Conventional nanocarriers have three inherent limitations: therapeutic inefficacy, suboptimal drug-loading capacity, and disease-specific nanocarrier requirements necessitating frequent structural reconfiguration. To overcome these challenges, we developed a novel modular synergistic bioactive nanocarrier based on olsalazine (Olsa), utilizing a modular coordination-switching strategy to achieve cross-disease therapeutic adaptability. A spherical Olsa-based Cu/Fe metal-organic framework (MOF) was developed for colorectal cancer (CRC) therapy to encapsulate doxorubicin (DOX) and address the intrinsic hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) deficiency in tumor microenvironments through a self-catalytic H2O2 regeneration mechanism. This approach exhibited a 2.3 ± 0.1-fold enhancement in tumor-selective cytotoxicity and a 10.6 ± 2.2-fold enhancement in tumor accumulation efficiency. The synergistic combination of photothermal therapy (PTT), chemodynamic therapy (CDT), chemotherapy, and immunotherapy creates a self-reinforcing therapeutic cascade that concurrently mitigates therapy-induced inflammatory responses and enhances immunogenic cell death (ICD) through damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMP) activation. A biconical Ce-Olsa MOF oral nanotherapeutic was developed for ulcerative colitis (UC) management, serving as a dual-function nanocarrier that simultaneously scavenges pathogenic reactive oxygen species (ROS) and facilitates ROS-mediated mesalazine release. This spatiotemporally controlled release profile resulted in significant downregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines and complete restoration of tight junction protein expression. This study pioneers a transformative nanocarrier that revolutionizes therapeutic nanocarrier design through three innovations: (i) the synergistic integration of therapeutic and nanocarrier functionalities using intrinsically bioactive molecules, (ii) universal disease adaptability for precision intervention across multiple pathological conditions through modular coordination switching, and (iii) clinically validated, Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved molecules with proven biocompatibility.

With the growing problem of plastic pollution, the impact of microplastics on marine ecosystems and their potential role in microbial communities and methane cycling in marine sediments has become an important topic in environmental science research. This paper aims to investigate the effects of microplastics on microbial communities, in particular the methane cycle, in marine sediments. By analysing the physical and chemical properties of microplastics and their distribution in sediments, the study found that microplastics significantly altered the structure and function of microbial communities. The results suggest that microplastics provide new attachment substrates for microorganisms and influence methane cycling processes. These findings are crucial for understanding the deep-seated effects of microplastic contributions to the global greenhouse effect and for developing effective management strategies for the marine environment. The results of this study highlight the urgency of strengthening the monitoring and management of marine microplastic pollution and provide other scientists and researchers with insights into the interactions between microplastics and marine ecosystems, laying the groundwork for the development of effective strategies to reduce microplastic pollution.

Plastic additive-related chemicals, particularly in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics, have become a key issue in plastic pollution. Although addressing plastic pollution through the life-cycle approach is crucial, the environmental impacts of typical plastic additive-related chemicals in PVC plastics during the cradle-to-gate stage remain unexplored. Consequently, managing the life-cycle environmental impacts of these additives remains challenging. Herein, the environmental impacts of 23 typical plastic additive-related chemicals and six PVC plastic products were evaluated throughout the cradle-to-gate life-cycle stage using a life cycle assessment-material flow analysis (LCA-MFA) coupled model. The results indicate that plastic additives significantly contribute to the environmental impacts of PVC plastic products across various end point indicators, ranging from 8.7 to 40.6%. Additionally, scenario analysis (SA) reveals that conventional strategies for addressing plastic pollution may not be highly effective in mitigating the environmental impacts associated with plastic additives. Specifically, compared to primary polymers, these additives exhibit 4 to 13% lower mitigation potential under the same policy scenarios. However, technical adjustment strategies targeting additives show a mitigation potential of 12 to 39%, suggesting that guiding the plastic additive industry toward green transformation is a key strategy for reducing environmental impacts.

