Intelligent hydrogels have promising applications in a wide variety of fields. Herein, a transparent luminous hydrogel with self-healing properties was prepared from a novel Eu-containing PVA that was designed and synthesized via free radical copolymerization and ester hydrolysis. Fluorescence behavior of the Eu-PVA hydrogel depended on the Eu organic complex in Eu-PVA. The water content of the hydrogel depended on the concentration of the PVA water solution. The strength of the Eu-PVA hydrogel was affected by the concentration of the cross-linking agent (boric acid) and the content of Eu-PVA. Eu-containing organic complex, which had good UV photoluminescence, was stabilized in hydrogels without diffusion. The spectroscopic properties of the Eu-containing polymers were investigated in detail. Moreover, the Eu-PVA hydrogel exhibited strong visible fluorescence and excellent self-healing properties. Furthermore, the Eu-PVA hydrogel had excellent biocompatibility since mouse osteoblasts could grow well on its surface. The approach in this study provided new insights into the design and fabrication of multifunctional intelligent soft materials for biomedical applications.

•The essential oil from Himalayan Cedar exhibited the activity against PTP1B.•35 compounds were identified by GC–MS.•The molecular docking was used for predication of PTP1B inhibitor.•The potential active compound was isolated by HSCCC.•Caryophyllene oxide as a potential PTP1B inhibitor was found from essential oil.The discovery of leads from medicinal plants is crucial to drug development. The present study presents a strategy based on GC–MS coupled with molecular docking for analysis, identification and prediction of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B inhibitors in the essential oil from Himalayan Cedar (HC). The essential oil with IC50 value of 120.71 ± 0.26 μg/mL exhibited potential activity against protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) in vitro. After GC–MS analysis, 35 compounds were identified from this oil. The identified compounds were individually docked with PTP1B. Caryophyllene oxide with the lowest binding energy of −6.28 kcal/mol was completely wrapped by the active site of PTP1B. The docking results indicated that caryophyllene oxide has potential PTP1B inhibitory activity and may be responsible for the PTP1B inhibitory activity of the essential oil. Caryophyllene oxide in the essential oil of Himalayan Cedar was isolated by HSCCC and the PTP1B inhibitory activity of this compound was then evaluated; the IC50 value was 31.32 ± 0.38 μM. The result revealed that the present strategy can effectively discover the active composition from the complex mixture of medicinal plants.

Obtaining high strength hydrogels with good biocompatibility and identifiability is a challenging task. Herein, a new approach is presented that enables the simple one-pot synthesis of a high strength polymer hydrogel on the basis of silicone, poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) and an Eu(III) organic complex. The composition and properties of the hydrogel could be easily tuned because of the good solubility of the monomers and non-interfering polymerization processes. The hydrogel exhibits an excellent integrated performance with toughness, high resilience, biocompatibility, and identifiability.

Enzyme immobilization is a well-known essential process to improve enzyme stability and enable the industrial reuse of enzymes for more reaction cycles. In this work, we used alkaline protease and a variety of metal ions (Cu2+, Zn2+, Mn2+ and Ag+) to synthesize hybrid nanomaterials by self-assembly method respectively, but only two kinds of hierarchical flower-like hybrid nanomaterials were formed. These hybrid nanomaterials' structures were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Compared with free alkaline protease, two kinds of hybrid nanomaterials exhibited higher enzyme activity (∼927% for alkaline protease–Cu3(PO4)2·3H2O hybrid nanomaterials, ∼201% for alkaline protease–Zn3(PO4)2·4H2O hybrid nanomaterials). Enzyme concentration could affect the size and petal density of nanomaterials, so that hampered mass transfer. Furthermore, we concluded that the formation of flower-like hybrid nanomaterials was influenced by atomic radius and the outermost electron orbit of metal ions. These findings have great significance in the synthesis of the hybrid nanomaterials.

•Screening lipase inhibitor combined with GC-MS and molecular docking.•Investigation the binding interactions between predicted inhibitors and lipase protein.•Longifolene was a potential lipase inhibitor in the pine essential oil.•Validation the predicted activity of longifolene in vitro.A facile method based on gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and molecular docking was established to analyze, identify, and predict lipase inhibitors in volatile oil from Pinus massoniana L. needles (PMLN). The volatile oil, with an IC50 value of 15.25 ± 0.06 μg/mL, exhibited potential inhibitory activity against lipase in vitro. In total, 33 compounds were identified from the volatile oil through GC–MS analysis. The major compounds in the volatile oil were β-pinene (39.24%), α-pinene (14.68%), germacrene D (9.08%), caryophyllene (6.94%), α-terpineol (5.39%), β-phellandrene (4.82%), and D-limonene (3.93%). The identified compounds were individually docked with lipase as the target through molecular docking. Among the compounds, longifolene characterized by preferable binding energy and the good inhibition constant exhibited potential lipase inhibitory activity. The IC50 value of longifolene was 25.10 ± 0.49 μM, indicating that this compound is the active ingredient responsible for the lipase inhibitory activity of PMLN volatile oil.Download high-res image (182KB)Download full-size image

A HSCCC method combined with the consecutive injection and the economical two-phase solvent system preparation using UNIFAC mathematical model was successfully developed for increasing the yield of target compound. HSCCC was performed with a two-phase solvent system composed of n-hexane–ethyl acetate–methanol–water (3:5:3:5, v/v) at a flow rate of 6 mL/min. The components of the upper and lower phases were calculated according to UNIFAC mathematical model to prepare the stationary and mobile phases, separately. Only 300 mL stationary phase was filled into the column, and the crude sample (200 mg, ten times) was consecutive loaded into the column at the given interval time and eluted using the individually prepared mobile phase without reestablishing hydrodynamic equilibrium. After recrystallized, 168 mg tiliroside with the purity of 95.8% was obtained from 2 g crude sample of Pinus massoniana L. The structure was identified by 1H NMR and 13C NMR. The present method not only avoided the time consuming of exchanging the new solvent system and reestablishing hydrodynamic equilibrium, but also coped with a large amount of organic solvent waste.

