Porous Poly(ionic Liquid) Membrane with Metal Nanoparticle Gradient: A Smart Actuator for Visualizing Chemical Reactions.

Poly(ionic liquid) (PIL)-based porous membranes are extensively investigated as soft polymer actuators. While PILs have shown significant advancements in membrane fabrication and stabilization of metal nanoparticles (MNPs), research on integrating MNPs into porous membranes to achieve actuation behavior under multiple stimuli is limited. Herein, this work presents a new paradigm for designing a porous PIL-polyacrylic acid (PAA) membrane with a distinct MNP gradient via a top-bottom diffusion approach involving a metal salt precursor solution and NaBH4 as a reducing agent. The strong binding sites provided by PILs, combined with the gradient distribution of -COO- groups across the membrane cross-section, play a significant role in controlling the MNPs' gradient distribution. Interestingly, the MNPs within the membrane display excellent catalytic activity in exothermic reactions such as H2O2 decomposition, dissipating uneven heat that quickly permeates the membrane network. This induces asymmetrical swelling of polymer chains, resulting in rapid membrane bending. Furthermore, such MNP-loaded membrane could serve as a portable test paper for visually monitoring H2O2. This advancement paves the way for the development of intricate smart actuation materials and expands their practical applications in various real-life scenarios.

Hierarchically Porous Poly(ionic liquid) - Organic Cage Composite Membrane for Efficient Iodine Capture.

The effective capture of iodine with high volatility and poisonousness is significant for reprocessing the spent nuclear fuel. In this article, we report a hierarchically porous poly(ionic liquid)-organic cage composite membrane (PIL@CC3) possessing a gradient content distribution of CC3 cage crystals throughout the membrane to capture iodine vapor. The introduction of microporous CC3 can significantly enhance the uptake capacity of iodine up to 980 mg g-1 , which is superior to that of a pristine PIL membrane carrying large meso- and macropores (99 mg g-1 ), and CC3 crystalline powder (662 mg g-1 ). Such enhanced performance benefits from the micro-meso-macroporous structure of the PIL@CC3 membrane in which the large meso- and macropores facilitate the mass transfer of iodine molecules from the external environment into the surface of the CC3 crystal, followed by diffusion of iodine molecules from the CC3 surface into the interior and exterior pores of the CC3 crystal. In addition, the asymmetric distribution of CC3 crystals across the PIL@CC3 membrane also displays its advantage in intercepting trace iodine, revealing its great potential for practical application. This study provides an idea for constructing hierarchically porous membrane composites for the removal of toxic vapors.

LncRNA MANCR positively affects the malignant progression of lung adenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND: LncRNA MANCR (mitosis-related lncRNA, LINC00704) is deemed as a pivotal regulator in various cancers, yet the biological function it performs in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) was rarely reported. We made an in-depth study to clarify its effect during the progression of this cancer. METHODS: Expression data and clinical information were first accessed from TCGA LUAD dataset ( https://portal.gdc.cancer.gov/repository ). Differentially expressed lncRNAs were identified. R package "survival" determined the survival significance of the lncRNA MANCR. GSEA software was applied to conduct single sample enrichment analysis. qRT-PCR was used to examine MANCR expression. The expression levels of related proteins were tested using Western blot assay. The impact of MANCR on cancer cell biological behaviors was investigated via cell function experiments. RESULTS: MANCR was significantly upregulated in LUAD cells. It also resulted in a poor prognosis. When MANCR expression was down-regulated, the expression of proteins related to invasion and migration, cell cycle and proliferation was decreased, while the expression of proteins associated with apoptosis was elevated. Furthermore, in vitro experiments revealed that silencing MANCR inhibited cancer cell functions, blocked cell cycle progression while promoting cell apoptosis. CONCLUSION: LncRNA MANCR can lead to enhanced proliferative, invasive and migratory abilities of cancer cells while reducing cell apoptosis. Hence, MANCR might be a novel biomarker of LUAD.

Continuous and Rapid Synthesis of UiO-67 by Electrochemical Methods for the Electrochemical Detection of Hydroquinone.

