Xiaodong Zhang

• PH.D
• Professor at Tianjin University

Objective To investigate white matter microstructure and spontaneous cerebral activity in early neurosyphilis using tract-based spatial statistics and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF). Methods Twenty patients with early neurosyphilis and 20 matched healthy controls underwent diffusion tensor imaging and resting-state blood oxygen leve...

We develop ultra-small and water-soluble MoS 2 clusters with superior antioxidant activity and enzyme-like activity via valence-engineering modulation with Ce doping.

Fluorescence microscopy has emerged as a pivotal tool in biological and medical research, wherein the assessment of penetration depth and imaging resolution serves as crucial indicators of a microscope's efficacy. However, the intricate interaction between photons and biological tissues gives rise to substantial background noise, presenting a formi...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a noninvasive and radiation‐free technique used for soft tissue. However, there are some limitations of the MRI modality, such as low sensitivity and poor image resolution. Artificially engineered magnetic nanoprobes have been extensively explored as a versatile platform for ultrasensitive MRI contrast agents due...

Background Although improvement of cognitive function after liver transplantation has been demonstrated in several neuropsychological studies, there is limited research on longitudinal changes in the cirrhotic patients' brain structure before and after transplantation. Purpose To investigate longitudinal changes of brain microstructure in cirrhoti...

Strain engineering plays an important role in tuning electronic structure and improving catalytic capability of biocatalyst, but it is still challenging to modify the atomic-scale strain for specific enzyme-like reactions. Here, we systematically design Pt single atom (Pt1), several Pt atoms (Ptn) and atomically-resolved Pt clusters (Ptc) on PdAu b...

Small-conductance Ca ²⁺ -activated K ⁺ channels (SK, K Ca 2) are gated solely by intracellular microdomain Ca ²⁺ . The channel has emerged as a therapeutic target for cardiac arrhythmias. Calmodulin (CaM) interacts with the CaM binding domain (CaMBD) of the SK channels, serving as the obligatory Ca ²⁺ sensor to gate the channels. In heterologous ex...

Pneumonia involves complex immunological and pathological processes leading to pulmonary dysfunction, which can be life‐threatening yet lacks effective specialized medications. Natural enzymes can be used as biological agents for the treatment of oxidative stress‐related diseases, but limiting to catalytic and environmental stability as well as hig...

Implantable neural electrodes are crucial in neurological diagnosis and therapy because of their ultra-high spatial resolution, but they are constrained by high impedance and insufficient charge injection capacity, resulting in noise that often obscures valuable signals. Emerging nanotechnologies are powerful tools to improve sensitivity and biocom...

Background Pulsed field ablation (PFA) is a novel, myocardial-selective, non-thermal ablation modality used to target cardiac arrhythmias. Although prompt EGM signal disappearance is observed immediately after PFA application in the pulmonary veins, whether this finding results in adequate transmural lesions is unknown. Study aim If application re...

Artificial enzymes, especially nanozymes, have attracted wide attention due to their controlled catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability. The rising Cerium‐based nanozymes exhibit unique SOD‐like activity, and Vanadium‐based nanozymes always hold excellent GPx‐like activity. However, most inflammatory diseases involve polymerase biocatalytic...

Aristolochic acids (AAs) have been identified as a significant risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Ferroptosis is a type of regulated cell death involved in the tumor development. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms by which AAs enhanced the growth of HCC. By conducting bioinformatics and RNA-Seq analyses, we found t...

Developing biomimetic catalysts with excellent peroxidase (POD)-like activity has been a long-standing goal for researchers. Doping nonmetallic atoms with different electronegativity to boost the POD-like activity of Fe–N–C single-atom catalysts (SACs) has been successfully realized. However, the introduction of heteroatoms to regulate the coordina...

Objectives To investigate the ultrasound (US) characteristics of metastatic malignancies (MM) in the major salivary glands and to assess the diagnostic value of the close relationship with the glandular capsule in identifying MM. Methods From January 2016 and April 2022, 122 patients with major salivary gland malignancies, including 20 patients wi...

We aimed to develop and validate a nomogram based on conventional ultrasound (CUS) radiomics model to differentiate radial scar (RS) from invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) of the breast. In total, 208 patients with histopathologically diagnosed RS or IDC of the breast were enrolled. They were randomly divided in a 7:3 ratio into a training cohort (n...

Overlapped multi-focus light sheet (MF-LS) along beam propagation microscope has generated significant interest due to its reportedly superior axial resolving power when compared to conventional Gaussian light sheet (GLS) systems. By axially overlapped multiple light sheets in the illumination path, it would weld the combined field of view (FOV) an...

