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Purpose: Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common pathological type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and is closely associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and hepatitis B X (HBx) gene integration. This project investigates the cellular biological effects and molecular mechanisms responsible for lymphomagenesis and the progression of HBx gene integration in DLBCL. Methods: The integration of the HBx gene was monitored using sequencing technology, and variations in cell biological effects and related molecular mechanisms were investigated using exvivocell experiments, which were verified in experimental animals and clinical cases. Results: The data shows that clinical DLBCL cells demonstrate HBx integration, and the sequencing analysis validated enabled successfully constructed HBx transfected cells. Compared with control cells, HBx transfected cells had a significantly reduced proportion of mitochondrial membrane potential, obviously reduced signals of chromosome DNA breaks, and proportion of apoptotic cells. Therefore, HBx integration was able to cause the biological outcome of apoptosis reduction. Further studies found that this decreased apoptosis level is associated with a significantly reduced downstream of cleaved Caspase-3 and poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) proteins, revealing the molecular mechanisms of HBx-associated apoptosis in DLBCL. The animal experiments also demonstrated that the protein expression of cleaved Caspase-3 and PARP was prominently reduced in HBx transfected cells from a subcutaneous tumor in nude mice. Overall, the clinically observed expression of cleaved PARP proteins in tissues of HBx-positive DLBCL patients is lower than in HBx-negative patients. Conclusion: In DLBCL, HBx gene integration inhibits cell apoptosis through the Caspase-3-PARP pathway.

The turtle shell of biomass waste is used as raw material, and the natural inorganic salt contained in it is used as a salt template in combination with a chemical activation method to successfully prepare a high-performance activated carbon with hierarchical porous structure. The role of hydroxyapatite (HAP) and KOH in different stages of preparation was investigated. The prepared turtle shell-derived activated carbon (TSHC-5) has a well-developed honeycomb pore structure, which gives it a high specific surface area (SSA) of 2828 m2 g−1 with a pore volume of 1.91 cm3 g−1. The excellent hierarchical porous structure and high heteroatom content (O 6.88%, N 5.64%) allow it to have an ultra-high specific capacitance of 727.9 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 with 92.27% of capacitance retention even after 10,000 cycles. Excitingly, the symmetric supercapacitor assembled from TSHC-5 activated carbon exhibits excellent energy density and cycling stability in a 1 M Na2SO4 aqueous solution. The energy density is 45.1 Wh·kg−1 at a power density of 450 W kg−1, with 92.05% capacitance retention after 10,000 cycles. Therefore, turtle shell-derived activated carbon is extremely competitive in sustainable new green supercapacitor electrode materials.

In this work, N, P dual-doped molybdenum carbide/porous carbon fiber composites were simply fabricated through electrospinning technology, followed by pyrolysis. The obtained samples were composed ...

Fabrication of multicomponent materials is the most effective strategy to develop high-performance multifunctional catalysts. In this work, a series of bimetallic Fe–Co chalcogenophosphates were facilely prepared and used as bifunctional water electrolysis catalysts. The results have shown that the obtained catalysts showed high performances for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions, and overall water splitting. For the optimum catalyst, only 260 and 365 mV of overpotential for HER and OER, and 1.59 V of cell voltage for water splitting was needed respectively in 1 M KOH when 10 mA cm−2 of current density was reached. High stability and Faraday efficiency were also obtained, and the obtained results confirm that the catalyst is competitive in application in water electrolysis.

Considering the deferred and risk-free interest rates, this paper focuses on the impact of fairness concern on optimal strategies about pricing, green levels and sales effort in manufacturer-led green supply chain. The results show that in the scenario with fairness neutral, the optimal benefit under decentralized decision is always less than the centralized decision, and the risk-free interest rate is larger, the difference between the two is more obvious. While in the scenario with fairness concern, the fairness degree, product greening efficiency and the return on sales work together on the greenness, sales efforts and pricing decision of the product under the condition that the Nash-negotiation solution is used as a fair reference point. Although fairness concern behavior always achieves utility fairness by harming the other party’s revenue, the overall utility of the supply chain will grow to some extent under the manufacturer’s fairness-concern behavior, which is in stark contrast to the impact of retailer’s fairness concern.

