Fe5 C2 NPs exhibit a high contrast in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), superior photoacoustic tomography improvements, and efficient photothermal therapy (PTT) due to their unique core/shell structure, with a magnetic core and carbon shell. By conjugating a new class of affinity proteins (ZHER2:342), they can target to tumor cells with low cytotoxicity, and kill them through laser irritation. It is also possible to ablate tumors under guidance by MRI and PTT without noticeable side effects.

In this article, we report a novel lectin-based biosensor for electrochemical assay of cancer-associated glycosylation by comparative study of mannose and sialic acid expression on normal and cancer cells derived from human lung, liver, and prostate. Using a sandwich format, high sensitivity and selectivity were achieved by combining the lectin-based biosensor with the {lectin-Au-Th} bioconjugates featuring lectin and thionine (Th) labels linked to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for signal amplification. The proposed strategy demonstrated that mannose exhibited high expression levels in both normal and cancer cells, while sialic acid was more abundant in cancer cells as compared to normal ones. The results were in good agreement with those from fluorescent microscopy studies. The differences in the two glycan expression indicated that sialic acid could serve as a potential biomarker for early cancer detection. The lectin-based biosensor was also successfully used to quantify cancer cells and evaluate the average amount of sialic acid on single cell surface, which could supply significant information on glycan functions in cancer progression. Overall, the lectin-based electrochemical biosensor provides an effective pathway to analyze glycan expression on living cells and may greatly facilitate the medical diagnosis and treatment in early process of cancer.

Precise control of interlayer spacing and functionality is crucial in two-dimensional material based membrane separation technology. Here we show anion intercalation in protonated graphite phase carbon nitride (GCN) that tunes the interlayer spacing and functions of GCN-based membranes for selective permeation in aqueous/organic solutions. Sulfate anion intercalation leads to a crystalline and amphipathic membrane with an accessible interlayer spacing at ~10.8 Å, which allows high solvent permeability and sieves out the solutes with sizes larger than the spacing. We further extend the concept and illustrate the example of GCN-based chiral membrane via incorporating (1R)-(-)-10-camphorsulfonic anion into protonated GCN layers. The membrane exhibits a molecular weight cutoff around 150 among various enantiomers and highly enantioselective permeation towards limonene racemate with an enantiomeric excess value of 89%. This work paves a feasible way to achieve water purification and chiral separation technologies using decorated laminated membranes.

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