SPE is a rare disease without specific clinical manifestations. For high-risk groups, such as intravenous drug users or patients with intravascular indwelling catheters, fever and imaging findings of multiple nodules or local infiltrates, with or without cavitation, are highly suggestive of SPE. Early diagnosis and prompt antimicrobial therapy or surgical intervention can lead to a successful treatment outcome.

Application of protein‐based, direct electron communication in bioelectronic devices, biosensors, or biofuel cells usually requires high stability and function density of the immobilized proteins or enzymes. Traditional methods have been used to increase the function density using multilayer immobilization techniques at the expense of losing stability and electron‐communication rate, that is, generally only protein molecules near the electrode surface are electroactive. In order to overcome the above problems, a three‐dimensional, ordered, macroporous gold film electrode is synthesized electrochemically by an inverted colloidal crystal template technique. The uniform, three‐dimensional macroporous gold provides superior conductivity, high stability, and large surface area. Its interconnected macroporous structure, containing gold nanoparticles, significantly enhances the amount of adsorbed hemoglobin (Hb) molecules at the monolayer level and also provides a good microenvironment for retaining the biological activity of the adsorbed protein, as confirmed by electrochemical and attenuated total reflection Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy. Therefore, direct electron transfer between the adsorbed Hb and the electrode is achieved. Adsorption of Hb on the macroporous gold film electrode is monitored using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The saturated adsorption amount, Γ, of the Hb is determined to be 6.55×10–10 mol cm–2 with a surface coverage of 88.1 %. The electrochemical behavior and the adsorption mechanism of Hb on the macroporous gold film electrode are discussed on the basis of the experimental results.

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Glu-GNPs can increase the cytotoxicity of radiation toward MDA-MB-231 cells, probably by regulating the distribution of the cell cycle, with more cells in the G2/M phase. The effect of radiation enhancement may be related to the quantities of Glu-GNPs in the cells.

We investigated the adsorption of three aromatic amino acids-phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan-on the sidewalls of a number of representative single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) using density-functional tight-binding calculations, complemented by an empirical dispersion correction. The armchair (n, n) SWNTs (n = 3-12) and zigzag (n, 0) SWNTs (n = 4-12) were thoroughly examined. We found that the most stable amino acid/SWNT complexes for different SWNTs have similar local structures, and that the distance between the amino acid and SWNT is about 3 Å. Owing to the π-π and H-π stacking interactions, the benzene and indole rings are not exactly parallel to the SWNTs but instead lie at a small angle. We also investigated the diameter and chirality dependences of binding energies and found that SWNT (5, 0) has an especially large binding energy that can be used for SWNT identification or selection.