Owing to various chemical structures and different basicity of amines, a fluorescent probe that could distinguish aromatic and aliphatic amines is highly desirable for practical applications. Herein, an olefin-based, fluorescent COF (COF-Py-AN) with unique π-electron deficient groups was synthesized, which was a functionalized platform to realize sensing of π electron-rich aromatic amines. COF-Py-AN displayed fluorescence quenching in the presence of aromatic amines like aniline, with excellent selectivity against a variety of aromatic molecules, and the detection limit of COF-Py-AN toward aniline was as low as 1.29 μM. More importantly, COF-Py-AN could realize discriminating between aromatic and aliphatic amines. Furthermore, density functional theory calculations showed that the photoinduced electron transfer mechanism contributes to fluorescence sensing. This is the first example of olefin-based fluorescent COF materials for selective sensing of aromatic amines.

Pure cyclodextrin (CD) is non-emissive in both solution and solid state. However, herein, three β-CD-based fluorescent bioprobes without addition of any external fluorophore were realized by hydrog...

Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) was incorporated into silicon carbide whiskers (SiCw) to improve their hydrophobicity. The solution casting method was employed to develop composite membranes of polyvinylidene fluoride (CTAB-SiCw/PVDF) with different feed ratios. FT-IR spectroscopic studies proved that CTAB was successfully incorporated into the SiCw. SiCw phase structure was maintained after modification by CTAB according to XRD results. SEM studies indicated that the surface became smoother with CTAB dispersal in the PVDF membrane. The dielectric properties of the composite membranes containing various amounts of CTAB-SiCw were measured at low temperature. It was found that the dielectric constant of the composite membranes with 13.0wt% whiskers reached a maximum value of 25 at low frequency, and decreased to nine at high frequency (from 500 Hz to 1 MHz ) at 0 ℃. The dielectric loss of each composite membrane increased with increasing temperature and reached a maximum value. The value shifted with corresponding frequency increases. In addition, the dielectric loss reached a maximum value of 0.2 when 16.7wt% of CTAB-SiCw was fed at each frequency (from -30 ℃ to 10 ℃). At room temperature, the dielectric constant could be maintained at 42 and the loss factor decreased to 0.8 at 100 Hz when 13.0wt% of CTABSiCw was incorporated. Additionally, TGA experiments indicated that the decomposition temperature of a PVDF membrane was increased by 10 ℃ and its heat resistance was improved by adding 13.0wt% of CTAB-SiCw. This PVDF composite membrane has potential for use as an insulator and capacitor.

Exploring effective electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a crucial requirement of many energy storage and transformation systems, involving fuel cells, water electrolysis, and metal-air batteries. Transition-metal oxides (TMOs) have attracted much attention to OER catalysts because of their earth abundance, tunable electronic properties, and so forth. Defect engineering is a general and the most important strategy to tune the electronic structure and control size, and thus improve their intrinsic activities. Herein, OER performance on spinel CuCo

Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality among women. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is responsible for a large percentage of all breast cancer deaths in women. This study demonstrated the function of Myb-like, SWIRM, and MPN domains 1 (MYSM1), an H2A deubiquitinase (DUB), in TNBC. MYSM1 expression was drastically decreased in breast cancer, especially in TNBC, suggesting a potential anticancer effect. Overexpressing and suppressing MYSM1 expression in TNBC cell lines led to significant biological changes in cell proliferation. Furthermore, MYSM1 overexpression increased cisplatin-induced apoptosis, which might be attributed to RSK3 inactivation and the subsequently decreased phosphorylation of Bcl-2 antagonist of cell death (BAD) (Ser 112). The findings suggest that MYSM1 is a potential target for regulating cell apoptosis and suppressing resistance to cisplatin in TNBC.

Background Drug resistance and recurrence are main contributors to the poor prognosis of ovarian cancer. Cisplatin is a platinum compound which is widely used in the treatment of various solid tumors including ovarian cancer. Up to now, the mechanism of cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer is unclear. Threonine and tyrosine kinase (TTK), an integral part of the spindle assembly checkpoint, may be a potential new target associated with chemotherapy sensitivity. Results TTK was up-regulated in the cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cell line. Down-regulation of TTK could recover the sensitivity of cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cells to cisplatin treatment. Mechanistically, the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway was activated in cisplatin-resistant cells, and this pathway would be affected by TTK expression. Furthermore, TTK was highly expressed in the tissues of ovarian cancer patients, especially those acquired resistance to cisplatin. Conclusions Our study revealed that TTK may be a promising therapeutic target for cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer.

