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Atherosclerosis is a significant contributor to global cardiovascular disease. Reducing the formation of atherosclerotic plaque effectively can lead to a decrease in cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, controlling macrophage function is crucial. This study presents the creation of a bifunctional nanoparticle that is specific to macrophages to achieve intracellular and extracellular synergistic therapy for restoring macrophage functions. The nanoparticle is conjugated with anti-CD47 antibody to modulate extracellular CD47-SIRPα phagocytic signaling axis on the outer surface of macrophages and encapsulates the NLRP3 inhibitor (CY-09) to regulate intracellular inflammation response of macrophages. The results showed that the nanoparticles accumulate in the atherosclerotic plaque, alter macrophage phagocytosis, inhibit NLRP3 inflammasome activation, and decrease the plaque burden in Apoe−/−mice whilst ensuring safety. Examination of single-cell RNA sequencing indicates that this multifunctional nanoparticle decreases the expression of genes linked to inflammation and manages inflammatory pathways in the plaque lesion. This study proposes a synergistic therapeutic approach that utilizes a bifunctional nanoparticle, conjugated with anti-CD47, to regulate the microenvironment of plaques.

Projected GAN, a pre-trained GAN, has been found to perform well in generating images with only a few training samples. However, it struggles with extended training, which may lead to decreased performance over time. This is because the pre-trained discriminator consistently surpasses the generator, creating an unstable training environment. In this work, we propose a solution to this issue by introducing closed-loop control (CLC) into the dynamics of Projected GAN, stabilizing training, and improving generation performance. Our proposed method consistently reduces the Fréchet Inception Distance (FID) of the previous methods; for example, it reduces the FID of Projected GAN by 4.31 on the Obama dataset. Our finding is fundamental and can be used in other pre-trained GANs.

The canonical correlation analysis (CCA) has attracted wide attention in fault detection (FD). To improve the detection performance, we propose a new joint sparse constrained CCA (JSCCCA) model that integrates the $\ell _{2,0}$ -norm joint sparse constraints into classical CCA. The key idea is that JSCCCA can fully exploit the joint sparse structure to determine the number of extracted variables. We then develop an efficient alternating minimization algorithm using the improved iterative hard thresholding and manifold constrained gradient descent method. More importantly, we establish the convergence guarantee with detailed analysis. Finally, we provide extensive numerical studies on the simulated dataset, the benchmark Tennessee Eastman process, and a practical cylinder-piston process. In some cases, the computing time is reduced by 600 times, and the FD rate is increased by 12.62% compared with classical CCA. The results suggest that the proposed approach is efficient and fast.

This study tested the hypothesis that recombinant granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) enhances polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) via interleukin (IL)-1β to improve the prognosis of secondary infection in sepsis. The latter stage of sepsis is prone to induce immunosuppression, resulting in secondary fatal infections. Recombinant GM-CSF has become a way for sepsis-induced immunosuppression due to its immunomodulatory effect. However, the functional impact of GM-CSF on PMNs in sepsis remains obscure. This study aimed to study the role of recombinant GM-CSF on the bactericidal ability of PMNs in septic mice, assessing its effect on the prognosis of secondary pneumonia, and explore the mechanism of recombinant GM-CSF by intervening PMNs in patients with sepsis. The C57BL/6J sepsis mouse model was induced by cecal ligation and puncture. Recombinant murine GM-CSF (rmGM-CSF) was used in vivo when mice developed immunosuppression, which was characterized by abnormal bactericidal function of PMNs in peripheral blood. rmGM-CSF improved the prognosis of secondary pneumonia and reversed the function of PMNs. PMNs isolated by Percoll from septic patients were treated by recombinant human GM-CSF (rhGM-CSF) in vitro. The expression of CD11b, reactive oxygen species, phagocytosis, and neutrophil extracellular trap release in PMNs were enhanced by rhGM-CSF treatments. Whole-transcriptomic sequencing of mouse PMNs indicated that recombinant GM-CSF increased the expression of Il1bgene in PMNs. Blocking and inhibiting IL-1β release effectively counteracted the enhancing effect of GM-CSF on the bactericidal function of PMNs. rmGM-CSF enhances the bactericidal function of PMNs in vivo and improves the prognosis of secondary pneumonia in septic mice, and recombinant GM-CSF increases IL-1β precursor reserves, which, if stimulated, can rapidly enhance the bactericidal capacity of PMNs.Pro-IL-1β upraised by recombinant GM-CSF leads to enhanced bactericidal capacity of PMNs and a better outcome of secondary pneumonia in sepsis.

