Clinical characterization of EFHD2 (swiprosin-1) in Glioma-associated macrophages and its role in regulation of immunosuppression.

Glioblastoma has been extensively studied due to its high mortality and short survival. The evolution mechanism of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) to Glioma-associated microglia and macrophages (GAMs) in the tumor microenvironment (TME) remains to be elucidated. The tumor cell-to-cell interaction patterns have not been well defined yet. The EF-Hand Domain Family Member D2 (EFHD2) has been reported to be differentially expressed as an immunomodulatory molecule in a variety of cancers. But large-scale clinical data from multiple ethnic communities have not been used to investigate the role of EFHD2 in glioma. RNA-seq data from 313 or 657 glioma patients from the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) database and 603 glioma patients from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database were analyzed retrospectively. Cell localization was performed using single-cell sequencing data from the CGGA database and the GSE131928 dataset. Mouse glioma cell lines and primary macrophages isolated from Efhd2 knockout mice were co-cultured to validate the immunomodulatory effects of EFHD2 on macrophages and the remodeling of TME of glioblastoma. EFHD2 is enriched in high-grade gliomas, isocitrate dehydrogenase wild-type, and 1p/19q non-co-deficient gliomas. It is a potential biomarker of glioma-proneuronal subtypes and an independent prognostic factor for overall survival in patients with malignant glioblastoma. EFHD2 regulates the monocyte-macrophage system function and positively correlates with immunosuppressive checkpoints. Further experimental data demonstrates that Efhd2 influences the polarization state of GAMs and inhibits the secretion of TGF-ß1. In vitro experiments have revealed that macrophages lacking Efhd2 suppress the vitality of two glioma cell lines and decelerate the growth of glioma xenografts. In conclusion, EFHD2 promises to be a key target for TME-related immunotherapy.

Strongly Asymmetric Spectroscopy in Plasmon-Exciton Hybrid Systems due to Interference-Induced Energy Repartitioning.

Recent intense effort has been devoted to exploring different manifestations of resonant excitations of strongly coupled plasmons and excitons, but so far such studies have been limited to situations where the Fano- or Rabi-type spectra are largely symmetric at zero detuning. Using a newly developed full quantum mechanical model, here we reveal the existence of a highly asymmetric spectroscopic regime for both the Rabi splitting and transparency dip. The asymmetric nature is inherently tied to the non-negligible exciton absorbance and is caused by substantial interference-induced energy repartitioning of the resonance peaks. This theoretical framework can be exploited to reveal the quantum behaviors of the two excitation entities with varying mutual coupling strengths in both linear and nonlinear regimes. We also use prototypical systems of rhodamine molecules strongly coupled with AuAg alloyed nanoparticles and well-devised control experiments to demonstrate the validity and tunability of the energy repartitioning and correlated electronic state occupations, as captured by the variations in the asymmetric spectroscopy and corresponding nonlinear absorption coefficient as a function of the Au:Ag ratio. The present study helps to substantially enrich our microscopic understanding of strongly coupled plasmon-exciton systems.

Acute and 28-day sub-acute oral toxicity evaluation of two dietary bamboo charcoal powders in Sprague-Dawley rats.

No data were available on the acute oral toxicity, short-term oral toxicity of vegetable carbon in animals. This study was designed to evaluate the safety of two commercially available dietary bamboo charcoal powders (BCP1 and BCP2). The size distribution of the two powders was determined by a Mastersizer 2000 laser particle size analyzer prior to the in vivo safety studies. For the acute toxicity study, a single dose of 11.24 g/kg body weight of BCP1 and BCP2 was given once orally to healthy Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Mortality and clinical symptoms were observed and recorded for the first 30 min after treatment, at 4 h post-administration, and then at least once daily for 14 days after administration. In the repeated dose 28-day oral toxicity study, BCP1 and BCP2 were administered orally at doses of 2.81, 5.62, and 11.24 g/kg body weight for 28 days to SD rats. Animals were sacrificed and organs and blood samples were analyzed. Results showed that both BCP1 and BCP2 were micro-sized and various in size. In the acute toxicity and the repeated dose 28-day oral toxicity studies, BCP caused neither mortality nor visible signs of toxicity in rats. No significant differences were found in the relative organ weights or in biochemical parameters in BCP treated groups compared to a control group. No treatment-related histological changes were observed in the organs of these animals. Based on these data, it is concluded that the median lethal dose (LD50) of BCP for both male and female rats is more than 11.24 g/kg body weight and the no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) is >11.24 g/kg body weight for 28 days.

