Hybridization chain reaction-based DNA nanomaterials for biosensing,bioimaging and therapeutics

DNA nanomaterials hold great promise in biomedical fields due to its excellent sequence programmability,molecular recognition ability and biocompatibility.Hybridization chain reaction(HCR)is a simple and efficient isothermal enzyme-free amplification strategy of DNA,generating nicked double helices with repeated units.Through the design of HCR hairpins,multiple nanomaterials with desired functions are assembled by DNA,exhibiting great potential in biomedical applications.Herein,the recent progress of HCR-based DNA nanomaterials for biosensing,bioimaging and therapeutics are summarized.Representative works are exemplified to demonstrate how HCR-based DNA nanomaterials are designed and constructed.The challenges and prospects of the development of HCR-based DNA nanomaterials are discussed.We envision that rationally designing HCR-based DNA nanomaterials will facilitate the development of biomedical applications.

Symptom network topological features predict the effectiveness of herbal treatment for pediatric cough

Pediatric cough is a heterogeneous condition in terms of symptoms and the underlying disease mechanisms.Symptom phenotypes hold complicated interactions between each other to form an intricate network structure.This study aims to investigate whether the network structure of pediatric cough symptoms is associated with the prognosis and outcome of patients.A total of 384 cases were derived from the electronic medical records of a highly experienced traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physician.The data were divided into two groups according to the therapeutic effect,namely,an invalid group (group A with 40 cases of poor efficacy) and a valid group (group B with 344 cases of good efficacy).Several well-established analysis methods,namely,statistical test,correlation analysis,and complex network analysis,were used to analyze the data.This study reports that symptom networks of patients with pediatric cough are related to the effectiveness of treatment: a dense network of symptoms is associated with great difficulty in treatment.Interventions with the most different symptoms in the symptom network may have improved therapeutic effects.

A smart DNA hydrogel for isolation of bacterial outer membrane vesicles and localized cancer immunotherapy

Bacterial outer membrane vesicles(OMVs)have shown great potential in cancer immunotherapy.The isolation of OMVs from complex media with high purity and high bioactivity is the prerequisite of therapeutic applications,which remains highly challenging.Herein,we report a smart DNA hydrogel for the efficient isolation of OMVs from bacterial culture medium,which is further applied for localized cancer immunotherapy.The DNA hydrogel is constructed through the cross-linking of two ultralong DNA chains generated via rolling circle amplification(RCA).One chain contains polyvalent GN6 aptamer for the specific capture of OMVs,and the other contains polyvalent programmed death-1(PD-1)aptamer for the blocking of PD-1 immune checkpoint on the surface of T lymphocytes.The OMVs capsulated by DNA hydrogel maintain high immunostimulatory bioactivity.In the mouse model of melanoma,this OMVs-containing DNA hydrogel shows a remarkable tumor inhibition rate of∼95%.This smart DNA hydrogel represents a promising biomedical platform for the efficient isolation of bacterial-derived OMVs,and provides a powerful strategy for cancer immunotherapy.