Due to the magnetoelastic coupling, the magnetic properties of many flexible magnetic films (such as Fe, Co, and Ni) are sensitive to mechanical stress, which deteriorates the performance of flexible magnetoelectronic devices. We show that by stacking Co and Pt alternatively to form multilayers with strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), both magnetic hysteresis and magnetic domain measurements reveal robust PMA against external stress. As the PMA weakens at increased Co thickness, the magnetic anisotropy is vulnerable to external stress. These results were understood based on a micromagnetic model, which suggests that the strength of magnetoelastic anisotropy with respect to initial effective magnetic anisotropy affects the stress-stability of the film. Although the stress coefficient of magnetoelastic anisotropy is enhanced at reduced Co thickness, the concomitant increase of initial effective magnetic anisotropy guarantees a robust PMA against external stress. Our results provide a route to constructing flexible magnetoelectronic devices with enhanced stress stability.

Multi-view clustering is an important research topic due to its capability to utilize complementary information from multiple views. However, there are few methods to consider the negative impact caused by certain views with unclear clustering structures, resulting in poor multi-view clustering performance. To address this drawback, we propose self-supervised discriminative feature learning for deep multi-view clustering (SDMVC). Concretely, deep autoencoders are applied to learn embedded features for each view independently. To leverage the multi-view complementary information, we concatenate all views’ embedded features to form the global features, which can overcome the negative impact of some views’ unclear clustering structures. In a self-supervised manner, pseudo-labels are obtained to build a unified target distribution to perform multi-view discriminative feature learning. During this process, global discriminative information can be mined to supervise all views to learn more discriminative features, which in turn are used to update the target distribution. Besides, this unified target distribution can make SDMVC learn consistent cluster assignments, which accomplishes the clustering consistency of multiple views while preserving their features’ diversity. Experiments on various types of multi-view datasets show that SDMVC outperforms 14 competitors including classic and state-of-the-art methods. The code is available at https://github.com/SubmissionsIn/SDMVC.

Here, we present a novel bioorthogonal platform that enables precise positioning of attached moieties in close proximity, thereby facilitating the discovery and optimization of biocompatible reactions. Using this platform, we achieve a Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons (HWE) reaction under physiological conditions, generating a fluorophore in situwith a yield of up to 93%. This proximity platform should facilitate the discovery of various types of biocompatible reactions, making it a versatile tool for biomedical applications.

The Brodmann area (BA)-based map is one of the most widely used cortical maps for studies of human brain functions and in clinical practice; however, the molecular architecture of BAs remains unknown. The present study provided a global multiregional proteomic map of the human cerebral cortexby analyzing 29 BAs. These 29 BAs were grouped into 6 clusters based on similarities in proteomic patterns: the motor and sensory cluster, vision cluster, auditory and Broca’s area cluster, Wernicke’s area cluster, cingulate cortexcluster, and heterogeneous function cluster. We identified 474 cluster-specific and 134 BA-specific signature proteins whose functions are closely associated with specialized functions and disease vulnerability of the corresponding cluster or BA. The findings of the present study could provide explanations for the functional connections between the anterior cingulate cortex and sensorimotor cortexand for anxiety-related function in the sensorimotor cortex. The brain transcriptome and proteome comparison indicates that they both could reflect the function of cerebral cortex, but show different characteristics. These proteomic data are publicly available at the Human Brain Proteome Atlas (www.brain-omics.com). Our results may enhance our understanding of the molecular basis of brain functions and provide an important resource to support human brain research.

