A multi-color and white-light emissive cucurbituril/terpyridine/lanthanide supramolecular nanofiber

Full-Color-Tunable Nanohydrogels as High-Stability Intracellular Nanothermometers

Full-color-tunable hydrogels with ultrahigh stability can be used in various fields, including intracellular temperature sensing. However, constructing full-color-tunable organic nanohydrogels with excellent biocompatibility and stability for intracellular temperature sensing remains a great challenge. Here, we report a full-color-tunable nanohydrogel with ultrahigh stability as an intracellular nanothermometer. Three types of temperature-sensitive polymers with red, green, and blue fluorescence were synthesized. Through easy mixing of these three polymers with regulation of the mass ratio, these polymers can be encoded to full-color-tunable fluorescent nanohydrogels, including nanohydrogels with white-light emission (NWLEs), with sizes of about 200 nm in aqueous media. Further study suggested that the as-obtained NWLEs exhibited good performance in intracellular temperature sensing because of their ultrahigh stability on their fluorescence properties and morphologies.

Effects of the Chinese Herb Medicine Formula "She-Xiang-Yu-Hong" Ointment on Wound Healing Promotion in Diabetic Mice

Wound healing in diabetic patients is a difficult problem to be solved at present. In addition, patients with diabetes have an increased risk of postoperative wound complications. “She-Xiang-Yu-Hong” (SXYH) ointment is a type of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) compound used to treat wounds. Over the past few years, SXYH has been applied in the Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu University of TCM (Chengdu, China) for the treatment of diabetic foot infections and bedsores, whereas there has been rare research on the effect of SXYH ointment on wound healing. In this study, SXYH ointment was first applied to streptozotocin (STZ)-triggered diabetic ICR mice (4–6 weeks, 20 ± 2 g) to observe the accelerated wound healing and the shortened wound healing period. As indicated by the histology and biochemistry analyses of skin biopsies, the wounds treated using SXYH ointment showed an increase in the granulation tissue. Moreover, SXYH also modulated the inflammation response by regulating affinity proinflammatory cytokines release (e.g., IL-6 and TNF-α). Furthermore, SXYH ointment obviously improved collagen fiber deposition and tissue on the wound surface. On the whole, this study indicated that SXYH ointment could accelerate wound healing, promote blood vessel formation, and suppress inflammations. Thus, the clinical potential of SXYH ointment was demonstrated in the treatment of diabetes and refractory wounds.

Luminescent lanthanide-macrocycle supramolecular assembly

A series of macrocyclic compounds, including crown ether, cyclodextrin, cucurbituril and pillararene, bound to various specific organic/inorganic/biological guest molecules and ions through various non-covalent interactions, can not only make a single system multifunctional but also endow the system with intelligence, especially for luminescent materials. Due to their excellent luminescence properties, such as long-lived excited states, sharp linear emission bands and large Stokes shift, lanthanides have shown great advantages in luminescence, and have been more and more applied in the design of advanced functional luminescent materials. Based on reported research, we summarize the progress of lanthanide luminescent materials based on different macrocyclic compounds from ion or molecule recognition to functional nano-supramolecular assembly of the lanthanide-macrocycle supramolecular system including photo-reaction mediated switch of lanthanide luminescent molecules, multicolor luminescence, ion detection and cell imaging of rare-earth up-conversion of macrocyclic supramolecular assembly. Finally, we put forward the prospects of future development of lanthanide luminescent macrocyclic supramolecular materials.

Homochiral Dysprosium Phosphonate Nanowires: Morphology Control and Magnetic Dynamics

Controllable synthesis of uniformly distributed nanowires of coordination polymers with inherent physical functions is highly desirable but challenging. In particular, the combination of chirality and magnetism into nanowires has potential applications in multifunctional materials and spintronic devices. Herein, we report four pairs of enantiopure coordination polymers with formulae S-, R-Dy(cyampH)₃  ⋅ CH₃ COOH ⋅ 2H₂ O (S-1, R-1), S-, R-Dy(cyampH)₃  ⋅ 3H₂ O (S-2, R-2), S-, R-Dy(cyampH)₂ (C₂ H₅ COO) ⋅ 3H₂ O (S-3, R-3) and S-, R-Dy(cyampH)₃  ⋅ 0.5C₂ H₅ COOH ⋅ 2H₂ O (S-4, R-4) [cyampH₂ =S-, R-(1-cyclohexylethyl)aminomethylphosphonic acids], which were obtained depending on the pH of the reaction mixtures and the specific carboxylic acid used as pH regulator. Interestingly, compounds 3 were obtained as superlong nanowires, showing 1D neutral chain structure which contains both phosphonate and propionate anion ligands. While compounds 1, 2 and 4 appeared as block-like crystals, superhelices and nanorods, respectively, and exhibited similar neutral chain structures containing only phosphonate ligand. Slow magnetization relaxation characteristic of single-molecule magnet (SMM) behavior was observed for compounds S-1 and S-3. Theoretical calculations were performed to rationalize the magneto-structural relationships.

Photo-controlled reversible secondary self-assembly of supramolecular nanosheets and their drug delivery behavior

Supramolecular nano-drug delivery systems with stimuli-responsive features have attracted extensive attention in photodynamic therapy. In this work, a new kind of photo-controlled reversible two dimensional (2D) nanosheet was constructed by cucurbit[8]uril (CB[8])-mediated ternary complexation with lanthanide complexes, azobenzene quaternary ammonium salt and sodium dodecyl sulfonate, which exhibited rapid morphological transformation and high drug loading capacities. The constructed supramolecular secondary self-assembly system has become a very promising candidate as a drug nanocarrier.

Supramolecular hydrogel with tunable multi-color and white-light fluorescence from sulfato-β-cyclodextrin and aminoclay

A multi-color-tunable supramolecular hydrogel is constructed from aminoclay (AC), sulfato-β-cyclodextrin (SCD), and 4-methyl-styrylpyridinium (SP), in which the SCD⊃SP complex emits monomer fluorescence, and AC provides a restricted environment for excimer emission. The emission color of the supramolecular hydrogel can be tuned from yellow → white → blue by adjusting the SCD/SP molar ratio.