Herein, a mini review is presented concerning the most recent research progress of carbon nanodots, which have emerged as one of the most attractive photoluminescent materials. Different synthetic methodologies to achieve advanced functions and better photoluminescence performances are summarized, which are mainly divided into two classes: top-down and bottom-up. The inspiring properties, including photoluminescence emission, chemiluminescence, electrochemical luminescence, peroxidase-like activity and toxicity, are discussed. Moreover, the biomedical applications in biosensing, bioimaging and drug delivery are reviewed.

Lead halide perovskites have emerged as low-cost, high-performance optical and optoelectronic materials, however, their material stability has been a limiting factor for broad applications. Here, we demonstrate stable core-shell colloidal perovskite nanocrystals using a novel, facile and low-cost copolymer templated synthesis approach. The block copolymer serves as a confined nanoreactor during perovskite crystallization and passivates the perovskite surface by forming a multidentate capping shell, thus significantly improving its photostability in polar solvents. Meanwhile, the polymer nanoshell provides an additional layer for further surface modifications, paving the way to functional nanodevices that can be self-assembled or lithographically defined.

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Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) has become a widely used tool for insight into biomedical challenges due to its rapid, long-term, and super-resolution (SR) imaging. However, artifacts that often appear in SIM images have long brought into question its fidelity, and might cause misinterpretation of biological structures. We present HiFi-SIM, a high-fidelity SIM reconstruction algorithm, by engineering the effective point spread function (PSF) into an ideal form. HiFi-SIM can effectively reduce commonly seen artifacts without loss of fine structures and improve the axial sectioning for samples with strong background. In particular, HiFi-SIM is not sensitive to the commonly used PSF and reconstruction parameters; hence, it lowers the requirements for dedicated PSF calibration and complicated parameter adjustment, thus promoting SIM as a daily imaging tool.

Driven by the urgent need to detect trace heavy metal ions in various real water samples, this article demonstrates for the first time an electrochemical biosensor based on DNA modified FeO@Au magnetic nanoparticles (NPs). Three DNA probes are designed to contain certain mismatched base pairs. One is thiolated and modified on the surface of FeO@Au NPs (DNA 1). The other two probes (DNA 2 and 3) are labeled with two independent electrochemical species. Stable structures of cytosine-Ag-cytosine and thymine-Hg-thymine formed in the presence of Ag and Hg can assist the hybridization of DNA 1/DNA 2 and DNA 1/DNA 3, which locate corresponding electrochemical species onto the surface of the magnetic NPs. The achieved nanocomposites are then used as selective electrochemical probes for the detection of heavy metal ions by recording the square wave voltammetry signals. Simultaneous detection of Ag and Hg is demonstrated without significant interference, and their individual high sensitivities are fundamentally preserved, which meet the requirements of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). Furthermore, the proposed method has been challenged by various real water samples. The results confirm the DNA modified magnetic NPs based sensing method may have potential applications for the monitoring of heavy metal ions in real sample analysis.

MicroRNAs are not only important regulators of a wide range of cellular processes but are also identified as promising disease biomarkers. Due to the low contents in serum, microRNAs are always difficult to detect accurately . In this study, an electrochemical biosensor for ultrasensitive detection of microRNA based on tetrahedral DNA nanostructure is developed. Four DNA single strands are engineered to form a tetrahedral nanostructure with a pendant stem-loop and modified on a gold electrode surface, which largely enhances the molecular recognition efficiency. Moreover, taking advantage of strand displacement polymerization, catalytic recycling of microRNA, and silver nanoparticle-based solid-state Ag/AgCl reaction, the proposed biosensor exhibits high sensitivity with the limit of detection down to 0.4 fM. This biosensor shows great clinical value and may have practical utility in early diagnosis and prognosis of certain diseases.

MicroRNAs are a class of evolutionally conserved, small noncoding RNAs involved in the regulation of gene expression and affect a variety of biological processes including cellular differentiation, immunological response, tumor development, and so on. Recently, microRNAs have been identified as promising disease biomarkers. In this work, we have fabricated a novel electrochemical method for ultrasensitive detection of microRNA. Generally, a DNA tetrahedron decorated gold electrode is employed as the recognition interface. Then, hybridizations between DNA tetrahedron, microRNA, and primer probe initiate rolling circle amplification (RCA) on the electrode surface. Silver nanoparticles attached to the RCA products provide significant electrochemical signals and a limit of detection as low as 50 aM is achieved. Moreover, homology microRNA family members with only one or two mismatches can be successfully distinguished. Therefore, this proposed method reveals great advancements toward improved disease diagnosis and prognosis.

Sensitive and accurate quantification of circulating tumor cell (CTC) can provide new insights for early diagnosis and prognosis of cancers. Herein, we have developed a multipedal DNA walker for ultrasensitive detection of CTC for the first time. Generally, a number of walker strands are simply modified on gold nanoparticle (AuNPs). The integrated aptamer sequence can specially interact with the transmembrane receptor protein of CTC and facilitate the enrichment of AuNPs on the surface of cells. After a low speed centrifugation, the complex of CTC and AuNPs could be precipitated and the supernate represents decreased UV–vis absorbance response of AuNPs. On the other hand, since multiple walker strands are modified on a single AuNP, hybridization with several tracks on the electrode occurs simultaneously for the following nicking endonuclease-catalyzed cleaving. Experimental results verify that the rate of multipedal walking is much faster. In addition, TCEP-mediated electrochemical amplification is employed to further enhance the electrochemical signal. By comparing the variations of electrochemical and UV–vis absorbance responses, ultrahigh sensitivity for CTC assay is achieved. The limit of detection is down to 1 cell/mL. The results of selectivity confirmation and blood sample test are also satisfactory. This AuNPs-based multipedal DNA walker offers a speedy analysis of CTC and shows great potential use for early clinical diagnosis and treatment of cancers.