Search

Abstract Transforming growth factor (TGF)-β is a multifunctional cytokine expressed by almost every tissue and cell type. The signal transduction of TGF-β can stimulate diverse cellular responses and is particularly critical to embryonic development, wound healing, tissue homeostasis, and immune homeostasis in health. The dysfunction of TGF-β can play key roles in many diseases, and numerous targeted therapies have been developed to rectify its pathogenic activity. In the past decades, a large number of studies on TGF-β signaling have been carried out, covering a broad spectrum of topics in health, disease, and therapeutics. Thus, a comprehensive overview of TGF-β signaling is required for a general picture of the studies in this field. In this review, we retrace the research history of TGF-β and introduce the molecular mechanisms regarding its biosynthesis, activation, and signal transduction. We also provide deep insights into the functions of TGF-β signaling in physiological conditions as well as in pathological processes. TGF-β-targeting therapies which have brought fresh hope to the treatment of relevant diseases are highlighted. Through the summary of previous knowledge and recent updates, this review aims to provide a systematic understanding of TGF-β signaling and to attract more attention and interest to this research area.

Abstract Background and objectives The psychological problems of hemodialysis (HD) patients are prominent, and benefit finding (BF) have been proven beneficial to physical and mental health, fewer researchers explored BF in HD patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the current status of BF in patients with chronic kidney disease and to analyze the factors influencing it in order to provide a reference for subsequent interventions. Methods A cross-sectional study was done on 246 HD patients by convenience sampling in the hemodialysis center of a 3 A hospital in Shanghai from March to September 2019. The measures include General Information Questionnaire, Benefit Finding Scale, Perceived Social Support Scale, General Self-efficacy Scale, and Simplified Coping Style scale. Results The median (interquartile range, IQR) score of BF was 66 (IQR = 19) and it was lower compared with other chronic diseases. Significant differences in BF scores were found between different age groups, HD duration categories, and understanding degrees of HD. Taking BF as the dependent variable, the results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that age, duration of HD, family support, other support, positive coping, and self-efficacy entered the regression equation to explain 43.8% of the total variation. Social support played an indirect effect in the relationship between positive coping and BF, accounting for 54.1% of the total effect. Conclusion The BF of HD patients is worrisome and affected by many factors. Medical staff could pay attention to the positive psychology of HD patients, and construct individualized interventions according to the influencing factors to improve their BF level and achieve physical and mental health.

Highlights This review introduces the potential of 2D electronics for post-Moore era and discusses their current progress in digital circuits, analog circuits, heterogeneous integration, sensing circuits, artificial intelligence chips, and quantum chips in sequence. A comprehensive analysis of the current trends and challenges encountered in the development of 2D materials is summarized. An in-depth roadmap outlining the future development of 2D electronics is presented, and the most accessible and promising avenues for 2D electronics are suggested.

Highlights The photoelectric response of violet phosphorus (VP) is significantly enhanced by the MXene/VP van der Waals heterojunctions and the highest photoresponsivity of VP is demonstrated. The first VP-based optoelectronic synapse with essential synaptic behaviours is demonstrated. Proof-of-concept visual-olfactory crossmodal perception based on MXene/VP optoelectronic synapses is explored to mimic neuromorphic vision with multi-sensory interactions.

In order to study the influence of loading rate on infrared radiation energy of siltstone during loading failure, and quantitatively analyze the change law of infrared radiation energy of siltstone during loading process, the infrared radiation experiments of siltstone under uniaxial compression at different loading rates were carried out. The results show that the peak stress decreases with the increase of loading rate. Under different loading rates, in difference mode, the maximum infrared radiation temperature ΔTmax has a good correspondence with the stress change, which can better reflect the damage of the sample, and the maximum temperature difference of ΔTmax increases by 1.0-1.7 ℃. During the main rupture, cumulative infrared radiant energy increment ΔQ increases slowly with time. There is a power function relationship between ΔQ and mechanical work. With the increase of mechanical work, the cumulative infrared radiation energy increment increases first and then increases slowly. The range of infrared precursor ratio of specimen damage under different loading rates is 0.02-0.285, and decreases with the loading rate.

