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Trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) has been a mainstream treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), accordingly there are more requirements for embolic agents' properties, mainly concentrated on biodegradability and imaging function. A new kind of biodegradable multifunctional porous microspheres (BMPMs) with internal coarse plications are ingeniously designed and manufactured, consisting of carrageenan, inhexol and superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle (SPIO). BMPMs' sound roundness and excellent swelling behavior guarantee them to be smoothly transported into appointed arteries' ends and achieve satisfactory embolization effect. Porous structure together with sulphate groups on BMPMs' skeleton weaved by cross-linked carrageenan contributes to a marvelous doxorubicin hydrochloride (Dox) loading capacity over 45 mg Dox per mL of swollen microspheres, as well as a controllable degradation rate by allowing enzymes to infiltrate into BMPMs through holes, degrading 20-35% after two months in vitro. Inner coarse plications enable BMPMs to effectively combine with iohexol via hydrophilic effect and SPIO by blocking, which can further exhibit a decent imaging performance under digital subtraction system (DSA) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for optimization of current TACE and development of a more advanced imageable TACE (iTACE). Safety evaluation and animal experiment manifest that BMPMs are reliable enough and hold great potential and competitiveness of being used in curing HCC., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

To understand mechanisms for the difference of uptaking and transporting the pigments between the male and female in the silkworm, Bombyx mori strain of sex-related fluorescent cocoon, the fluorescent pigments in the midgut lumen, midgut, blood, silk glands and cocoon were analyzed with thin-layer chromatography, and showed that fluorescent colors of cocoons consisted with that of blood and silk glands. The different fluorescent colors of cocoons between the male and female may be mainly caused by the difference of accumulation and transportation for fluorescent pigments in the midgut and in the silk glands. Furthermore the midgut proteins were separated with Native-PAGE, and the proteins respectively recovered from three fluorescent regions presenting on a Native-PAGE gel for the female silkworms were determined using shotgun proteomics and mass spectrometry sequencing, of which 60, 40 and 18 proteins respectively from the region 1, 2 and 3 were identified. It was found that the several kinds of low molecular mass 30 kDa lipoproteins and the actins could be detected in all three regions, troponin, 30 kDa lipoprotein and 27 kDa glycoprotein precursor could be detected in the region 2 and 3, suggesting these proteins may be fluorescent pigments binding candidates proteins. Analysis of gene ontology indicated that the identified proteins in the three regions linked to the cellular component, molecular function, and biological process categories. These results provide a new clew to understand the formation mechanism of sex-related fluorescent cocoon of silkworm.