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CsPbI 3 nanocrystals (NCs) have become a research hot spot in the field of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Whereas, the long chain ligands with weak affinity to CsPbI 3 NCs have prevented their further development and commercialization. Herein, a novel multidentate short ligand tetramethylthiuram disulfide (TMTD) was employed via a ligand exchange process to enhance hole mobility and decrease trap density of the CsPbI 3 NCs film. Therefore, TMTD passivated CsPbI 3 NCs LED exhibited 20.65% maximum external quantum efficiency and 3861 cd/m 2 maximum luminance. Furthermore, TMTD passivated CsPbI 3 NCs LED exhibited good operational stability with a 128 min half-lifetime. This strategy using multidentate short ligand passivation provides an effective way to promote perovskite LED development and commercialization.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest superfamily of human membrane target proteins for approved drugs. GPCR ligands can have a complex array of pharmacological activities. Among these activities, biased agonists have potential to serve as both chemical probes to understand specific aspects of receptor signaling and therapeutic leads with more specific, desired activity. Challenges exist, however, in the development of new biased activators due, in part, to the low throughput of traditional screening approaches. DNA-encoded chemical libraries (DELs) dramatically improve the throughput of drug discovery by allowing a collective selection, rather than discrete screening, of large compound libraries. The use of DELs has been largely limited to affinity-based selections against purified protein targets, which identify binders only. Herein, we report a split protein complementation approach that allows direct identification of DNA-linked molecules that induce the dimerization of two proteins. We used this selection with a DEL against opioid receptor GPCRs on living cells for the identification of small molecules that possess the specific function of activation of either β-arrestin or G protein signaling pathways. This approach was applied to δ-, μ-, and κ-opioid receptors and enabled the discovery of compound [66,66], a selective, G-protein-biased agonist of the κ-opioid receptor (EC 50 = 100 nM, E max = 82%, G i bias factor = 6.6). This approach should be generally applicable for the direct selection of chemical inducers of dimerization from DELs and expand the utility of DELs to enrich molecules with a specific and desired biochemical function., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

Halide perovskite (HP) nanocrystals (NCs) have recently shown great potential for X-ray detection and imaging. However, the practical application still has a long way to go with many technical requirements waiting to be fulfilled, including structure optimization, stability enhancement, and cost reduction. A design principle in this beginning stage is urgently needed but still lacking. Herein, with an "emitter-in-matrix" principle refined from commercial scintillators, CsPbBr 3 @Cs 4 PbBr 6 with emissive CsPbBr 3 NCs embedded inside a solid-state Cs 4 PbBr 6 host is subjected to X-ray sensing and imaging. The Cs 4 PbBr 6 matrix not only enhances the attenuation of X-rays but also dramatically improves the stability of CsPbBr 3 NCs. A favorable optical design with the Cs 4 PbBr 6 matrix being transparent to the emission from CsPbBr 3 NCs enables efficient light output. As a result, stable and sensitive scintillation response to X-ray signals is demonstrated with superior linearity and ultrahigh time resolution. In order to show the huge potential for practical applications, X-ray imaging using a large-area film (360 mm × 240 mm) by the blade-coating technique is carried out to obtain a high-quality image of interior structures invisible to the human eye. In addition to the above advantages in optics, CsPbBr 3 @Cs 4 PbBr 6 also enjoys facile solution synthesis with large scalability, excellent repeatability, and low cost.

Because heterogeneity affects many functional aspects of a tumor, a way to overcome it is to arm nanosized drug delivery systems (nanoDDS) with diverse functions required to shatter heterogeneity. However, it remains technically challenging to fabricate a nanocarrier possessing all required functions. Here, we propose a modular strategy for generating a supramolecular, multifunctional, and stimuli-responsive nanoDDS through docking a parental core nanoDDS with various daughter function-prebuilt modules. Doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) as the parental nanocore are wrapped by poly(β-cyclodextrin) (PCD) as a gatekeeper through host-guest interactions between cyclodextrin units and pyridine groups of pyridine-disulfide bonds that confers pH/redox dual responsiveness, thus constructing stimuli-responsive nanoDDS (DOX@PRMSNs). Meanwhile, PCD's free cyclodextrin is tightly caged by adamantyl (Ad)-terminated daughter modules via host-guest interactions, achieving convenient multifunctionalization of this nanoDDS. DOX@PRMSNs rapidly released DOX in lysosomal pH/redox microenvironment, potently killing drug-resistant cancer cells. Further, three different types of Ad-terminated daughter modules, including two targeting ligands (Ad-PEG-FA and Ad-PEG-LA), a cationic polymer (Ad-PEI), and a fluorescence agent (Ad-FITC), are utilized to functionalize PRMSNs via cyclodextrin-Ad self-assembly, endowing the nanoDDS with cell-targeting capability, gene codelivery property, and imaging function. Thus, this work develops a supramolecular modular self-assembly approach for constructing and multifunctionalizing stimuli-responsive "smart" nanoDDSs.

