AM-112

We have previously shown that nano-sized graphene oxide (NGO) displays anti-inflammatory activities against NKT cell-mediated sepsis. To address whether NGO could be applied to treat acute skin inflammation, we developed a conventional skin Cetaphil cream containing NGO (denoted as NGO cream) for topical application to skin lesions and investigated its therapeutic efficacy by employing the tape-stripping-induced acute skin inflammation model. Topical application of NGO cream to the wounded area significantly reduced skin lesions compared with application of the control cream. Moreover, NGO cream treatment prevented the tape-stripping-elicited infiltration of, and IL-1β production by, skin neutrophils and dendritic cells. Furthermore, such anti-inflammatory effects of NGO cream were attributed to decreased infiltration of IL-12-producing dendritic cells and IFNγ-producing cells (eg, CD4⁺ T, CD8⁺ T, γδ T, NK, and NKT cells) into the skin. In addition, topical NGO cream administration enhanced the expression of suppressive molecules such as FR4 on skin regulatory T cells. Through RNA-sequencing analysis, we found that the preventive effect of NGO cream on acute skin inflammation may be correlated with the activation of keratinocytes located in the epidermis. Our results support NGO cream as a therapeutic option to control acute skin inflammation.

Collision induced dissociation (CID) and collision induced unfolding (CIU) experiments are important tools for determining the structures of and differences between biomolecular complexes with mass spectrometry. However, quantitative comparison of CID/CIU data acquired on different platforms or even using different regions of the same instrument can be very challenging due to differences in gas identity and pressure, electric fields, and other experimental parameters. In principle, these can be reconciled by a detailed understanding of how ions heat, cool, and dissociate or unfold in time as a function of these parameters. Fundamental information needed to model these processes for different ion types and masses is their heat capacity as a function of the internal (i.e., vibrational) temperature. Here, we use quantum computational theory to predict average heat capacities as a function of temperature for a variety of model biomolecule types from 100 to 3000 K. On a degree-of-freedom basis, these values are remarkably invariant within each biomolecule type and can be used to estimate heat capacities of much larger biomolecular ions. We also explore effects of ion heating, cooling, and internal energy distribution as a function of time using a home-built program (IonSPA). We observe that these internal energy distributions can be nearly Boltzmann for larger ions (greater than a few kDa) through most of the CID/CIU kinetic window after a brief (few-μs) induction period. These results should be useful in reconciling CID/CIU results across different instrument platforms and under different experimental conditions, as well as in designing instrumentation and experiments to control CID/CIU behavior.