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The widespread application of organophosphate flame retardants has led to pervasive exposure to organophosphate esters (OPEs), prompting considerable concerns regarding their potential health risk to humans. Despite hints from previous research about OPEs' association with breast cancer, their specific effects and underlying mechanisms of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects of four representative OPEs on cell proliferation, cell cycle regulation, migration, and the expression of genes and proteins associated with the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and Hippo signaling pathways in TNBC (MDA-MB-231) cells. Our findings revealed that treatment with 1–25 μM triphenyl phosphate (TPHP) and tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCIPP) induced TNBC cell proliferation and accelerated cell cycle progression, with upregulation in MYC, CCND1, and BRCA1 mRNA. Moreover, exposure to 1–25 μM TPHP, 10–25 μM TDCIPP, and 1–10 μM tris (2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP) induced MMP2/9 mRNA expression and enhanced migratory capacity, except for 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate (EHDPP). Mechanistically, four OPEs treatments activated the EGFR-ERK1/2 and EGFR-PI3K/AKT signaling pathways by increasing the transcript of EGFR, ERK1/2, PI3K, and AKT mRNA. OPEs treatment also suppressed the Hippo signaling pathway by inhibiting the expression of MST1 mRNA and phosphorylation of LATS1, leading to the overactivation of YAP1 protein, thereby promoting TNBC cell proliferation and migration. In summary, our study elucidated that activation of the EGFR signaling pathway and suppression of the Hippo signaling pathway contributed to the proliferation, cell cycle dysregulation, and migration of TNBC cells following exposure to OPEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The molecular profiles and tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) of multiple primary lung cancers (MPLCs) presenting as concurrent lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) remain unknown. We aimed to clarify these factors. We performed whole-exome sequencing (WES), RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq), and multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC) for five patients with concurrent ADC and SQCC. We found the genetic mutations were similar between ADC and SQCC groups. RNA-Seq revealed that the gene expression and pathways enriched in ADC and SQCC groups were quite different. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSVA) showed that nine gene sets were significantly differentially expressed between the ADC and SQCC groups (p < 0.05), with four gene sets relevant to squamous cell features upregulated in the SQCC group and five gene sets upregulated in the ADC group. Reactome enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes showed that the immune function-related pathways, including programmed cell death, innate immune system, interleukin-12 family signaling, and toll-like receptor 2/4 pathways, etc. were significantly enriched. Transcriptomic TIME analysis, with mIHC in patient specimens and in vivo validation, showed tumor-infiltrating immune cells were significantly more enriched and diverse in ADC, especially CD8 + T cells. Our results revealed that the transcriptomic profiles and TIME features were quite different between ADC and SQCC lesions. ADC lesions exhibited a more active TIME than SQCC lesions in MPLCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has implemented a series of ecological engineering projects to help achieve the 2060 carbon neutrality target. However, the lack of quantitative research on ecological engineering and the contribution of climate change to terrestrial carbon sinks limits this goal. This study uses robust statistical models combined with multiple terrestrial biosphere models to quantify the impact of China's ecological engineering on terrestrial ecosystem carbon sink trends and their differences according to the difference between reality and nonpractice assumptions. The main conclusions include the following: (1) since 1901, 84% of terrestrial ecosystem carbon sinks in China have shown an increasing trend, and approximately 45% of regional carbon sinks have increased by more than 0.1 g C/m2 every 10 years. (2) Considering the impact of human activities and the implementation of ecological engineering in China, approximately 56% of carbon sinks have improved, and approximately 10% of the regions whose carbon sink growth exceeds 50 g C m−2 yr−1 are mainly in the southeast coastal of China. (3) The carbon sequestration potential and effect of the Sanjiangyuan ecological protection and construction project are better than others, at 1.26 g C m−2 yr−1 and 14.13%, respectively. The Beijing–Tianjin sandstorm source comprehensive control project helps alleviate the reduction in carbon sinks, while the southwest karst rocky desertification comprehensive control project may aggravate the reduction in carbon sinks. This study clarifies the potential of China's different ecological engineering to increase carbon sink potential, and distinguishes and quantifies the contribution of climate and human activity factors to it, which is of great significance to the system management optimization scheme of terrestrial ecosystems and can effectively serve the national carbon neutral strategy. Highlights: • Reality and nonpractice assumptions are used to evaluate the impact of ecological engineering on terrestrial ecosystems. • Multiple terrestrial biosphere models show 45% of China's carbon sinks increase by more than 0.1 g C m-2 every 10 years. • SEPCP is more helpful in improving terrestrial carbon sinks compared to the other two ecological projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sorafenib (SOR) is a molecular targeting agent commonly utilized as a primary treatment for advanced and inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Regrettably, the effectiveness of SOR is frequently hindered by the resistance of multiple HCC cases. The current investigation endeavors to examine the potential of the natural product quercetin (QUE) in reversing the acquired resistance of SOR-resistant cells, known as Huh7R, to SOR. Moreover, this study aims to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanism that contributes to this phenomenon. The results demonstrated that QUE significantly impeded proliferation and stimulated apoptosis in Huh7R cells, while also suppressing the growth of transplanted tumors. The impact of QUE enhanced the efficacy of SOR treatment for Huh7R. Additionally, bioinformatic and western blot analyses indicated that the underlying mechanisms may be associated with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance, the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway, and HCC. Furthermore, molecular docking and dynamics simulation assays revealed that QUE exhibited strong affinity and stability towards its hub targets, EGFR and AKT1. It is noteworthy that the activation of EGFR by its ligand, EGF, mitigated the effects of co-treatment with QUE and SOR. These findings suggest that QUE might potentially serve as a therapeutic agent in treating as well as facilitating SOR against Huh7R cells, which has substantial clinical and research implications for the treatment of acquired resistance to SOR in HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the "sensitive area" of climate change, and also the "driver" and "amplifier" of global change. The response and feedback of its carbon dynamics to climate change will significantly affect the content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, due to the unique geographical environment characteristics of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, there is still much controversy about its carbon source and sink estimation results. This study designed a new algorithm based on machine learning to improve the accuracy of carbon source and sink estimation by integrating multiple scale carbon input (net primary productivity, NPP) and output (soil heterotrophic respiration, Rh) information from remote sensing and ground observations. Then, we compared spatial patterns of NPP and Rh derived from the fusion of multiple scale data with other widely used products and tried to quantify the differences and uncertainties of carbon sink simulation at a regional scale. Results: Our results indicate that although global warming has potentially increased the Rh