To capture both epithelial and mesenchymal subpopulations of CTCs at different metastatic stages of PCa patients, here we constructed a novel dual-antibody-functionalized microfluidic device by employing antibodies against PSMA and EpCAM. In vitro experiments with the dual capture system for capturing both LnCAP and LnCAP-EMT cells have shown significantly enhanced capture efficiency as compared to that of the EpCAM single capture system. Furthermore, the dual capture system could successfully identify CTCs in 20 out of 24 (83.3%) PCa patients, and the CTCs counts from the dual capture system were statistically correlated with the TNM stage of patients ( P < 0.05), while conventional diagnostic methods, such as serum PSA level and Gleason score, failed to correlate to patient TNM stages. To further explore potential clinical application of our dual capture system, captured CTCs were recovered and subjected to qRT-PCR to quantify known factors involved in PCa development and therapy. The results demonstrated that the combined detection of SChLAP1 and PSA in CTCs is a potential marker for identifying patients with metastatic PCa, while detection of AR and PD-L1 in CTCs may have the potential to determine the sensitivity of PCa patients to androgen deprivation therapy and immunotherapy, respectively. Taken together, the dual-antibody-functionalized microfluidic device established in our study overcomes the limitations of some CTC capture platforms that only detect epithelial or mesenchymal CTCs in PCa patients, and detection of the PCa-related RNA signatures from purified CTCs holds great promise to offer warnings for early metastasis of PCa and may provide guidance for therapy decisions.

Low-dimensional halide perovskite (HP) has triggered lots of research attention in recent years due to anisotropic optoelectronic/semiconducting properties and enhanced stability. High-quality low-dimensional HPs via controllable engineering are required to fulfill the encouraging promise for device applications. Here, we introduce, for the first time, postsynthetic ultrasonic-assisted refinement of two-dimensional homologous HPs (OA 2 PbBr 4 , OA is octadecylamine). The solution-prepared OA 2 PbBr 4 , either in the form of large-sized microcrystal or nanosheet, obtains significantly enhanced crystallinity after ultrasonic treatment. We further show that OA 2 PbBr 4 nanosheets can be used as a template to construct low-dimensional CsPbBr 3 with the size and morphology inherited. Importantly, we found the ultrasonic-treated OA 2 PbBr 4 crystals, compared with pristine ones, lead to enhanced optoelectronic properties for the resultant low-dimensional CsPbBr 3 , as demonstrated by improved photodetection performances, including prolonged charge-carrier lifetime, improved photostability, increased external quantum yield/responsivity, and faster response speed. We believe this work provides novel engineering of low-dimensional HPs beyond the reach of straightforward synthesis.

Novel fluorescence with highly covert and reliable features is quite desirable to combat the sophisticated counterfeiters. Herein, we report a simultaneously triple-modal fluorescent characteristic of CsPbBr 3 @Cs 4 PbBr 6 /SiO 2 by the excitation of thermal, ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) light for the first time, which can be applied for the multiple modal anti-counterfeiting codes. The diphasic structure CsPbBr 3 @Cs 4 PbBr 6 nanocrystals (NCs) was synthesized via the typical reprecipitation method followed by uniformly encapsulation into silica microspheres. Cubic CsPbBr 3 is responsible for the functions of anti-counterfeiting, while Cs 4 PbBr 6 crystalline and SiO 2 are mainly to protect unstable CsPbBr 3 NCs from being destroyed by ambient conditions. The as-prepared CsPbBr 3 @Cs 4 PbBr 6 /SiO 2 NCs possess improved stability and are capable of forming printable ink with organic binders for patterns. Interestingly, the fluorescence of diphasic CsPbBr 3 @Cs 4 PbBr 6 /SiO 2 capsule patterns can be reversibly switched by the heating, UV, and IR light irradiation, which has been applied as triple-modal fluorescent anti-counterfeiting codes. The results demonstrate that the perovskite@silica capsules are highly promising for myriad applications in areas such as fluorescent anti-counterfeiting, optoelectronic devices, medical diagnosis, and biological imaging.

Highly stable antimonene, as the cousin of phosphorene from group-VA, has opened up exciting realms in the two-dimensional (2D) materials family. However, pristine antimonene is an indirect band gap semiconductor, which greatly restricts its applications for optoelectronics devices. Identifying suitable materials, both responsive to incident photons and efficient for carrier transfer, is urgently needed for ultrathin devices. Herein, by means of first-principles computations we found that it is rather feasible to realize a new class of 2D materials with a direct bandgap and high carrier mobility, namely antimonene oxides with different content of oxygen. Moreover, these tunable direct bandgaps cover a wide range from 0 to 2.28 eV, which are crucial for solar cell and photodetector applications. Especially, the antimonene oxide (18Sb-18O) is a 2D topological insulator with a sizable global bandgap of 177 meV, which has a nontrivial Z 2 topological invariant in the bulk and the topological states on the edge. Our findings not only introduce new vitality into 2D group-VA materials family and enrich available candidate materials in this field but also highlight the potential of these 2D semiconductors as appealing ultrathin materials for future flexible electronics and optoelectronics devices.