Serous ovarian cancer (SOC) is the most common women cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related mortality among the gynaecological malignancies. Although effective chemotherapeutics combined with surgery are developed for the treatment, the five-year survival rate is unsatisfactory due to chemoresistance. To overcome this shortcoming of chemotherapy, we established taxol and carboplatin resistant SOC cell lines for the understandings of the molecular and cellular mechanisms of chemoresistance. Here, we found that these chemoresistant cell lines showed less viability and proliferation, due to more cells arrested at G0/G1 phase. Glutathione-S-transferases-theta1 (GSTT1) was significantly upregulated in these chemoresistant cells, along with other chemoresistant genes. Meanwhile, GSTT1 expression was also significantly upregulated in the SOC patient tissues after taxol treatment, indicating this upregulation was physiologically relevant to chemotherapy. Further, suppression of GSTT1 expression by shRNA in SOC cell lines led to more sensitivity to drug treatment, through increasing divided cells and promoting cell death. Moreover, the expression of DNA topoisomerase 1 (Topo I) was in synergy with that of GSTT1 in the chemoresistant cells, and GSTT1 can bind to Topo I in vitro, which suggested GSTT1 could function through DNA repair mechanism during chemoresistance. In summary, our data imply that GSTT1 may be a potential biomarker or indicator of drug resistance in serous ovarian cancer.

Fluorescent non-conjugated nanoparticles without any π-aromatic building blocks are of great interest in biological applications due to their low cytotoxicity and biocompatibility. Herein, the non-conjugated AIE-active polymer nanoparticles bearing β-cyclodextrin (β-CD-PNs) were obtained through self-assembly of amphiphilic poly(isobutylene-alt-maleic anhydride)-g-β-CD (PIMA-g-β-CD). Unexpectedly, β-CD-PNs without conventional AIE fluorophores showed strong fluorescence emission in the aggregated state, excellent photostability and water-solubility. More interestingly, β-CD-PNs showed excellent biocompatibility and low biotoxicity after being co-incubated with HeLa cells and passaged several times. As a result, the strong blue fluorescence signals could still be detected in HeLa cells after up to 15 generations of passages and showed complete cell morphology. Furthermore, β-CD-PNs could also be used in zebrafish for bioimaging. The results indicated that β-CD-PNs was a good choice as a tracer for long-term cell tracking and in vivo imaging agent. Our research provided an effective strategy for developing low-toxicity bioprobes based on β-CD.

Clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC) reprogram carbon metabolism responses to hypoxia, thereby promoting utilization of glutamine. Recently, sirtuin 4 (SIRT4), a novel molecular has turned out to be related to alternating glutamine metabolism and modulating the tumor microenvironment. However, the role of SIRT4 in ccRCC remains poorly understood. Here, we illustrated that the expression of SIRT4 is markedly reduced in cancerous tissues, and closely associated with malignancy stage, grade, and prognosis. In ccRCC cells, SIRT4 exerted its proapoptotic activity through enhancing intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is part of an endogenous defense system against oxidative stress. Nevertheless, overexpression of SIRT4 hindered the upregulation of HO-1 in von Hippel–Lindau (VHL)-proficient cells and repressed its expression in VHL-deficient cells. This discrepancy indicated that competent VHL withstands the inhibitory role of SIRT4 on HIF-1α/HO-1. Functionally, overexpression of HO-1 counteracted the promotional effects of SIRT4 on ROS accumulation and apoptosis. Mechanistically, SIRT4 modulates ROS and HO-1 expression via accommodating p38-MAPK phosphorylation. By contrast, downregulation of p38-MAPK by SB203580 decreased intracellular ROS level and enhanced the expression of HO-1. Collectively, this work revealed a potential role for SIRT4 in the stimulation of ROS and the modulation of apoptosis. SIRT4/HO-1 may act as a potential therapeutic target, especially in VHL-deficient ccRCCs.

