Search

The deep oceans are environments of complex carbon dynamics that have the potential to significantly impact the global carbon cycle. However, the role of hadal zones, particularly hadal trenches (water depth > 6 km), in the oceanic dissolved organic carbon (DOC) cycle is not thoroughly investigated. Here we report distinct DOC signatures in the Japan Trench bottom water. We find that up to 34% ± 7% of the DOC in the trench bottom is removed during the northeastward transport of dissolved carbon along the trench axis. This DOC removal increases the overall DOC recalcitrance of the deep Pacific DOC pool, and is potentially enhanced by the earthquake-triggered physical and biogeochemical processes in the hadal trenches. Radiocarbon analysis on representative oceanic transects further reveals that the Pacific deep-water DOC undergoes distinct removal compared to those in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans along the thermohaline transport. Our findings highlight hadal trenches as previously unrecognized DOC sinks in the deep ocean system, with varying dynamics that warrant further investigation.

Purpose: This large two-part, three-arm phase I study examined the safety and tolerability of CC-486 (an oral formulation of azacitidine, a hypomethylating agent) alone or in combination with the cytotoxic agents, carboplatin or nab-paclitaxel, in patients with advanced unresectable solid tumors.Patients and Methods: Part 1 (n = 57) was a dose escalation of CC-486 alone (arm C) or with carboplatin (arm A) or nab-paclitaxel (arm B). The primary endpoint was safety, MTD, and recommended part 2 dose (RP2D) of CC-486. In part 2 (n = 112), the primary endpoint was the safety and tolerability of CC-486 administered at the RP2D for each treatment arm, in tumor-specific expansion cohorts. Secondary endpoints included pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and antitumor activity of CC-486.Results: At pharmacologically active doses CC-486 in combination with carboplatin or nab-paclitaxel had a tolerable safety profile and no drug-drug interactions. The CC-486 RP2D was determined as 300 mg (every day, days 1-14/21) in combination with carboplatin (arm A) or as monotherapy (arm C); and 200 mg in the same dosing regimen in combination with nab-paclitaxel (arm B). Albeit limited by the small sample size, CC-486 monotherapy resulted in partial responses (three/eight) and stable disease (four/eight) in patients with nasopharyngeal cancer. Three of the stable disease responses lasted more than 150 days.Conclusions: CC-486 is well tolerated alone or in combination with carboplatin or nab-paclitaxel. Exploratory analyses suggest clinical activity of CC-486 monotherapy in nasopharyngeal cancer and provided the basis for an ongoing phase II clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02269943). Clin Cancer Res; 24(17); 4072-80. ©2018 AACR.

Cooking oil fumes (COFs) are widely acknowledged as substantial contributors to indoor air pollution, having detrimental effects on human health. Despite the existence of commercialized in vitro aerosol exposure platforms, assessment risks of aerosol pollutants are primarily evaluated based on multiwell plate experiments by trapping and redissolving aerosols to conduct comprehensive in vitro immersion exposure manner. Therefore, an innovative real-time exposure system for COF aerosol was constructed, featuring a self-designed microfluidic chip as its focal component. The chip was used to assess toxicological effects of in vitro exposure to COF aerosol on cells cultured at the gas–liquid interface. Meanwhile, we used transcriptomics to analyze genes that exhibited differential expression in cells induced by COF aerosol. The findings indicated that the MAPK signaling pathway, known for its involvement in inflammatory response and oxidative stress, played a crucial role in the biological effects induced by COF aerosol. Biomarkers associated with inflammatory response and oxidative stress exhibited corresponding alterations. Furthermore, the concentration of COF aerosol exposure and post-exposure duration exert decisive effects on these biomarkers. Thus, the study suggests that COF can induce oxidative stress and inflammatory response in BEAS-2B cells, potentially exerting a discernible impact on human health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the upgrading of the traditional home industry, the deep integration of home design and Internet of Things technology is the development direction of modern smart home design, and it creates a comfortable, energy-saving and safe working and living environment for people. This paper designs an application scenario of the Internet of Things in smart home design, integrates smart home, Internet, Internet of Things and other technologies, designs the overall architecture, topology and IP address allocation scheme of the system, and realizes the intelligent door control and temperature control system of smart home based on the simulation platform. The whole network is connected to ISP Internet through home gateway and mobile data. After testing, the system runs stably as a whole, thus providing a solution for the application of the Internet of Things in smart home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the relationship between bacterial community diversity and free amino acid content during hand-rolled cigar processing, hand-rolled cigars were sampled separately from five processing stages including wrapping, moisture balancing, cigar freezing, cigar curing, and cigar packaging. The diversity of the bacterial communities was analyzed by high-throughput Illumina MiSeq sequencing technology, the contents of 18 free amino acids were determined by ion chromatography-integrated pulse amperometry. The data obtained were analyzed by Spearman correlation analysis targeting the relationship between the bacterial community structure and the amino acid contents. The results showed that: during the process of hand-rolled cigar rolling, 1) the overall richness and diversity of bacterial communities of cigars had a downward trend and were more affected by the moisture balancing process; 2) the dominant bacterial phyla were Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteriota with the average relative abundances of 51.75%, 35.80%, and 10.38%, respectively. The dominant bacterial genera were Acinetobacter, Oceanobacillus, Bacillus, Staphylococcus, and Klebsiella with the average relative abundances of 12.40%, 9.96%, 8.48%, 8.27%, and 4.21%, respectively; 3) the relative abundance of 9 bacterial genera groups changed significantly, which were Lysinibacillus, Corynebacterium, Sphingobacterium, Enterobacter, Aerococcus, Paenibacillus, norank_f_Mitochondria, Ralstonia, and Enterococcus; 4) the total content of the free amino acids generally had an increasing trend, among which aspartic acid accounted for the highest proportion, which was closely related to Sphingobacterium, Staphylococcus, and Paracoccus. In conclusion, the contents of amino acids are closely related to the community diversity of the bacterial during hand-rolled cigar rolling processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a microfluidic lung chip with membrane supporting cell growth that can produce multiple concentration gradients of gas and liquid is introduced. The chip is composed of a gas gradient layer in the upper part, a porous membrane supporting cell growth in the middle and a liquid gradient layer in the lower part. The gas-liquid interface environment of the cells on the membrane can expose the cells to the gas in the upper layer and the liquid in the lower layer at the same time. Then, the chip is applied to the toxicity testing of formaldehyde in A549 cells. The results showed that at 6 × 10−5 mol/L formaldehyde, the survival rate of the cells in four channels were 90, 87, 81, and 71%, which shows a dose-response trend under the influence of different concentrations of formaldehyde. ROS staining results also showed that formaldehyde exposure at 6 × 10−5 mol/L lead to the increase of ROS level in the cells. These results suggest that the chip based on cell growth on membrane could be used for toxicological evaluation of environmental polluting gases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]