Recent studies have proven that the purinergic signaling pathway plays a key role in neurotransmission and neuromodulation, and is involved in various neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders. With the characterization of the subtypes of receptors in purinergic signaling, i.e. the P1 (adenosine), P2X (ion channel) and P2Y (G protein-coupled), more attention has been paid to the pathophysiology and therapeutic potential of purinergic signaling in the central nervous system disorders. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive and deadly neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by memory loss, cognitive impairment and dementia. However, as drug development aimed to prevent or control AD has series of failures in recent years, more researchers have focused on the neuroprotection-related mechanisms such as purinergic signaling in AD patients to find a potential cure. This article reviews the recent discoveries of purinergic signaling in AD, and summarizes the potential agents as modulators for the receptors of purinergic signaling in AD-related research and treatments. Thus, our paper provides an insight into purinergic signaling in the development of anti- AD therapies.

As a group of heterocyclic macrocycle organic natural compounds occurring universally in animal tissues and plants, porphyrins are composed of four modified pyrrole subunits. Porphyrin analogues/ derivatives possess multiple biochemical properties because of their unique structures and have been extensively investigated in cancer treatment. Studies have shown that porphyrins and their derivatives have the ability to locate tumor cells in a variety of human cancers, and these compounds not only exhibit potent therapeutic effects as photodynamic agents but also show promising properties in medicinal imaging, such as MRI, photoacoustic imaging, fluorescence imaging, and PET/SPECT imaging. This paper reviews the recent reports of porphyrin derivatives as therapeutic agents used in tumor therapies, such as sonodynamic therapy, photodynamic therapy and radiotherapy, as well as the imaging agents for multimodality tumor imaging. The limitations of porphyrin-based compounds in tumor treatments and future prospects are also summarized.

18F-FDG PET/CT imaging provides valuable information in the evaluation and staging of spinal tumors. Herein, we report the case of a 57-year-old man who presented with a sudden paraplegia below the fifth thoracic vertebra due to cord compression of a spinal lesion. After spinal canal decompression and spinal lesion biopsy, the diagnosis was a poorly differentiated neuroendocrine tumor. Subsequent PET/CT revealed that it was a primary site, showing intense FDG uptake. He was eventually referred for palliative radiotherapy.

Glomus tumors are vascular neoplasms arising from glomus bodies. They are typically found in tissues where glomus bodies are concentrated, including the subungual layer of the fingers or the deep dermis of the palm, wrist, forearm, and foot but rarely occur in the axillary region. Herein, we reported the MRI and FDG PET/CT findings of a glomus tumor presenting as an axillary mass in a 25-year-old woman.

Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) have become the dominant machine learning for visual object recognition. They have been widely used in food image recognition and have achieved excellent performance. However, not only are the food-ingredient datasets not easy to obtain, but also the scale is not big enough to learn a deep learning model. For small-scale datasets, this paper proposes a novel DCNN architecture, which constructs an up-to-date combinational convolutional neural network of double subnets (CBDNet) for automatic classification of food ingredients using feature fusion. The feature fusion is a component which aggregates subnets for more abundant and precise deep feature extraction. In order to improve classification accuracy, some useful strategies are adopted, including batch normalisation (BN) operation and hyperparameters setting. Finally, experimental results show that the CBDNet integrating double subnets, feature fusion and BN operation extracts better image features and effectively improves the performance of food-ingredient recognition.

Background: The mechanism of humoral immunity to Takayasu arteritis (TAK) is not clear. In our study, we aimed to investigate the correlation between immunoglobulins and disease activity and the relationship between immunoglobulins and the prognosis of TAK patients. Methods: One hundred ninety TAK patients divided into two groups according to whether they had elevated immunoglobulins or not. We compared the demographic data and the clinical data between the two groups. Pearson correlation was used to analyze the relationship between immunoglobulin and disease activity, as well as the relationship between their changes. Immunohistochemical staining was used to compare the expression of humoral immune cells in TAK and atherosclerotic patients. One hundred twenty TAK patients who achieved remission within 3 months after discharge were followed up for 1 year. Logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between elevated immunoglobulins and recurrence. Results: Disease activity and inflammatory factors were significantly higher in the group with elevated immunoglobulins than in the normal group [NIH (3.0 vs. 2.0, P= 0.001), ITAS-A (9.0 vs. 7.0, P= 0.006)]. Compared with atherosclerotic patients, CD138 + plasma cells were significantly increased in the aortic wall of patients with TAK (P= 0.021). Changes in IgG correlated well with CRP and ESR [CRP (r= 0.40, P= 0.027), ESR (r= 0.64, P< 0.001)]. For patients with TAK in remission, elevated immunoglobulins was associated with 1-year recurrence [OR95%, CI: 2.37 (1.03, 5.47), P= 0.042]. Conclusions: Immunoglobulins is of clinical value in evaluating disease activity in TAK patients. Moreover, the dynamic changes of IgG were correlated with the changes in inflammatory indicators in TAK patients.