of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, it will also increase its NPP, and its current performance is a net carbon sink area (carbon sink amount is 22.3 Tg C/year). Comparative analysis with other data products shows that CASA, GLOPEM, and MODIS products based on remote sensing underestimate the carbon input of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (30–70%), which is the main reason for the severe underestimation of the carbon sink level of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (even considered as a carbon source). Conclusions: The estimation of the carbon sink in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is of great significance for ensuring its ecological barrier function. It can deepen the community's understanding of the response to climate change in sensitive areas of the plateau. This study can provide an essential basis for assessing the uncertainty of carbon sources and sinks in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and also provide a scientific reference for helping China achieve "carbon neutrality" by 2060. Highlights: This study designed a carbon sink estimation method for Qinghai-Tibet Plateau by integrating machine learning and multiple scale ground- and remote sensed-based data. The estimated total carbon sink of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is 22.3 Tg C/year, accounting for about 10% of China's total carbon sink. The carbon sink of former estimation maybe greatly underestimated due to the underestimation of carbon input in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming has caused changes in the area and thickness of permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and prompted the transition from permafrost to seasonally frozen soil, which has affected the soil moisture, soil temperature, and distribution of plant roots. This, in turn, affects grassland vegetation productivity and aboveground/belowground biomass. In this study, we took Qinghai Province in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as the research area to model the spatial pattern of grassland biomass and then evaluated the potential influence of frozen soil type information on aboveground and belowground biomass. Our research shows that there are significantly more biomass observations in seasonally frozen soil regions than in permafrost regions. However, when we ignore the type of frozen soil, the model does not show more accurate simulation in seasonally frozen soil regions, mainly because the stronger correlation between permafrost biomass and environmental factors, such as precipitation, compensates for the lack of observational data. In addition, we found that the biomass estimation error can be reduced significantly by building different models for each type of frozen soil, which implies that the type of frozen soil has an important impact on grassland biomass. Therefore, in considering the effects of future climate warming, more attention should be given to the impact of changes in frozen soil type on regional vegetation productivity. In addition, our investigation contributes a benchmark dataset of above- and belowground vegetation carbon storage in different frozen soil types, which provides the research community with useful information for optimizing process-based carbon cycle models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution and global temperature change are expected to affect infectious diseases. Air pollution usually causes inflammatory response and disrupts immune defense system, while temperature mainly exacerbates the effect of vectors on humans. Yet to date overview of systematic reviews assessing the exposure risk of air pollutants and temperature on infectious diseases is unavailable. This article aims to fill this research gap. PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature were searched. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigated the exposure risk of pollutants or temperature on infectious diseases were included. Two investigators screened literature, extracted data and performed the risk of bias assessments independently. A total of 23 articles met the inclusion criteria, which 3 (13%) were "low" quality and 20 (87%) were "critically low" quality. COVID-19 morbidity was associated with long-term exposure PM2.5 (RR = 1.056 per 1 μ g / m 3 , 95% CI: 1.039–1.072) and NO2 (RR = 1.042 per 1 μ g / m 3 , 95% CI: 1.017–1.068). In addition, for each 1 °C increase in temperature, the morbidity risk of dengue increased 13% (RR = 1.130 per 1 °C, 95% CI: 1.120–1.150), infectious diarrhea increased 8% (RR = 1.080 per 1 °C, 95% CI: 1.050–1.200), and hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) increased 5% (RR = 1.050 per 1 °C, 95% CI: 1.020–1.080). In conclusion, PM2.5 and NO2 increased the risk of COVID-19 and temperatures were associated with dengue, infectious diarrhoea and HFMD morbidity. Moreover, the exposure risk of temperature on COVID-19 was recommended to be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze a class of nonlocal Poisson model on manifold under Dirichlet boundary condition. To get second order convergence, the geometric information of the manifold has to be incorporated in the nonlocal model. So the manifold is assumed to be given explicitly such that all geometric information can be calculated explicitly. Under this assumption, the well-posedness of nonlocal model is studied. Moreover, the second-order convergence rate of model is attained by combining the stability argument and the truncation error analysis. Such rate is currently optimal among all nonlocal models. Numerical tests are conducted to verify the convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering rare researches on wide-bandgap nonfullerene acceptors for ternary organic solar cells (OSCs), we reported a small molecule acceptor ITCN as the second acceptor for constructing PM6/Y6/ITCN ternary devices with better photovoltaic performance in this work. ITCN exhibits a large bandgap of 2.19 eV and a higher LUMO (the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital) than Y6, resulting in complementary optical absorption in the short-wavelength region and increased open-circuit voltage (VOC). As the content of ITCN increases, the hole mobilities increase continuously and the electron mobilities increase to a maximum value. Moreover, the incorporation of ITCN improves the nanoscale morphology and charge transport property to some extent. From PM6/Y6-based binary device to PM6/Y6/ITCN-based ternary device, the power conversion efficiency is increased from 15.01 to 16.04% with simultaneously enhanced VOC, short-circuit current, and fill factor. These results indicate that the design of wide-bandgap acceptors for high-performance ternary OSCs is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the effect of lake water backflowing on the aquatic ecosystem in the estuary, surface water samples in the backflowing and unbackflowing areas were collected from one typical estuary of Lake Taihu, Xitiaoxi River. 16S rRNA sequencing and redundancy analysis were conducted to quantitatively elucidate the correlation between microbial community and water quality parameters. Results indicated lake water backflowing would affect the relative distribution of nitrogen species and increase the concentration of total nitrogen (TN) and nitrate, especially in the outlets of municipal sewage and agricultural drainage. For backflowing areas, more frequent water exchange could lower the seasonal fluctuation of the abundance and diversity of microbial community. RDA results showed crucial water quality parameters that greatly influence bacterial community were total organic carbon (TOC), total dissolved solids (TDS), salinity (SAL), ammonia, nitrate, TN for backflowing areas, and TOC, TDS, SAL, ammonia, TN without nitrate for unbackflowing areas. Verrucomicrobia, Proteobacteria, Microcystis, and Arcobacter were dominant with 27.7%, 15.7%, 30.5%, and 25.7% contribution to the overall water quality in backflowing areas. Chloroflexi, Verrucomicrobia, Flavobacterium, and Nostocaceae were dominant with 25.0%, 18.4%, 22.3%, and 11.4% contribution to the overall water quality in unbackflowing areas. And lake water backflowing might mainly affect the amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism based on the metabolism function prediction. A better understanding of the spatiotemporal changes in water quality parameters and microbial community was obtained from this research to comprehensively assess the effect of lake water backflowing on the estuarine ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sparse large-scale multi-objective optimization problems (LSMOPs) widely exist in real-world applications, which have the properties of involving a large number of decision variables and sparse Pareto optimal solutions, i.e., most decision variables of these solutions are zero. In recent years, sparse LSMOPs have attracted increasing attentions in the evolutionary computation community. However, all the recently tailored algorithms for sparse LSMOPs put the sparsity detection and maintenance in the first place, where the nonzero variables can hardly be optimized sufficiently within a limited budget of function evaluations. To address this issue, this paper proposes to enhance the connection between real variables and binary variables within the two-layer encoding scheme with the assistance of variable grouping techniques. In this way, more efforts can be devoted to the real part of nonzero variables, achieving the balance between sparsity maintenance and variable optimization. According to the experimental results on eight benchmark problems and three real-world applications, the proposed algorithm is superior over existing state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms for sparse LSMOPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tunnelling-induced ground deformation can be affected by the existing tunnel(s) in overlapped tunnels construction, especially when the existing tunnel is in operation. Therefore, the effect of subway train vibration loads on the ground movement induced by overlapped shield tunnelling is needed to further investigate. In this study, model tests and numerical simulations were conducted to investigate ground deformation caused by overlapped tunnelling while taking subway train vibration loads into account. The research results indicated that with increasing tunnel clearance, the settlement trough appeared to be a much steeper U-shape. At d/D = 0.5, the maximum ground settlement increased by 37.5% along the transverse section and 30.6% along the longitudinal section compared to the case of the vibration-free condition. As d/D increased from 0.5 to 1.0, the maximum value of ground settlement decreased by 34.1% along the transverse section and 31.25% along the longitudinal section. The ground lateral displacement appeared to be biconcave and flattened with increasing d/D. Based on the test results, a model was introduced to predict the ground settlement induced by overlapped tunnelling coupled with vibration loads in subway train. The findings in this study will help evaluate the ground deformation caused by overlapped tunnelling considering vibration loads of subway train in operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we were devoted to explore the effect of solvent polarities on the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) process of 1-acetamido-4-hydroxyanthraquinone (AcHAQ) in three different polarity solvents (acetonitrile, chloroform, and cyclohexane) based on the density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) methods, and thereby regulating the distribution ratio between the dual excited-state isomers (enol and keto). The calculated geometrical parameters and infrared (IR) vibrational spectra have confirmed the excited-state intramolecular hydrogen bond (IHB) strengthening mechanism. Natural bond orbital (NBO) population analysis indicates that the intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) around IHBs has enhanced IHB, thereby triggering the ESIPT reaction. In addition, results obtained from the scanned potential energy curve (PEC) manifest that ESIPT process prefers to occur along the O3-H2...O1 IHB and energy barriers corresponding to the proton transfer in ACN are the lowest among all the studied solvents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Template-assisted growth of ordered nanomaterials was used to prepare periodic copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) nanoparticles on the Au(111) substrate. The structures were studied by ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscope (STM). At the first step, Fe atoms were deposited onto the reconstructed ( 22 × 3 ) Au(111) surface and they formed the array of triangular islands at the elbows of the herringbone reconstruction. High-purity CuPc molecules were subsequently evaporated to this prestructured surface at low coverages. CuPc molecules chose to adsorb at the edge of Fe islands and formed the flower-shaped ordered nanostructures. When the coverage reached ~ 1.0 monolayer, ordered CuPc nanoparticles situated on Fe islands with the self-assembled CuPc monolayer around. The method of template-assisted growth can be used to prepare other organic nanostructures which are stable at room temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changxing River, which is a typical inflow river into Taihu Lake and occurs severe algae invasion, is selected to study the effect of different pollution sources on the water quality and ecological system. Four types of pollution sources, including the estuary of Taihu Lake, discharge outlets of urban wastewater treatment plants, stormwater outlets, and nonpoint source agricultural drainage areas, were chosen, and next-generation sequencing and multivariate statistical analyses were used to characterize the microbial communities and reveal their relationship with water physicochemical properties. The results showed that ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) were the main pollutants in Changxing River, especially at stormwater outlets. At the same time, the diversity of microbial communities was the highest in the summer, and dominant microbes included Proteobacteria (40.9%), Bacteroidetes (21.0%), and Euryarchaeota (6.1%). The results of BIOENV analysis showed that the major seasonal differences in the diversity of microbial community of Changxing river were explained by the combination of water temperature (T), air pressure (P), TP, and CODMn. From the perspective of different pollution types, relative abundances of Microcystis and Nostocaceae at the estuary of Taihu Lake were correlated positively with dissolved oxygen (DO) and pH, and relative abundances of Pseudomonas and Arcobacter were correlated positively with concentrations of TN and nitrate nitrogen (NO3−-N) at stormwater outlets. This study provided a reference for the impact of pollution types on river microbial ecosystem under complex hydrological conditions and guidance for the selection of restoration techniques for polluted rivers entering the important lake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stool is the most commonly used sample for gut microbiota analysis in humans and animals. Cryopreservation of stool at − 80 °C is a feasible and simple method in clinics and researches, especially in large-scale cohort studies. However, the viability of bacteria in stool after freezing has yet well-demonstrated quantitatively and compositionally. This study determined the viable microbiota of samples under cryopreservation at − 80 °C, relative to fresh samples and that stored at ambient. Stool samples were collected from three healthy adults. Propidium monoazide treatment combined with quantitative PCR and 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed to target viable microbiota. After freezing, the number of viable bacteria decreased, though inter-individual difference existed. Notably, the alpha diversity of viable microbiota after freezing did not change significantly, while its composition changed. Freezing significantly reduced the viable bacteria in Gram-negative genera of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, and proportionally increased Gram-positive bacteria in genera of Actinobacteria and Firmicutes, including Bifidobacterium, Collinsella and Blautia, implying that the cell envelope structure associated with the bacterial sensitivity to freezing. On the contrary, the room temperature storage not only decreased the number of viable bacteria, but also decreased the microbial alpha diversity, and remarkably enriched facultative anaerobes of Escherichia-Shigella, Enterococcus and Lactococcus, some of which are opportunistic pathogens. Our findings suggested that changes in viable microbiota in stool samples caused by cryopreservation should be paid enough attention for downstream utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The somatotopic representation of the body is a well-established organizational principle in the human brain. Classic invasive direct electrical stimulation for somatotopic mapping cannot be used to map the whole-body topographical representation of healthy individuals. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become an indispensable tool for the noninvasive investigation of somatotopic organization of the human brain using voluntary movement tasks. Unfortunately, body movements during fMRI scanning often cause large head motion artifacts. Consequently, there remains a lack of publicly accessible fMRI datasets for whole-body somatotopic mapping. Here, we present public high-resolution fMRI data to map the somatotopic organization based on motor movements in a large cohort of healthy adults (N = 62). In contrast to previous studies that were mostly designed to distinguish few body representations, most body parts are considered, including toe, ankle, leg, finger, wrist, forearm, upper arm, jaw, lip, tongue, and eyes. Moreover, the fMRI data are denoised by combining spatial independent component analysis with manual identification to clean artifacts from head motion associated with body movements. Measurement(s) Functional brain measurement Technology Type(s) Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent Functional MRI Factor Type(s) Motor movements Sample Characteristic - Organism Homo sapiens Sample Characteristic - Environment Anthropogenic environment Sample Characteristic - Location China [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Quantifying the stock of soil organic carbon (SOC) and evaluating its potential impact factors is important to evaluating global climate change. Human disturbances and past climate are known to influence the rates of carbon fixation, soil physiochemical properties, soil microbial diversity and plant functional traits, which ultimately affect the current SOC storage. However, whether and how the paleoclimate and human disturbances affect the distribution of SOC storage on the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau remain largely unknown. Here, we took the Qinghai Plateau, the main component of the Tibetan Plateau, as our study region and applied three machine learning models (random forest, gradient boosting machine and support vector machine) to estimate the spatial and vertical distributions of the SOC stock and then evaluated the effects of the paleoclimate during the Last Glacial Maximum and the mid-Holocene periods as well as the human footprint on SOC stock at 0 to 200 cm depth by synthesizing 827 soil observations and 71 environmental factors. Results: Our results indicate that the vegetation and modern climate are the determinant factors of SOC stocks, while paleoclimate (i.e., paleotemperature and paleoprecipitation) is more important than modern temperature, modern precipitation and the human footprint in shaping current SOC stock distributions. Specifically, the SOC stock was deeply underestimated in near natural ecosystems and overestimated in the strongly human disturbance ecosystems if the model did not consider the paleoclimate. Overall, the total SOC stock of the Qinghai Plateau was underestimated by 4.69%, 12.25% and 6.67% at depths of 0 to 100 cm, 100 to 200 cm and 0 to 200 cm, respectively. In addition, the human footprint had a weak influence on the distributions of the SOC stock. We finally estimated that the total and mean SOC stock at 200 cm depth by including the paleoclimate effects was 11.36 Pg C and 16.31 kg C m−2, respectively, and nearly 40% SOC was distributed in the top 30 cm. Conclusion: The paleoclimate is relatively important for the accurate modeling of current SOC stocks. Overall, our study provides a benchmark for predicting SOC stock patterns at depth and emphasizes that terrestrial carbon cycle models should incorporate information on how the paleoclimate has influenced SOC stocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a valuable medicine food homology plant, Codonopsis Radix has been widely used in China. This study aimed to analyze the content of nine potentially toxic elements in three Codonopsis Radix varieties and evaluate their health risks to the human body. In this study, a total of 147 samples were collected from five provinces in China. The content of nine potentially toxic elements (Al, Mn, Cu, Cr, Ni, As, Pb, Cd, and Hg) were determined by ICP-MS. Results showed that the average contents of Al, Mn, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, As, Cd, and Hg were 486.81, 30.30, 5.59, 1.38, 1.24, 0.40, 0.20, 0.16, and 0.11 mg/kg, respectively. The Codonopsis tangshen Oliv. samples from Hubei showed the highest contents of eight elements (Al, Mn, Cr, Ni, Pb, As, Cd, and Hg) among three varieties, and the highest Cu level was found in Codonopsis pilosula (Franch.) Nannf. samples from Shanxi. The content of toxic elements in three Codonopsis Radix varieties showed significant differences (p < 0.05). LDA models facilitated the identification of three Codonopsis Radix varieties with a 91.2% classification score and 89.1% prediction score. Further, when Codonopsis Radix was used as food or medicine, both the hazard quotient values for single element and the hazard index values for nine elements (0.87 for food and 0.84 for medicine) were far below one. The carcinogenic risk values for Pb in Codonopsis Radix when used as food or medicine were 1.14 × 10–6 and 5.51 × 10–8; the values for As were 4.80 × 10–5 and 4.98 × 10–6, respectively. It indicated that under the current consumption of Codonopsis Radix, the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks from these potentially toxic elements were acceptable for consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Stability Community of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) held a virtual workshop on "Vaccine Stability Considerations to Enable Rapid Development and Deployment", on March 24-25, 2021. The workshop included distinguished speakers and panelists from across the industry, academia, regulatory agencies, as well as health care leaders. This paper presents a review of the topics covered. Specifically the challenges in accelerating vaccine development and analytical characterization techniques to establish shelf-life were covered. Additionally, vaccine stability modeling using prior knowledge stability models and advanced kinetic analysis played a key in the EUA approaches discussed during the workshop. Finally, the role of stability studies in addressing the challenges of vaccine distribution and deployment during the pandemic were a focus of presentations and panel discussions. Although the workshop did not have any presentation topics directly dedicated to the mRNA vaccines, the techniques discussed are generally applicable. The mRNA vaccine developers were represented in the panel discussions, where experts involved in the EUA approval/deployment stages for this vaccine type could discuss the challenges as applied to their vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Bacteriophage (phage) therapy has re-gained attention lately given the ever-increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistance 'super-bugs'. To develop therapeutic phage into clinically usable drug products, the strategy of solidifying phage formulations has been implemented to diversify the dosage forms and to overcome the storage condition limitations for liquid phage formulations. Method: In our work, we hypothesize and tested that an advanced technology, thin film freeze-drying (TFFD), can be used to produce phage containing dry powders without significantly losing phage viability. Here we selected T7 phage as our model phage in a preliminary screening study. Results: We found that a binary excipient matrix of sucrose and leucine at ratios of 90:10 or 75:25 by weight, protected phage from the stresses encountered during the TFFD process. In addition, we confirmed that incorporating a buffer system in the formulation significantly improved the survival of phage during the initial freezing step and subsequent sublimation step in the solidifying processes. The titer loss of phage in SM buffer (Tris/NaCl/MgSO4) containing formulation was as low as 0.19 log plaque forming units, which indicated that phage function was well preserved after the TFFD process. The presence of buffers markedly reduced the geometric particle sizes as determined by a dry dispersion method using laser diffraction, which indicated that the TFFD phage powder formulations were easily sheared into smaller powder aggregates, an ideal property for facilitating a variety of topical drug delivery routes including pulmonary delivery through dry powder inhalers, nebulization after reconstitution, and