Mild photothermal therapy (PTT) is a spatiotemporally controllable method that utilizes the photothermal effect at relatively low temperatures (40–45 °C) to especially eliminate tumor tissues with negligible side effects on the surrounding normal tissues. However, the overexpression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) and limited effect of single trea...

Bevacizumab is a recombinant humanized monoclonal immunoglobulin (Ig) G1 antibody of VEGF, and inhibits angiogenesis and tumor growth in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Ferroptosis, a new form of regulated cell death function independently of the apoptotic machinery, has been accepted as an attractive target for pharmacological intervention; the fe...

After explorations in a diversity of single-atom nanozymes (SAzymes), developing dual-centered SAzymes becomes a promising approach for superior catalytic performance. But confusing mechanisms including atomic coordination, spatial configuration, and metal–metal atom interaction hinder the development and design of SAzymes. Herein, a dual-centered...

Lymphocyte activation gene 3 (LAG3), an immune checkpoint molecule expressed on activated T cells, functions as a negative regulator of immune responses. Persistent antigen exposure in the tumor microenvironment results in sustained LAG3 expression on T cells, contributing to T cell dysfunction. Fibrinogen-like protein 1 (FGL1) has been identified...

Objectives This research aimed to print realistically detailed and magnified three-dimensional models of the inner ear, specifically focusing on visualising its complex labyrinth structure and functioning simulation. Methods Temporal bone computed-tomography data were imported into Mimics software to construct an initial three-dimensional inner-ea...

Gold nanoclusters (Au NCs) exhibit broad fluorescent spectra from visible to near-infrared regions and good enzyme-mimicking catalytic activities. Combined with excellent stability and exceptional biocompatibility, the Au NCs have been widely exploited in biomedicine such as biocatalysis and bioimaging. Especially, the long fluorescence lifetime an...

Objectives Preoperative identification of different stromal subtypes of pleomorphic adenoma (PA) of the salivary gland is crucial for making treatment decisions. We aimed to developed and validated a model based on histogram analysis (HA) of ultrasound (US) images for predicting tumor stroma ratio (TSR) in SPA. Methods A total of 219 PA patients w...

BACKGROUND The effect of contact force (CF) on lesion formation is not clear during pulsed field ablation (PFA). The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of CF, PFA, and their interplay through the PFA index (PF index) formula on the ventricular lesion size in swine. METHODS PFA was delivered through the CF-sensing OMNYPULSE catheter. Pred...

We report a case of fetal nasal chondromesenchymal hamartoma (NCMH) first noted on prenatal ultrasound at 34 weeks. A solid‐cystic mass which predominantly hyperechoicgenic and relatively clear margin, was located on the left nasal cavity and pharynx, with anterior extension and moderate blood flow. Further follow‐up ultrasound examination depicted...

The inner ear is the hub where hair cells (HCs) transduce sound, gravity, and head acceleration stimuli to the brain. Hearing and balance rely on mechanosensation, the fastest sensory signals transmitted to the brain. The mechanoelectrical transducer (MET) channel is the entryway for the sound-balance-brain interface, but the channel-complex compos...

M. Fossorier proposed how to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of cycles in the Tanner graph of quasi‐cyclic LDPC (QC‐LDPC) codes, which has been widely investigated in the study of LDPC codes. This paper presents some new necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of cycles with arbitrary lengths and pr...

Objectives Accurate distinguishing between immunoglobulin G4-related sialadenitis (IgG4-RS) and primary Sjögren syndrome (pSS) is crucial due to their different treatment approaches. This study aimed to construct and validate a nomogram based on the ultrasound (US) scoring system for the differentiation of IgG4-RS and pSS. Methods A total of 193 p...

Implanted neural electrodes have been widely used to treat brain diseases that require high sensitivity and biocompatibility at the tissue‐electrode interface. However, currently used clinical electrodes cannot meet both these requirements simultaneously, which hinders the effective recording of electronic signals. Herein, nanozyme‐based neural ele...

We have investigated whether inflammasomes and pyroptosis are activated in maternal nicotine exposure (MNE) offspring mice and whether they are involved in MNE‐promoted metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) in adult offspring. We injected pregnant mice subcutaneously with saline vehicle or nicotine twice a day on gestational days 11–21....

Purpose To explore the value of ultrasound (US) characteristics in diagnosing breast fibromatosis (BF) and evaluate their differences from breast carcinoma. Methods A total of 121 patients with BF ( n = 24, 29 lesions) or invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) ( n = 97, 102 lesions) of the breast were included. Their clinical and US findings were recorde...

Introduction: Oxidative stress is an important pathophysiological factor in the development and progression of ischemic heart failure (IHF). Nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a major regulator of the protective antioxidant response and has been found to decrease by 50% in IHF. However, the mechanism of Nrf2 downregulation remains incompl...

