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mes in this population. The oldest adults and those with preoperative frailty and material deprivation appeared to be the most vulnerable to low time at home, and efforts to optimize and manage expectations about surgical outcomes can be targeted for this population; this information is important for patient counseling regarding surgical cancer treatment and for preparation for postoperative recovery.Coraciiformes contains more than 200 species with great differences on external morphology and life-style. The evolutionary relationships within Coraciiformes and the phylogenetic placement of Coraciiformes in Aves are still questioned. Mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequences are popular markers in molecular phylogenetic studies of birds. This study presented the genome characteristics of three new mitogenomes in Coraciiformes and explored the phylogenetic relationships among Coraciiformes and other five related orders with mitogenome data of 30 species. The sizes of three mitogenomes were 17,383 bp (Alcedo atthis), 17,892 bp (Halcyon smyrnensis) and 17,223 bp (Megaceryle lugubris). check details Each mitogenome contained one control region and 37 genes that were common in vertebrate mitogenomes. The organization of three mitogenomes was identical to the putative ancestral gene order in Aves. Among 13 available Coraciiform mitogenomes, 12 protein coding genes showed indications of negative selection, while the MT-ND6 presented sign of positive selection or relaxed purifying selection. The phylogenetic results supported that Upupidae and Bucerotidae should be separated from Coraciiformes, and that Coraciiformes is more closely related to Piciformes than to Strigiformes, Trogoniformes and Cuculiformes. Our study provide valuable data for further phylogenetic investigation of Coraciiformes.Cartilage injury is very common and results in considerable pain and osteoarthritis. Owing to its low self-renewal capability, cartilage regeneration is still a great challenge for clinicians. Stem cell therapy has been treated as the most promising treatment for cartilage regeneration in recent decades. However, increasing concerns about the potential biosafety of stem cell products such as immune rejection and neoplastic transformation restrict their further application in clinic. Herein, biomimetic stem cell membrane-disguised nanovehicles without biosafety risks are designed and prepared for cartilage regeneration. In this study, based on the disguise of the natural bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell (BMSC) membrane, Kartogenin (KGN) as a drug for cartilage regeneration was encapsulated into Fe3O4 nanoparticles as the core of biomimetic stem cell nanovehicles. In the core-shell structure of biomimetic stem cell nanovehicles, the fabricated KGN-loaded BMSC membrane-disguised Fe3O4 nanoparticles (KGN-MNPs) showed a stable hybrid structure with a uniform size and morphology in the physiological environments. Moreover, the prepared KGN-MNPs exhibited excellent biocompatibility when disguised with the natural membrane of BMSCs and good biosafety by eliminating the nuclei of BMSCs. In a cartilage defect rat model, compared with pure KGN, the intra-articularly injected KGN-MNPs were capable of regenerating an integrated organized structure with a layer of hyaline-like cartilage in a shorter time due to the retained natural activities of the BMSC membrane. In a word, KGN-MNPs as one kind of our designed biomimetic stem cell nanovehicles enable rapid and high quality cartilage regeneration, and provide a novel and standardized strategy for stem cell therapy in the future.Heparan sulfate (HS) and heparin are sulfated polysaccharides exhibiting diverse physiological functions. HS 6-O-sulfotransferase (6-OST) is a HS biosynthetic enzyme that transfers a sulfo group to the 6-OH position of glucosamine to synthesize HS with desired biological activities. Chemoenzymatic synthesis is a widely adopted method to obtain HS oligosaccharides to support biological studies. However, this method is unable to synthesize all possible structures due to the specificity of natural enzymes. Here, we report the use of an engineered 6-OST to achieve fine control of the 6-O-sulfation. Unlike wild type enzyme, the engineered 6-OST only sulfates the non-reducing end glucosamine residue. Utilizing the engineered enzyme and wild type enzyme, we successfully completed the synthesis of five hexasaccharides and one octasaccharide differing in 6-O-sulfation patterns. We also identified a hexasaccharide construct as a new anticoagulant drug candidate. link2 Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using an engineered HS biosynthetic enzyme to prepare HS-based therapeutics.A new hybrid organic-inorganic film, tincone, was developed by using molecular layer deposition (MLD), and exhibited high electrochemical activity toward Li storage. link3 The self-limiting growth behavior, high uniformity on various substrates and good Li-storage performance make tincone a very promising new anode material for 3D microbatteries.We investigated the cryptic red chromophore, accompanying the blue S3˙- radical in ultramarine pigments, which usually was tentatively assigned to an unspecified isomer of either neutral S4 or ionic S4˙- species. To reveal its identity, we performed the first systematic density functional studies on periodic and large cluster models of red ultramarines, considering several S4/S4˙- isomers embedded in aluminosilicate cages. For both neutral and charged tetrasulfides the most stable confined isomer is the planar C2v one. The only plausible candidate for the red chromophore among the tetrasulfur species is the planar C2v isomer of the neutral S4 molecule, which, apart from being thermodynamically preferable, strongly absorbs green light and its vibrational modes match very well with the available Raman data. The C2v-S4˙- radical, if present at all in red ultramarines, could be identified by strong absorption in the near infrared region and possibly by the slightly larger isotropic