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Atherosclerosis is the root of approximately one‐third of global mortalities. Nanotechnology exhibits splendid prospects to combat atherosclerosis at the molecular level by engineering smart nanoagents with versatile functionalizations. Significant advances in nanoengineering enable nanoagents to autonomously navigate in the bloodstream, escape from biological barriers, and assemble with their nanocohort at the targeted lesion. The assembly of nanoagents with endogenous and exogenous stimuli breaks down their shells, facilitates intracellular delivery, releases their cargo to kill the corrupt cells, and gives imaging reports. All these improvements pave the way toward personalized medicine for atherosclerosis. This review systematically summarizes the recent advances in stimuli‐responsive nanoagents for atherosclerosis management and its progress in clinical trials.

There is no effective strategy for the treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI). An appropriate combination of hydrogel materials and neurotrophic factor therapy is currently thought to be a promising approach. In this study, we performed experiments to evaluate the synergic effect of implanting hydroxyl ethyl methacrylate [2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl] trimethylammonium chloride (HEMA-MOETACL) hydrogel incorporated with basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) into the site of surgically induced SCI. Prior to implantation, the combined hydrogel was surrounded by an acellular vascular matrix. Sprague-Dawley rats underwent complete spinal cord transection at the T-9 level, followed by implantation of bFGF/HEMA-MOETACL 5 days after transection surgery. Our results showed that the bFGF/HEMA-MOETACL transplant provided a scaffold for the ingrowth of regenerating tissue eight weeks after implantation. Furthermore, this newly designed implant promoted both nerve tissue regeneration and functional recovery following SCI. These results indicate that HEMA-MOETACL hydrogel is a promising scaffold for intrathecal, localized and sustained delivery of bFGF to the injured spinal cord and provide evidence for the possibility that this approach may have clinical applications in the treatment of SCI.

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Inhibitor of DNA binding 1 (Id1) has been shown to be involved in adipogenesis and metabolism, which may contribute to atherosclerotic progression. However, it remains unclear how Id1 regulates endothelial cell functions and atherosclerosis in response to oscillatory shear stress. The current study aims to evaluate the effects of oscillatory shear stress on LDL uptake by endothelial cells and to delineate the roles of Id1 in this process. Using an in vivo ligation model of ApoE mice and applying low and oscillatory shear stress (OSS) in vitro, we found that OSS can effectively promote lipid uptake. In vivo en face staining results showed that OSS down-regulated Id1 expression. In vitro, OSS activated Id1 transiently but eventually inhibited its expression with time. Overexpression of Id1 can abolish OSS-mediated lipid uptake in ECs. In addition, Id1 overexpression and knockdown experiments demonstrated that Id1 can regulate LDLR expression to influence lipid uptake. Immunoprecipitation and subcellular localization results further suggested that Id1 can combine with sterol regulatory element-binding protein1 (SREBP1), which may be related to the Id1-mediated LDLR down-expression. Our study shows a biomechanical role of Id1 in endothelial cells' uptake of lipid by down-regulating LDLR, which could help understand how oscillatory flow affects atherosclerotic development.

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ORR catalysts to accelerate the reaction but restricted by their scarcity, high cost, and poor durability. [14][15][16] Thus, exploring Pt-free catalysts is exceptionally urgent to replace the precious metal catalyst. [17][18][19][20][21] Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have attracted considerable interest because they offer 100% metal atom utilization and show excellent catalytic behavior compared with traditionally supported nano-particles. Besides, its regulated coordination structure, large specific surface, abundant active sites and intrinsic activity provides its excellent catalytic performance, selectivity, and stability superior to other catalysts. [22][23][24] Transition metal combined with SACs make these catalysts being the promising candidates to replace platinum group metal (PGM) catalysts. Transition-metal single-atom electrocatalysts (M-N-C, M = Fe, Co, Ni, Zn, Cu, Mn.) hold the advantages of maximum atom utilization efficiency and high-efficiency intrinsic activity. [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] Among these transition metals, Fe is abundant in the earth which makes the Fe-N-C received extensive attention. Besides, compared with other transition metalbased SACs, experimental results and theoretical calculation have proved that the Fe-N-C structure exhibits the highest ORR performance during the catalytic procedure owns the appropriate adsorption energy of the oxygen-containing intermediates. [29][30][31] In recent decades, massive efforts have devoted to improving the electrocatalytic performance of single-atom Fe-N-C catalysts. [32][33][34][35][36][37][38] Further improving the single-atom Fe-N-C catalyst performance faces a grand challenge of their limit of intrinsic activity and the active site density. To address these issues, a considerable amount of strategy research has focused on enhancing the intrinsic activity by modulating the coordination structure and optimizing the electronic structure of the Fe-N-C catalysts, including doping hetero-atoms (B, P, S, and N), [39][40][41][42][43][44][45] formatting bimetallic active site, [46][47][48] engineering defect structure. [49][50][51] While increasing the active site density, the strategies of pore structure designing and multiple templates show very encouraging progress. [52][53][54][55][56] However, establishing the synergistic correlation between the intrinsic activity and their active density and manifesting the structure-activity relationship is highly appealing yet different. [57] Platinum group metal ( PGM)-free M-N-C catalysts have exhibited dramatic electrocatalytic performance and are considered the most promising candidate of the Pt catalysts in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). However, the electrocatalytic performance of the M-N-C catalysts is still limited by their inferior intrinsic activity and finite active site density. Regulating the coordination environment and increasing the pore structure of the catalyst is an effective strategy to enhance the electrocatalytic performance of the M-N-C catalysts. In this work, the coordinati...