Natural Wood-Derived Macroporous Cellulose for Highly Efficient and Ultrafast Elimination of Double-Stranded RNA from In Vitro-Transcribed mRNA

Engineered Wood-Derived Porous Hydrogel Composites for High-Performance Anisotropic Polyelectrolytes in Flexible Electronic Devices

Natural wood has long inspired the development of artificial biomimetic and bioinspired materials aimed at enhancing human life. However, a major challenge lies in developing straightforward and versatile approaches for producing high-performance, porous wood-derived materials. In this work, we introduce a space-confined porogen photochemistry strategy for engineering wood-derived porous hydrogel composites. Under light irradiation, the nitrogen gas release and the liquid precursor rapidly solidify into hydrogels within 30 s, facilitating in situ pore formation within the wood template. The integration of aligned wood structures with hydrogel multinetworks yields a composite material capable of sustaining a maximum stress of 7 MPa at a critical strain of 200%, with a high porosity of 70%. The anisotropic nature enhances directional ion transport and sensing with performance further tunable by adjusting porosity. This capability positions these materials as promising candidates for flexible zinc-air batteries, which demonstrate a higher output voltage and power density. Additionally, the superior mechanical integrity and water-retention abilities extend the battery life (up to ∼120 h) and support flexibility, as shown by 1000 cycles in bending tests. This space-confined porogen photochemistry approach and the resulting wood-derived composites are poised to make a significant impact in fields spanning energy storage, sensing technologies, and beyond.

Mitigating Cellular Dysfunction Through Contaminant Reduction in Synthetic circRNA for High-Efficiency mRNA-Based Cell Reprogramming

Synthetic circular RNA (circRNA) holds great promise for biomedical research and therapeutic applications, but impurities introduced during synthesis trigger innate immune responses and significantly compromise its efficacy. In this study, key immunogenic byproducts, including double-stranded RNA, 5' triphosphates from uncircularized RNA, and hydrolyzed RNA fragments, are identified as impairing circRNA functionality via RNA-sensing pathways. To address this, a multi-step purification process is developed that combines enzymatic treatments and cellulose-based filtration to effectively remove these contaminants. This approach significantly reduces immune activation and increases manufacturing yields of circRNA by over 10-fold. The purified circRNA demonstrates exceptional performance in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) reprogramming, achieving over 300% reprogramming efficiency with just three OSKMLN circRNA transfection treatments. Additionally, the purified circRNA achieves high levels and persistent expression of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) in T cells with high cytotoxicity against tumor cells, making it a promising candidate for mRNA-based CAR-T cell therapy. These findings establish the purification strategy as a scalable and reliable platform for producing therapeutic-grade RNA, with broad applications in mRNA-based cell reprogramming for regenerative medicine and cancer immunotherapy.

Removing immunogenic double-stranded RNA impurities post in vitro transcription synthesis for mRNA therapeutics production: A review of chromatography strategies

Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines and therapeutics hold immense potential for a wide range of clinical applications. However, the in vitro transcription (IVT) process used to synthesize mRNA also results in the generation of a by-product, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), which can trigger innate immune activation and reduce translation activity. Although various efforts have been made to optimize IVT synthesis to minimize dsRNA formation, dsRNA impurities still cannot be fully resolved. Therefore, the urgency and significance of a downstream purification strategy to tackle these unresolved dsRNA impurities cannot be overstated. In this review, we discuss in detail the use of non-enzymatic (reversed phase-ion pairing chromatography, hydrophobic interaction chromatography, cellulose, dsRNA-specific scavenger resin, hydroxyapatite chromatography, anion exchange chromatography, hydrogen bonding chromatography, asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation, salt precipitation, low pH denaturation) and RNase III enzymatic purification strategies aimed at dsRNA removal. We summarize key findings on the effectiveness of these approaches in removing dsRNA impurities, as well as their strengths and limitations. In addition, we also compile purification optimization strategies that can be performed after mRNA synthesis to improve the efficiency of dsRNA contaminant removal, enhance the recovery of mRNA products, preserve mRNA integrity, and augment translation activity. Other small-scale purification strategies and future outlooks are also presented. This review is intended to serve as a comprehensive reference guide for all personnel working on the production of mRNA therapeutics.