[Optimization of submerged culture conditions for Xylaria striata mycelium].

OBJECTIVE: To establish the optimum submerged culture condition of Xylaria striata mycelium. METHODS: One-factor-at-a-time method and orthogonal experiment design were applied and the dry weight of mycelium was tested for evaluation the biomass of the growth of Xylaria striata mycelium. RESULTS: The results from one-factor-at-a-time experiments showed that maltose, glucose or corn powder could be used as the best carbon source and the optimum nitrogen source was soybean powder. The best ratio of carbon source to nitrogen source was 5:1. In addition, the higher dry weight of mycelium was found at pH 6 when 2 mycelial discs were inoculated and fermented for 7 days. Otherwise, the growth of mycelium was observed to be promoted significantly by addition with K,Mg,P and VB1. The consequence of orthogonal experiment showed that the optimum carbon source and nitrogen source were maltose 4% and soybean powder 0.8%, respectively,and the highest mycelium biomass could be obtained at pH 7 and 25 °C shaking for 13 days. CONCLUSION: A large amount of mycelium will be obtained under the optimum condition of liquid culture for Xylaria striata.

Plasmon resonance energy transfer and plexcitonic solar cell.

Plasmon-mediated energy transfer is highly desirable in photo-electronic nanodevices, but the direct injection efficiency of "hot electrons" in plasmonic photo-detectors and plasmon-sensitized solar cells (plasmon-SSCs) is poor. On another front, Fano resonance induced by strong plasmon-exciton coupling provides an efficient channel of coherent energy transfer from metallic plasmons to molecular excitons, and organic dye molecules have a much better injection efficiency in exciton-SSCs than "hot electrons". Here, we investigate enhanced light-harvesting of chlorophyll-a molecules strongly coupled to Au nanostructured films via Fano resonance. The enhanced local field and plasmon resonance energy transfer are experimentally revealed by monitoring the ultrafast dynamical processes of the plexcitons and the photocurrent flows of the assembled plexciton-SSCs. By tuning the Fano factor and anti-resonance wavelengths, we find that the local field is largely enhanced and the efficiency of plexciton-SSCs consisting of ultrathin TiO2 films is significantly improved. Most strikingly, the output power of the plexciton-SSCs is much larger than the sum of those of the individual plasmon- and exciton-SSCs. Our observations provide a practical approach to monitor energy and electron transfer in plasmon-exciton hybrids at a strong coupling regime and also offer a new strategy to design photovoltaic nanodevices.

Tunable plasmon resonance and enhanced second harmonic generation and upconverted fluorescence of hemispheric-like silver core/shell islands.

We investigate tunable plasmon resonance and enhanced second harmonic generation (SHG) and up-converted fluorescence (UCF) of the hemispheric-like silver core/shell islands. The Ag, Ag/Ag2O, and Ag/Ag2O/Ag island films are prepared by using a sputtering technique. The SHG and UCF of the Ag/Ag2O/Ag core/shell islands near the percolating regime is enhanced 2.34 and 3.94 times compared to the sum of two individual counterparts of Ag/Ag2O core/shell and Ag shell islands. The ratio of SHG intensity induced by p- and s-polarization is 0.86 for the initial Ag islands and increase to 1.61 for the Ag/Ag2O/Ag core/shell samples. The tunable intensity ratio of SHG to UCF of the Ag islands treated by thermal and laser annealing processes is also observed. The physical mechanism of the enhanced SHG and UCF in the Ag/Ag2O/Ag core/shell islands is discussed. Our observations provide a new approach to fabricate plasmon-enhanced optical nonlinear nanodevices with tunable SHG and UCF.

