Hui Wang group recently published a paper in Small, which was featured on the Inside
Cover of the February 22 Issue of the journal of Small. This work involved collaborations
of Wang group with Clene Nanomedicine, Inc. (Salt Lake City, Utah), the University
of Bordeaux, and Neuro-Sys in France. It has been well-received by the nanobiotechnology
community and widely reported by multiple news media. In the attachments, please find
the Cover artwork, the TOC graphic, a news report written by Bryan Gentry at UofSC,
a news release by Clene Nanomedicine, and the PDF file of the paper. The first author
on this paper is Zixin Wang, a former Ph.D. student in Professor Wang group. She
is currently a postdoc at Los Alamos National Lab.
Wang, Z.X.; Henriques, A.; Rouvière, L.; Callizot, N.; Tan, L.; Hotchkin, M.T.; Rossignol,
R.; Mortenson, M.G.; Dorfman, A.R.; Ho, K.S.*; Wang, H.*, A Mechanism Underpinning
the Bioenergetic Metabolism-Regulating Function of Gold Nanocatalysts. Small 2024,
20, 2304082. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202304082
This work provides mechanistic insights into the energy metabolism-regulating function
of colloidal Au nanocrystals, referred to as CNM-Au8, that are synthesized electrochemically
in the absence of surface-capping organic ligands. When neurons are subjected to excitotoxic
stressors or toxic peptides, treatment of neurons with CNM-Au8 results in dose-dependent
neuronal survival and neurite network preservation across multiple neuronal subtypes.
CNM-Au8 efficiently catalyzes the conversion of an energetic cofactor, nicotinamide
adenine dinucleotide hydride (NADH), into its oxidized counterpart (NAD+), which promotes
bioenergy production by regulating the intracellular level of adenosine triphosphate.
Detailed kinetic measurements reveal that CNM-Au8-catalyzed NADH oxidation obeys Michaelis–Menten
kinetics and exhibits pH-dependent kinetic profiles. Photoexcited charge carriers
and photothermal effect, which result from optical excitations and decay of the plasmonic
electron oscillations or the interband electronic transitions in CNM-Au8, are further
harnessed as unique leverages to modulate reaction kinetics. As exemplified by this
work, Au nanocrystals with deliberately tailored structures and surfactant-free clean
surfaces hold great promise for developing next-generation therapeutic agents for
neurodegenerative diseases.