Near-infrared (NIR)-light-modulated photothermal thrombolysis has been investigated to overcome the hemorrhage danger posed by clinical clot-busting substances. A long-standing issue in thrombosis fibrinolytics is the lack of lesion-specific therapy, which should not be ignored. Herein, a novel thrombolysis therapy using photothermal disintegration of a fibrin clot was explored through dual-targeting glycol chitosan/heparindecorated polypyrrole nanoparticles (GCS-PPY-H NPs) to enhance thrombus delivery and thrombolytic therapeutic efficacy. GCS-PPY-H NPs can target acidic/P-selectin high-expression inflammatory endothelial cells/thrombus sites for initiating lesionsite-specific thrombolysis by hyperthermia using NIR irradiation. A significant fibrin clot-clearance rate was achieved with thrombolysis using dual-targeting/modality photothermal clot disintegration in vivo. The molecular level mechanisms of the developed nanoformulations and interface properties were determined using multiple surface specific analytical techniques, such as particle size distribution, zeta potential, electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), wavelength absorbance, photothermal, immunofluorescence, and histology. Owing to the augmented thrombus delivery of GCS-PPY-H NPs and swift treatment time, dual-targeting photothermal clot disintegration as a systematic treatment using GCS-PPY-H NPs can be effectively applied in thrombolysis. This novel approach possesses a promising future for thrombolytic treatment.

Contact guidance has been extensively explored using patterned adhesion functionalities that predominantly mimic cell–matrix interactions. Whether contact guidance can also be driven by other types of interactions, such as cell−cell adhesion, still remains a question. Herein, this query is addressed by engineering a set of microstrip patterns of (i) cell–cell adhesion ligands and (ii) segregated cell–cell and cell–matrix ligands as a simple yet versatile set of platforms for the guidance of spreading, adhesion, and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells. It was unprecedently found that micropatterns of cell–cell adhesion ligands can induce contact guidance. Surprisingly, it was found that patterns of alternating cell–matrix and cell–cell strips also induce contact guidance despite providing a spatial continuum for cell adhesion. This guidance is believed to be due to the difference between the potencies of the two adhesions. Furthermore, patterns that combine the two segregated adhesion functionalities were shown to induce more human mesenchymal stem cell osteogenic differentiation than monofunctional patterns. This work provides new insight into the functional crosstalk between cell–cell and cell–matrix adhesions and, overall, further highlights the ubiquitous impact of the biochemical anisotropy of the extracellular environment on cell function.

Biosensors based on liquid crystal (LC) materials can be made by employing the sensitive interfacial effect between LC molecules and alignment layers on substrates. In the past, the optical texture observation method was used in the LC biosensor field. However, the method is limited by a complicated fabrication process and quantitative reproducibility of results that bv evidence that both the reliability and accuracy of LC biosensors need to be improved. In this report, we demonstrate that cholesteric LC (CLC) cells in which one substrate is coated with a vertically aligned layer can be used as a new sensing technology. The chirality of the single vertically anchored (SVA)/CLC biosensor was tested by detecting bovine serum albumin (BSA), a protein standard commonly used in the lab. The colors and corresponding spectrum of the SVA/CLC biosensor changed with the BSA concentrations. A detection limit of 1 ng/ml was observed for the SVA/CLC biosensor. The linear optical properties of the SVA/CLC biosensor produced cheap, inexpensive, and color-indicating detection of biomolecules, and may promote the technology of point-of-care devices for disease-related biomarker detection.

A facile strategy for preparing carbon-supported Co95Pt5 nanocatalysts (NCs) with low platinum (Pt) loading and high Pt utilization via thermal reduction treatment in a carbon monoxide (CO) atmosphere is reported. By cross-referencing results of microscopy, X-ray spectroscopy, and electrochemical analysis, we demonstrate that the Pt atoms tend to form disordered atomic clusters capping on the Co nanoparticle surface. The values of unfilled d-states (h Ts) extracted from X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy were used to calculate the d-band vacancies of Pt. Accordingly, CoPt-CO570 (reduced in CO at 570 K) possesses the lowest h Ts value (0.302) (i.e., the lowest Pt d-band vacancies) among experimental samples, indicating a strong electron relocation from Co atoms. Such electron relocations are attributed to the high extent of the heteroatomic intermix between Pt and Co atoms and thus improves the oxygen reduction reaction activity of CoPt-CO570. For providing further evidence, structural and electrochemical properties for H2 and NaBH4 reduction-prepared CoPt NCs are compared as the control. This work may represent an appealing step toward the structural design of low Pt and high activity catalysts for fuel cell cathode catalysts.

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