Exposure to environmental pollutants occurs ubiquitously and poses many risks to human health and the ecosystem. Although many analytical methods have been developed to assess such jeopardies, the circumstances applying these means are restricted to linking the toxicities to compositions in the pollutant mixtures. The present study proposes a novel analytical approach, namely, biospectroscopy-bioreporter-coupling (BBC), to quantify and apportion the toxicities of metal ions and organic pollutants. Using a toxicity bioreporter ADPWH_recA and Raman spectroscopy, both bioluminescent signals and spectral alterations had similar dosage- and time-response behavior to the toxic compounds, validating the possibility of coupling these two methods from practical aspects. Raman spectral alterations successfully distinguished the biomarkers for different toxicity mechanisms of individual pollutants, such as ring breathing mode of DNA/RNA bases (1373 cm-1) by Cr, reactive oxygen species-induced peaks of proteins (1243 cm-1), collagen (813 cm-1), and lipids (1255 cm-1) by most metal ions, and indicative fingerprints of organic toxins. The support vector machine model had a satisfactory performance in distinguishing and apportioning toxicities of individual toxins from all input data, achieving a sensitivity of 88.54% and a specificity of 97.80%. This work set a preliminary database for Raman spectral alterations of whole-cell bioreporter response to multiple pollutants. It proved the state-of-the-art concept that the BBC approach is feasible to rapidly quantify and precisely apportion toxicities of numerous pollutant mixtures.

Humans are routinely exposed to nanoplastics (NPs) in various ways, and this exposure presents a significant health risk. Nevertheless, there remain gaps in our knowledge, particularly in the mechanisms of toxicity of NPs with different surface charges at very low environmental concentrations. Herein, a spectrochemical approach was used to profile the cytotoxicity of NPs with different surface charges in HepG2 cells. It was found that all three NPs can cause some biomolecular alterations in cells, affecting cellular lipids, proteins, amino acids, and genetic material. Of these, PS and PS-COOH led to a non-linear dose-response, which may be related to a biphasic dose-response, whereas PS-NH2 led to a linear dose-response with a gradual increase in toxicity with increasing exposure concentration. In addition, the spectroscopic results showed that surface modifications led to cellular biochemical changes and caused adverse biological effects, with PS-NH2 exhibiting higher toxicity compared to PS or PS-COOH along with an inhibition of cell proliferation. Surprisingly PS-COOH, although considered the least toxic NP, appears to cause DNA damage. Overall, the toxic effects of different surface-modified NPs in cells were detected for the first time by applying spectrochemical techniques, and these findings provide important data towards understanding the emerging widespread environmental pollution of NPs and their effects on humans.

The manufacture and use of plastic products have resulted in the release and spread of a massive amount of microplastics. Identifying and quantifying microplastics is challenging due to their small size and complicated composition. Although vibrational spectroscopy has been applied to analyze microplastics, its reliability and throughput are limited by the challenges to distinguish the pending alterations manually and the lack of a spectra-based automated microplastic classification model. The present study applied Raman spectroscopy coupled with multivariate analysis to develop a new and robust analytical method to comprehensively interrogate the spectral profiles of seven microplastic references and real microplastic samples post-exposure to environmental stresses. Besides identifying unique Raman peaks of individual microplastics, their whole spectra were separated by principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Support vector machine (SVM) classification achieved an accuracy rate of over 98% for polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polyvinyl chloride, polycarbonate, polyamide, and over 70% for high-density polyethylene and low-density polyethylene. Real microplastic samples from the breakdown of snack boxes, mineral water bottles, juice bottles, and medicine vials were also matched to their chemical components by SVM with an overall sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 98.1%, 99.4%, and 99.1%, respectively. Additionally, post-exposure to environmental stressors, 1D PCA-LDA score plots could still distinguish microplastic type, and the developed SVM classification achieved an accuracy of 96.75% in the real-world scenario. These findings prove Raman spectroscopy coupled with multivariate analysis as an ideal tool to distinguish the types and environmental exposure of microplastics, demonstrating great potential for microplastic automatic detection.

Background: This study aimed to explore the correlations of programmed death-1 (PD-1) and CC chemokine ligand 20 (CCL20) with Treg/T helper 17 (Th17) balance in patients with HBV-ACLF. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 50 patients with HBV-ACLF and 50 cases with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) diagnosed from February 2021 to February 2022 were selected, and another 50 healthy volunteers who received physical examinations in the same period were selected as a control group. The expression levels of PD-1, CCL20, and Treg/Th17 cytokines were detected by Western blotting, immunoturbidimetry, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively. The correlations of PD-1 and CCL20 with Treg/Th17 cytokines were explored by Pearson analysis. The predictive values of PD-1, CCL20, and Treg/Th17 cytokines for the prognosis of HBV-ACLF patients were analyzed. Results: The expression levels of PD-1 and CCL20 were higher in the HBV-ACLF group than in the CHB and control groups (P < 0.05). Severe HBV-ACLF patients had higher levels of PD-1 and CCL20 compared with mild and moderate HBV-ACLF patients (P < 0.05). Hepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure patients with poor prognosis had higher levels of PD-1 and CCL20 than those with good prognosis (P < 0.05). The levels of transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), interleukin 10 (IL-10), IL-23, and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) were higher in the HBV-ACLF group than in the CHB and control groups (P < 0.05). The levels of PD-1 and CCL20 in the HBV-ACLF group were positively correlated with those of Treg/Th17 cytokines (TGF-β, IL-10, IL-23, and TNF-α; P < 0.05). The combined detection of PD-1, CCL20, and Treg/Th17 cytokines had higher sensitivity and lower specificity than single detection in predicting the prognosis of HBV-ACLF patients (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The expression levels of PD-1 and CCL20 are higher in HBV-ACLF patients, being correlated with Treg/Th17 balance. The combined detection of PD-1, CCL20, and Treg/Th17 cytokines has a higher value for predicting the prognosis of HBV-ACLF patients.

