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Although immunotherapy and targeted treatments have dramatically improved the survival of melanoma patients, the intra- or intertumoral heterogeneity and drug resistance have hindered the further expansion of clinical benefits.The 96 combination frames constructed by ten machine learning algorithms identified a prognostic consensus signature based on 1002 melanoma samples from nine independent cohorts. Clinical features and 26 published signatures were employed to compare the predictive performance of our model.A machine learning-based prognostic signature (MLPS) with the highest average C-index was developed via 96 algorithm combinations. The MLPS has a stable and excellent predictive performance for overall survival, superior to common clinical traits and 26 collected signatures. The low MLPS group with a better prognosis had significantly enriched immune-related pathways, tending to be an immune-hot phenotype and possessing potential immunotherapeutic responses to anti-PD-1, anti-CTLA-4, and MAGE-A3. On the contrary, the high MLPS group with more complex genomic alterations and poorer prognoses is more sensitive to the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib, confirmed in patients with BRAF mutations.MLPS could independently and stably predict the prognosis of melanoma, considered a promising biomarker to identify patients suitable for immunotherapy and those with BRAF mutations who would benefit from dabrafenib.

Background Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive tract which seriously endangers the health of human beings worldwide. Transcriptomic deregulation by epigenetic mechanisms plays a crucial role in the heterogeneous progression of GC. This study aimed to investigate the impact of epigenetically regulated genes on the prognosis, immune microenvironment, and potential treatment of GC. Results Under the premise of verifying significant co-regulation of the aberrant frequencies of microRNA (miRNA) correlated (MIRcor) genes and DNA methylation-correlated (METcor) genes. Four GC molecular subtypes were identified and validated by comprehensive clustering of MIRcor and METcor GEPs in 1521 samples from five independent multicenter GC cohorts: cluster 1 was characterized by up-regulated cell proliferation and transformation pathways, with good prognosis outcomes, driven by mutations, and was sensitive to 5-fluorouracil and paclitaxel; cluster 2 performed moderate prognosis and benefited more from apatinib and cisplatin; cluster 3 was featured by an up-regulated ligand–receptor formation-related pathways, poor prognosis, an immunosuppression phenotype with low tumor purity, resistant to chemotherapy (e.g., 5-fluorouracil, paclitaxel, and cisplatin), and targeted therapy drug (apatinib) and sensitive to dasatinib; cluster 4 was characterized as an immune-activating phenotype, with advanced tumor stages, benefit more from immunotherapy and displayed worst prognosis. Conclusions According to the epigenetically regulated GEPs, we developed four robust GC molecular subtypes, which facilitated the understanding of the epigenetic mechanisms underlying GC heterogeneity, offering an optimized decision-making and surveillance platform for GC patients.

Cancer drug resistance represents the main obstacle in cancer treatment. Drug-resistant cancers exhibit complex molecular mechanisms to hit back therapy under pharmacological pressure. As a reversible epigenetic modification, N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA modification was regarded to be the most common epigenetic RNA modification. RNA methyltransferases (writers), demethylases (erasers), and m6A-binding proteins (readers) are frequently disordered in several tumors, thus regulating the expression of oncoproteins, enhancing tumorigenesis, cancer proliferation, development, and metastasis. The review elucidated the underlying role of m6A in therapy resistance. Alteration of the m6A modification affected drug efficacy by restructuring multidrug efflux transporters, drug-metabolizing enzymes, and anticancer drug targets. Furthermore, the variation resulted in resistance by regulating DNA damage repair, downstream adaptive response (apoptosis, autophagy, and oncogenic bypass signaling), cell stemness, tumor immune microenvironment, and exosomal non-coding RNA. It is highlighted that several small molecules targeting m6A regulators have shown significant potential for overcoming drug resistance in different cancer categories. Further inhibitors and activators of RNA m6A-modified proteins are expected to provide novel anticancer drugs, delivering the therapeutic potential for addressing the challenge of resistance in clinical resistance.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are recently implicated in modifying immunology in colorectal cancer (CRC). Nevertheless, the clinical significance of immune-related lncRNAs remains largely unexplored. In this study, we develope a machine learning-based integrative procedure for constructing a consensus immune-related lncRNA signature (IRLS). IRLS is an independent risk factor for overall survival and displays stable and powerful performance, but only demonstrates limited predictive value for relapse-free survival. Additionally, IRLS possesses distinctly superior accuracy than traditional clinical variables, molecular features, and 109 published signatures. Besides, the high-risk group is sensitive to fluorouracil-based adjuvant chemotherapy, while the low-risk group benefits more from bevacizumab. Notably, the low-risk group displays abundant lymphocyte infiltration, high expression of CD8A and PD-L1, and a response to pembrolizumab. Taken together, IRLS could serve as a robust and promising tool to improve clinical outcomes for individual CRC patients.

The excavation and support of deep chamber has always been a difficult problem to be solved urgently. Through a case study on the 980 m deep chamber group at Xinhe coal mine of China, the present research conducts theoretical analysis on the excavation-induced failure mechanism associated with the neighboring chambers. Moreover, a suite of construction workflows are optimized based on Flac3D numerical simulation. The optimal construction workflow BA2A3A1A4A5 is determined by minimizing the damage volume VP of the plastic region subsequently. The main chamber and niche of the pump house are supported by combined support, and the non-used support is adopted in the early and late stages of the construction of the pump house. The FLAC3D numerical simulator is adopted here to model the support scheme. Results show that the chamber deformation is effectively controlled at the top, bottom, and both sides. Results from field monitoring indicate that the overall supporting effect to the roadway is decent. In order to design the mining sequence of chamber group, FLAC3D numerical simulation can be used to optimize the scheme, and the combined support method adopted by chamber group is reasonable and feasible, which can effectively control surrounding rock, and has good application value.