intranasal or wound therapy, etc. Conclusion: From these findings, we show that introducing buffer system can stabilize phage during dehydration processes, and TFFD, as a novel particle engineering method, can successfully produce phage containing powders that possess the desired properties for bioactivity and potentially for inhalation therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microstructure plays an important role in improving the sensing performance of pressure sensor. However, the design of microstructural active layer of pressure sensor usually involves complex process and expensive raw materials. Herein, the common polyester conductive electrodes and cellulose paper that both have inherent microstructure surface are combined to form two-sided microstructure interfaces for low-cost, eco-friendly and high-performance flexible piezoresistive pressure sensor. In order to obtain conductive and low-cost active layer paper, daily carbon ink, which is usually used for writing, is preferred as a conductive material. Meanwhile, we experimentally confirm that the proposed structure is also suitable for other conductive materials, such as carbon nanotubes. The results show that as-fabricated piezoresistive sensor has high pressure sensitivities of 5.54 and 1.61 kPa−1 in the wide linear ranges of 0.5 − 5 and 5 − 60 kPa, respectively, and good durability (5000 cycles under 2 kPa). The sensing mechanism of the piezoresistive sensor is analyzed by combining the characterization results and finite element simulation. Benefitting from the high sensing performance and good flexibility, the piezoresistive sensor is demonstrated for multiple wearable applications (e.g., wrist pulse, speech recognition, finger bending, abdominal respiration, counting steps, and pressure distribution). This work provides a simple and effective strategy for the design of piezoresistive sensor from the microstructure interfaces between electrodes and active layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of bioenergy will be a key component for meeting increasing energy demands while mitigating global warming. With the intent of identifying current topics of major interest and development of research directions in the field of bioenergy under climate change, we conducted a bibliometric analysis and network analysis from a country perspective based on 3050 articles published since 1999 derived from the Scopus database. The results indicated that USA, UK, and Germany led other countries in terms of number of publications (1006, 366, and 280 articles, respectively) and h-index (greater than 50) in this research area. The USA has also produced a large number of articles in highly respected journals. Compared with developed countries, some developing countries (e.g., China, India, and Brazil) have a larger proportion of publications which are cited less than 10 times and researchers who have academic age of 1 year. The number of publications dealing with some of these research topics coming from developing countries has lagged behind the number of similar publications coming from developed countries. In spite of this, research on sustainable energy systems is still needed for developing countries to further establish feasible systems that can effectively promote global economic development and strengthen climate change mitigation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of inorganic antibacterial agents that impart antibacterial properties to biomaterials has attracted wide attention. The paper introduced a kind of hybrid nanosphere antibacterial agent composed of wheat gliadin (WG) and zinc oxide (ZnO), with antibacterial efficacy and low toxicity. The ZnO/WG hybrid nanospheres were environment-friendly integrated by molecular self-assembly co-precipitating and freeze-drying transformation, and were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), specific surface and pore size analysis, bacteriostasis test, reactive oxygen species (ROS) determination and safety evaluation. It was found that the prepared hybrid nanospheres were composed of two components, WG and ZnO, with a diameter scope of 100–200 nm; the content of ZnO in the hybrid nanospheres can reach 46.9–70.2% (w/w); the bacteriostasis tests proved that the prepared ZnO/WG nanospheres generating ROS, have a significant inhibitory effect on E. coli and S. aureus; furthermore, the ZnO/WG nanospheres are relatively safe and highly biocompatible in cells and mice. Therefore, the prepared novel ZnO/WG hybrid nanospheres were supposed to apply in the preparation of anti-infective wound dressings, tissue engineering skin scaffold materials, food, and cosmetics preservatives, and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal-organic structures are controllably prepared by tuning molecular size, supported substrates, and different kinds of metals. They are characterized by ultra-high vacuum low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy and Density functional theory calculations. The relatively larger size of all-trans-retinoic acid (ReA) compared to (2E,4E)-3-methyl-5-(2,6,6-trimethylcyclohex-1-enyl)penta-2,4-dienoic acid (DiA) leads to a bigger gap between neighboring ReA in a tetramer and allows for insertion of molecules, forming high density patterns. ReA forms various structures with different ratios (4:0, 3:1, 2:2) of the two chiral enantiomers on the less reactive Au(111) other than Ag(111). Unlike transition metals, electrostatic attraction between molecules and alkali metals is the origin of the formation of large quartet islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stability of the shield tunneling face is an extremely important factor affecting the safety of tunnel construction. In this study, a transparent clay with properties similar to those of Tianjin clay is prepared and a new transparent clay model test apparatus is developed to overcome the "black box" problem in the traditional model test. The stability of the shield tunneling face (failure mode, influence range, support force, and surface settlement) is investigated in transparent clay under active failure. A series of transparent clay model tests is performed to investigate the active failure mode, influence range, and support force of the shield tunneling face under different burial depth conditions, whereas particle flow code three-dimensional numerical simulations are conducted to verify the failure mode of the shield tunneling face and surface settlement along the transverse section under different burial depth conditions. The results show that the engineering characteristics of transparent clay are similar to those of soft clay in Binhai, Tianjin and satisfy visibility requirements. Two types of failure modes are obtained: the overall failure mode (cover/diameter: C/D ⩽ 1.0) and local failure mode (C/D ⩾ 2.0). The influence range of the transverse section is wider than that of the longitudinal section when C/D ⩾ 2.0. Additionally, the normalized thresholds of the relative displacement and support force ratio are 3%–6% and 0.2–0.4, respectively. Owing to the cushioning effect of the clay layer, the surface settlement is significantly reduced as the tunnel burial depth increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Human sensory and motor systems deteriorate with age. When walking, older adults may therefore find it more difficult to adjust their steps to new visual information, especially considering that such adjustments require control of balance as well as of foot trajectory. Our study investigates the effects of ageing on lower limb responses to unpredictable target shifts. Methods: Participants walked on a treadmill with projected stepping targets that occasionally shifted in the medial or lateral direction. The shifts occurred at a random moment during the early half of the swing phase of either leg. Kinematic, kinetic and muscle activity data were collected. Results: Older adults responded later and corrected for a smaller proportion of the shift than young adults. The order in which muscle activation changed was similar in both groups, with responses of gluteus medius and semitendinosus from about 120 to 140 ms after the shift. Most muscles responded slightly later to lateral target shifts in the older adults than in the young adults, but this difference was not observed for medial target shifts. Ageing delayed the behavioural responses more than it did the electromyographic (EMG) responses. Conclusions: Our study suggests that older adults can adjust their walking to small target shifts during the swing phase, but