value of the g tensor than that of the S3˙- radical.Recent developments in the field of polymer vesicles, i.e. polymersomes, have demonstrated that disrupting the equilibrium conditions of the milieu could lead to shape transformation into stable non-spherical morphologies, bringing on-demand shape control to reality and bearing great promise for cell mimicry and a variety of biomedical applications. Here, we studied the self-assembly behavior of glassy amphiphilic triblock copolymers, poly(ethylene glycol)-block-polystyrene-stat-poly(coumarin methacrylate)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG-b-P(S-stat-CMA)-b-PEG), and their response to various stimuli. By changing the respective molecular weights of both the hydrophobic P(S-stat-CMA) and the hydrophilic PEG blocks, we varied the hydrophobic volume fraction thereby accessing a range of morphologies from spherical and worm-like micelles, as well as polymersomes. For the latter, we observed that slow osmotic pressure changes induced by dialysis led to a decrease in size while rapid osmotic pressure changes by addition of a PEG fusogen led to morphological transformations into rod-like and tubular polymersomes. We also found out that chemically crosslinking the vesicles before inducing osmotic pressure changes led to the vesicles exhibiting hypotonic shock, atypical for glassy polymersomes. We believe that this approach combining the robustness of triblock copolymers and light-based transformations will help expand the toolbox to design ever more complex biomimetic constructs.Using a regular CMOS sensor as a template, we are able to fabricate a simple but highly effective superhydrophobic SERS substrate. Specifically, we decorated the microlens layer of the sensor with 7 μm polystyrene beads to obtain a PDMS patterned replica. The process resulted in a uniform pattern of voids in the PDMS (denoted nanobowls) that are intercalated with a few larger voids (denoted here microbowls). The voids act as superhydrophobic substrates with analyte concentration capabilities in bigger bowl-like structures. Silver nanoparticles were directly grown on the patterned PDMS substrate inside both the nano- and microbowls, and serve as strong electromagnetic field enhancers for the SERS substrate. After systematic characterization of the fabricated SERS substrate by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, we demonstrated its SERS performance using 4-aminothiophenol as a reporter molecule. Finally, we employed this innovative substrate to concentrate and analyze extracellular vesicles (EVs) isolated from an MC65 neural cell line in an ultralow sample volume. This substrate can be further exploited for the investigation of various EV biomarkers for early diagnosis of different diseases using liquid biopsy.The viscosity of lysosomes plays a significant role in modulating biological processes and reflects the status and function of this kind of organelle, e.g., locations, morphologies, and components. Herein, we constructed a novel near-infrared (NIR) lysosome-targeting viscosity probe, Lyso-cy, for monitoring viscosity changes in biological systems. The Lyso-cy probe showed very strong fluorescence emission at around 710 nm in viscous media. The fluorescence intensity of Lyso-cy increased 122-fold from when in water to when in 95% glycerol. Moreover, Lyso-cy proved to be an ideal lysosome-targeting tracer for monitoring fluctuations in the viscosity of a living cell with high spatial and temporal resolution under laser confocal microscopy.Nitric oxide (NO) is an important signaling molecule involved in various physiological and pathological processes. The effects of NO depend on its concentration, and the spatial and temporal constraints of the cell microenvironment. Meanwhile, NO can react with some biomolecules such as biothiols, leading to a short biological lifetime. Thus, it is very crucial to establish a real-time visualization method for monitoring NO levels. In this work, we have developed a fluorescent probe, RBA, for NO, with a 3-extended BODIPY as a fluorophore and a secondary amine as the active site. The probe RBA can quickly sense NO (∼10 s) in aerobic solutions to generate a fluorescent N-nitrosamine (RBA-NO, Φf = 0.87) due to blocking of the photoinduced electron transfer (PET) process from the secondary amine to the BODIPY core. This sensing reaction displays high sensitivity (LOD = 10 nM) and high selectivity for NO over relevant analytes except some reducing reagents including biothiols, and a remarkable interference effect is observed ascribed to a competitive reaction with biothiols. Furthermore, the exo- and endogenous detection of NO in live cells and zebra fish was achieved, and it was demonstrated that glutathione (GSH) weakens drastically the fluorescence response by cell-imaging experiments. These results imply that the colorimetric and fluorescence response of the chemosensor for NO depends on the levels of both NO and GSH in environments.Bacteria-induced infections have always been associated with various medical devices. The construction of an intelligent antimicrobial surface is an important challenge. In this study, we report the construction of a zwitterionic surface with good biocompatibility under physiological conditions and which shows an anti-adhesion effect on the original bacteria. Once the bacteria multiply, the acidic environment initiated by the bacteria will cause the amide bond on the surface to break, and the zwitterionic surface can be rapidly converted to a cationic bactericidal surface. Confocal laser scanning (CLSM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) show that the zwitterionic surface has efficient antibacterial activity with an anti-adhesion property while the pH-responsive transition to quaternary ammonium compounds with a germicidal surface in the acidic environment of bacterial metabolism aids the activity. Thus, the pH-responsive zwitterionic-to-cationic transition antibacterial design opens up new ideas for the efficient and safe application of cationic bactericides in clinical medical antibacterial materials.