Continuous and rapid synthesis of UiO-67 under mild conditions has been achieved by electrochemical methods for the first time. In the reaction system, a zirconium sheet was utilized as electrodes and a metal source for the assembly of UiO-67. High-crystalline UiO-67 with a regular tetrahedral morphology of around 1 µm was obtained within 1.5 h under the optimized solvent composition, voltage, and temperature conditions. This electrochemical synthetic method of UiO-67 in our work overcomes the shortcomings of high temperature and pressure of a traditional solvothermal method, which proposes new ideas for the large-scale and rapid synthesis of UiO-67. The UiO-67 synthesized by an electrochemical method was prepared as a UiO-67-carbon paste electrode (CPE), which exhibited a linear response to hydroquinone (HQ) in the range of 5-300 µM with a detection limit of 3.6 × 10-9 M (S/N = 3), for the electrochemical detection of HQ. It was confirmed that UiO-67-CPE possessed excellent reusability and antiinterference ability for the detection of HQ, and its detection ability even did not change after standing for 3 months. We further tried to apply UiO-67-CPE to the practical determination of HQ in tap water and river water samples, and the results proved that the recovery rate is 97.9-104.7% in real samples.

Rapid and Low-Cost Electrochemical Synthesis of UiO-66-NH2 with Enhanced Fluorescence Detection Performance.

Rapid and low-cost synthesis of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are very meaningful for their future practical application. In the present study, a Zr-based ultrastable MOF, UiO-66-NH2, was successfully synthesized by electrochemical method using metal Zr as the metal source at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The effects of the reaction conditions, including the ratio of solvent (electrolyte), the applied voltage and different reaction time, on the crystallinity, morphology, and synthesis rate of the product were fully investigated. The results confirm that electrochemically synthesized UiO-66-NH2 under the optimized condition possesses apparent merits such as high crystallinity, uniform morphology and high porosity. Moreover, the electrochemical synthesis method of UiO-66-NH2 is promising for the large-scale and economical synthesis of nanoscale product to gramme degree. Interestingly, the resulting UiO-66-NH2 synthesized by this electrochemical method exhibits more excellent performance for the fluorescence detection of Fe3+ ions in water (detection limit of 10-8 mol/L) than that of the material prepared by solvothermal method.

AK000953 silencing can enhance the killing effect of danazol on uterine fibroids.

PURPOSE: Our aim was to study the role of AK000953 silencing for the killing effect of danazol on uterine fibroids. METHODS: Quantitative PCR was applied to identify differential expression of AK000953 in uterine fibroid tissue and normal uterine tissue. Then we isolated and cultured uterine fibroid cells, designed the siRNA of AK000953 to silence its expression in uterine fibroid cells, and detected the treatment effect of danazol and AK000953 siRNA on cell proliferation, cell apoptosis, and cell invasion. Finally, guinea pig model of uterine fibroids was constructed to verify the effect of AK000953 silencing on uterine fibroid treatment with danazol in vivo. RESULTS: Quantitative PCR showed that the AK000953 gene was highly expressed in uterine fibroid tissue compared with normal uterine tissue (2.1 ± 0.15 vs. 0.8 ± 0.05, p < 0.01). After AK000953 silencing in uterine fibroid cells, we discovered that the inhibition rate in danazol-siRNA group was 56 ± 5 %, the cell apoptosis rate of danazol-siRNA group was 43 ± 2.3 %, and the invasion rate of uterine fibroid cells was 12 ± 1 %, which all showed significant differences with the control group or danazol group. Guinea pig model confirmed that the treatment of danazol and AK000953 siRNA effectively inhibited the development of fibroids in vivo. CONCLUSION: AK000953 silencing could effectively enhance the killing effect of danazol on uterine fibroid cells.

Patient-specific warning of epileptic seizure upon shapelets features.

Epilepsy is an intractable chronic neurological disease attached to extensive attention. Due to the fact that unpredictable seizure attacks result in serious physical injuries, early warning before seizure occurrence can help patients to get timely treatment and intervention. This paper presents a novel patient-specific method to predict epileptic seizures by learning shapelets of scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) signals recorded from different channels. In the proposed method, EEG signals are preprocessed to raise the Signal to Noise Rate (SNR). Multichannel shapelets space is constructed by the learning-near-to-optimal shapelets method. EEG signals are converted to distance matrices by projecting them on the shapelets' space. Bi-LSTM, SVM, CNN, and an ensemble of them are used to classify the feature set. Based on the prediction results then raise alarms. The proposed methodology is applied to the CHB-MIT scalp EEG dataset of 10 cases. The proposed method achieves a sensitivity of 91.33% and a false prediction rate of 0.16 h-1.

In-vitro Antioxidant, In-vitro and In-silico Ovarian Anticancer Activity (Ovarian Cancer Cells-PA1) and Phytochemical Analysis of Cissus quadrangularis L. Ethanolic Extract.