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics and the site of pulmonary involvement in Takayasu arteritis (TAK) patients with pulmonary artery involvement (PAI). Methods: We retrospectively investigated data of 141 TAK patients. The clinical and image data of the patients with and without PAI were analyzed and compared. The patients were followed up. The major outcome was all-cause mortality. The minor outcome was exacerbation or new occurrence of PAI, which leads to disease progression events. Results: For the 141 TAK patients considered, PAI was detected in 65 (46.1%) patients. TAK patients with PAI had a significantly higher cumulative incidence of events than those without PAI (P< 0.001). The frequencies of the following were significantly higher in TAK with PAI than those in TAK without PAI: disease duration [median 96 months (IQR: 24–174) vs. median 42 months (IQR: 6–120); P= 0.012], hemoptysis (10.8% vs. 1.32%; P= 0.040), oppression in the chest (40.0% vs. 21.1%; P= 0.014), fever (23.1% vs. 9.21%; P= 0.024), Mycobacterium tuberculosisinfection (21.5% vs. 6.57%; P= 0.010), pulmonary hypertension (PAH) (21.5% vs. 2.6%; P< 0.001), pulmonary infarction (41.5% vs. 0%; P< 0.001), and hypoxemia (18.5% vs. 1.3%; P< 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis of data of TAK patients with symptom presentation showed that oppression in the chest (OR: 2.304; 95% CI: 1.024–5.183; P= 0.044) and thoracic aorta involvement (OR: 2.819; 95% CI: 1.165–6.833; P= 0.022) were associated with PAI. The cluster analysis performed for data of TAK patients with PAI revealed that the cluster characterized as the upper lobe of the right lung (Cluster1) had the worst prognosis. Conclusion: In TAK, PAI is associated with thoracic aorta involvement. In TAK patients with PAI, the involvement of the upper lobe of the right lung is characterized with the worst prognosis.

Background:Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of CEBPAhas been sporadically reported in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), resulting in a complete or nearly complete homozygosity of CEBPAmutations ( CEBPAhomo). However, its clinical significance has been underappreciated.

Background:Despite being classified as an independent entity in World Health Organization (WHO) classification in 2016, familial cases of adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with germline-mutated CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein-α (CEBPA) gene have been rarely reported due to insufficient knowledge of the clinical features of this entity. Germline CEBPA-mutated carriers are at extremely high risk of developing AML but have long been ignored until the onset of AML. We aimed to fully identify the clinical features of the familial cases and healthy carriers for this entity to call for a guideline for its management.

Venetoclax-based combination therapies have emerged as promising treatments for elderly acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. However, venetoclax resistance renders the treatment ineffective, mainly due to the upregulation of MCL1. Thus, new venetoclax-based combination therapy is under development to circumvent venetoclax resistance. The Ras-GTPase-activating protein SH3-domain binding protein 2 (G3BP2) is upgraded in several solid tumors. Targeting G3BP2 re-sensitized tumor cells to chemotherapy. To date, whether targeting G3BP2 sensitizes venetoclax treatment in AML and its role in leukemogenesis has not been defined.