Regenerable nanozymes with high catalytic stability and sustainability are promising substitutes for naturally-occurring enzymes but are limited by insufficient and non-selective catalytic activities. Herein, we developed single-atom nanozymes of RhN 4 , VN 4 , and Fe-Cu-N 6 with catalytic activities surpassing natural enzymes. Notably, Rh/VN 4 pre...

With the advantages of controllable atomic composition, unique molecular‐like properties, and excellent biocompatibility, atomic precision Au cluster is an ideal candidate for developing materials with customized biological functions to meet the needs of precision medicine. To achieve the rational design of functional materials through structural r...

This study aims to investigate the effect of maternal nicotine exposure on the gene expression profiles in the liver of offspring mice. Pregnant mice were subcutaneously injected with either saline vehicle or nicotine twice a day on gestational days 11–21. Total RNA from the liver samples which collected from the offspring mice of postnatal day 7 a...

Ulcerative colitis (UC), a refractory disease, has become a global problem. Herein, a biomimetic nanoplatform (AU‐LIP‐CM) comprising Au cluster enzymes (AU)‐loaded liposomes (AU‐LIP) camouflaged with the fusion membrane (CM) consisting of neutrophil (NC) and red blood cell (RBC) membrane is designed for the treatment of UC. Briefly, revealed by sec...

Strong fluorescence and high catalytic activities cannot be achieved simultaneously due to conflicts in free electron utilization, resulting in a lack of bioactivity of most near-infrared-II (NIR-II) fluorophores. To circumvent this challenge, we developed atomically precise Au22 clusters with strong NIR-II fluorescence ranging from 950 to 1300 nm...

Heat shock protein family A member 8 (HSPA8) participates in the folding or degradation of misfolded proteins under stress and plays critical roles in cancer. In this study, we investigated the function of HSPA8 in the development of liver cancer. By analyzing the TCGA transcriptome dataset, we found that HSPA8 was upregulated in 134 clinical liver...

Abstract Fluorescence imaging in the second near‐infrared II (NIR‐II) window is opening up new possibilities in bioimaging due to its low scattering rate within the tissue. The integration of 2D materials with NIR‐II fluorescence will enable the development of multifunctional imaging probes. However, there are very few 2D materials that can fluores...

The inner ear is the hub where hair cells transduce sound, gravity, and head acceleration stimuli carried by neural codes to the brain. Of all the senses, hearing and balance, which rely on mechanosensation, are the fastest sensory signals transmitted to the central nervous system. The mechanoelectrical transducer (MET) channel in hair cells is the...

Redox‐active nanozymes offer low‐cost controlled synthesis, high stability, and tunable catalytic properties over natural enzymes, which have attracted wide attention in the field of disease diagnosis and treatment. However, the improvement of catalytic activity remains an important challenge for nanozymes. Herein, the Au/CeO2 nanozymes is develope...

Selenium (Se) and tellurium (Te) nanomaterials with novel chain-like structures have attracted widespread interest owing to their intriguing properties. Unfortunately, the still-unclear catalytic mechanisms have severely limited the development of biocatalytic performance. In this work, we developed chitosan-coated Se nanozymes with a 23-fold highe...

Although developing artificial enzymes has made great progress, there is still a gap between artificial enzymes and natural enzymes in catalytic performance. Designing and constructing efficient artificial biocatalysts is extremely desirable because of their high stability, low cost and easy storage. Here, we report a synthesized amino-functionaliz...

Complicated S-Au interaction patterns in thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters (TP-AuNCs) are important in the formation of versatility among clusters. In this study, the ELFnet, a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) model is trained and tested to bridge the electron localization function (ELF) images and the bond lengths. As believed to be a s...

Near‐infrared‐II (NIR‐II) imaging has shown great potential for monitoring the pathological progression and deep tissue imaging but is limited to present unmet NIR‐II agent. Present fluorophores show a promising prospect for NIR‐II imaging, but brightness and photostability are still highly challenging during real‐time monitoring. In this work, ato...

Objectives To evaluate the dynamic evolution process of overall brain health in liver transplantation (LT) recipients, we employed a deep learning–based neuroanatomic biomarker to measure longitudinal changes of brain structural patterns before and 1, 3, and 6 months after surgery.Methods Because of the ability to capture patterns across all voxels...

Abstract Heterogeneous cells are the main feature of tumors with unique genetic and phenotypic characteristics, which can stimulate differentially the progression, metastasis, and drug resistance. Importantly, heterogeneity is pervasive in human malignant tumors, and identification of the degree of tumor heterogeneity in individual tumors and progr...