not as well as young adults. Furthermore, muscle strength probably plays a substantial role in the changes in online adjustments during ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal-organic frameworks, an emerging class of porous material, have developed rapidly in recent years. In order to clarify the application of metal-organic frameworks in the field of environmental science, 1386 articles over the last 20 years were obtained from Scopus and analysed by the bibliometric method. And the collaboration between countries, institutions and authors and the co-occurrence of keywords were also conducted using VOSviewer. The results indicated that this area of research has entered a fast-developing stage. The number of articles published has grown from 7 articles in 1999 to 378 articles in 2018. The most productive country was China with 626 articles published. The most productive institution was the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the most productive author was Jhung SH from Kyungpook National University of South Korea. Although metal-organic frameworks have been widely used in adsorption and catalytic degradation of pollutants from the environment, the removal mechanism of pollutants by MOFs, the stability improvement and the cost reduction of metal-organic frameworks are still the main challenges for their practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phage therapy has gained prominence due to the increasing pathogenicity of "super bugs" and the rise of their multidrug resistance to conventional antibiotics. Dry state formulation of therapeutic phage is attractive to improve their "druggability" by increasing their shelf life, improving their ease of handling, and ultimately retaining their long-term potency. The use and selection of excipients are critical to stabilize phage in solid formulations and protect their viability from stresses encountered during the solidification process and long-term storage prior to use. Here, this review focuses on the current classes of excipients used to manufacture dry state phage formulations and their ability to stabilize and protect phage throughout the process, as discussed in the literature. We provide perspective of outstanding challenges involved in the formulation of dry state phage. We suggest strategies to improve excipient identification and selection, optimize the potential excipient combinations to improve phage viability during formulation, and evaluate new methodologies that can provide greater insight into phage-excipient interactions to improve design criteria to improve formulation of dry state phage therapeutics. Addressing these challenges opens up new opportunities to re-design and re-imagine phage formulations for improved efficacy as a pharmaceutical product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, it remains unclear how different approaches to early career publishing behaviors (e.g., publishing papers in the same journal or in different journals) may benefit a young scholar's career success. In this paper, we develop a quantitative understanding of this question, analyzing 2982 qualified authorships who have academic ages ≥ 5 years and publications ≥ 3 during the first five years of their careers from 37,542 publications in three fields of science. We defined author categories by three particular publishing behaviors, and determined how authors performed in their subsequent academic careers by using six bibliometric proxies. From the results of Welch's ANOVA and Games–Howell multiple comparisons test, we found that the best publishing choice included publishing some of the author's papers in the same journal. This early career publishing choice may produce a dramatic increase in career success as seen in higher numbers of publications and collaborators, and a higher h-index, with different magnitudes for different scientific fields and authorships. Our findings illustrate the role that early career publishing behavior plays in relation to future career success and indicate that in order to maximize career outcomes, an advantageous publishing strategy for early career scholars is to publish some of their papers in the same journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the surrounding of a visual target unexpectedly starts to move during a fast goal-directed hand movement, the hand reflexively moves along with it. This is known as the 'manual following response'. One explanation for this response is that it is a compensation for inferred self-motion in space. Previous studies have shown that background motion gives rise to both postural responses and deviations in goal-directed hand movements. To evaluate whether compensation for inferred self-motion is responsible for the manual responses we examined whether galvanic stimulation of the vestibular system would give rise to similar deviations in hand movements. Standing participants tried to quickly tap on targets that were presented on a horizontal screen. Participants could infer self-motion on some of the trials, either from galvanic vestibular stimulation or from background motion. Both perturbations took place during the hand movement. It took both the head and hand about 45 ms longer to respond to background motion than to respond to galvanic stimulation. The head responded in a similar manner to both types of perturbations. The hand responded about as expected to galvanic stimulation, but much more vigorously to background motion. Thus, the manual response to background motion is probably not a direct consequence of trying to compensate for inferred self-motion. Perhaps the manual following response is a consequence of an error in binding motion information to objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Both robot-assisted Ivor Lewis esophagectomy (RAILE) and conventional thoracoscopic-assisted Ivor Lewis esophagectomy (TAILE) are minimally invasive surgical techniques for the treatment of middle and distal esophageal cancer. However, no research studies comparing early outcomes between RAILE and TAILE have been reported. Methods: A retrospective analysis was made of 184 patients, 76 in the RAILE group and 108 in the TAILE group, who underwent minimally invasive Ivor Lewis esophagectomy between December 2014 and June 2018. Propensity score-matched analysis was performed between the two groups based on demographics, comorbidities, American Society of Anesthesiologists score, tumor location, tumor size, and pathological stage. Perioperative outcomes were compared. Results: Two conversions to thoracotomy occurred in the RAILE group. There was no 30-day in either group. Sixty-six matched pairs were identified for each group. Within the propensity score-matched cohorts, the operative time in the RAILE group was significantly longer than that in the TAILE group (302.0 ± 62.9 vs. 274.7 ± 38.0 min, P = 0.004). There was no significant difference in the blood loss [200.0 ml (interquartile range [IQR], 100.0–262.5 ml) vs. 200.0 ml (150.0–245.0 ml), P = 0.100], rates of overall complications (28.8 vs. 24.2%, P = 0.554), length of stay [9.0 days (IQR 8.0–12.3 days) vs. 9.0 days (IQR 8.0–11.3 days), P = 0.517], the number of total dissected lymph nodes (19.2 ± 9.2 vs. 19.3 ± 9.5, P = 0.955), and detailed categories of lymph nodes. Conclusions: RAILE demonstrated comparable early outcomes compared with TAILE and should be considered as an alternative minimally invasive option for treating esophageal cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aptamers have become the most promising recognition reagents in terms of early diagnosis and effective treatment of cancers. In this study, using cervical cancer as a model, we have identified a DNA aptamer specifically binding to cervical cancer cells with high affinity using the cell-SELEX (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) method, in which a negative selection was carried out using normal epithelial cells as control. The binding abilities of 6 selected truncated aptamers were determined by laser confocal fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry, while most of them only recognize the target cells and do not bind the control cells, and the aptamer C-9S with 51-mer shows the best binding affinity to Ca Ski cells (target cells) with a dissociation constant value of 19.3 ± 2.9 nM. Moreover, at physiological temperature, C-9S remains its specific recognition capability to Ca Ski cells as well. Meanwhile, C-9S shows a similar binding ability to another cervical cancer cells (HeLa). Therefore, on the basis of its excellent targeting