Background Caldesmon gene (CALD1) plays an important role in many cellular functions. Some researchers have found the correlation between CALD1 expression and prognosis of gastrointestinal cancer (GI), but the association with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) still unclear. Methods The expression of CALD1 in different human tumor was analyzed by Oncomine and Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) databases. The correlations between CALD1 and prognosis in types cancer were explored by Kaplan–Meier plotter and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) databases. The association between CALD1 expression and tumor immune cell infiltration was further analyzed via TIMER and GEPIA databases. Results The CALD1 expressions in types cancer between tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues were significantly different. The high expression of CALD1 was related with poor overall survival (OS) of patients with gastric cancer, especially in gastric cancer patients at N1, N2 and N3 stages. The expression of CALD1 was positively associated with immune-infiltrated, such as CD8+T cells, CD4+T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells (DCs) in gastric cancer. Conclusions CALD1 was considerably a key role in prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. The expression level of CALD1 is significantly associated with immune-infiltrated in gastric cancer. Furthermore, CALD1 expression may be involved in regulating tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), dendritic cells, exhausted T cells and regulatory T cells in gastric cancer. These findings suggest that CALD1 could be utilized as a marker of prognosis and immune infiltration in gastric cancer., Highlights • CALD1 plays an important role in immune infiltration in gastric cancer. • CALD1 can affect the prognosis in gastric cancer patients with lymph node metastasis. • CALD1 plays a vital role in immune escape in the gastric cancer microenvironment., CALD1, immune infiltration, gastric cancer, microenvironment

On the basis of BODIPY platform, a terpyridyl-substituent BODIPY-Copper complex (Cu(II)-BTPY) was rationally designed and synthesized as a redox reaction fluorescent sensor for detecting HNO over reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) with impressive selectivity in living cells under mild and neutral conditions. The BTPY exhibits relatively high fluorescence quantum efficiency as much as 34.8% and presents large stokes shift, about 62 nm. When a series of transition metal ions were exploited to investigate the fluorescence quench towards BTPY, copper ion (Cu2+) gave the optimal result. After the fluorescence of the probe being effectively quenched in the presence of Cu2+, it can be in turn recovered through the reduction of Cu2+ into Cu+ by HNO accompanying with a visually observable fluorescence response. Still, the sensing mechanism was evidently confirmed by EPR and ESI-MS measurement. In addition, the employment of BTPY for imaging dyes was also presented in vivo.

In this work, several Mn-doped Co2P/N-doped carbon composite materials were facilely prepared through one-step carbonizing and phosphating treatments. The catalysts have exhibited high bifunctional catalytic activities for OER and ORR. Notably, the optimized catalyst Mn(0.1)-Co2P/NC exhibited high electrocatalytic activities for ORR (with onset/half-wave potential of 0.856/0.784 V vs. RHE, respectively) and OER (with an overpotential of 370 mV at 10 mA/cm2), which are very near to those of Pt/C (20%) and RuO2 noble catalyst, respectively. When the Mn(0.1)-Co2P/NC was employed as air electrode catalyst for rechargeable Zn-air battery, the battery exhibited a high open-circuit voltage of 1.351 V, a stable discharge voltage of 1.08 V, a high round-trip efficiency of 47.3% and excellent stability for 100 cycles at 10 mA/cm2, which is superior to the one using Pt/C (20%) + RuO2 as the air electrode catalyst.

Fine-tuning emission fluorescent bioprobes are highly desirable but still scarce for dual-alternating-color live cell imaging. Herein, a facile strategy has been reported to develop a dual-color nanoprobe for targeted cancer cell imaging. A new kind of nonconjugated polymer dots (Pdots) is prepared by the solution self-assembly of an amphiphilic 4-arm star polymer TPE-tetraPNIPAM-Eu(III) in aqueous media. The as-prepared Pdots show two well-separated emission peaks with a wavelength difference of 195 nm and possess a fluorescent-thermoresponsive property with a LCST at 37 °C. Furthermore, the efficient cellular uptake and low cytotoxicity of Pdots can be favorable for their applications in live cell imaging. The investigation of cellular imaging indicates that the photoswitchable dual-emission could be easily realized in targeted three cancer cells with a fluorescent label of Pdots by merely tuning the excitation wavelength. Therefore, this research may be of great help to open up a new and feasible path ...