A sensitive and selective method was developed for the quantitative determination of nucleosides in Escherichia coli. An Agilent 1290 HPLC was used with mobile phase A (10 mM ammonium acetate) and mobile phase B (acetonitrile) at a flow-rate of 0.2 mL min−1 coupled with a mass spectrometry scanned in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. In the result, the limit of quantification and detection of 19 nucleosides were in the range of 0.05–20 μg L−1 and 0.02–10 μg L−1. The linearity of the detected nucleosides was excellent with R2 > 0.99 and the limits of detection were all satisfied. The recoveries for the compounds were between 79.0%–119.8%, and the relative standard deviation was below 14%. The method was capable of quantitation 7 nucleosides in Escherichia coli, of which guanosine was found to decrease along with culture phases.T3 column provided 100% aqueous compatibility with bonding utilizes a high strength silica phase at a ligand density. 19 mixed nucleoside standards were analyzed by RRLC-MS/MS in MRM mode with T3 column, the nucleosides were readily separated in fourteen minutes, and the retention time of the majority were at 6–9 min.

•We synthesized a series of lipase-inorganic and papain-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers.•Under the different incubation conditions, the morphology and enzyme activity of nanoflowers are different.•It is critical to identify an optimized enzyme concentration and pH to achieve the best enzyme activity.In this work, we synthesized hierarchical flower-like structures by using lipase and papain as organic components and Cu3(PO4)2·3H2O as the inorganic component. These hybrid-nanoflower structures were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. By changing the synthesis conditions, including enzyme concentration, pH, and temperature for the nanoflowers, we can control the morphology and enzymatic activity of nanoflower. Enzyme concentration and synthesis temperature affect nanoflower size and petal density, whereas pH influences petal density only. Furthermore, we found the optimal conditions to improve the enzymatic activity of lipase-Cu3(PO4)2·3H2O and papain-Cu3(PO4)2·3H2O nanoflowers. The appropriate enzyme content, flower size, and flower density were the critical factors for high enzymatic activity.We synthesized a series of lipase-inorganic and papain-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers. Under the different incubation conditions (enzyme concentration, pH value and temperature), morphology and enzyme activity of nanoflowers will be different. Under the optimal conditions, the hybrid materials exhibited extremely high enzyme activity (∼878%, lipase; ∼7260%, papain) comparing with free in solution.Download high-res image (149KB)Download full-size image

•We have synthesized the nitrated derivatives of the oleic acid based on chemical synthesis and enzymatic synthesis.•Under biological catalysis conditions, nitroalkenes are the main products and there are few by-products.•Due to the good selectivity, the reaction of HRP/H2O2/NO with unsaturated fatty acids derivative may represent a convenient and straightforward route for the small scale preparation of nitrated lipid products of potential biological interest.Unsaturated fatty acids are nitrated endogenously to produce nitrated lipids. Recent studies have shown that these nitrated lipids have high chemical reactivity and profound biological implications. We report an efficient, enzymatic synthesis of nitrated derivatives of the oleic acid. The methyl oleate could react with NO and horseradish peroxidase (HRP)/H2O2/NO based nitrating systems to give various nitration products which could be isolated by silica gel column and TLC fractionation, respectively. As reacting directly with NO, the obtained products contain (E)-methyl 9-nitrooctadec-9-enoate (1), (E)-methyl 10-nitrooctadec-9-enoate (2), (E)-methyl 9-nitrooctadec-10-enoate (3) and (E)-methyl 10-nitrooctadec-8-enoate (4), characterized by extensive IR, NMR and GC–MS analysis. Whereas the products of the reaction between the methyl oleate and NO with the presence of HRP/H2O2 were mainly composed of (E)-methyl 9-nitrooctadec-9-enoate and (E)-methyl 10-nitrooctadec-9-enoate. The improving selectivity of the products is attributed to the HRP catalysis system.We have synthesized the nitrated derivatives of the oleic acid based on enzymatic synthesis. Under catalysis conditions of horseradish peroxidase (HRP)/H2O2/NO, nitroalkenes are the main products. Due to the good selectivity, the reaction of HRP/H2O2/NO with unsaturated fatty acids derivative may represent a convenient and straightforward route for the small scale preparation of nitrated lipid products of potential biological interest.Download full-size image

Intelligent hydrogels have promising applications in a wide variety of fields. Herein, a transparent luminous hydrogel with self-healing properties was prepared from a novel Eu-containing PVA that was designed and synthesized via free radical copolymerization and ester hydrolysis. Fluorescence behavior of the Eu-PVA hydrogel depended on the Eu organic complex in Eu-PVA. The water content of the hydrogel depended on the concentration of the PVA water solution. The strength of the Eu-PVA hydrogel was affected by the concentration of the cross-linking agent (boric acid) and the content of Eu-PVA. Eu-containing organic complex, which had good UV photoluminescence, was stabilized in hydrogels without diffusion. The spectroscopic properties of the Eu-containing polymers were investigated in detail. Moreover, the Eu-PVA hydrogel exhibited strong visible fluorescence and excellent self-healing properties. Furthermore, the Eu-PVA hydrogel had excellent biocompatibility since mouse osteoblasts could grow well on its surface. The approach in this study provided new insights into the design and fabrication of multifunctional intelligent soft materials for biomedical applications.