properties and inherent functional versatility of aptamer, C-9S holds great potential to be a molecular probe for early detection, in vivo imaging, and targeted delivery for further researches in cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrations of eight trace metals (TMs) in road dust (RD) (particles < 25 μm) from urban areas of Xinxiang, China, were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The geometric mean concentrations of Zn, Mn, Pb, As, Cu, Cr, Ni and Cd were 489, 350, 114, 101, 60.0, 39.7, 31.6, and 5.1 mg kg−1, respectively. When compared with TM levels in background soil, the samples generally display elevated TM concentrations, except for Cr and Mn, and for Cd the enrichment value was 69.6. Spatial variations indicated TMs in RD from park path would have similar sources with main roads, collector streets and bypasses. Average daily exposure doses of the studied TMs were about three orders of magnitude higher for hand-to-mouth ingestion than dermal contact, and the exposure doses for children were 9.33 times higher than that for adults. The decreasing trend of calculated hazard indexes (HI) for the eight elements was As > Pb > Cr > Mn > Cd > Zn > Ni > Cu for both children and adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sevoflurane, an inhaled ether general anesthetic agent, exerts a variety of neurotoxic effects, including oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuronal apoptosis. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain to be elucidated. DJ-1 is a protein that exerts neuroprotective effects against different kinds of stress through multiple pathways. This study aimed to investigate the neuroprotective effects of DJ-1 against sevoflurane-induced neurotoxicity. Here, we found that sevoflurane treatment significantly increased DJ-1 expression in human neuroblastoma M17 cells in a dose-dependent manner at both the mRNA and protein levels. Interestingly, we found that overexpression of wild-type (WT) DJ-1 prevented sevoflurane-induced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO), deletion of reduced GSH, reduction of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and mitochondrial membrane potential. Interestingly, we found that WT DJ-1 could inhibit sevoflurane-induced apoptosis by modulating the mitochondrial pathway. However, its “loss of function” mutation DJ-1(L166P) exacerbated sevoflurane-induced neurotoxicity in M17 cells. Our findings suggest that WT DJ-1 protects neuronal cells against sevoflurane-induced neurotoxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When reaching towards an object while standing, one’s hand responds very quickly to visual perturbations such as the target being displaced or the background moving. Such responses require postural adjustments. When the background moves, its motion might be attributed to self-motion in a stable world, and thereby induce compensatory postural adjustments that affect the hand. The changes in posture associated with a given hand movement response may, therefore, be different for the two types of perturbations. To see whether they are, we asked standing participants to move their hand in the sagittal direction away from their body to targets displayed on a horizontal screen in front of them. The target displacements and background motion were in the lateral direction. We found hand movement responses that were in line with earlier reports, with a latency that was slightly shorter for target displacements than for background motion, and that was independent of target displacement size or background motion speed. The trunk responded to both perturbations with a modest lateral sway. The two main findings were that the upper trunk responded even before the hand did so and that the head responded to background motion but hardly responded to target displacements. These findings suggest that postural adjustments associated with adjusting the hand movement precede the actual adjustments to the movement of the hand, while at the same time, participants try to keep their head stable on the basis of visual information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aptamers are short single-stranded DNA or RNA, which can be selected in vitro by systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX). In order to develop novel light-up probes to substitute G-quadruplex (G4), we selected a DNA aptamer for crystal violet (CV), a triphenylmethane light-up dye, by a modified affinity chromatography-based SELEX. The ssDNA pool was first coupled on streptavidin-coated agarose beads through a biotin labeled complementary oligonucleotide, and then the aptamer sequences would be released from agarose beads by CV affinity. This method is simple, straightforward and effective. The aptamer sequence with a low micromolar dissociation constant (Kd) and good specificity was achieved after 11 rounds of selection. The light-up properties of the CV–aptamer were also investigated, and the CV showed dramatic fluorescence enhancement. The CV–aptamer pair could be further used as a novel light-up fluorescent probe to design biosensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly regulated γ-FeO/(SiO)-SOH/polypyrrole (FSHP) composite core/shell/shell microspheres are successfully prepared through a SiO sol-gel process and an in situ polymerization of pyrrole monomers. γ-FeO functions as the 'core,' whereas SiO and polypyrrole (PPy) act as the 'shells' of the composite. In contrast to many previously reported FSH-P and PPy-based composites, the FSHP composites display substantially improved microwave absorption properties, which can reach nearly − 43.1 dB (15.1 GHz) with a broader effective absorption bandwidth (RL < − 10 dB) of 6.1 GHz. The excellent microwave-absorbing properties of the FSHP composites are closely associated with the layer of SiO shells and can be attributed to the proper impedance matching and synergistic interaction of the special core/shell/shell structures, dielectric loss (SiO and PPy layers) and magnetic loss (γ-FeO). These results show that the core/shell/shell structure may be an efficient and promising way to improve microwave absorption properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A G-quadruplex-based fluorescent biosensor for highly sensitive detection of barium ion (Ba) was constructed for the first time. In the absence of Ba, the G-quadruplex-specific fluorescence ligand N-methyl mesoporphyrin IX (NMM) remained weakly fluorescent when coexisted with a single-stranded G-quadruplex sequence AGRO100. Upon addition of Ba, AGRO100 was folded into G-quadruplex structures with the aid of Ba, which bound with NMM by stacking forces and significantly enhanced its fluorescence. The maximum fluorescence intensity of NMM was increased by ca. 22-fold in response to 1 μM Ba. This simple method exhibites a good linear relationship in the range of 0-600 nM with the detection limit of 4 nM. The detection method is turn-on, fast, economic, high in signal-to-noise ratio and free of participation of toxic organic solvents, demonstrating its great potential for on-site and real-time Ba detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) toxicity equivalency quantity (TEQ, denoted by benzo(a)pyrene equivalent (BaP) concentration) is more meaningful when evaluating the influence of non-road diesel engines PAH toxicity on environment. Particle- and gas-phase PAH BaPeq concentrations were calculated based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) results and toxic equivalency factors. A non-thermal plasma (NTP) reactor was applied to a non-road diesel engine to decrease PAH TEQ content. Only the gas-phase Nap BaP concentration increased slightly with the action of NTP at three different generator power outputs. BaP dominated the BaP concentration for 15 samples with, and without NTP except in the gas-phase at 4 kW. Almost all medium molecular weight (MMW) and high molecular weight (HMW) PAH TEQs increased for particle- and gas-phases at 3 kW power output compared to 2 kW without the use of NTP. Particle-phase Nap, Acp, and AcPy (low molecular weight, LMW) TEQ were under detection at 3 and 4 kW, while gas-phase BkF, IND, DBA, and BghiP (HMW) concentrations were below the limits of detection. The most abundant PAH TEQ compounds were MMW and HMW PAHs for gas- and particle-phase while they were BaA, CHR, BbF, BaP, and IND for PM aggregation. The total BaP emission factors were 15.1, 141.4, and 46.5 μg m at three engine loads, respectively. Significant BaP concentration percentage reduction was obtained (more than 80 and 60 %) with