Biomimetic cell membrane-coated nanoparticles (CM-NPs) with superior biochemical properties have been broadly utilized for various biomedical applications. Currently, researchers primarily focus on using ultrasonic treatment and mechanical extrusion to improve the synthesis of CM-NPs. In this work, we demonstrate that microfluidic electroporation can effectively facilitate the synthesis of CM-NPs. To test it, Fe 3 O 4 magnetic nanoparticles (MNs) and red blood cell membrane-derived vesicles (RBC-vesicles) are infused into a microfluidic device. When the mixture of MNs and RBC-vesicles flow through the electroporation zone, the electric pulses can effectively promote the entry of MNs into RBC-vesicles. After that, the resulting RBC membrane-capped MNs (RBC-MNs) are collected from the chip and injected into experimental animals to test the in vivo performance. Owing to the superior magnetic and photothermal properties of the MN cores and the long blood circulation characteristic of the RBC membrane shells, core-shell RBC-MNs were used for enhanced tumor magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and photothermal therapy (PTT). Due to the completer cell membrane coating, RBC-MNs prepared by microfluidic electroporation strategy exhibit significantly better treatment effect than the one fabricated by conventional extrusion. We believe the combination of microfluidic electroporation and CM-NPs provides an insight into the synthesis of bioinpired nanoparticles to improve cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) with superior optical and chemical features have been broadly employed for in vivo cancer imaging. Generally, UCNPs are surface modified with ligands for cancer active targeting. However, nanoparticles in biological fluids are known to form a long-lived "protein corona", which covers the targeting ligands on nanoparticle surface and dramatically reduces the nanoparticle targeting capabilities. Here, for the first time, we demonstrated that by coating UCNPs with red blood cell (RBC) membranes, the resulting cell membrane-capped nanoparticles (RBC-UCNPs) adsorbed virtually no proteins when exposed to human plasma. We further observed in various scenarios that the cancer targeting ability of folic acid (FA)-functionalized nanoparticles (FA-RBC-UCNPs) was rescued by the cell membrane coating. Next, the FA-RBC-UCNPs were successfully utilized for enhanced in vivo tumor imaging. Finally, blood parameters and histology analysis suggested that no significant systematic toxicity was induced by the injection of biomimetic nanoparticles. Our method provides a new angle on the design of targeted nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

As "liquid biopsies", circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been thought to hold significant insights for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Despite the advances of microfluidic techniques that improve the capture of CTCs to a certain extent, recovering the captured CTCs with enhanced purity at the same time remains a challenge. Here, by combining on-chip purification and off-chip enzymatic treatment, we demonstrate a two-stage strategy to enhance the purity of captured cancer cells from blood samples. The on-chip purification introduces a stirring flow to increase the capture sensitivity and decrease nonspecifically bounded cells. The off-chip enzymatic treatment enables the cancer cells to be released from the attached magnetic beads, further improving the purity and enabling next reculture. For the proof-of-concept study, spiked cancer cells are successfully obtained from unprocessed whole blood with high recovery rate (∼68%) and purity (∼61%), facilitating subsequent RNA expression analysis.

Here we report unique performance transistors based on sol-gel processed indium zinc oxide/single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) composite thin films. In the composite, SWNTs provide fast tracks for carrier transport to significantly improve the apparent field effect mobility. Specifically, the composite thin film transistors with SWNT weight concentrations in the range of 0-2 wt % have been investigated with the field effect mobility reaching as high as 140 cm(2)/V·s at 1 wt % SWNTs while maintaining a high on/off ratio ∼10(7). Furthermore, the introduction SWNTs into the composite thin film render excellent mechanical flexibility for flexible electronics. The dynamic loading test presents evidently superior mechanical stability with only 17% variation at a bending radius as small as 700 μm, and the repeated bending test shows only 8% normalized resistance variation after 300 cycles of folding and unfolding, demonstrating enormous improvement over the basic amorphous indium zinc oxide thin film. The results provide an important advance toward high-performance flexible electronics applications.

A new series of pH-responsive Gemini surfactants with 2-pyrrolidone head groups, N,N'-dialkyl-N,N'-di(ethyl-2-pyrrolidone)ethylenediamine (Di-C(n)P, where n = 6, 8 10, 12), were synthesized and characterized by (1)H NMR, (13)C NMR, ESI-MS, and elemental analysis. The surface activity and micellization behavior at acidic, neutral, and basic conditions were characterized by equilibrium surface tension and fluorescence techniques. It was found that the surface activity of Di-C(n)P depends on the pH of aqueous solutions due to the protonation state of surfactant molecules when pH was varied. The new compounds have lower cmc and γ(cmc) in comparison with that of m-2-m type conventional cationic Gemini surfactants and gluconamide-type nonionic Gemini surfactants. Fluorescence data confirm that micelles are formed when the concentration is above the cmc. Since micellization is of fundamental importance in surfactant applications such as solubilization, microemulsion, and related technologies, the significant difference in cmc at different pH of this new Gemini surfactant is employed to solubilize cyclohexane. The preliminary result indeed shows that the solubilization capacity of Di-C(n)P can be tuned by pH.