Bioaugmentation is an effective approach to remediate soils contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), but suffers from unsatisfactory performance in engineering practices, which is hypothetically explained by the complicated interactions between indigenous microbes and introduced degraders. This study isolated a cultivable pyrene degrader (Sphingomonas sp. YT1005) and an active pyrene degrading consortium (Gp16, Streptomyces, Pseudonocardia, Panacagrimonas, Methylotenera and Nitrospira) by magnetic-nanoparticle mediated isolation (MMI) from soils. Pyrene biodegradation was postponed in bioaugmentation with Sphingomonas sp. YT1005, whilst increased by 30.17% by the active pyrene degrading consortium. Pyrene dioxygenase encoding genes (nidA, nidA3 and PAH-RHDα-GP) were enriched in MMI isolates and positively correlated with pyrene degradation efficiency. Pyrene degradation by Sphingomonas sp. YT1005 only followed the phthalate pathway, whereas both phthalate and salicylate pathways were observed in the active pyrene degrading consortium. The results indicated that the uncultivable pyrene degraders were suitable for bioaugmentation, rather than cultivable Sphingomonas sp. YT1005. The negative correlations between Sphingomonas sp. YT1005 and the active-yet-uncultivable pyrene degraders were the underlying mechanisms of bioaugmentation postpone in engineering practices.

Background: Bioaugmentation is an effective approach to remediate soils contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs), but suffers from unsatisfactory performance in engineering practices. It is hypothetically explained by the complicated interactions between indigenous microbes and introduced degrading consortium. This study isolated a cultivable pyrene degrader (Sphingomonas sp. YT1005) and an active pyrene degrading consortium consisting of Gp16, Streptomyces, Pseudonocardia, Panacagrimonas, Methylotenera and Nitrospira by magnetic-nanoparticle mediated isolation (MMI) from soils.Results: Pyrene biodegradation was postponed in bioaugmentation with Sphingomonas sp. YT1005, explained by its negative correlations with the active pyrene degraders. In contrast, amendment with the active pyrene degrading consortium, pyrene degradation efficiency increased by 30.17%. In addition, pyrene degradation efficiency was positively correlated with the abundance of pyrene dioxygenase encoding genes (nidA, nidA3 and PAH-RHDα-GP), which significantly increased in MMI-isolated consortium. Pyrene degradation by Sphingomonas sp. YT1005 only followed the phthalate pathway, whereas the MMI-isolated pyrene degrading consortium exhibited both phthalate and salicylate pathways. The results indicated that Sphingomonas sp. YT1005 was not the actual pyrene degrader in soils, and MMI could successfully isolate the active pyrene degraders that were suitable for bioaugmentation.Conclusion: This work revealed the microbial intra-correlations during the bioaugmentation process, uncovered the underlying mechanisms of bioaugmentation postpone with cultivable degraders, and provided a deeper insight into the actual pyrene degraders and degradation pathways in PAHs contaminated soils. Our findings gave new explanations for bioaugmentation postpone or failure, and offered clues to enhance bioaugmentation performance by the active degraders using MMI.

The outbreak of coronavirus infectious disease-2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia challenges the rapid interrogation of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in human and environmental samples. In this study, we developed an assay using surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) coupled with multivariate analysis to detect SARS-CoV-2 in an ultra-fast manner without any pretreatment (e.g., RNA extraction). Using silver-nanorod SERS array functionalized with cellular receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), we obtained strong SERS signals of ACE2 at 1032, 1051, 1089, 1189, 1447 and 1527 cm-1. The recognition and binding of receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on SERS assay significantly quenched the spectral intensities of most peaks and exhibited a shift from 1189 to 1182 cm-1. On-site tests on 23 water samples with a portable Raman spectrometer proved its accuracy and easy-operation for spot detection of SARS-CoV-2 to evaluate disinfection performance, explore viral survival in environmental media, assess viral decay in wastewater treatment plant and track SARS-CoV-2 in pipe network. Our findings raise a state-of-the-art spectroscopic tool to screen and interrogate viruses with RBD for human cell entry, proving its feasibility and potential as an ultra-fast detection tool for wastewater-based epidemiology.

