Ion Current Rectification Activity Induced by Boron Hydride Nanosheets to Enhance Magnesium Analgesia.

The limited analgesic efficiency of magnesium restricts its application in pain management. Here, we report boron hydride (BH) with ion currents rectification activity that can enhance the analgesic efficiency of magnesium without the risks of drug tolerance or addiction. We synthesize MgB2, comprising hexagonal boron sheets alternating with Mg2+. In pathological environment, Mg2+ is exchanged by H+, forming two-dimensional borophene-analogue BH sheets. BH interacts with the charged cations via cation-pi interaction, leading to dynamic modulation of sodium and potassium ion currents around neurons. Additionally, released Mg2+ competes Ca2+ to inhibit its influx and neuronal excitation. In vitro cultured dorsal root neurons show a remarkable increase in threshold potential from the normal -35.9 mV to -5.9 mV after the addition of MgB2, indicating potent analgesic effect. In three typical pain models, including CFA-induced inflammatory pain, CINP- or CCI-induced neuropathic pain, MgB2 exhibits analgesic efficiency approximately 2.23, 3.20, and 2.0 times higher than clinical MgSO4, respectively, and even about 1.04, 1.66, and 1.95 times higher than morphine, respectively. The development of magnesium based intermetallic compounds holds promise in addressing the non-opioid medical need for pain relief.

Ultrafast Growth of Highly Conductive Graphene Films by a Single Subsecond Pulse of Microwave.

Currently, graphene films are expected to achieve real applications in various fields. However, the conventional synthesis methods still have intrinsic limitations, especially not being applicable on a surface with high curvature. Herein, an ultrafast synthesis method was developed for graphene and turbostratic graphite growth by a single subsecond pulse of microwaves generated by a household magnetron. We succeeded in growing high-quality around 10-layered turbostratic graphite in 0.16 s directly on the surface of an atomic force microscope probe and maintaining a tip curvature radius of less than 30 nm. The thus-produced probes showed high conductivity and tip durability. Moreover, turbostratic graphite film was also demonstrated to grow on the surface of dielectric Si flat substrates in a full coverage. Graphene can also grow on metallic Ni tips by this method. Our microwave ultrafast method can be used to grow high-quality graphene in a facile, efficient, and economical way.

Ultrafast Growth of Large Area Graphene on Si Wafer by a Single Pulse Current.

Graphene has many excellent optical, electrical and mechanical properties due to its unique two-dimensional structure. High-efficiency preparation of large area graphene film is the key to achieve its industrial applications. In this paper, an ultrafast quenching method was firstly carried out to flow a single pulse current through the surface of a Si wafer with a size of 10 mm × 10 mm for growing fully covered graphene film. The wafer surface was firstly coated with a 5-nm-thick carbon layer and then a 25-nm-thick nickel layer by magnetron sputtering. The optimum quenching conditions are a pulse current of 10 A and a pulse width of 2 s. The thus-prepared few-layered graphene film was proved to cover the substrate fully, showing a high conductivity. Our method is simple and highly efficient and does not need any high-power equipment. It is not limited by the size of the heating facility due to its self-heating feature, providing the potential to scale up the size of the substrates easily. Furthermore, this method can be applied to a variety of dielectric substrates, such as glass and quartz.

The role of RBM10 mutations in the development, treatment, and prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma.

RBM10 is the RNA-binding protein often absent or mutated in lung adenocarcinoma, rendering it as a potential biomarker or even therapeutic target to prolongate survival time. In this study, we investigated the involvement of RBM10 mutation in the pathogenesis and tumorigenesis of lung adenocarcinoma and identified the differentials in relative signal pathways, aiming to provide the new therapeutic approaches. By performing the systematic TCGA analysis, our results demonstrated that RBM10 mutation was identified in 6% lung adenocarcinoma patients, meanwhile 113 functional genes were identified as significant expression among these patients. Further gene ontology and KEGG analysis were employed to identify the most relative 10 genes and signal pathways. Moreover, four members of the 5-acyl-6, 7-dihydrothiophene [3, 2-c] pyridine (known as "ru-ski")-ru-ski 43 were identified as the potential drugs for RBM10 mutation lung adenocarcinoma therapy, investigated by the GDSC database. Meanwhile there were 157 genes that were more frequently mutated in the RBM10 mutation group than the wild-type group (p value<0.05). KEGG analysis showed that these genes were enriched in various cancer development pathways and cell proliferation. Finally, our investigations provided the glance at the differential genes and cellular signaling pathways related to RBM10 mutation and identified series of potential drugs for personalized RBM10 mutation lung adenocarcinoma therapy.