the use of NTP for particle- and gas-phases. A high TEQ content was observed for PM aggregation (38.8, 98.4, and 50.0 μg kg) which may have caused secondary PAH toxicity emissions. With the action of NTP, the breakup of MMW and HMW into LMW PAHs led to reduction of some PAH concentrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) is a member of cyclin-dependent kinase family which regulates G1 to S cell cycle transition. CDK4 activity is increased in many tumor types. Here, we report a negative automodulatory feedback loop between CDK4 and miR-16 that regulates cell cycle progression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). By miRNA array and real-time PCR, we identified upregulation of tumor suppressor miR-16a, which inhibited cell cycle progression and sensitized NPC cells to chemotherapy. CDK4 knockdown reduced the expression of c-Myc, the latter of which directly suppresses the miR-16 expression by directly binding to the miR-16 promoter. Moreover, we found that miR-16 upregulation could reduce CDK4 expression by repressing CCND1 and thus forms a feedback loop via the CDK4/c-Myc/miR-16/CCND1 pathway. Finally, miR-16 was negatively correlated with CDK4 expression in NPC biopsies. In summary, our results define a double-negative feedback loop involving CDK4 and miR-16 mediated by c-Myc that modulates NPC cell growth and chemotherapy sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ozone treatment is a common way to functionalize commercial multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with various oxygen functionalities like carboxyl, phenol and lactone groups, in order to enhance their textural properties and chemical activity. In order to detail the effect of each functional group, we correlated the activity with the surface density of each group, and found that the carboxyl groups play a pivotal role in two important catalytic reactions, namely the electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and agar conversion to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). During the processes, the hydrophilic surface provides a strong affinity for reaction substrates while the improved porosity allows the efficient diffusion of reactants and products. Furthermore, the activity of functionalized CNTs for agar conversion remained almost unchanged during nine cycles of reaction. This work highlights a strategy for improving the activity of CNTs for electrochemical ORR and agar conversion reactions, as well a promising application of carboxyl-rich CNTs as a solid acid catalyst to produce high-purity HMF-an important chemical intermediate. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation is catalyzed by a family of enzymes known as PARPs. We describe a method to characterize the human aspartic acid- and glutamic acid-ADP-ribosylated proteome. We identified 1,048 ADP-ribosylation sites on 340 proteins involved in a wide array of nuclear functions; among these were many previously unknown PARP downstream targets whose ADP-ribosylation was sensitive to PARP inhibitor treatment. We also confirmed that iniparib had a negligible effect on PARP activity in intact cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The differentially expressed in adenocarcinoma of the lung-1 (DAL-1) protein is a member of the membrane-associated cytoskeleton protein 4.1 family. This protein was previously found to be downregulated or lost in more than half of primary non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). In this study, the relationship between DAL-1 expression and NSCLC metastasis was examined. DAL-1 mRNA and protein levels were measured in NSCLC cell lines and in tumor cells isolated from the pleural fluid of NSCLC patients clinically diagnosed with distant metastases to the bone or brain. The results revealed that DAL-1 expression was observed in two (GLC-82 and NCI-H460) out of seven metastatic NSCLC cell lines examined. DAL-1 expression was not observed in the cells isolated from the pleural fluid in nine out of ten patients. Overexpression of DAL-1 in A549 cells, a cell line lacking endogenous DAL-1, inhibited cell migration and invasion by approximately 38 and 48 %, respectively. In contrast, DAL-1 knockdown in NCI-H460 cells enhanced the migration and invasion potential of this cell line 4.6- and 3-fold, respectively. Furthermore, DAL-1 promoter methylation was observed in six of nine pleural fluid NSCLC cell isolates and in two cell lines (A549 and H1299), as evidenced by a lack of endogenous DAL-1. Demethylation in A549 cells successfully restored DAL-1 mRNA and protein expression levels, resulting in a parallel remarkable inhibition of migration and invasion. These results indicated that DAL-1 was pivotal in triggering NSCLC migration and invasion and that loss of DAL-1 expression was due to the epigenetic methylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrical conductivity, compression sensibility, workability and cost are factors that affect the application of conductive smart materials in civil structures. Consequently, the resistance and compression sensibility of magnetic-concentrated fly ash (MCFA) mortar were investigated using two electrode method, and the difference of compression sensibility between MCFA mortar and carbon fiber reinforced cement (CFRC) under uniaxial loading was studied. Factors affecting the compression sensibility of MCFA mortar, such as MCFA content, loading rate and stress cycles, were analyzed. Results show that fly ash with high content of FeO can be used to prepare conductive mortar since FeO is a kind of nonstoichiometric oxide and usually acts as semiconductor. MCFA mortar exhibits the same electrical conductivity to that of CFRC when the content of MCFA is more than 40% by weight of sample. The compression sensibility of mortar is improved with the increase of MCFA content and loading rate. The compression sensibility of MCFA mortar is reversible with the circling of loading. Results show that the application of MCFA in concrete not only provides excellent performances of electrical-functionality and workability, but also reduces the cost of conductive concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temperature-dependent disassembly process of three monomeric isoforms, namely Lhcb1, Lhcb2, and Lhcb3, of the major light-harvesting chlorophyll (Chl) a/ b complexes of photosystem II (LHCIIb) were characterized by observing the changes of absorption spectra, circular dichroism (CD), and dissociation processes of the bound pigments to the in vitro reconstituted complexes subjected to high temperatures. Our results suggest that the three isoforms of LHCIIb undergo conformational rearrangements, structural changes, and dissociations of the bound pigments when the ambient temperature increases from 20 to 90°C. The conformation of the complexes changed sensitively to the changing temperatures because the absorption peaks in the Soret region (436 and 471 nm) and the Qy region (650-660 and 680 nm) decreased immediately upon elevating the ambient temperatures. Analyzing temperature-dependent denaturing and pigment dissociation process, we can divide the disassembly process into three stages: The first stage, appeared from 20°C to around 50-60°C, was characterized by the diminishment of the absorption around 650-660 and 680 nm, accompanied by the blue-shift of the peak at 471 nm and disappearance of the absorbance at 436 nm, which is related to changes in the transition energy of the Chl b cluster, and the red-most Chl a cluster in the LHCIIb. The second stage, beginning at about 50-60°C, was signified by the diminishment of the CD signal between (+)483 nm and (−)490 nm, which implied the disturbance of dipole-dipole interaction of pigments, and the onset of the pigment dissociation. The last stage, beginning at about 70-80°C, indicates the complete dissociation of the pigments from the complex. The physiological aspects of the three stages in the denaturing process are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) nanoribbon field-effect transistors were implemented as chemical sensors. They showed fast response and high reversibility in the detection of the tetrahydrofuran atmosphere at room temperature. The drain current of the field-effect transistor sensor decreased from 6.7 to 0.2 nA when the transistor was measured under the tetrahydrofuran atmosphere. The sensor was self-refreshable in a few minutes. These results demonstrate that the organic single crystalline nanoribbon transistors could effectively act as chemical sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]