Infectious diseases remain the most serious public health issue, which requires the development of more effective strategies for infectious control. As a kind of ultra-trace element, cobalt is essential to the metabolism of different organisms. In recent decades, nanotechnology has attracted increasing attention worldwide due to its wide application in different areas, including medicine. Based on the important biological roles of cobalt, cobalt nanomaterials have recently been widely developed for their attractive biomedical applications. With advantages such as low costs in preparation, hypotoxicity, photothermal conversion abilities, and high drug loading ability, cobalt nanomaterials have been proven to show promising potential in anticancer and anti-infection treatment. In this review, we summarize the characters of cobalt nanomaterials, followed by the advances in their biological functions and mechanisms. More importantly, we emphatically discuss the potential of cobalt nanomaterials as anti-infectious agents, drug carriers, and immunomodulators for anti-infection treatments, which might be helpful to facilitate progress in future research of anti-infection therapy.

Inhibiting mesangial cell proliferation is one of the strategies to control the early progression of diabetic nephropathy (DN). GSK3β is closely related to cell apoptosis as well as the development of DN, but whether it acts on the proliferation of mesangial cells is unclear. This study aimed to elucidate the role and mechanism of GSK3β-mediated lncRNA in high glucose-induced mesangial cell proliferation. HBZY-1 cells were used to establish the cell model of DN. The automatic cell counter was applied to assess cell proliferation. Flow cytometry was used to detect cell apoptosis and intracellular ROS levels. High-throughput transcriptomics sequencing was performed to detect the different expressions of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the cell model of DN after knocking down the expression of GSK3β by the transfection of siRNA. The expression of RNA was detected by real-time PCR. In the cell model of DN using HBZY-1 cells, cell proliferation was enhanced accompanied by GSK3β activation and elevated apoptosis rate and reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. A panel of novel lncRNAs, which were differentially expressed after GSK3β knockdown in the cell model of DN, were identified by high-throughput transcriptomics sequencing. Among them, the expression of TCONS_00071187 was upregulated under high glucose conditions while the knockdown of the GSK3β expression led to the downregulation of TCONS_00071187. The knockdown of TCONS_00071187 resulted in reduced mesangial cell proliferation, and decreased apoptosis rates and ROS levels. In conclusion, GSK3β promoted mesangial cell proliferation by upregulating TCONS_00071187, which led to enhanced ROS production under high glucose conditions in the cell model of DN. This study revealed the role of GSK3β medicated lncRNAs in the development of DN.