A comprehensive review of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and their derivatives in environmental pollution control.

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have gained considerable attention due to their design possibilities as the molecular organic building blocks that can stack in an atomically precise spatial arrangement. Since the inception of COFs in 2005, there has been a continuous expansion in the product range of COFs and their derivatives. This expansion has led to the evolution of three-dimensional structures and various synthetic routes, propelling the field towards large-scale preparation of COFs and their derivatives. This review will offer a holistic analysis and comparison of the spatial structure and synthesis techniques of COFs and their derivatives. The conventional methods of COF synthesis (i.e., ultrasonic chemical, microwave, and solvothermal) are discussed alongside the synthesis strategies of new COFs and their derivatives. Furthermore, the applications of COFs and their derived materials are demonstrated in air, water, and soil pollution management such as gas capture, catalytic conversion, adsorption, and pollutant removal. Finally, this review highlights the current challenges and prospects for large-scale preparation and application of new COFs and the derived materials. In line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the needs of digital-enabled technologies (AI and machine learning), this review will encompass the future technical trends for COFs in environmental pollution control.

Exploring the interplay between circadian rhythms and prostate cancer: insights into androgen receptor signaling and therapeutic opportunities.

Circadian rhythm disruption is closely related to increased incidence of prostate cancer. Incorporating circadian rhythms into the study of prostate cancer pathogenesis can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the causes of cancer and offer new options for precise treatment. Therefore, this article comprehensively summarizes the epidemiology of prostate cancer, expounds the contradictory relationship between circadian rhythm disorders and prostate cancer risk, and elucidates the relationship between circadian rhythm regulators and the incidence of prostate cancer. Importantly, this article also focuses on the correlation between circadian rhythms and androgen receptor signaling pathways, as well as the applicability of time therapy in prostate cancer. This may prove significant in enhancing the clinical treatment of prostate cancer.

Integrated hierarchical porous lignin-based carbon electrode for boosting membrane-free capacitive deionization areal adsorption capacity.

The development of high value-added lignin-based functional porous carbon electrodes with excellent properties from sustainable industry lignin powder remains a challenge. This work aims to create robust, binder-free, conductive additives-free, and current collector-free monolithic porous carbon electrodes using industrial lignin powder for membrane-free capacitive deionization (CDI). The material exhibits high mechanical strength, hierarchical porosity structure, large uniform size, and thickness of just a few millimetres (<2.6 mm). In a three-electrode supercapacitor system, the areal specific capacitance of CLCA300-3-1.0 reaches 5.03-1.02 F cm-2 when the scan rate between 1 and 20 mV s-1 in 1 M NaCl solution. As CDI electrodes, the charge efficiency of CLCA300-3-1.0 at different voltages of 1.2 V, 1.4 V and 1.6 V is 0.53, 0.72 and 0.71, respectively. The energy consumption of CLCA280-3-1.0, CLCA300-3-1.0 and CLCA320-3-1.0 tested at 1.2 V are 3.27, 3.40 and 3.25 Wh m-3, respectively. In addition, with thickness increasing to 1.5 mm, the developed CLCA300-3-1.5 electrode exhibits an areal adsorption capacity of 0.46 mg cm-2, and relative highly capacity retention of 84.78 % after 70 cycles. The impressive desalination performance is attributed to the well-designed hierarchical porosity, superhydrophilicity and robust monolithic structure.

A Small Highly Sensitive Glucose Sensor Based on a Glucose Oxidase-Modified U-Shaped Microfiber.

Diabetes patients need to monitor blood glucose all year round. In this article, a novel scheme is proposed for blood glucose detection. The proposed sensor is based on a U-shaped microfiber prepared using hydrogen-oxygen flame-heating technology, and then 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) and glucose oxidase (GOD) are successively coated on the surface of the U-shaped microfiber via a coating technique. The glucose reacts with the GOD of the sensor surface to produce gluconic acid, which changes the effective refractive index and then shifts the interference wavelength. The structure and morphology of the sensor were characterized via scanning electron microscope (SEM) and confocal laser microscopy (CLM). The experimental results show that the sensitivity of the sensor is as high as 5.73 nm/(mg/mL). Compared with the glucose sensor composed of the same material, the sensitivity of the sensor increased by 329%. The proposed sensor has a broad application prospect in blood glucose detection of diabetic patients due to the advantages of miniaturization, high sensitivity, and good stability.

Preparation methods, structural characteristics, and biological activity of polysaccharides from Platycodon grandiflorus.

