Shu Zhang

Overcoming the resistance to apoptosis and immunosuppression of tumor cells is a significant challenge in augmenting the effect of cancer immunotherapy. Pyroptosis, a lytic programmed cell-death pathway unlike apoptosis, is considered a type of immunogenic cell death (ICD) that can intensify the ICD process in tumor cells, releasing dramatically increased tumor-associated antigens and damage-associated molecular patterns to promote cancer immunotherapy. Herein, a tumor cell membrane-targeted aggregation-induced emission photosensitive dimer is found to be able to achieve highly efficient ICD under the synergistic effect of photodynamic and photothermal therapy. The photosensitive dimer can efficiently produce type-I reactive oxygen species (ROS) by photodynamic therapy in hypoxic tumor tissue, leading to pyroptosis by direct cell membrane damage, which is further reinforced by its photothermal effect. Furthermore, the enhanced ICD effect based on the dimer can completely eliminate the primary tumor on the seventh day of treatment and can also boost systemic antitumor immunity by generating immune memory, which is demonstrated by the superior antitumor therapeutic effects on both solid tumors and metastatic tumors when healing 4T1 tumor mouse models with poor immunogenicity.

Two light-driven chiral fluorescent molecular switches, (R,S,R)-switch 1 and (R,S,R)-switch 2, are prepared by means of hydrogen-bonded (H-bonded) assembly of a photoresponsive (S) chiral fluorescent molecule, respectively with a cyano substitution at different positions as an H-bond acceptor and an opposite (R) chiral molecule as an H-bond donor. The resulting two switches exhibit tunable and reversible Z/E photoisomerization irradiated with 450 nm blue and 365 nm UV light. When doped into an achiral liquid crystal, both switches are found to be able to form a CPL tunable luminescent helical superstructure. In contrast to the tunable CPL characteristics of the system incorporating switch 2, exposure of the system incorporating switch 1 to 365 nm and 450 nm radiation can lead to controllable different photostationary CPL behavior, including switching-off and polarization inversion. In addition, optical information coding is demonstrated using the system containing switch 1.

Silicon is employed in a variety of electronic and optical devices such as integrated circuits, photovoltaics, sensors, and detectors. In this paper, Au-assisted etching of silicon has been used to prepare superhydrophobic surfaces that may add unique properties to such devices. Surfaces were characterized by contact angle and contact angle hysteresis. Superhydrophobic surfaces with reduced hysteresis were prepared by Au-assisted etching of pyramid-structured silicon surfaces to generate hierarchical surfaces. Consideration of the Laplace pressure on hydrophobized hierarchical surfaces gives insight into the manner by which contact is established at the liquid/composite surface interface. Light reflectivity from the etched surfaces was also investigated to assess application of these structures to photovoltaic devices.

Artificial light-harvesting systems, an elegant way to capture, transfer and utilize solar energy, have attracted great attention in recent years. As the primary step of natural photosynthesis, the principle of light-harvesting systems has been intensively investigated, which is further employed for artificial construction of such systems. Supramolecular self-assembly is one of the feasible methods for building artificial light-harvesting systems, which also offers an advantageous pathway for improving light-harvesting efficiency. Many artificial light-harvesting systems based on supramolecular self-assembly have been successfully constructed at the nanoscale with extremely high donor/acceptor ratios, energy transfer efficiency and the antenna effect, which manifests that self-assembled supramolecular nanosystems are indeed a viable way for constructing efficient light-harvesting systems. Non-covalent interactions of supramolecular self-assembly provide diverse approaches to improve the efficiency of artificial light-harvesting systems. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in artificial light-harvesting systems based on self-assembled supramolecular nanosystems. The construction, modulation, and applications of self-assembled supramolecular light-harvesting systems are presented, and the corresponding mechanisms, research prospects and challenges are also briefly highlighted and discussed.