Relevance of STK11 Mutations Regarding Immune Cell Infiltration, Drug Sensitivity, and Cellular Processes in Lung Adenocarcinoma.

Serine/threonine kinase 11 (STK11) is one member of the serine/threonine kinase family, which is involved in regulating cell polarity, apoptosis, and DNA damage repair. In lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), it can play as one tumor suppressor and always be mutated. In this study, we aimed to assess the relevance of STK11 mutations in LUAD, in which we also studied the correlation among immune cell infiltration, drug sensitivity, and cellular processes. By performing the bioinformatics analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) about LUAD patients, we found that the mutation efficiency of STK11 mutations is about 19%. Additionally, the differentially expressed gene analysis showed that there were 746 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between LUAD patients with and without STK11 mutations. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) analysis showed that the DEGs were enriched in various tumorigenesis signaling pathways and metabolic processes. Among these DEGs, the top ranking 21 genes were found that they were more frequently mutated in the STK11 mutation group than in the wild-type group (p-value<0.01). Finally, the LUAD patients with STK11 mutations suffered the worse immune cell infiltration levels than the LUAD patients with wild-type. The STK11 gene copy number was correlated with immune cell infiltration. Aiming to develop the therapeutic drugs, we performed Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) data to identify the potential therapeutic candidate and the results showed that Nutlin-3a(-) may be a sensitive drug for LUAD cases harboring STK11 mutations. The specific genes and pathways shown to be associated with LUAD cases involving STK11 mutations may serve as targets for individualized LUAD treatment.

Tribochemical Behaviors of Onion-like Carbon Films as High-Performance Solid Lubricants with Variable Interfacial Nanostructures.

Onion-like carbon (OLC), spherical nanoparticles consisting of carbon shells, is capable of providing exceptional lubrication effects. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanism, especially the tribo-induced evolution of interfacial nanostructures and their correlation with the friction states, is not clear. In this work, OLC films with a thickness of ∼1 µm were synthesized by electrophoretic deposition on the mirror-polished stainless steel. The lubricity was evaluated by tailoring the sliding aspects including applied normal load, contact time, and counterface materials. It is found that the friction reduction level is highly dependent on the material transfer and transformation of the OLC surface and the physicochemical nature of the as-formed tribolayer in the contact areas. The subsurface of the OLC film always undergoes a deep amorphization transformation upon sliding. It is interesting to note that the tribolayer formed on the bare steel ball is mainly composed of highly ordered graphene-like nanoflakes derived from the sliding-induced degradation of OLC nanospheres. In comparison, the nanospherical carbon structure can be retained in the topmost subsurface of the tribolayer formed on the ceramic Si3N4 ball. Such a nanosphere-/amorphization-coupled interface is capable of providing a robust lubrication state under high contact stresses. The findings identify a new lubrication mechanism for the spherical carbon nanostructure, rendering them effective solid lubricants.

One Second Formation of Large Area Graphene on a Conical Tip Surface via Direct Transformation of Surface Carbide.

Graphene functionalized nanotips are expected to possess promising potential for various applications based on the outstanding electrical and mechanical properties of graphene. However, current methods, usually requiring a high growth temperature and identical crystal surface to match graphene lattice, are suitable for graphene formation on a flat surface. It remains a big challenge to grow graphene on a nanosized convex surface and fabricate functionalized nanotips with high quality graphene at the apex. In this work, a novel ultrafast annealing method is developed for growing large area graphene on Ni nanotips within 1-2 s. Few layered or multiple layered graphene is presented on the apex or sidewall of the conical tip surface. Direct experimental evidences support that thus-produced graphene is formed via the direct conversion of nickel carbide at the outer surface under the instantaneous high temperature, which is different from the conventional segregation mechanism. This newly developed ultrafast method provides a new route to produce graphene efficiently and economically, promising for both convex surfaces and flat substrates. Moreover, the graphene functionalized nanotips exhibit a great potential for nanoelectrical measurements and conductive scanning probe microscopy (SPM) applications.

Carbon Nanohorns Promote Maturation of Neonatal Rat Ventricular Myocytes and Inhibit Proliferation of Cardiac Fibroblasts: a Promising Scaffold for Cardiac Tissue Engineering.