Regulating Immune Responses Induced by PEGylated Messenger RNA-Lipid Nanoparticle Vaccine

Messenger RNA (mRNA)-based therapeutics have shown remarkable progress in the treatment and prevention of diseases. Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have shown great successes in delivering mRNAs. After an mRNA-LNP vaccine enters a cell via an endosome, mRNA is translated into an antigen, which can activate adaptive immunity. mRNAs can bind to various pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), including toll-like receptors (TLRs), and increase the production of inflammatory cytokines. This review summarizes mechanisms of innate immunity induced by mRNAs. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) has been employed as a component of the mRNA-LNP vaccine. PEGylated nanoparticles display enhanced stability by preventing aggregation of particles. However, PEGylation can cause adverse reactions, including blood clearance (ABC) of nanoparticles via complement activation and anaphylaxis. Mechanisms of PEG-induced ABC phenomenon and anaphylaxis are presented and discussed. There have been studies aimed at reducing immune responses associated with PEG to make safe and effective vaccines. Effects of modifying or replacing PEG in reducing immune responses associated with PEGylated nanoparticles are also discussed. Modifying mRNA can induce immune tolerance, which can prevent hypersensitivity reactions induced by PEGylated mRNA-LNP vaccines. Current progress of immune tolerance induction in association with mRNA-LNP is also summarized. This review might be helpful for developing safe and effective PEGylated mRNA-LNP vaccines.

mRNA vaccines in tumor targeted therapy: mechanism, clinical application, and development trends

Malignant tumors remain a primary cause of human mortality. Among the various treatment modalities for neoplasms, tumor vaccines have consistently shown efficacy and promising potential. These vaccines offer advantages such as specificity, safety, and tolerability, with mRNA vaccines representing promising platforms. By introducing exogenous mRNAs encoding antigens into somatic cells and subsequently synthesizing antigens through gene expression systems, mRNA vaccines can effectively induce immune responses. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their great contributions to mRNA vaccine research. Compared with traditional tumor vaccines, mRNA vaccines have several advantages, including rapid preparation, reduced contamination, nonintegrability, and high biodegradability. Tumor-targeted therapy is an innovative treatment modality that enables precise targeting of tumor cells, minimizes damage to normal tissues, is safe at high doses, and demonstrates great efficacy. Currently, targeted therapy has become an important treatment option for malignant tumors. The application of mRNA vaccines in tumor-targeted therapy is expanding, with numerous clinical trials underway. We systematically outline the targeted delivery mechanism of mRNA vaccines and the mechanism by which mRNA vaccines induce anti-tumor immune responses, describe the current research and clinical applications of mRNA vaccines in tumor-targeted therapy, and forecast the future development trends of mRNA vaccine application in tumor-targeted therapy.

Construction of wood-PANI supercapacitor with high mass loading using "pore-making, active substance-filling, densification" strategy

Wood-conducting polymer materials have been widely used as supercapacitor electrode; however, it remains challenging to achieve a simple method to improve the homogeneity of the conductive material on wood and to reach high mass loading. Herein, a novel "pore-making, active substance-filling, densification (dissolution, in-situ polymerization of polyaniline (PANI), self-shrinking)" strategy is proposed for the preparation of wood electrodes with a high mass loading (41.4 wt%) and homogeneity. Ingeniously, ZnCl2 as a dissolving agent and pore-making agent to treat delignified wood can generate more pores on the wood, which is more conducive to the penetration of aniline small molecules, besides, the dissolved fine fibers can be entangled with more PANI, which can improve the loading and homogeneity of PANI. After drying treatment, there will be shrinkage again, playing a certain physical densification effect on the large lumen. The optical electrode was RWP2 showing high electrochemical performance (2328.9 mF/cm2, 1 mA/cm2), and stability (5000 cycles, 89.3 %). Moving forward, the RWP2//RWP2 SSC showed an excellent energy density of 164.24 μwh/cm2 at a power density of 250 μw/cm2. Remarkably, the simple and versatile strategy of designing wood-based materials with high mass loading provides new research ideas for realizing multifunctional applications.