Yueying Han, Cheng Liu Huaping Xu and Yi Cao Chin. J. Chem.; 2022, 40, 1578. Hydrogels crosslinked by dynamic covalent bonds can effectively mimic the viscoelastic properties of native extracellular matrix and have been widely explored for 3D cell culture. Disulfide is one of the most common dynamic bonds in biological systems whose for-mation and cleavage are catalyzed by a set of dedicated enzymes. However, in vitroformation of disulfide bonds is a slow process and requires harsh catalysts. Therefore, it is difficult to use disulfide crosslinked hydrogels for cell culture. In thiswork, w...

Chaowei He, Muqing Cao, Jianbing Liu, Zhuoxin Ge, Ruihao Zhou, and Huaping Xu ACS Nano.; 2022, 16, 4981. Modern Olympics have increasingly benefited from the advancement of materials science. From February 4 to March 13, 2022, the whole world has witnessed spectacular Olympic Winter Games and Winter Paralympic Games held in Beijing, during which nanotechnologies are extensively applied and play indispensable roles in many aspects. Although these nanotechnologies appear in a very small length scale, they have provided tremendous support to all athletes with the pursuit of “faster, higher, s...

Luo Zhang, Yiheng Dai, Shuojiong Pan, Yizheng Tan, Chenxing Sun, Muqing Cao and Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Bio Mater.; 2022, 5, 1794. Chemodynamic therapy has been appealing for effective cancer treatment. Particularly, Fenton-like reactions catalyzed by Cu2+-based nanoparticles showed promising prospects. Herein, we fabricated copper-selenocysteine quantum dots (Cu-Sec QDs) with the majority of Cu+ by a facile and robust thermal titration process. No high temperature or pressure is needed for this synthetic route of QDs. The selenocysteine functioned as the reducing agent as well as the stabili...

Peng Zhao, Jiahao Xia, Jianbing Liu, Yizheng Tan, Shaobo Ji and Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2021, 13, 50422. Remotely controlled on-demand functional healing is vital to components that are difficult to access and repair in distance such as satellites and unmanned cruising aircrafts. Compared with other stimuli, a blue laser is a better choice to input energy to the damaged area in distance because of its high energy density and low dissipation through the air. Herein, diselenide-containing polyurethane (PUSe) is first employed to fabricate visible light-responsive stretchable ...

Jiahao Xia, Huaping Xu Chem. J. Chinese Universities, 2021, 42, 997. Selenium is an essential element to human body. Our research group has recently revealed many unique features of selenium-containing bonds. For instance， diselenide bond has dual redox response， and it is also a type of dynamic bond which can undergo exchange reaction under visible light irradiation. Combing those interesting properties of selenium-containing bonds with surface/interface chemistry can endow system with unique responsive behaviors. This article reviews the recent progresses we made in the field of selenium...

Cheng Liu, Yizheng Tan, Chaowei He, Shaobo Ji, and Huaping Xu Adv. Mater., 2021, 33, 2105194. Programming 2D sheets to form 3D shapes is significant for flexible electronics, soft robots, and biomedical devices. Stress regulation is one of the most used methods, during which external force is usually needed to keep the stress, leading to complex processing setups. Here, by introducing dynamic diselenide bonds into shape-memory materials, unconstrained shape programming with light is achieved. The material could hold and release internal stress by themselves through the shape-memory effect,...

Luo Zhang, Chenxing Sun, Yizheng Tan and Huaping Xu CCS Chem., 2022, 4, 2249. Thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) is an essential enzyme for regulating the redox balance in cells, promoting cell proliferation, and inhibiting cell apoptosis. The biochemical pathway of TrxR metabolism involves a series of selenium-sulfur (Se-S) dynamic chemistry.  Theoretically, nanomaterials with Se-S dynamic bonds could exhibit TrxR-mimetic activities to tune TrxR activity and thus affect the cell activities. Herein, we report the selenium-sulfur-doped carbon dots (Se-S-CDs) synthesized by a facile hydrothermal m...

Jiahao Xia, Hongbin Li, Huaping Xu Acta Polym. Sin., 2020, 51, 205.   Sulfur, selenium-containing bonds, including disufide bond (SS), diselenide bond (SeSe), and selenide-sulfide bond (SeS), are an important type of light responsive dynamic covalent bonds. Among them, SS and SeS bonds can undergo exchange reaction with the irridiation of UV light, while SeSe bond only requires visible light due to its weaker bond energy. The purpose of this research is to use atomic force microscope-based single molecule force spectroscopy (AFM-SMFS) measurement to reveal the reasons behind the re...

Yiheng Dai, Tianyu Li, Zhiheng Zhang, Yizheng Tan, Shuojiong Pan, Luo Zhang, and Huaping Xu J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2021, 143, 10709. Intracellular polymerization is an emerging technique that can potentially modulate cell behavior, but remains challenging because of the complexity of the cellular environment. Herein, taking advantage of the chemical properties of organotellurides and the intracellular redox environment, we develop a novel oxidative polymerization reaction that can be conducted in cells without external stimuli. We demonstrate that this polymerization reaction is triggered by t...

Shuojiong Pan, huaping Xu Acta Polymerica Sinica, 2021, 52, 857. Stimuli-responsive polymers are defined as polymers whose structure and properties can be changed in response to minor changes in the surrounding physical or chemical environment. In recent years, our research group pioneered in the research of ROS-responsive tellurium-containing polymers and their application in drug delivery. The work presented in this feature article, starting from the difference of oxidation responsiveness of tellurium and selenium, explored the ultra-sensitive ROS-response of tellurides. Then we studied ...