AML1/ETO9a(AE9a) is an alternatively spliced isoform of AML1/ETO(AE) fusion protein that coexists with AE and predicts a poor prognosis in AE-positive (AE +) AML. The insert of exon9a between exon8 and exon9 of ETO provides a stop codon forming the truncated AE9a lacks ETO domains NHR3/4, and the variant alone can induce leukemia. To date, its production mechanism remains obscure. Our previous studies showed that the splicing factor DHX15 is highly expressed in AML and correlates with poor prognosis (PMID: 29163777). DHX15 is also related to alternative splicing events in AE +AML revealed in an in vitro study (PMID: 27798625). Thus, we further investigated the potential role of DHX15 in AE +AML progression and AE9a splice variant production.

Prostate cancer was newly diagnosed in a 73-year-old man. He underwent bone scintigraphy to assess any skeletal involvement. No abnormal uptake was observed in the skeletal system, whereas intense radioactivity was seen in the bilateral axillary regions. Physical examination found large amounts of sweat. Repeat images revealed no axillary activity after washing. This case illustrated axillary accumulation of 99mTc-MDP due to perspiration.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive and deadly neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by memory loss, cognitive impairment and dementia. Several hypotheses have been proposed for the pathogenesis based on the pathological changes in the brain of AD patients during the last few decades. Unfortunately, there is no effective agents/therapies to prevent or control AD at present. Currently, only a few drugs, which function as acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors or N-methyl-Daspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists, are available to alleviate symptoms. Since many small molecule natural products have shown their functions as agonists or antagonists of receptors, as well as inhibitors of enzymes and proteins in the brain during the development of central nervous system (CNS) drugs, it is likely that natural products will play an important role in anti-AD drug development. We review recent papers on using small molecule natural products as drug candidates for the treatment of AD. These natural products possess antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticholinesterase, anti-amyloidogenic and neuroprotective activities. Moreover, bioactive natural products intended to be used for preventing AD, reducing the symptoms of AD and the new targets for treatment of AD are summarized.

Test case prioritisation schedules the test cases for execution in an order that attempts to maximise (an) objective(s) or expose faults earlier in testing. In the past, many test case prioritisation techniques prioritised test cases based on mainly test-requirement coverage and ignored many other testing factors. In view of the DU-chain importance in programs, this paper presents a test case prioritisation approach of method-based DU-chain coverage. The technique combines the DU-chain coverage and fault detection rate as test-case quantitative factors. Different from existing techniques, the novel approach makes use of information from executed testing and module coupling, and dynamically calculates a priority quantitative value for every test case. The experiments performed show that the dynamic prioritisation approach is fault-detection effective, and the APFD of the test suites constructed by the dynamic prioritisation approach is higher than that of the test suites constructed by the static prioritisation technique.

Difluorocarbene has emerged as a valuable intermediate to synthesize fluorides. However, difluorocarbene-derived synthesis of 19F/18F-trifluoromethyl triazoles has not been explored. Herein, we reported the Cu(I)-promoted difluorocarbene-derived 19F/18F-trifluoromethylation of iodotriazoles using KF/K18F as the fluorine source. This approach rapidly generated a wide range of 5-trifluoromethyl-1,2,3-triazoles in good yields showing high functional group compatibility. The reaction was effective for late-stage functionalization of bioactive molecules and 18F-trifluoromethylation of iodotriazoles. This work provides a practical synthetic methodology for the development of triazole drugs and 18F-radiotracers for positron emission tomography.

The sparse nonlinear programming (SNP) is to minimize a general continuously differentiable function subject to sparsity, nonlinear equality and inequality constraints. We first define two restricted constraint qualifications and show how these constraint qualifications can be applied to obtain the decomposition properties of the Fréchet, Mordukhovich and Clarke normal cones to the sparsity constrained feasible set. Based on the decomposition properties of the normal cones, we then present and analyze three classes of Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions for the SNP. At last, we establish the second-order necessary optimality condition and sufficient optimality condition for the SNP.