BACKGROUND: Cissus quadrangularis is a valuable natural source of traditional medicines. OBJECTIVE: An in vitro investigation was performed to determine whether the ethanolic extract from the whole portions of C. quadrangularis had anticancer and free radical scavenging activities against ovarian cancer cells-PA1. C. quadrangularis is a herb collected from rural areas in Andhra Pradesh, India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: C. quadrangularis was air-dried and crushed, and the powder and ethanol (0.5 kg) were used in a Soxhlet device for continuous extraction. Phytochemical analysis of the extracts was performed using a standard procedure. The antioxidant activity of the ethanolic extract of C. quadrangularis was evaluated using DPPH. An in vitro anticancer study used an ethanolic extract against the PA1 cell line. Apoptosis of ovarian cancer cells was studied using DAPI and carboxy-H2DCFDA staining. From LC-MS analysis, quercetin-3-O-alpha-Lrhamnopyranoside and erucic acid were docked with the threonine tyrosine kinase (TTK) enzyme using auto docking. RESULTS: The ethanolic extract of C. quadrangularis demonstrated significant dose-dependent antioxidant activity compared to ascorbic acid. The ethanolic extract of C. quadrangularis was found to have high anticancer activity against ovarian cancer cell lines (PA1), with an IC50 value of 482.057 ± 113.857 µg/ml. DAPI and carboxy-H2DCFDA staining confirmed that C. quadrangularis ethanolic extract induced apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells (p < .001). Molecular docking studies helped identify the binding affinities between the protein and ligand complexes, such as Quercetin-3-O-alpha-Lrhamnopyranoside binding sites of target proteins 5N7V (MET602, GLN672) and erucic acid 5N7V (GLY354). Quercetin-3-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranoside was reported to bind with 5N7V by hydrogen bonding at MET602 and GLN672 amino acids with 2.02, 2.99 Å bonding length distance and binding affinity of -7.9 kcal/mol. Erucic acid was reported to bind with 5N7V by hydrogen bonding at GLY354 amino acid with 3.18, 2.93 Å bonding length (Å) distance and binding affinity of -4.3 kcal/mol. The current analysis showed that the ethanolic extracts of C. quadrangularis L. exhibited antioxidant and anticancer properties against ovarian PA1 cells. CONCLUSION: The experimental results confirmed that C. quadrangularis L. is a promising, safe chemotherapeutic plant for ovarian cancer PA1 cells. The docking results demonstrated that Quercetin-3-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranoside strongly binds threonine tyrosine kinase at the MET602 and GLN672 positions. This study showed that the C. quadrangularis ethanolic extract has Quercetin-3-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranoside, which can be used as an anticancer agent.

Tree-Based Risk Factor Identification and Stroke Level Prediction in Stroke Cohort Study.

Objective. This study focuses on the identification of risk factors, classification of stroke level, and evaluation of the importance and interactions of various patient characteristics using cohort data from the Second Hospital of Lanzhou University. Methodology. Risk factors are identified by evaluation of the relationships between factors and response, as well as by ranking the importance of characteristics. Then, after discarding negligible factors, some well-known multicategorical classification algorithms are used to predict the level of stroke. In addition, using the Shapley additive explanation method (SHAP), factors with positive and negative effects are identified, and some important interactions for classifying the level of stroke are proposed. A waterfall plot for a specific patient is presented and used to determine the risk degree of that patient. Results and Conclusion. The results show that (1) the most important risk factors for stroke are hypertension, history of transient ischemia, and history of stroke; age and gender have a negligible impact. (2) The XGBoost model shows the best performance in predicting stroke risk; it also gives a ranking of risk factors based on their impact. (3) A combination of SHAP and XGBoost can be used to identify positive and negative factors and their interactions in stroke prediction, thereby providing helpful guidance for diagnosis.

Localization and Diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

In this paper, a random-forest-based method was proposed for the classification and localization of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a common neurodevelopmental disorder among children. Experimental data were magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) from the public case-control dataset of 3D images for ADHD-200. Each MRI image was a 3D-tensor of 121×145×121 size. All 3D matrices (MRI) were segmented into the slices from each of three orthogonal directions. Each slice from the same position of the same direction in the training set was converted into a vector, and all these vectors were composed into a designed matrix to train the random forest classification algorithm; then, the well-trained RF classifier was exploited to give a prediction label in correspondence direction and position. Diagnosis and location results can be obtained upon the intersection of these three prediction matrices. The performance of our proposed method was illustrated on the dataset from New York University (NYU), Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) and full datasets; the results show that the proposed methods can archive more accuracy identification in discrimination of ADHD, and can be extended to the other practices of diagnosis. Moreover, another suspected region was found at the first time.

Visual determination of azodicarbonamide in flour by label-free silver nanoparticle colorimetry.

