•Interface-induced growth of boronate-based metal-organic framework membrane on porous carbon substrate was presented.•Catechol-containing medicinal natural flavone Luteolin could be selectively captured by MOF membrane composite.•Commercially available Luteolin with 85% purity could be easily extracted and concentrated to 99.90% purity.•MOF membrane composite would be used for specific separation of natural product with cis-diol or catechol moieties.For metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), introduction of special functional groups and integration on porous support will endow the MOF with specific molecular affinity and tunable membrane-like surface properties. Herein, we demonstrated a facile interface-induced Zn(II)-ligand-fragment co-assembly strategy to in situ fabricate boronate-based MOF membrane on hydrophobic porous carbon substrate for specific molecular recognition and separation. Due to the phenylboronic acid groups and hydrophobic porous carbon supporting layer, a catechol-containing medicinal natural flavone Luteolin was found to be efficiently and selectively recognized on the MOF composite in water-containing solution. As compared to the separated MOF particles and carbon substrate, the MOF composite exhibited similar adsorption kinetics but significant higher adsorption capacity in static separation. Dynamic separation also revealed that the MOF composite could achieve a desirable maximum adsorption capacity under mild separation condition, implying its applicability in industrial application. As a proof of this concept, a commercially available Luteolin with 85% purity could be easily extracted and concentrated to 99.90% purity by the MOF composite in highly aqueous solution, and the products possessed the similar antibacterial performance with standard substance. These results demonstrated that, a membrane-like functionalized MOF composite with enhanced surface hydrophobicity and improved molecular specificity has great potential for separation of industrial and even biological samples under water compatible conditions.Download high-res image (79KB)Download full-size image

Specific cell adhesion and osteogenicity are both crucial factors for the long-term success of titanium implants. In this work, two mussel-derived bioactive peptides were designed to one-step dual-biofunctionalization of titanium implants via robust catechol/TiO2 coordinative interactions. The highly biomimetic peptides capped with integrin-targeted sequence or osteogenic growth sequence could efficiently improve the biocompatibilities of titanium implants and endow the implants with abilities to induce specific cell adhesion and enhanced osteogenicity. More importantly, rationally combined use of the two biomimetic peptides indicated an enhanced synergism on osteogenicity, osseointegration and finally the mechanical stability of Ti implants in vivo. Therefore, the highly biomimetic mussel-derived peptides and the dual-functional strategy in this study would provide a facile, safe, and effective means for improving clinical outcome of titanium-based medical implants.

•Molecularly imprinted fluorescence sensor nanoparticles with a hollow nanostructure (i.e., @MIPs) were efficiently prepared.•The hollow @MIPs integrated the advantages of molecular imprinting and fluorescence detection technology.•The @MIPs nanosensor showed low LOD (10.26 nM) and rapid detection rate (within 8 min) for λ-cyhalothrin.•The @MIPs nanosensor could efficiently detect λ-cyhalothrin in real environmental water sample.Molecularly imprinted fluorescent polymers have shown great promise in biological or chemical separations and detections, due to their high stability, selectivity and sensitivity. In this work, molecularly imprinted fluorescent hollow nanoparticles, which could rapidly and efficiently detect λ-cyhalothrin (a toxic insecticide) in water samples, was reported. The molecularly imprinted fluorescent sensor showed excellent sensitivity (the limit of detection low to 10.26 nM), rapid detection rate (quantitative detection of λ-cyhalothrin within 8 min), regeneration ability (maintaining good fluorescence properties after 8 cycling operation) and appreciable selectivity over several structural analogs. Moreover, the fluorescent sensor was further used to detect λ-cyhalothrin in real samples form the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal Water. Despite the relatively complex components of the environmental water, the molecularly imprinted fluorescent hollow nanosensor still showed good recovery, clearly demonstrating the potential value of this smart sensor nanomaterial in environmental monitoring.

Saccharides and temperature dual-responsive hydrogels have been prepared based on PNIPAAm copolymers containing phenylboronic acid (PBA) groups and used for harvesting cell sheets. The cell sheet could be released from the hydrogel layer at 37 °C simply by increasing sugar concentration, and could be more efficiently released at a lower temperature and elevated sugar concentration.

We chemically integrated mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) and macroporous bowl-like polylactic acid (pBPLA) matrix, for noninvasive electrostatic loading and long-term controlled doxorubicin (DOX) release, to prepare a hierarchical porous bowl-like pBPLA@MSNs-COOH composite with a nonspherical and hierarchical porous structure. Strong electrostatic interaction with DOX rendered excellent encapsulation efficiency (up to 90.14%) to the composite. DOX release showed pH-dominated drug release kinetics; thus, maintaining a weak acidic pH (e.g., 5.0) triggered sustained release, suggesting the composite’s great potential for long-term therapeutic approaches. In-vitro cell viability assays further confirmed that the composite was biocompatible and that the loaded drugs were pharmacologically active, exhibiting dosage-dependent cytotoxicity. Additionally, a wound-healing assay revealed the composite’s intrinsic ability to inhibit cell migration. Moreover, pH- and time-dependent leaching of the integrated MSNs due to pBPLA matrix degradation allow us to infer that the leached (and drug loaded) MSNs may be engulfed by cancer cells contributing to a second wave of DOX-mediated cytotoxicity following pH-triggered DOX release.

In this work, dynamic introduction of bioactive RGD peptide on a matrix was successfully demonstrated via reversible multicovalent interactions within PBA/cis-diol polymeric complexes. These reversible, stable multiple interaction sites, in addition to a long accessible polymeric linker, enabled “reversible” control of cell adhesion by specific biomolecular exchange (e.g., glucose or fructose). This biomolecule-triggered, noninvasive strategy shows great promise for use in real-time biological research and mimics natural biomolecular feedback systems, thus having potential application in medical diagnoses and regenerative medicine.

Saccharides and temperature dual-responsive hydrogels have been prepared based on PNIPAAm copolymers containing phenylboronic acid (PBA) groups and used for harvesting cell sheets. The cell sheet could be released from the hydrogel layer at 37 °C simply by increasing sugar concentration, and could be more efficiently released at a lower temperature and elevated sugar concentration.