Aim: To investigate the clinical significance of detecting several biomarkers collectively in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: 128 RA patients, 174 non-RA patients and 80 healthy controls were enrolled. HLA-DR4 and HLA-DR53 were detected by the PCR-SSP method, 14-3-3η protein, anti-CCP and anti-Sa were detected by ELISA and DD was detected by latex immunoturbidimetric assay. Results: The positive rates of HLA-DR4, HLA-DR53, 14-3-3η protein, anti-CCP and anti-Sa were obviously higher in the RA group (43.8, 38.3, 51.6, 80 and 40.6%, respectively); anti-CCP was of highest sensitivity (79.68%), highest specificity (97.5%) and Youden index (0.77). The AUC of 14-3-3η protein, DD, anti-CCP, anti-Sa were 0.813, 0.859, 0.930, 0.861, respectively. Conclusion: All biomarkers were strongly correlated risk factors for RA; the combination of multiple biomarkers might be of help for diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in RA of recent onset.

Fluorescence imaging, especially specific organelle imaging, has become a significant technology to comprehending cell transplantation, migration, division, fusion, and lysis. In this paper, we designed and synthesized a water soluble and fluorescent polymer named as Poly(AA-TPA-d), which was pH-responsive by the fluorescence channel due to the presence of poly acrylic acid as the polymer backbone. The research results demonstrated that Poly(AA-TPA-d) exhibits novel aggregation-induced-emission (AIE) property. Additionally, due to the hydrogen bond formation and C=O···π interactions between methyl acrylate groups, Poly(AA-TPA-d) was of excellent hydrogel formation ability. Moreover, Poly(AA-TPA-d) displayed good bio-compatibility with the living MPC5 cells and highly specific cytoplasm-targeting ability by MTT assay and cell staining experiment respectively.

In this study, thermoresponsive and mussel-inspired polypeptides were synthesized using ring-opening polymerization of α-amino acid derivatives of N-carboxyanhydride (NCA). The tissue adhesive properties of these polypeptides were evaluated using in vitro adhesive strength tests on porcine skin and bone. The results indicated that the species of the functional polypeptide side groups and the adhesive temperature have a significant influence on the adhesion strength. The maximum of the lap-shear adhesion strength on porcine skin was 101.2 kPa, and the maximum of tensile adhesion strength on bone was 603 kPa. The in vivo antibleeding activity and tissue adhesive ability were also evaluated using a rat model. These polypeptides exhibited superior hemostatic properties and healing effects in the skin incision and osteotomy gap, and the skin incision healing and osteotomy gap remodeling were completed in all rats after 2–9 weeks. These polypeptides are expected to be good candidates for surgical tissue adhesiv...

An Al2O3 material assembled by nanoflakes was used to prepare supported CeO2-ZrO2 catalyst via a deposition-precipitation method for oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene with CO2. Both unsupported and commercial Al2O3-supported CeO2-ZrO2 were prepared for comparison. It was found that the CeO2-ZrO2/nanoflake-assembled Al2O3 catalyst exhibited the best catalytic activity. The characterization results revealed that the slit-shape pores existing in nanoflake-assembled Al2O3 were responsible for the small particle size and high Ce/Zr surface ratio of supported CeO2-ZrO2 species. The dispersion of Ce1-xZrx(OH)4 precursors onto Al2O3 support surface during the deposition-precipitation process was proposed. The high dispersion and large numbers of surface oxygen vacancies of the CeO2-ZrO2 species on nanoflake-assembled Al2O3 contributed to the excellent catalytic performance in oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene with CO2. This kind of special Al2O3 is expected to be a promising support for preparing highly dispersed metal/metal oxide catalysts.

There are a lot of demands to develop abundant superior properties of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) polymers used in the aggregation state. Here we report a practical and versatile approach for the preparation of AIE polymers by conventional free radical polymerization. As an initiator, TPE-AZO has an excellent ability to initiate polymerization of various kinds of vinyl monomers to obtain AIE functional materials. It was found that TPE polymers emit multiple colors with wavelengths ranging from 370 to 482 nm, and they also exhibit the advantages of combining the AIE characteristic with unique properties of polymers. The fluorescence properties of temperature-sensitive TPE-PNIPAM, pH-sensitive TPE-PMAA, and counterion-sensitive TPE-PMETAC were investigated, and the results indicated that all of the responsive behaviors of the three TPE polymers were related to the change in fluorescence. Our versatile approach would provide a platform to fabricate AIE polymers with various superior properties using t...