We aimed to plot the growth curve of the fetal clavicle, identify gestational date-independent parameters. Using 2-dimensional ultrasonography, we obtained the clavicle lengths (CLs) from 601 normal fetuses between 12 and 40 gestational age (GA). The CL/fetal growth parameters ratio was calculated. Moreover, 27 cases of fetal growth restriction (FG...

Artificial enzymes show prospects in biomedical applications due to their stable enzymatic catalytic activity and ease of preparation. CeO2 nanozymes represent a versatile platform showing multiple enzyme-mimicking activities, although their biocatalytic activities and selectivity are relatively poor for biomedical use. Herein, we developed Mn- and...

A number of studies have shown that aspirin, as commonly prescribed drug, prevents the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Ferroptosis as a dynamic tumor suppressor plays a vital role in hepatocarcinogenesis. In this study we investigated whether aspirin affected ferroptosis in liver cancer cells. RNA-seq analysis revealed that aspirin u...

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been applied in cancer treatment because of its high selectivity, low toxicity, and non-invasiveness. However, the limited penetration depth of the light still hampers from reaching deep-seated tumors. Considering the penetrating ability of high-energy radiotherapy, X-ray-induced photodynamic therapy (X-PDT) has evolv...

Near-infrared-II (NIR-II) fluorescence imaging has rapidly developed for the noninvasive investigation of physiological and pathological activities in living organisms with high spatiotemporal resolution. However, the penetration depth of fluorescence restricts its ability to provide deep anatomical information. Scientists integrate NIR-II fluoresc...

Neuron interface devices can be used to explore the relationships between neuron firing and synaptic transmission, as well as to diagnose and treat neurological disorders, such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. It is crucial to exploit neuron devices with high sensitivity, high biocompatibility, multifunctional integration and high-speed data pr...

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is one of the major antioxidants in vivo and is expected to play critical roles on the defense against reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated damages, such as ionizing radiation damages. Herein, inspired by the function and structure of natural SODs and cerium oxide nanozymes, two monovalent cerium-based metal organic fra...

Sinoatrial node (SAN) cells are the heart's primary pacemaker. Their activity is tightly regulated by β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) signaling. Adenylyl cyclase (AC) is a key enzyme in the β-AR pathway that catalyzes the production of cAMP. There are current gaps in our knowledge regarding the dominant AC isoforms and the specific roles of Ca2+-activ...

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) and premature ventricular complexes (PVC) are common arrhythmias. Objective: We aimed to investigate AF prevalence in patients with PVC and its impact on PVC ablation outcomes. Methods: Consecutive patients undergoing PVC ablation at a single institution between 2016-2019 were included and prospectively fol...

Near infrared-II (NIR-II, 1 000–1 700 nm) imaging with high penetration tissue depth and signal-noise ratio has attracted wide interest in biomedicine. As a two-dimensional (2D) material with narrow band gap, the band structure of layered black phosphorus, as an important characteristic of electronic structure, determines the electronic transport a...

Near-infrared II (1000-1700 nm) three-dimensional (3D) microscopy addresses a significant improvement on the penetration depth for bioimaging, but is challenging in high z-direction spatial resolution, leading to imaging distortion in deep tissue bioimaging. Here, we developed Airy beam-assisted NIR-II light-sheet Microscope (NIR-II Airy LSM) to im...

Regenerable nanozymes with high catalytic stability and sustainability are promising substitutes for naturally-occurring enzymes but are limited by insufficient and non-selective catalytic activities. Herein, we developed single-atom nanozymes of RhN 4 , VN 4 , and Fe-Cu-N 6 with catalytic activities surpassing natural enzymes. Notably, Rh/VN 4 pre...

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Introduction: Sinoatrial node (SAN), the leading pacemaker region, generates electrical impulses that propagate throughout the heart. SAN dysfunction with bradyarrhythmia is well documented in heart failure (HF). However, the underlying mechanisms are not entirely understood. Mitochondria are critical to cellular processes that determine life or de...

Cardiovascular disease is the most common disease in the world and the first among the causes of human death. Its morbidity and mortality increase annually, but no effective treatment is available. Therefore, new drugs should be developed to treat cardiovascular disease. Gentianella acuta (Michx.) Hulten is an important Mongolian medicine in China...

Objective: To investigate the protective effects and potential mechanisms of estrogen modified human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSC) on high glucose (HG)-induced injury of vascular endothelial cells. Methods: hBMSCs were cultured under 30 mmol/l glucose to establish a high glucose model (HG), and then were divided into four groups as fol...

Neural electrodes have been widely used to monitor neurological disorders and have a major impact on neuroscience, whereas traditional electrodes are limited to their inherent high impedance, which makes them insensitive to weak signals during recording neural signals. Herein, we developed a neural electrode based on the graphene/Ag van der Waals h...