Abstract Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) is the second most common lung cancer worldwide, leading to millions of deaths annually. Although immunotherapy has expanded the therapeutic choices for LUSC and achieved considerable efficacy in a subset of patients, many patients could not benefit, and resistance was pervasive. Therefore, it is significant to investigate the mechanisms leading to patients’ poor response to immunotherapies and explore novel therapeutic targets. Using multiple public LUSC datasets, we found that Kallikrein-8 (KLK8) expression was higher in tumor samples and was correlated with inferior survival. Using a LUSC cohort (n = 190) from our center, we validated the bioinformatic findings about KLK8 and identified high KLK8 expression as an independent risk factor for LUSC. Function enrichment showed that several immune signaling pathways were upregulated in the KLK8 low-expression group and downregulated in the KLK8 high-expression group. For patients with low KLK8 expression, they were with a more active TME, which was both observed in the TCGA database and immune marker immunohistochemistry, and they had extensive positive relations with immune cells with tumor-eliminating functions. This study identified KLK8 as a risk factor in LUSC and illustrated the associations between KLK8 and cancer immunity, suggesting the potentiality of KLK8 as a novel immune target in LUSC.

Studying the anisotropic mechanical properties of cartilage induced by inhomogeneous structure is significant to prevent cartilage damage induced by overloading or fatigue and to develop biomaterials for tissue engineering. The depth-dependent fracture behavior of knee articular cartilage was studied by conducting the fracture tests on the clamped single-edge notched tensile (SENT) samples. The articular cartilage exhibited excellent load bearing capacity and ductility due to its unique depth-dependent matrix structure. The necking length of cartilage decreases through the depth of cartilage, while the peak tensile load first increases, then decreases in depth. The grow of crack in full-thickness cartilage starts in superficial layer at about peak load and the cartilage fails gradually once the crack begins to grow. The fibril network experiences irreversible damage with large area of collagen fibrils yielding before the fracture of full-thickness cartilage. Three fracture parameters, namely the stress intensity factor (K), the critical total work (CTW) and the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) are calculated to study the fracture properties of cartilage, and CTODΔa = 0.2 is employed to evaluate the depth-dependent initiation fracture toughness of cartilage. The fracture toughness of cartilage decreases along depth direction and the fracture toughness of full-thickness cartilage is close to that of deep layer. In addition, the superficial layer with external layer exhibits larger ductility and larger crack-tip blunting degree than the middle and deep layer of cartilage, and plays a vital role in fracture of cartilage. In addition, the fracture toughness of cartilage increases slightly with the increase of loading rate. The study could provide mechanical reference for repairing cartilage defects with artificial cartilage produced by tissue engineering.

Self-supervised learning has made significant progress in point cloud processing. Currently, the primary tasks of self-supervised learning, which include point cloud reconstruction and representation learning, are trained separately due to their structural differences. This separation inevitably leads to increased training costs and neglects the potential for mutual assistance between tasks. In this paper, a self-supervised method named PointUR-RL is introduced, which integrates point cloud reconstruction and representation learning. The method features two key components: a variable masked autoencoder (VMAE) and contrastive learning (CL). The VMAE is capable of processing input point cloud blocks with varying masking ratios, ensuring seamless adaptation to both tasks. Furthermore, CL is utilized to enhance the representation learning capabilities and improve the separability of the learned representations. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the method in training and its strong generalization ability for downstream tasks. Notably, high-accuracy classification and high-quality reconstruction have been achieved with the public datasets ModelNet and ShapeNet, with competitive results also obtained with the ScanObjectNN real-world dataset.

Abstract Histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) is a canonical chromatin modification associated with active gene transcription, playing a pivotal role in regulating various cellular functions. Components of the H3K4me3 methyltransferase complex, known as the proteins associated with SET1 (COMPASS), have been implicated in exerting cancer-protective or cancer-inhibitory effects through inducive H3K4me3 modification. However, the role of the indispensable non-catalytic component of COMPASS CXXC-type zinc finger protein 1 (CFP1) in malignant progression remains unclear. We have unveiled that CFP1 promote lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cell proliferation, migration, and invasion while impairing cell apoptosis through in vitro and in vivo models. In addition, high CFP1 expression was identified as emerged as an adverse prognostic indicator across multiple public and in-house LUAD datasets. Notably, CFP1 deficiency led to dual effects on cancer cell transcriptome including extensive inactivation of cancer-promoting as well as activation of cancer repressors. Combining this with the chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) analysis, we showed that CFP1 ablation reshaped the genomic H3K4me3 distribution signature, with prominent effects on TGF-β and WNT signaling pathways. Collectively, our study proposes that CFP1 mediates tumorigenesis by genomic histone methylation reprogramming, offering insights for future investigations into epigenetic modifications in cancer progression and potential therapeutic advancements.