A very practical and competitive sensing strategy for the detection of azodicarbonamide in flour samples was developed by using label-free Ag NPs as a colorimetric probe. Well-dispersed Ag NPs in suspension can form aggregates upon reacting with glutathione (GSH) via Ag-SH covalent bonds and electrostatic attraction, with the color changing from bright yellow to red. However, azodicarbonamide can oxidize the -SH of GSH, preventing the aggregation of Ag NPs. Under the optimum conditions, the A550/A398 of Ag NPs is linearly related to the concentration of azodicarbonamide in the range of 0.33 µM to 1.7 µM. The proposed method can be used for the detection of azodicarbonamide in flour, with a detection limit of 0.09 µM and recovery between 95% and 97.4% (RSD < 6%). When the azodicarbonamide concentration reaches 0.33 µM, the color change can be detected by the naked eye.

GnRH antagonist cetrorelix inhibits mitochondria-dependent apoptosis triggered by chemotherapy in granulosa cells of rats.

OBJECTIVE: Exposure to chemotherapy causes various adverse effects on the ovaries including premature ovarian failure and infertility. GnRH antagonist cetrorelix could reverse the ovarian damage during chemotherapy, but the mechanism remains unclear. The objectives of this study were to examine the role of the cetrorelix for prevention of mitochondria-dependent apoptosis in granulosa cells of rats during the treatment with cyclophosphamide(Cy), if the mitochondria-dependent apoptotic process was involved. METHODS: Female SD rats were injected with cetrorelix before and after administration of saline, or Cy. Main outcome measures were the apoptotic indexes, serum hormones, ultrastructure of granulosa cells, mitochondrial membrane potential, the kinetics of cytochrome c (Cyt-c) processing in cells, and apoptotic markers. RESULTS: The ovarian apoptotic indexes as shown by TUNEL assay were reduced by cetrorelix pretreatment and the rats regained normal hormonal profile. The ultrastructure and JC-1 fluorescence intensity assessments showed cetrorelix pretreatment inhibited mitochondrial dysfunction in granulosa cells induced by chemotherapy. Western blot analysis showed that cetrorelix suppressed the release of Cyt-c from mitochondria to cytoplasm. Meanwhile, cetrorelix pretreatment expressed less Bax, caspase-3 and Cyt-c in granulosa cells compared with chemotherapy alone. CONCLUSION: Cetrorelix could reduce the apoptosis in granulosa cells through inhibiting mitochondria-dependent apoptosis triggered by chemotherapy.

Understanding spatiotemporal patterns of global forest NPP using a data-driven method based on GEE.

Spatiotemporal patterns of global forest net primary productivity (NPP) are pivotal for us to understand the interaction between the climate and the terrestrial carbon cycle. In this study, we use Google Earth Engine (GEE), which is a powerful cloud platform, to study the dynamics of the global forest NPP with remote sensing and climate datasets. In contrast with traditional analyses that divide forest areas according to geographical location or climate types to retrieve general conclusions, we categorize forest regions based on their NPP levels. Nine categories of forests are obtained with the self-organizing map (SOM) method, and eight relative factors are considered in the analysis. We found that although forests can achieve higher NPP with taller, denser and more broad-leaved trees, the influence of the climate is stronger on the NPP; for the high-NPP categories, precipitation shows a weak or negative correlation with vegetation greenness, while lacking water may correspond to decrease in productivity for low-NPP categories. The low-NPP categories responded mainly to the La Niña event with an increase in the NPP, while the NPP of the high-NPP categories increased at the onset of the El Niño event and decreased soon afterwards when the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) wore off. The influence of the ENSO changes correspondingly with different NPP levels, which infers that the pattern of climate oscillation and forest growth conditions have some degree of synchronization. These findings may facilitate the understanding of global forest NPP variation from a different perspective.

The GnRH antagonist reduces chemotherapy-induced ovarian damage in rats by suppressing the apoptosis.

OBJECTIVE: GnRH antagonist cetrorelix could reserve the ovarian follicles during chemotherapy, but the mechanism remains unclear. The objectives of this study were to examine the overall effect of cetrorelix against ovarian failure and to define if the apoptotic process was involved. METHODS: Female SD rats were injected with cetrorelix before and after administration of saline, or cyclophosphamide (Cy), or oral etoposide (VP). Main outcome measures were the number of ovarian follicles, serum hormones, ovary histology and apoptotic markers. RESULTS: The females exposed to Cy or VP had reduced body and ovary weights, which could be restored by cetrorelix pretreatment. Single cetrorelix treatment could increase the number of primordial follicles, but reduce the number of growing and mature follicles. As a consequence, the ovaries exposed to cetrorelix prior to Cy or VP showed significantly higher numbers of follicles at all developing stages than those exposed to Cy or VP alone. Meanwhile, the ovarian apoptotic indexes as shown by TUNEL assay were reduced by cetrorelix pretreatment and the ovary expressed less caspases-3 and more Bcl-2 compared with chemotherapy alone. Moreover, the rats regained normal hormonal profile after cetrorelix pretreatment without any alterations in ovarian expression of estrogen receptor (ER)alpha, ERbeta, or progesterone receptor (PR). CONCLUSION: Cetrorelix could reduce the chemotherapy-induced ovarian damage through regulating the expression of Bcl-2 and caspases-3 in the ovary, without any expressional alterations of nuclear receptors, suggesting the apoptosis pathway involved.