COVID 19 has created a new world order. The absence of a specific therapy, uncertainty about the viral transmission of the disease and its mutation, lock down, social distancing have caused mental stress leading to anxiety and depression.

Patient survival remains poor even after diagnosis in lung cancer cases, and the molecular events resulting from lung cancer progression remain unclear. Raman spectroscopy could be used to noninvasively and accurately reveal the biochemical properties of biological tissues on the basis of their pathological status. This study aimed at probing biomolecular changes in lung cancer, using Raman spectroscopy as a potential diagnostic tool. Herein, biochemical alterations were evident in the Raman spectra (region of 600-1800 cm(-1)) in normal and cancerous lung tissues. The levels of saturated and unsaturated lipids and the protein-to-lipid, nucleic acid-to-lipid, and protein-to-nucleic acid ratios were significantly altered among malignant tissues compared to normal lung tissues. These biochemical alterations in tissues during neoplastic transformation have profound implications in not only the biochemical landscape of lung cancer progression but also cytopathological classification. Based on this spectroscopic approach, classification methods including k-nearest neighbour (kNN) and support vector machine (SVM) were successfully applied to cytopathologically diagnose lung cancer with an accuracy approaching 99%. The present results indicate that Raman spectroscopy is an excellent tool to biochemically interrogate and diagnose lung cancer.

The biomolecular events resulting from the progression of hepatoblastoma remain to be elucidated. Fourier‐transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopies are capable of noninvasively and accurately capturing the biochemical properties of biological tissue from its pathological status. Our aim was to probe critial biomolecular changes of liver accompanying the progression of pure foetal hepatoblastoma (PFH) by FTIR and Raman spectroscopies. Herein, biochemical alterations were both evident in the FTIR spectra (regions of 3100‐2800 cm−1 and 1800‐900 cm−1) and the Raman spectra (region of 1800‐400 cm−1) among normal, borderline and malignant liver tissues. Compared with normal tissues, the ratios of protein‐to‐lipid, α‐helix‐to‐β‐sheet, RNA‐to‐DNA, CH3 methyl‐to‐CH2 methylene, glucose‐to‐phospholipids, and unsaturated‐to‐saturated lipids intensities were significantly higher in malignant tissues, while the ratios of RNA‐to‐Amide II, DNA‐to‐Amide II, glycogen‐to‐cholesterol and Amide I‐to‐Amide II intensities were remarkably lower. These biochemical alterations in the transition from normal to malignant have profound implications not only for cyto‐pathological classification but also for molecular understanding of PFH progression. The successive changes of the spectral characteristics have been shown to be consistent with the development of PFH, indicating that FTIR and Raman spectroscopies are excellent tools to interrogate the biochemical features of different grades of PFH.

Attenuated total reflection‐Fourier transform infrared (ATR‐FTIR) spectroscopy is a label‐free, non‐destructive analytical technique for biochemical analysis of macromolecular components within tissue samples. Cadmium (Cd) and mono‐(2‐ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP), a primary metabolite of di‐(2‐ethylhexyl) phthalate, are present ubiquitously in the environment and in organisms, and have adverse impacts on ecosystems and human health. Herein we employed ATR‐FTIR analysis to identify biomolecular changes in rat liver, spleen, lung and kidney after prepubertal exposure to Cd and MEHP. Our results showed clear segregations between the 3 mg/kg Cd‐, 10 mg/kg, 50 mg/kg, 250 mg/kg MEHP‐ and binary mixture‐treated groups vs. the solvent control group. Following principal components analysis coupled with linear discriminant analysis, biochemical alterations associated with different doses of Cd and MEHP were attributed mainly to lipids, proteins, phosphates and carbohydrates. In addition, the ratios of lipid/protein, C=O stretching/CH 2 methylene (lipid oxidation level), amide I/amide II, α‐helix/β‐sheet and CH 3 methyl/CH 2 methylene (acetylation level) in target organs were affected by these toxicants. There seems to be no dose‐response effect of Cd and MEHP on target organs. We observed hardly any joint toxic action of these toxicants. This is the first study showing the application of ATR‐FTIR spectroscopy to the assessment of toxicity of Cd and MEHP. Possibly, destruction of cell membrane structure and integrity could be the common mechanism of Cd and MEHP toxicity in liver, spleen, lung and kidney.