With the energy crisis and resource depletion nowadays, novel, highly performing, and cost-effective semiconductors are in urgent demand for efficiently harvesting solar energy for photoelectrochemical applications. Herein, this study presents low-cost anatase TiO2 hollow nanoparticles as prepared by a critical liquid-phase deposition (LPD) processing combined with a hydrothermal reaction and calcination processing, without involving any templates. The additional LPD processing not only makes the resulting samples more visible light responsive, but also results in hollowing the TiO2 nanoparticles (nanosheets vs. hollow nanoparticles). Importantly, commercial TiO2 powder is employed as the starting material to achieve the final synthesis of TiO2 hollow nanoparticles, making it scalable and cost-effective for production and applications. As a by-product, the fluoride, formed during the preparation process, is assumed to play a significant role in hollowing through chemically induced self-transformation and Ostwald ripening, in addition to enhancing the crystallinity. The beneficial structural evolution to the hollow nanoparticles enables the improvement of the photoelectrochemical performance through impressive inhibition of the recombination of the photoelectrons and holes, which is well evidenced by I ph and EIS (Nyquist plot), as well as by I–V curve and electron lifetime evaluations as for the assembled DSSCs with the prepared TiO2 hollow nanoparticles under simulated sunlight illumination (50 mW/cm2).

For the first time, a hierarchical phosphor Y2O3:Eu3+/MCM-41/YVO4:Eu3+, with a core–shell-core heterostructure, is presented in this study. Synergistically bridging the phosphors Y2O3:Eu3+ (as an inner core) and YVO4:Eu3+ (as an outer core) by amorphous SiO2, i.e., MCM-41 (with ordered mesoporous channels) leads to the generation of the core–shell-core heterostructure with enhanced red emission and tunable, broadened-band response to excitation. The novel structure of the core–shell-core hierarchical material is clarified through various characterization methods including X-ray diffraction analysis, transmission electron microscopy, selected-area electron diffraction and N2 adsorption–desorption measurements. Significantly, through temperature-dependent fluorescence investigation, it is found that our core–shell phosphor (Y2O3:Eu3+/MCM-41) exhibits impressive fluorescence stability against temperature variation (27–227 °C) due to the protective effect resulting from MCM-41. By contrast, lowered stability can be noted for the core–shell-core phosphor (Y2O3:Eu3+/MCM-41/YVO4:Eu3+), especially when the temperature is higher than 100 °C, owing to the outer core (YVO4:Eu3+ nanoparticles) that is directly exposed to heat. Such a kind of luminescent materials holds substantial promise for labeling the organisms that are vulnerable to short-wavelength UV light irradiation. Additionally, potential intelligent systems can be expected to be designed on the basis of the fluorescence mutation as triggered by the temperature of 100 °C.

Fuel ethanol is one of the most important alternative fuels used as a substitute for fossil fuel. Lignocellulose is the most abundant biomass resource for the production of fuel ethanol. However, the hydrolysis of lignocellulose requires high enzyme loading. In order to strengthen the process of enzyme hydrolysis of lignocellulose, surfactant-polyethylene glycol (PEG) was applied to the catalysis of lignocellulose into fermentable sugars. The effect of PEG on both the enzymatic hydrolysis and adsorption of cellulose were investigated. The addition of surfactant obviously facilitated enzymatic hydrolysis. In particular, upon addition of PEG4000, the enzyme catalytic efficiency increased by 51.06%. Meanwhile, the adsorption quantity of cellulase decreased by 11.25%. In addition, the mechanism of the effect of PEG on enzymatic hydrolysis and cellulase adsorption is discussed.

Anatase-dominated anatase/rutile mixed-phase TiO2 nanotubes were prepared by decorating TiO2 on the hydrothermally synthesized TiO2-derived nanotubes via liquid phase deposition and subsequent annealing. The morphology and structure of as-prepared TiO2 nanotubes were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectra, and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectra. The separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers was investigated by photoluminescence spectra. The photocatalytic activity was evaluated by methyl orange decomposition under UV illumination. The results indicated that the mixed-phase TiO2 nanotubes consisting of anatase and rutile (82/18 w/w) were successfully fabricated. Due to the synergistic effect of mixed anatase and rutile phases, the anatase-dominated anatase/rutile mixed-phase TiO2 nanotubes exhibited superior photocatalytic activity. The apparent rate constant k of the photocatalytic reaction for the TiO2 nanotubes with and without decoration was 0.0528 and 0.0126, respectively.

Anatase TiO2 nanoribbons/nanotubes (TiO2-NRTs) have been synthesised successfully via a reflux method followed by drying in a vacuum oven, and then, silver-coated TiO2 NRTs (Ag/TiO2-NRTs) were prepared by coating silver particles onto the TiO2-NRTs surface by the traditional silver mirror reaction. The physical properties of the synthesised products were examined in detail using X-ray diffraction, field emission gun scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. The results indicated that the Ag nanoparticles were uniformly deposited on the surface of the TiO2 nanoribbons/nanotubes. The electrochemical properties were investigated by a variety of techniques. The rate capability and cycle durability for the Ag/TiO2-NRTs were improved compared with TiO2-NRTs. It is speculated that the Ag-coated TiO2 nanoribbons/nanotubes are an effective anode candidate for lithium ion batteries.