Thoracoabdominal respiratory disorder induced by cadmium aerosol and analyzed with a new machine vision model in vivo.

Inhalable environmental pollutants induce pulmonary malfunction, which alters thoracoabdominal respiratory conditions. Traditional methods of recording pressure differences or existing machine vision analyses for detecting respiratory abnormalities are not suitable for synchronous thoracic and abdominal respiratory detections. The present study provides a new method that combines a model of thoracoabdominal localization and distribution based on respiratory physiological characteristics and a machine vision analysis on respiratory conditions in mice exposed to aqueous aerosol containing cadmium with classical symptoms. Thoracoabdominal respirations of mice were similar to male humans based on thoracic and abdominal composite respiration and the primarily presented abdominal respiration. Under environmental inhalable cadmium doses (1, 3, 5 mM CdCl2 in solution respectively atomized to be 112.41, 337.23, 562.05 µg/g Cd/Aerosol), the pathological thoracoabdominal respirations of mice showed that abdominal respiration contributed more to respiratory compensation and presented greater adaptive adjustments and more obvious fluctuations during lung injury than thoracic respiration, which suggests that toxic aerosol from a high-risk work environment quickly induces discernible respiratory clinical manifestations in occupational groups, as a warning for health, and abdominal obesity is unfavorable for male respiratory compensation. The respiratory abnormality shown in machine vision analysis was verified in pulmonary structural changes and hypoxia stress. Conclusively, the present method may be used to test the effects of aerosols on respiratory state and provides new prospects for toxicity determinations and risk evaluations of aerosols in the respiratory system in vivo.

Identification of Candidate Genes Associated with Chemotherapy Resistance in Ovarian Cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death due to malignant tumors in female reproductive organs. However, the lack of understanding regarding its pathogenesis brings difficulties to study it. In this study, we analyze the differently expressed genes in both GSE54388 (ovarian cancer vs. normal ovarian tissues) and GSE51373 (chemotherapy-resistant vs. chemotherapy-sensitive tissues). By intersecting the differently expressed genes, 79 genes were identified. Then, further function enrichment analysis, including GO (Gene Ontology) and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathway analysis, was performed. Also, a protein-protein network analysis was conducted to reveal the potential relationship between genes. Finally, survival analysis was utilized to find out that FOXL2 (Forkhead Box L2), TIMP3 (TIMP Metallopeptidase Inhibitor 3), and ZEB1 (Zinc Finger E-Box Binding Homeobox 1) may serve as biomarkers for predicting the prognosis of ovarian cancer patients.

A robust Zn(ii)/Na(i)-MOF decorated with [(OAc)2(H2O)2]n2n- anions for the luminescence sensing of copper ions based on the inner filter effect.

Based on the inner filter effect, a luminescent Zn(ii)/Na(i) metal-organic framework (MOF) {[Zn2Na(L)(HL)2(H2O)2][OAc]·2H2O}n (1, H2L = 5-methyl-1,3-benzenedicarboxylic acid) with excellent stability was constructed for the fluorescence detection of Cu2+ ions. MOF 1 holds a 3D cationic framework in which [(OAc)2(H2O)2]n2n- anions are embedded into its 1D channels. Abundant hydrogen-bonding and π-π interactions in the MOF facilitate electron transfer from ligand-to-metal, resulting in a good luminescence peak at 412 nm and an efficient fluorescence quenching of MOF 1 in the presence of Cu2+ ions, due to the inner filter effect. The interactions between the Cu2+ ions and the OAc- anion in the channel endowed the Cu2+ ions with facile access to be adsorbed, and afforded the selective quenching of fluorescence. The MOF particles are well dispersed in water and the Cu2+ ions are pre-concentrated by adsorption, thus facilitating the determination of Cu2+ ions with a detection limit down to 0.65 µM. Our work thus paves a way for developing MOFs as an appealing platform to construct materials for environmental applications.