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Diamond has an extremely high thermal conductivity, making it to have a great potential as a heat dissipation material. Based on the hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) technique, diamond thick films were deposited on silicon carbide substrates by using the multi-step method in this paper. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy were adopted for characterizing the samples. The influences of filament power, carbon concentration, and reactive pressure on the growth rate and quality of the diamond films were systematically studied. It is found that the diamond film with the best quality is synthesized by adopting a filament power of 1 600 W, a methane/hydrogen flux ratio of 18/300 (nucleation stage) and 14/300 (growth stage), and a reactive pressure of 4 kPa. The corresponding growth rate is 1.4 μm/h.

Isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood samples has important prognostic and therapeutic implications for cancer treatments, but the process is very challenging due to the low concentration of CTCs. In this study, we report a novel 3D printed microfluidic device functionalized with anti-EpCAM (epithelial cell adhesion molecule) antibodies to isolate CTCs from human blood samples. A 3D printing technology was utilized with specially designed interior structures to fabricate a microfluidic device with high surface area and fluid flow manipulation, increasing capture efficiency of tumor cells. These devices with the optimal flow rate (1 mL/h) and channel length (2 cm) were demonstrated to test three kinds of EpCAM positive cancer cell lines (MCF-7 breast cancer, SW480 colon cancer, and PC3 prostate cancer), and one kind of EpCAM negative cancer cell line (293T kidney cancer). Experimentally, the capture efficiency higher than 90% has been achieved, and the isolation of MCF-7 tumor cells from spiked human blood samples has also been demonstrated. Combined with DNA-based detection (e.g. polymerase chain reaction or DNA sequencing), the detection and analysis of released DNAs from captured tumor cells could be another future direction for clinical diagnosis and cancer treatment.

Heterogeneous catalysts for parahydrogen-induced polarization (HET-PHIP) would be useful for producing highly sensitive contrasting agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the liquid phase, as they can be removed by simple filtration. Although homogeneous hydrogenation catalysts are highly efficient for PHIP, their sensitivity decreases when anchored on porous supports due to slow substrate diffusion to the active sites and rapid depolarization within the channels. To address this challenge, we explored 2D metal-organic layers (MOLs) as supports for active Rh complexes with diverse phosphine ligands and tunable hydrogenation activities, taking advantage of the accessible active sites and chemical adaptability of the MOLs. By adjusting the electronic properties of phosphines, TPP-MOL-Rh-dppb (TPP = tris(4-carboxylphenyl)phosphine), featuring a κ 2-connected di(phosphine) ligand, generated hyperpolarized styrene achieving an over-2400-fold signal enhancement and a polarization level of 20% for 1H in methanol- d 4 solution. The TPP-MOL-Rh-dppb effectively inherited the high efficiency and pairwise addition of its homogenous catalyst while maintaining the heterogeneity of MOLs. This work demonstrates the potential of 2D phosphine-functionalized MOLs as heterogeneous solid support for HET-PHIP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LIF maintains self‐renewal growth in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) by activating STAT3, which translocates into nucleus for pluripotent gene induction. However, the ERK signaling pathway activated by LIF at large counteract with pluripotent gene induction during self‐renewal growth. Here, it is reported that in mESC STAT3 undergoes multivesicular endosomes (MVEs) translocation and subsequent secretion, LIF‐activated STAT3 is acetylated on K177/180 and phosphorylated on Y293 residues within the N‐terminal coiled‐coil domain, which is responsible for the interaction between STAT3 and Secl5b, an exocyst complex component 6B (EXOC6B). STAT3 translocation into MVEs resulted in the downregulation of T202/Y204‐ERK1/2 phosphorylation and up‐regulation of S9‐GSK3β phosphorylation for maintaining mESC self‐renewal growth. STAT3 with K177R/K180R or Y293F substitution fails to execute MVEs translocation and Secl5b‐dependent secretion. Mice expressing K177RK180R substitution (STAT3mut/mut) are partially embryonic lethal. In STAT3mut/mut embryos, gene expressions related to hematological system function changed significantly and those living ones carry a series of abnormalities in the hematopoietic system. Furthermore, mice with Secl5b knockout exhibit embryonic lethality. Thus, Secl5b mediated STAT3 MVEs translocation regulates the balance of ERK and GSK3β signaling pathways and maintain mESC self‐renewal growth, which is involved in regulating the stability of hematopoietic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Life's Essentials 8 (LE8) is a new indicator developed by the American Heart Association to assess cardiovascular health, including diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep health, body mass index, blood lipids, blood glucose and blood pressure. And more and more studies have shown that this index can evaluate other diseases, such as chronic kidney disease, abdominal aortic calcification and so on. However, there is no relevant study to evaluate the association between LE8 and psoriasis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between LE8 and the prevalence of psoriasis in American adults. Patients and Methods: The data are from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of the United States from 2003 to 2006, 2009 to 2014. Psoriasis was the dependent variable. LE8 is an independent variable and is divided into three levels: high, medium and low. Multivariate logistic regression model was used to explore the relationship between LE8 and psoriasis. Results: A total of 13430 people were included in this study, including 391 patients with psoriasis and 13039 patients without psoriasis. The prevalence of psoriasis was 2.91%. In the fully adjusted logistic regression model, LE8 score was negatively correlated with psoriasis (OR=0.99; 95% CI, 0.98– 0.99, P=0.0003). And this result still exists when LE8 is divided into high, medium and low groups. Compared with the low LE8 group, the high LE8 group had a 61% lower risk of psoriasis (OR=0.39; 95% CI, 0.26– 0.57, p < 0.0001). Conclusion: This cross-sectional study suggested that LE8 score was negatively correlated with psoriasis risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]