Most cancer chemotherapy regimens rely on the use of two or more chemotherapeutic agents. A supramolecular approach that may allow co-delivery of two drugs is described here.

A novel molecular imprinting electrochemiluminescence sensor for detecting chiral cinchonine molecules was developed with a molecularly imprinted polymer membrane on the surfaces of magnetic microspheres. Fe O @Au nanoparticles modified with 6-mercapto-beta-cyclodextrin were used as a carrier, cinchonine as a template molecule, methacrylic acid as a functional monomer and N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide as a cross-linking agent. Cinchonine was specifically recognized by the 6-mercapto-beta-cyclodextrin functional molecularly imprinted polymer and detected based on enhancement of the electrochemiluminescence intensity caused by the reaction of tertiary amino structures of cinchonine molecules with Ru(bpy) . Cinchonine concentrations of 1 × 10 to 4 × 10 mol/L showed a good linear relationship with changes of the electrochemiluminescence intensity, and the detection limit of the sensor was 3.13 × 10 mol/L. The sensor has high sensitivity and selectivity, and is easy to renew. It was designed for detecting serum samples, with recovery rates of 98.2% to 107.6%.

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Bacterial infections have become a global threat to human health, and the design of antibacterial agents is always an urgent task for biomedicine. Amphiphilic antibacterial agents with a different mechanism of action from traditional antibiotics have attracted researchers’ attention more and more in recent years. In this work, a series of antibacterial conjugates composed of oligo­(para-phenylenes)­s and oligoarginine were synthesized, and their antibacterial activity was investigated. 2,2′-Biphenyl, 2,2″-terphenyl, and 2,2‴-quaterphenyl were conjugated with one or two triarginines by “click” chemical reactions to form compounds. The conjugates showed antibacterial activity against the typical Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria, relatively low cytotoxicity to L929 cell line, and hemolytic activity in a certain range of concentration. Among these conjugates, 2,2‴-quaterphenyl-triarginine conjugate (2,2‴-QP-1) showed the highest antibacterial activity against both E. coli and S. aureus. Besides, it presented better stability in plasma compared with the positive control peixiganan. The antimicrobial mechanism of 2,2‴-QP-1 was also investigated by transmission electron microscopy and confocal laser scanning microscopy, showing that 2,2‴-QP-1 could interact with the bacterial membrane and then disrupt the membrane structure. This work demonstrated a prospective approach for the design of antibacterial agents with highly effective antibacterial activity, high stability in plasma, and low cytotoxicity.