Ultrasensitive and accurate diagnosis of urothelial cancer by plasmonic AuNRs-enhanced fluorescence of near-infrared Ag_(2)S quantum dots

Urothelial carcinoma(UC)is a common malignant tumor in the urinary system with high recurrence rate and low survival rate 5 years after surgery.At present,imaging examination and other diagnostic methods have some shortcomings such as invasiveness and non-specificity.Therefore,it is urgent to develop a simple,rapid,noninvasive,highly sensitive and highly specific strategy to diagnose UC.Herein,a high-performance fluorescence sensor was constructed by the plasmonic gold nanorods(AuNRs)-enhanced near-infrared(NIR)fluorescence of silver sulfide quantum dots(Ag_(2)S QDs).The designed sensor can be used for the fast and accurate detection of small molecule single-transmembrane protein(FXYD3),which is overexpressed in 90%of ureteral cancers and 84%of high-grade bladder cancers.Due to its high specificity,the NIR fluorescence sensor achieves the detection of FXYD3 in the range of 0.25-150 ng·ml^(-1)with a detection limit of 0.2 ng·ml^(-1).Importantly,it also can be used for accurate diagnosis of FXYD3 in the urine of patients with relevant cancers,and the results are consistent with clinical cystoscopy and pathological analysis.The proposed fluorescence sensor provides a simple,ultrasensitive,reliable method for UC screening,tumor-grade classification and postoperative monitoring and will have great potential for clinical applications.

Multimodality imaging in nanomedicine and nanotheranostics

Accurate diagnosis of tumors needs much detailed information. However, available single imaging modality cannot provide complete or comprehensive data. Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to medicine, and multimodality imaging based on nanoparticles has been receiving extensive attention. This new hybrid imaging technology could provide complementary information from different imaging modalities using only a single injection of contrast agent. In this review, we introduce recent developments in multifunctional nanoparticles and their biomedical applications to multimodal imaging and theragnosis as nanomedicine. Most of the reviewed studies are based on the intrinsic properties of nanoparticles and their application in clinical imaging technology. The imaging techniques include positron emission tomography, single-photon emission computed tomography, computerized tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, optical imaging, and ultrasound imaging.

Extracellular Milieu and Membrane Receptor Dual-Driven DNA Nanorobot for Accurate in Vivo Tumor Imaging

Precise diagnostic approaches have great potential in cancer intervention and prognosis.Although diverse DNA nanoprobes have been reported for tumor diagnosis,precise tumor imaging in vivo still encounters a great challenge due to the scarcity of exquisite design methodology.Herein,by assembling three programmable modules on a DNA triangular prism,we engineered a DNA nanorobot for simultaneous recognition of extracellular pH and cancer cell membrane receptor in an intelligent manner.Since the design uses two heterogeneous types of biomarkers as inputs,pH-RE not only could discriminate target tumor cells from similar cell mixtures with a recognition accuracy as high as 98.8%,but also could perform precise tumor imaging in living mice by intravenous injection.We expect that this extracellular pH and membrane receptor dual-driven DNA nanorobot will facilitate the establishment of a novel design paradigm for precise cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Potential diagnostic biomarkers for schizophrenia

Schizophrenia(SCH)is a complex and severe mental disorder with high prevalence,disability,mortality and carries a heavy disease burden,the lifetime prevalence of SCH is around 0.7%–1.0%,which has a profound impact on the individual and society.In the clinical practice of SCH,key problems such as subjective diagnosis,experiential treatment,and poor overall prognosis are still challenging.In recent years,some exciting discoveries have been made in the research on objective biomarkers of SCH,mainly focusing on genetic susceptibility genes,metabolic indicators,immune indices,brain imaging,electrophysiological characteristics.This review aims to summarize the biomarkers that may be used for the prediction and diagnosis of SCH.