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging in clinical use because of their biocompatibility and ease of synthesis; however, they exhibit relatively low transverse relaxivity. Here we report a new strategy to achieve high transverse relaxivity by controlling the morphology of iron oxide nanoparticles. We successfully fabricate size-controllable octapod iron oxide nanoparticles by introducing chloride anions. The octapod iron oxide nanoparticles (edge length of 30 nm) exhibit an ultrahigh transverse relaxivity value (679.3±30 mM À 1 s À 1 ), indicating that these octapod iron oxide nanoparticles are much more effective T 2 contrast agents for in vivo imaging and small tumour detection in comparison with conventional iron oxide nanoparticles, which holds great promise for highly sensitive, early stage and accurate detection of cancer in the clinic.

A kind of activated carbon with further carbon dioxide and potassium hydroxide activations for hydrogen storage was investigated. The carbon dioxide and potassium hydroxide activations have apparently different effects on the pore structures and textures of the activated carbon which closely associated with the hydrogen storage properties. The potassium hydroxide activation can remarkably donate microporosity to the frameworks of the activated carbon. One of the resultant porous carbons exhibited a high surface area of up to 3190 m(2) g(-1) and large gravimetric hydrogen uptake capacity of 7.08 wt % at 77 K and 20 bar, which is one of the largest data reported for the porous carbon materials. This result suggests that the porous carbon with large amounts of active sites, high surface area, and high micropore volume related to optimum pore size could achieve high gravimetric hydrogen storage.

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Owing to their unique optical properties, quantum dots (QDs) with different colors have been applied for simultaneous detection of multiple analytes. However, the use of single QD for multiplex detection of analytes with single-molecule detection has not been explored. Here we report a single QD-based nanosensor for multiplex detection of HIV-1 and HIV-2 at single-molecule level in a homogeneous format. In this single QD-based nanosensor, the QD functions not only as a fluorescence pair for coincidence detection and as a fluorescence-resonance-energy-transfer (FRET) donor for FRET detection but also as a local nanoconcentrator which significantly amplifies the coincidence-related fluorescence signals and the FRET signals. This single-QD-based nanosensor takes advantage of a simple 'mix and detection' assay with extremely low sample consumption, high sensitivity, and short analysis time and has the potential to be applied for rapid point-of-care testing, gene expression studies, high-throughput screening, and clinical diagnostics.

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DNA methyltransferases (MTases) catalyze the transfer of a methyl group from S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) to the 5-positon of cytosine in CpG islands, eventually inducing the DNA methylation in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Despite the development of various methods for the MTase assay, most of them are laborious and costly with poor sensitivity. Herein, we develop a highly sensitive chemiluminescence method for the MTase assay using hairpin probe-based primer generation rolling circle amplification (PG-RCA). In the presence of DNA adenine methylation (Dam) MTase, the methylation-responsive sequence of hairpin probe is methylated and cleaved by the methylation-sensitive restriction endonuclease Dpn I. The cleaved hairpin probe then functions as a signal primer to initiate PG-RCA reaction by hybridizing with the circular DNA template, producing a large number of horseradish peroxidase-mimicking DNAzyme chains, which can catalyze the oxidation of luminal by H2O2 in the presence of hemin to yield distinct chemiluminescence signal. While in the absence of Dam MTase, neither methylation/cleavage nor PG-RCA reaction can be initiated and no chemiluminescence signal is observed. The proposed method exhibits a wide dynamic range from 0.025 to 400 U/mL and an extremely low detection limit of 1.29 × 10(-4) U/mL, which is superior to most conventional approaches for the MTase assay. This method can be used for the screening of antimicrobial drugs and has a great potential to be further applied in early clinical diagnosis.

Laser power dependent p-aminothiophenol (PATP) adsorption on Au nanoparticles (NPs) has been systematically investigated using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Molecular junctions (MJs) were found to form between NPs with the quinonoid PATP as the bridge molecule with an external energy provided by the incident laser. The relative Raman intensities of b2 modes to a1 modes increased with the increasing laser power. The abnormal enhancement of b2 modes is most possibly attributed to the laser-induced formation of the quinonoid PATP molecule. The formation of MJs depends on the laser illumination time, the aggregation states of NPs, and the surface coverage of PATP. Furthermore, the MJs formation process is reversible, which depends on the laser power and the illuminated time.