Here, to look insight into the tribological property of SnSe2, which is emerging as a promising material in the field of solar cell and data storage, low-frequency Raman measurements have been employed to figure out the interlayer force constants. Detailed group theory analysis has been provided to help understand the results of Raman spectroscopy and, as well, to classify the many peaks observed in Raman measurements. It has been found that shear force in SnSe2 is lower than lots of other 2D materials, and this suggests that SnSe2 may also play specific role in the field of lubrication or atomic-scale friction researches, for example, by acting as a new kind of superlubric material.

The fluorescence-lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) technique is utilized to probe the photoluminescence properties of individual MoS2 flakes. This measurement allows identification of the layer number of the flakes: two fluorescence decay lifetimes (τ1 and τ2) exhibit linear relationships with the layer number. Our investigation of the fluorescence lifetime reveals exciton dynamics in monolayer and multilayers MoS2. We find the distinct difference on the decay rates between A exciton (fast) and B exciton (slow). K′/Γ emission has different decay behaviors with respect to the layer number (N) because of its variable energy in monolayer and multilayer samples. The interplay of these transition channels also plays an important impact on the overall decay. Our results demonstrate that FLIM is an effective measurement for studying the luminescence properties of transition metal dichalcogenides.

Micro-and nanoplastics are plastic particles which are widely distributed in the environment.The pollution status and toxicity of micro-and nanoplastics in various environment matrices have attracted increcesing attention in recent years.In this review,we systematically assess the current literature on the sources and occurrences of micro-and nanoplastics in the environment and their potential impacts on marine organisms.We also discussed the potential human health effect of micro-and nanoplastics by uptake kinetics and toxicity assessment,and the toxic effects of the typical pollutants caused by micro-and nanoplastics.The results show that the sources of micro (nano) plastics in the terrestrial environment are mainly sewage sludge application,residues of plastic products used in agriculture,irrigation water contaminated by microplastics and/or aerial deposition.The micro (nano) plastics enter marine environment mainly by land input,seaside tourism,navigation shipping,marine farming and/or aerial deposition.In the marine environment,micro-and nanoplastics can be transported and accumulated through an aquatic food chain from lower trophic level to higher ones,and disturb the metabolism and propagation of the organisms.The toxicity of micro-and nanoplastics is dependent on the size and functional groups on the surface of plastic particles.In general,nanoplastics with smaller size might more easily penetrate and aggregate in cells and tissues and positively charged nanoplastics pose distinct effects on the physiological activity of the cells.Besides,the release of organic pollutants adsorbed on the plastic particles pose more serious toxic effects than the plastics themselves.We hope this review can provide effective support for systematic risk assessment and toxicology of micro-and nanoplastics in future research.

Biospectroscopy has the ability to investigate the biochemical information in biological samples including cells and tissues. It can be used as a rapid, noninvasive and reliable technique to detect subtle alteration in bio-molecular constituent and structure. This paper has reviewed the applications of biospectroscopy in toxicological research of environmental pollution. Usually, Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy have been already employed in biospectroscopic study. As known, IR spectroscopy technique has been used in toxicity assessment of single or binary pollution compounds exposures in cells, plants, animals and even bacteria, while Raman Spectroscopy including Surface-enhanced Raman has been used in toxicity test as well. SERS with advantages as low limit of detection, high signal to noise ratio and high sensitivity, can provide biochemical information in biological samples. In biospectroscopic study, data analysis is an important part, which can help us get the useful information from the spectra collected from samples. This work will give a general and systematic view for the biospectroscopic application in research of environmental pollution toxicity.

In the present work, properties of the interlayer breathing modes in twisted MoS2 samples with different structures are carefully examined. The distribution of peak position of the breathing modes is mainly dependent on overall layer numbers, and is only slightly affected by specific structure of the sample. Linear chain model calculation shows quantitatively a markedly decrease in interlayer force on the twisted interface, and slight difference in Raman frequency may mean considerable difference in interlayer force. When one or both of the component layers get too thick, no new breathing modes can be found, indicating that rigidity of the component may affect the coupling efficiency. Our work demonstrates that low-frequency Raman spectroscopy can act as an effective indirect strategy for the detection of interlayer interaction, which is a good complement to existing methods such as AFM technologies.