Plasmonic nanorod arrays of a two-segment dimer and a coaxial cable with 1 nm gap for large field confinement and enhancement.

Seeking plasmonic nanostructures with large field confinement and enhancement is significant for photonic and electronic nanodevices with high sensitivity, reproducibility, and tunability. Here, we report the synthesis of plasmonic arrays composed of two-segment dimer nanorods and coaxial cable nanorods with ∼1 nm gap insulated by a self-assembled Raman molecule monolayer. The gap-induced plasmon coupling generates an intense field in the gap region of the dimer junction and the cable interlayer. As a result, the longitudinal plasmon resonance of nanorod arrays with high tunability is obviously enhanced. Most interestingly, the field enhancement of dimer nanorod arrays can be tuned by the length ratio L1/L2 of the two segments, and the maximal enhancement appears at L1/L2 = 1. In that case, the two-photon luminescence (TPL) of dimer nanorod arrays and the Raman intensity in the dimer junction is enhanced by 27 and 30 times, respectively, under resonant excitation. In the same way, the Raman intensity in the gap region is enhanced 16 times for the coaxial cable nanorod arrays. The plasmonic nanorod arrays synthesized by the facile method, having tunable plasmon properties and large field enhancement, indicate an attractive pathway to the photonic nanodevices.

Isolation and characterization of an osmotic stress and ABA induced histone deacetylase in Arachis hygogaea.

Histone acetylation, which together with histone methylation regulates gene activity in response to stress, is an important epigenetic modification. There is an increasing research focus on histone acetylation in crops, but there is no information to date in peanut (Arachis hypogaea). We showed that osmotic stress and ABA affect the acetylation of histone H3 loci in peanut seedlings by immunoblotting experiments. Using RNA-seq data for peanut, we found a RPD3/HDA1-like superfamily histone deacetylase (HDAC), termed AhHDA1, whose gene is up-regulated by PEG-induced water limitation and ABA signaling. We isolated and characterized AhHDA1 from A. hypogaea, showing that AhHDA1 is very similar to an Arabidopsis HDAC (AtHDA6) and, in recombinant form, possesses HDAC activity. To understand whether and how osmotic stress and ABA mediate the peanut stress response by epigenetics, the expression of AhHDA1 and stress-responsive genes following treatment with PEG, ABA, and the specific HDAC inhibitor trichostatin A (TSA) were analyzed. AhHDA1 transcript levels were enhanced by all three treatments, as was expression of peanut transcription factor genes, indicating that AhHDA1 might be involved in the epigenetic regulation of stress resistance genes that comprise the responses to osmotic stress and ABA.

Manipulating nonlinear emission and cooperative effect of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots by coupling to a silver nanorod complex cavity.

Colloidal semiconductor quantum dots have three-dimensional confined excitons with large optical oscillator strength and gain. The surface plasmons of metallic nanostructures offer an efficient tool to enhance exciton-exciton coupling and excitation energy transfer at appropriate geometric arrangement. Here, we report plasmon-mediated cooperative emissions of approximately one monolayer of ensemble CdSe/ZnS quantum dots coupled with silver nanorod complex cavities at room temperature. Power-dependent spectral shifting, narrowing, modulation, and amplification are demonstrated by adjusting longitudinal surface plasmon resonance of silver nanorods, reflectivity and phase shift of silver nanostructured film, and mode spacing of the complex cavity. The underlying physical mechanism of the nonlinear excitation energy transfer and nonlinear emissions are further investigated and discussed by using time-resolved photoluminescence and finite-difference time-domain numerical simulations. Our results suggest effective strategies to design active plasmonic complex cavities for cooperative emission nanodevices based on semiconductor quantum dots.