Glaucoma is considered a leading cause of blindness with the human eye being one of the body’s most delicate organs. Ocular diseases encompass diverse diseases affecting the anterior and posterior ocular sections, respectively. The human eye’s peculiar and exclusive anatomy and physiology continue to pose a significant obstacle to researchers and pharmacologists in the provision of efficient drug delivery. Though several traditional invasive and noninvasive eye therapies exist, including implants, eye drops, and injections, there are still significant complications that arise which may either be their low bioavailability or the grave ocular adverse effects experienced thereafter. On the other hand, new nanoscience technology and nanotechnology serve as a novel approach in ocular disease treatment. In order to interact specifically with ocular tissues and overcome ocular challenges, numerous active molecules have been modified to react with nanocarriers. In the general population of glaucoma patients, disease growth and advancement cannot be contained by decreasing intraocular pressure (IOP), hence a spiking in future research for novel drug delivery systems and target therapeutics. This review focuses on nanotechnology and its therapeutic and diagnostic prospects in ophthalmology, specifically glaucoma. Nanotechnology and nanomedicine history, the human eye anatomy, research frontiers in nanomedicine and nanotechnology, its imaging modal quality, diagnostic and surgical approach, and its possible application in glaucoma will all be further explored below. Particular focus will be on the efficiency and safety of this new therapy and its advances.

To make meat adulteration detection systems faster, simpler and more efficient, we established a duck-derived meat rapid detection Recombinase Polymerase Amplification (dRPA) method by using interleukin 2 (IL-2) from nuclear genomic DNA as the target gene to design specific primers. We tested the dRPA detection system by comparing its sensitivity and specificity using real-time fluorescent PCR technology. By adjusting the ratio of reagents, this method shortens the time of DNA extraction and visualizes results in combination with colloidal gold immunoassay strips. Our results demonstrate that this dRPA method could specifically detect duck-derived components with a sensitivity of up to 23 copies/μL and the accuracy of the results is consistent with real-time fluorescent PCR. Additionally, dRPA can detect at least 1% of the duck meat content by mixing beef and mutton with duck meat in different proportions, which was verified by spot-check market samples. These results can be visualized with colloidal gold immunoassay strips with the same accuracy as real-time fluorescent RPA. dRPA can complete detection within 30 min, which shortens existing detection time and quickly visualizes the detection results on-site. This lays the groundwork for future large-scale standardized duck origin detection.

Medicinal plants, recognized as significant natural resources, have gained prominence in response to the increasing global demand for herbal medicines, necessitating the large-scale production of these plants and their derivatives. Medicinal plants are exposed to a variety of internal and external factors that interact to influence the biosynthesis and accumulation of secondary metabolites. With the rapid development of omics technologies such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, multi-omics technologies have become important tools for revealing the complexity and functionality of organisms. They are conducive to further uncovering the biological activities of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants and clarifying the molecular mechanisms underlying the production of secondary metabolites. Also, artificial intelligence (AI) technology accelerates the comprehensive utilization of high-dimensional datasets and offers transformative potential for multi-omics analysis. However, there is currently no systematic review summarizing the genomic mechanisms of secondary metabolite biosynthesis in medicinal plants. Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) has rich and diverse bioactive flavonoids, among of which Hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA) is specific to safflower and emerging as a potential medication for treating a wide range of diseases. Hence, significant progress has been made in the study of safflower as an excellent example for the regulation of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants in recent years. Here, we review the progress on the understanding of the regulation of main secondary metabolites at the multi-omics level, and summarize the influence of various factors on their types and contents, with a particular focus on safflower flavonoids. This review aims to provide a comprehensive insight into the regulatory mechanisms of secondary metabolite biosynthesis from the perspective of genomics.

CRISPR/Cas12a technology is used for nucleic acid detection due to its specific recognition function and non-specific single-stranded DNA cleavage activity. Here, we developed a fluorescence visualisation detection method based on PCR and CRISPR/Cas12a approaches. The method was used to detect the nopaline synthase terminator (T-nos) of genetically modified (GM) crops, circumventing the need for expensive instruments and technicians. For enhanced sensitivity and stability of PCR-CRISPR/Cas12a detection, we separately optimised the reaction systems for PCR amplification and CRISPR/Cas12a detection. Eleven samples of soybean samples were assessed to determine the applicability of the PCR-CRISPR/Cas12a method. The method could specifically detect target gene levels as low as 60 copies in the reaction within 50 min. In addition, accurate detection of all 11 samples confirmed the applicability. The method is not limited by large-scale instruments, making it suitable for mass detection of transgenic components in plants in the field. In conclusion, we developed a new, accurate, rapid, and cost-effective method for GM detection.

Gel filtration chromatography (GFC) separates molecules according to size and is one of the most widely used methods for protein purification. Here, red fluorescent protein (RFP), green fluorescent protein (GFP), yellow fluorescent protein (YFP), cyan fluorescent protein (CFP), and/or their fusion proteins were prokaryotically expressed, purified, and used in a laboratory exercise to intuitively demonstrate GFC. Different bands, corresponding to RFP, RFP‐CFP (RC), YFP‐RFP‐YFP (YRY), and pyruvate kinase II‐GFP (PKG) were well separated on a Superdex 200 column from a 0.5‐mL sample. Increasing the sample volume and changing the chromatographic resin to Sephadex G‐100 resulted in lower resolution separation. Students enjoyed identifying combinations of colored proteins and found this exercise helpful for understanding the factors that affect GFC resolution. © 2014 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 43(1):33–38, 2015.