Objective: Aortic valve involvement is not uncommon in patients with Takayasu arteritis (TAK) and leading to poor prognosis. The aim of our study was to explore the risk factors of aortic valve involvement and to evaluate the prognosis in TAK patients with aortic valve involvement. Method: In this retrospective study, 172 TAK patients were divided into groups with or without aortic valve involvement to identify the risk factors. Patients who underwent aortic valve surgical treatment were followed up to assess cumulative incidence of postoperative adverse events. Results: A total of 92 TAK patients (53.49%) had aortic valvular lesion. The infiltration of inflammatory cells was found in surgical specimens of aortic valve. Numano type IIb, elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) level, and dilation of ascending aorta and aortic root were statistically associated with aortic valvular lesion in TAK patients (OR [95%CI] 6.853 [1.685–27.875], p=0.007; 4.896 [1.646–14.561], p=0.004; 4.509 [1.517–13.403], p=0.007; 9.340 [2.188–39.875], p=0.003). The 1-, 5-, and 7-year cumulative incidence of postoperative adverse events were 14.7%, 14.7%, and 31.8%, respectively. Surgical methods (p=0.024, hazard ratio (HR) 0.082) and postoperatively anti-inflammatory therapy (p=0.036, HR 0.144) were identified as potential predictors of postoperative adverse events. Conclusions: Regularly echocardiogram screening is suggested in patients with Numano type IIb and aggressive treatment should be performed early in TAK patients. As for TAK patients with aortic valve surgery, aortic root replacement seems to be the preferred option and regular anti-inflammatory therapy may reduce the occurrence of adverse events of them.

Purpose: Takayasu’s arteritis (TAK) is a large-vessel vasculitis. Glucocorticoids (GCs) combined with cyclophosphamide (CTX) is a common treatment option, but their efficacy is limited. The aim of this retrospective study was to study the efficacy and safety of tocilizumab (TCZ) in the treatment of TAK.Patients and methods: A total of 63 patients with TAK were divided into two groups according to different treatment strategies: 31 patients in the TCZ group and 32 patients in the CTX group. After 6 months of treatment, disease activity and side effects were evaluated and were compared between the two groups.Results: After 3 months of treatment, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) score (p= 0.005), Indian Takayasu Clinical Activity Score (ITAS) 2010 (p= 0.043), and the Indian Takayasu Activity Score with the Acute-Phase Response (ITAS.A; p= 0.036) were lower in patients treated with TCZ compared with those treated with CTX. In the TCZ group, the proportion of patients with NIH scores ⩽1 reached 50% after 1 month, 90% after 3 months, and 96% after 6 months of treatment, whereas in the CTX group, these proportion were 36%, 30%, and 78%, respectively. Thus, TCZ treatment of TAK is accompanied with a faster remission rate than CTX treatment. Moreover, the total cumulative incidence of adverse events was lower in the TCZ group than in the CTX group (p= 0.035).Conclusion: TCZ was faster and safer in alleviating TAK.

A large number of underground gas storage operating experience shows: the oil rim has a great impact on gas injection and production. Here, the underground gas storage in the Dagang Oilfield (G393) was taken as an example to study the oil rim impact mechanism. Firstly, the G393 gas reservoir developmental history was simulated, based thereon, the equations governing the distribution of gas, oil, and water in the reservoir before building the storage injection and production equipment was established. Then, the oil rim impact mechanism on the gas seepage of underground gas storage operation was studied using numerical simulation method and the factors affecting oil recovery from the oil rim for the gas diffusion were outlined. The result shows that oil rim may prevent seepage of gas, resulting in a one-way gas onrush, thus affecting the smooth operation of underground gas storage. In addition, crude oil recovery in the oil rim may affect the gas well’s production capacity, the lower the degree of recovery of crude oil, the harder for the underground gas storage to run quickly and smoothly. Finally, the most appropriate injection wells for the G393 fault-block gas storage were designed, by which process the oil production period was shortened to 8 years, ensuring stable and efficient operation of the underground gas storage.

Triptycene-based porous organic frameworks (POFs) with high BET (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller) surface areas and tailored micropore environments were prepared using a facile external knitting strategy. The functionalized POFs exhibited very high aliphatic amine vapor uptakes of up to 5 times their own weight and more than 30 times selectivity for aliphatic amines over n-hexane; thus, they provide new opportunities for environment-related applications.