Cardiac tissue engineering (CTE) has developed rapidly, but a great challenge remains in finding practical scaffold materials for the construction of engineered cardiac tissues. Carbon nanohorns (CNHs) may be a potential candidate due to their special structure and properties. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of CNHs on the biological behavior of neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVMs) for CTE applications. CNHs were incorporated into collagen to form growth substrates for NRVMs. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations demonstrated that CNHs exhibited a good affinity to collagen. Moreover, it was found that CNH-embedded substrates enhanced adhesion and proliferation of NRVMs. Immunohistochemical staining, western blot analysis, and intracellular calcium transient measurements indicated that the addition of CNHs significantly increased the expression and maturation of electrical and mechanical proteins (connexin-43 and N-cadherin). Bromodeoxyuridine staining and a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay showed that CNHs have the ability to inhibit the proliferation of cardiac fibroblasts. These findings suggest that CNHs can have a valuable effect on the construction of engineered cardiac tissues and may be a promising scaffold for CTE.

Morphology and chemical characteristics of micro- and Nano-particles in the haze in Beijing studied by XPS and TEM/EDX.

X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) is a useful surface sensitive tool to explore the particulate matter with different particle sizes. In this work, we report the analysis of elemental species in particulate matter with size ranging from 100nm to 10µm during the autumn haze of 2014 in Beijing. The size dependence of element composition and chemical state distribution on the particle surface was investigated. It was found that the number of investigated element species decreased from 8 (at stage 2) to 4 (at stage 10) with the decrease of particle sizes down to 100nm, which is in accordance with the result from Transmission electron microscopy (TEM/EDX) observations. Three chemical states of nitrogen, the amide group (399.9eV), the ammonium group (401.6eV), and the nitrate group (407.2eV), were confirmed according to the different binding energies. Nitrate was the main composition on the coarse particles, while the percentage of amide and ammonium at stage 3 (13.9% and 10.8% respectively) increased on the fine particles at stage 9 (46.8% and 38.8% respectively). The relative ratio of sulfate and ammonium (calculated 1:1) in the fine particles suggests that there is no enough NH4(+) to neutralize the sulfuric acid and the surface of the PM is acidic. The result is useful to investigate the generation processes and the sources of collected particles.

Beyond PM2.5: The role of ultrafine particles on adverse health effects of air pollution.

BACKGROUND: Air pollution constitutes the major threat to human health, whereas their adverse impacts and underlying mechanisms of different particular matters are not clearly defined. SCOPE OF REVIEW: Ultrafine particles (UFPs) are high related to the anthropogenic emission sources, i.e. combustion engines and power plants. Their composition, source, typical characters, oxidative effects, potential exposure routes and health risks were thoroughly reviewed. MAJOR CONCLUSIONS: UFPs play a major role in adverse impacts on human health and require further investigations in future toxicological research of air pollution. GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE: Unlike PM2.5, UFPs may have much more impacts on human health considering loads of evidences emerging from particulate matters and nanotoxicology research fields. The knowledge of nanotoxicology contributes to the understanding of toxicity mechanisms of airborne UFPs in air pollution. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Air Pollution, edited by Wenjun Ding, Andrew J. Ghio and Weidong Wu.

Electrochemical survey: the effect of the cage size and structure on the electronic structures of a series of ytterbium metallofullerenes.

The electrochemical properties of a series of metallofullerenes with different cages, namely, Yb@C74(II), Yb@C76(I, II), Yb@C78, Yb@C80, Yb@C82(I, II, III), and Yb@C84(II, III, IV), have been systematically investigated by cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry experiments for the first time. This article discusses the electronic structures of these metallofullerenes based on the results from these experiments. From previous electrochemical work and the above discussion, it is concluded that the nondegenerate LUMO is a common characteristic of the electronic structures of the higher fullerenes and monometallofullerenes. In addition, the effect of the cage on the electronic structure and properties of the metallofullerene is estimated from the plot of the reduction potential versus the carbon number of the metallofullerene. This estimation shows that usually the electronic structure and properties of the metallofullerene vary with cage size and structure. The cage structure is of particular importance for determining the electronic structure and properties. Moreover, an explanation concerning the abundance and stability of C82-based trivalent monometallofullerenes is given from an electronic structural standpoint.