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As a byproduct of coal tar distillation, coal tar pitch (CTP) has been proven to be carcinogenic to human. However, the mechanisms of lung cancer induced by CTP are still unclear. It has been shown that long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) play an important role in the development of human cancers. This study aims to investigate the effect of LncRNA-ENST00000556926 on malignant-transformed human bronchial epithelial (BAES-2B) cells induced by coal tar pitch extracts (CTPE). In this study, BEAS-2B cells were treated with 2.4 μg/ml of CTPE for 72 h and then passaged; and the cells were treated 4 times in the same procedure, then passaged until passage 30 (CTPE30). Cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was used to detect cell viability, then cell cycle and apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry, and transcriptome sequencing analysis was used to detect differentially expressed mRNAs after interference of ENST00000556926. The results indicated that the expression of ENST00000556926 in CTPE30 group was significantly higher compared with control group. Furthermore, after interfering the expression of ENST00000556926, cell viability was inhibited, and cell cycle was arrested while apoptosis of malignant-transformed BEAS-2B cells was promoted. Moreover, a total of 159 differentially expressed mRNAs were screened out after interference of ENST00000556926, including 62 up-regulated mRNAs and 97 down-regulated mRNAs. In addition, knockdown of ENST00000556926 decreased the expression of thioredoxin domain containing 5 (TXNDC5) and FOXD1. In conclusion, LncRNA-ENST00000556926 could regulate the proliferation, apoptosis and mRNA transcriptome of malignant-transformed BEAS-2B cells induced by CTP, which may provide a novel treatment strategy for lung cancer.Graphical Abstract

Cigarette smoke (CS) is one of the severe risk factors for the development of the pulmonary disease. However, the underlying mechanisms, especially the CS-induced the human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) apoptosis related to endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) and autophagy, remains to be studied. This study aims to investigate the relationship between ERS and autophagy in apoptosis induced by CS condensate (CSC). BEAS-2B cells were stimulated with 0.02, 0.04 and 0.08 mg/ml CSC for 24 h to detect the ERS, autophagy and apoptosis. Then, ERS and autophagy of BEAS-2B cells were inhibited, respectively, by using 4-PBA and 3-MA, and followed by CSC treatment. The results showed that CSC decreased cell viability, increased cell apoptosis, elevated cleaved-caspase 3/pro-caspase 3 ratio and Bax expressions, but decreased Bcl-2 expressions. The GRP78 and CHOP expressions and LC3-II/LC3-I ratio were dose-dependently increased. The structure of the endoplasmic reticulum was abnormal and the number of autolysosomes was increased in BEAS-2B cells after CSC stimulation. The LC3-II/LC3-I ratio was decreased after ERS inhibition with 4-PBA, but GRP78 and CHOP expressions were enhanced after autophagy inhibition with 3-MA. CSC-induced apoptosis was further increased, Bax expressions and cleaved-caspase 3/pro-caspase 3 ratio were improved, but Bcl-2 expressions were decreased after 3-MA or 4-PBA treatment. In conclusion, the study indicates that ERS may repress apoptosis of BEAS-2B cells induced by CSC via activating autophagy, but autophagy relieves ERS in a negative feedback. This study provides better understanding and experimental support on the underlying mechanisms of pulmonary disease stimulated by CS.

Polyimide (PI) films are used in a wide spectrum of high-tech fields including photovoltaics, microelectronics, and aerospace engineering thanks to their good heat resistance, large mechanical strength, and low thermal expansion coefficients. Further improving their temperature resistance is expected to expand its applications. However, great challenges still exist in the fabrication of PI film with high thermal stability and good combined properties. This review summaries the design strategies and synthesis route of high thermal stability PI films, and discusses the recent progress on improving the thermal stability of PI films by nanocomposite modification. Especically, reported results by introducing a heterocyclic ring into the polymer chain to improve thermal stability were presented. Inorganic particles such as layered silicate, nitrides or metal oxides, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene used to make organic/inorganic nanocomposite for PI modification were also discussed.

In this study, an all-dielectric metasurface with an F-shaped chiral structure in the terahertz region has been proposed. The coupling between the electric and magnetic dipole modes supported by the metasurface can be adjusted by varying the structural parameters. In the parameter space composed of lland s, any closed path around exceptional point in the circular polarization conversion channel trlgenerates a topologically protected exceptional topological phase. A vortex beam generator with a unit topological charge was proposed to provide a novel concept for designing terahertz metasurface wavefront modulation devices.

In this study, we designed a tunable metasurface using bulk Dirac semimetal, whose periodic unit consisted of two orthogonally oriented split rings with identical dimensions in resonator mode, to observe and study exceptional points (EPs). By changing the Fermi level of the Dirac semimetal, the PT symmetry phase transitioned to the PT symmetry-breaking phase, which enabled the observation of an EP. The proposed method exploits the sensitivity of EPs to the perturbations in the system. The results calculated using the coupled mode theory were consistent with the results of simulations and have significant implications in polarization detection, manipulation, and ultrasensitive sensing.