The nasal epithelium is the primary point of contact for inhaled respiratory viruses such as rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and coronavirus, among others. In order to establish infection, these viruses must engage their respective receptors located on host epithelial cells and begin replication. However, the nasal epithelium is also a pivotal orchestrator of both structural and innate immune defenses against these pathogens and thus mounts a broad antiviral response to halt the progression of the infection into the lower airways. Of note, the most common virus found in the airways of children presenting to the hospital emergency department with acute wheezing and asthma is rhinovirus C (RV-C), followed by rhinovirus A (RV-A). Here, we illustrate infection of a preclinical differentiated nasal epithelial model with clinical isolates of RV-A and -C, in conjunction with several methods utilized for characterization of epithelial responses post-infection in vitro.
© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is known to play a critical role in the progression of inflammatory diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, sepsis, viral infection, neurological disease, and autoimmune diseases. Emerging diagnostic and prognostic tools, such as optical nanosensors, experience challenges in translation to the clinic in part due to protein corona formation, dampening their selectivity and sensitivity. To address this problem, we explored the rational screening of several classes of biomolecules to be employed as agents in noncovalent surface passivation as a strategy to screen interference from nonspecific proteins. Findings from this screening were applied to the detection of IL-6 by a fluorescent-antibody-conjugated single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)-based nanosensor. The IL-6 nanosensor exhibited highly sensitive and specific detection after passivation with a polymer, poly-l-lysine, as demonstrated by IL-6 detection in human serum within a clinically relevant range of 25 to 25,000 pg/mL, exhibiting a limit of detection over 3 orders of magnitude lower than prior antibody-conjugated SWCNT sensors. This work holds potential for the rapid and highly sensitive detection of IL-6 in clinical settings with future application to other cytokines or disease-specific biomarkers.

Early in vitro oral mucosal infection models (OMMs) failed to consider the suitability of the model environment to represent the host immune response. Denture stomatitis (DS) is mediated by Candida albicans, but the role of Staphylococcus aureus remains uncertain. A collagen hydrogel-based OMM containing HaCaT and HGF cell types was developed, characterised and employed to study of tissue invasion and pro-inflammatory cytokine production in response to pathogens. Models formed a robust epithelium. Despite their inflammatory baseline, 24-h infection with C. albicans, and/or S. aureus led to tissue invasion, and significantly upregulated IL-6 and IL-8 production by OMMs when compared to the unstimulated control. No significant difference in IL-6 or IL-8 production by OMMs was observed between single and dual infections. These attributes indicate that this newly developed OMM is suitable for the study of DS and could be implemented for the wider study of oral infection.
© The Author(s) 2023.

We introduce a toehold-mediated strand displacement strategy for regulated shape-switching of nucleic acid nanoparticles (NANPs) enabling their sequential transformation from triangular to hexagonal architectures at isothermal conditions. The successful shape transitions were confirmed by electrophoretic mobility shift assays, atomic force microscopy, and dynamic light scattering. Furthermore, implementation of split fluorogenic aptamers allowed for monitoring the individual transitions in real time. Three distinct RNA aptamers─malachite green (MG), broccoli, and mango─were embedded within NANPs as reporter domains to confirm shape transitions. While MG "lights up" within the square, pentagonal, and hexagonal constructs, the broccoli is activated only upon formation of pentagon and hexagon NANPs, and mango reports only the presence of hexagons. Moreover, the designed RNA fluorogenic platform can be employed to construct a logic gate that performs an AND operation with three single-stranded RNA inputs by implementing a non-sequential polygon transformation approach. Importantly, the polygonal scaffolds displayed promising potential as drug delivery agents and biosensors. All polygons exhibited effective cellular internalization followed by specific gene silencing when decorated with fluorophores and RNAi inducers. This work offers a new perspective for the design of toehold-mediated shape-switching nanodevices to activate different light-up aptamers for the development of biosensors, logic gates, and therapeutic devices in the nucleic acid nanotechnology.

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is known to a play critical role in the progression of inflammatory diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, sepsis, viral infection, neurological disease, and autoimmune diseases. Emerging diagnostic and prognostic tools, such as optical nanosensors, experience challenges in successful clinical application in part due to protein corona formation dampening their selectivity and sensitivity. To address this problem, we explored the rational screening of several classes of biomolecules to be employed as agents in non-covalent surface passivation as a strategy to screen interference from non-specific proteins. Findings from this screening were applied to the detection of IL-6 by a fluorescent antibody-conjugated single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)-based nanosensor. The IL-6 nanosensor exhibited highly sensitive and specific detection after passivation with a polymer, poly-L-lysine, as demonstrated by IL-6 detection in human serum within a clinically relevant range of 25 pg/mL to 25,000 pg/mL, exhibiting a limit of detection over three orders of magnitude lower than prior antibody-conjugated SWCNT sensors. This work holds the potential for rapid and highly sensitive detection of IL-6 in clinical settings with future application to other cytokines or disease-specific biomarkers.