Polymeric aerogels have great potential in numerous fields because of their unique combination of thermal and electrical properties, and lightweight porous structures. However, the laborious supercritical CO2drying method required for making these aerogels limits their commercial availability. Here we demonstrate a green and scalable method for preparing high-performance polyimide (PI) aerogels using a low-boiling-point solvent mixture of tetrahydrofuran/methanol, and especially using sublimation drying instead of laborious supercritical CO2drying. The monolithic and powder polyamic acid aerogels can be prepared easily; after thermal imidization, PI aerogels with nanofibrous morphology, low density and high thermal stability can be obtained. This green, scalable and cost-effective process will facilitate the application of high-performance PI aerogel materials in many fields, in particular those in which high-temperature resistance is important.

Malignant rhabdoid tumor is an aggressive neoplasm commonly arising from the kidney during infancy and childhood. Extrarenal forms of this tumor are relatively rare and have been reported in several extrarenal sites including central nervous system, liver, bladder, vulva, and head and neck. Hereby, we present FDG PET/CT findings of malignant extrarenal rhabdoid tumor originating from the vagina in an 8-year-old girl.

The purpose of this study was to characterize the hepatobiliary disposition of timosaponin B2 (TB-2), a natural saponin. Although TB-2 has multiple pharmacologic activities, the mechanism of its hepatobiliary disposition has not been explored. Because the metabolism of TB-2 is limited and the accumulation of TB-2 in primary hepatocytes is highly temperature dependent (93% of its accumulation is due to active uptake), the contribution of hepatic transporters was investigated. Organic anion-transporting polypeptide (OATP) 1B1– and OATP1B3-transfected human embryonic kidney 293 cells were employed. TB-2 serves as a substrate for OATP1B1 and OATP1B3, with the former playing a predominant role in the hepatic uptake of TB-2. An inhibition study in sandwich-cultured rat hepatocytes suggested that TB-2 is a substrate for both breast cancer resistance protein (Bcrp) and multidrug resistance-associated protein 2 (Mrp2), consistent with its high biliary excretion index (43.1–44.9%). This hypothesis was further verified in BCRP and MRP2 membrane vesicles. The cooperation of uptake and efflux transporters in TB-2 hepatic disposition could partially explain the double-peak phenomenon observed in rat plasma and liver and biliary clearance, which accounted for 70% of the total TB-2 clearance. Moreover, TB-2 significantly increased the rosuvastatin concentration in rat plasma in a concentration-dependent manner and decreased its biliary excretion, which corresponded to reductions in rosuvastatin accumulation in hepatocytes and the biliary excretion index in sandwich-cultured rat hepatocytes, representing a perfect example of a potential saponin-statin drug-drug interaction. These studies demonstrate that transporters (Oatp, Bcrp/Mrp2), but not metabolism, contribute significantly to rat TB-2 hepatobiliary disposition.

Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive malignancy that most often presents as an undifferentiated primary bone tumor; less commonly, it arises in extraosseous soft tissues of mesenchymal cell origin. Primary extraosseous involvement of seminal vesicle is rarely reported. Herein, we describe FDG PET/CT and MRI findings of a 55-year-old man who presented with a pelvic mass, which was confirmed to be primary Ewing sarcoma/primitive neuroectodermal tumor arising from seminal vesicle by histopathologic findings.

Background:Gastric cancer (GC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in microRNAs (miRNAs) are believed to affect the occurrence and progression of cancer by altering the expression and biological functions of miRNAs.Methods:The present scoping review aimed to discuss microRNAs SNPs (miR-SNPs) that were found to be associated with GC in the following two contexts: (1) the biological effects on GC based on SNP localization and (2) the associations between miRNA-SNPs and clinical factors (susceptibility, tumor size, metastasis, overall survival, and prognosis) of GC.Results and Conclusions:Information on miRNAs was collected, including the mutation site, proven target genes, and the possible impact on GC. We speculate that the SNPs of miRNAs (miR-499, miR-146a, miR-149, miR-148, miR-27a, miR-608, miR-196a-2) play a key role in GC, and the findings of this study may provide better insights into the versatile role of SNPs in GC.