Platycodon grandiflorus (P. grandiflorus), a traditional Chinese medicinal herb used for both medicine and food, has a long history of treating respiratory infections, bronchitis, pneumonia, and other lung-related diseases. The therapeutic effects of P. grandiflorus are attributed to its chemical components, including polysaccharides. Among these components, Platycodon grandiflorus polysaccharides (PGP) are recognized as one of the most important and abundant active ingredients, exhibiting various biological activities such as prebiotic, antioxidant, antiviral, anticancer, antiangiogenic, and immune regulatory properties. Incorporating the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, carrier concepts, and modern targeted drug delivery technologies, PGP can influence the target sites and therapeutic effects of other drugs while also serving as a drug carrier for targeted and precise treatments. Therefore, it is essential to provide a comprehensive review of the extraction, separation, purification, physicochemical properties, and biological activities of PGP. In the future, by integrating new concepts, technologies, and processes, further references and guidance can be provided for the comprehensive development of PGP. This will contribute to the advancement of P. grandiflorus in various fields such as pharmaceuticals, health products, and food.

Highly Sensitive and Selective Dopamine Determination in Real Samples Using Au Nanoparticles Decorated Marimo-like Graphene Microbead-Based Electrochemical Sensors.

A sensitive and selective electrochemical dopamine (DA) sensor has been developed using gold nanoparticles decorated marimo-like graphene (Au NP/MG) as a modifier of the glassy carbon electrode (GCE). Marimo-like graphene (MG) was prepared by partial exfoliation on the mesocarbon microbeads (MCMB) through molten KOH intercalation. Characterization via transmission electron microscopy confirmed that the surface of MG is composed of multi-layer graphene nanowalls. The graphene nanowalls structure of MG provided abundant surface area and electroactive sites. Electrochemical properties of Au NP/MG/GCE electrode were investigated by cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry techniques. The electrode exhibited high electrochemical activity towards DA oxidation. The oxidation peak current increased linearly in proportion to the DA concentration in a range from 0.02 to 10 µM with a detection limit of 0.016 µM. The detection selectivity was carried out with the presence of 20 µM uric acid in goat serum real samples. This study demonstrated a promising method to fabricate DA sensor-based on MCMB derivatives as electrochemical modifiers.

Constructing Sandwich-Structured Poly(vinyl alcohol) Composite Films with Thermal Conductive and Electrical Performance.

With the miniaturization and high integration development in microelectronic devices, the problem of heat dissipation has attracted widespread attention. Highly thermal conductive and electrical insulation polymer composites show great advantages to solve the problems of heat dissipation. Nevertheless, the fabrication of polymer composites with both excellent thermal conductivity and electrical performance is still a great challenge. Herein, to coordinate the thermal and electrical properties of the composite film, the sandwich-structured poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/boron phosphide (BP)-boron nitride nanosheet (BNNS) composite films were prepared, with the PVA/BP composite film as the top and bottom layers and the BNNS layer as the middle layer. When the filler loading was 31.92 wt %, the sandwich-structured composite films showed excellent in-plane thermal conductivity (9.45 W·m-1·K-1), low dielectric constant (1.25 at 102 Hz), and excellent breakdown strength. In the composite film, the interconnected BP particles and BNNS layer formed several heat dissipation pathways to increase the thermal conductivity, while the insulated BNNS layer hampered the electron transformation to enhance the electrical resistivity of films. Therefore, the PVA/BP-BNNS composite films showed a potential application in heat dissipation of high power electronic devices.

Preparation of fluorescein-modified polymer dots and their application in chiral discrimination of lysine enantiomers.

Fluorescein-functionalized fluorescent polymer dots (F-PDs) were prepared by a facile one-pot method by magnetic stirring under mild conditions based on carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and fluorescein as the precursors. The obtained F-PDs exhibited a nanoscale size of 3.2 ± 1.1 nm, excellent water solubility, and bright yellow fluorescence emission with a fluorescence quantum yield of 12.0%. The fluorescent probe displays rapid and sensitive chiral discrimination for lysine focused on different complexation abilities between lysine enantiomers and Cu2+. The concentration of L-lysine in the range 4 to 14 mM (R2 = 0.997) was measured by the fluorescence intensity ratio (I513/I429); the exitation wavelength was set to λex = 365 nm. The detection limit was 0.28 mM (3σ/slope). Importantly, this sensor accurately predicted the enantiomeric excess (ee) of lysine enantiomers at the designed concentration (lysine: 20 mM; Cu2+: 10 mM) ranges. The proposed sensor was successfully applied to determine L-lys (recovery: 95.8-101%; RSD: 0.465-3.34%) and ee values (recovery: 98.5-102%; RSD: 2.61-3.21%) in human urine samples using the standard addition method.

Programmable and Flexible Fluorochromic Polymer Microarrays for Information Storage.

Photoresponsive fluorochromic materials are regarded as an effective means for information storage. Their reversible changes of color and fluorescence facilitate the storage process and increase the possible storage capacity. Here, we propose an optically reconfigurable Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) process to realize tunable emissions based on photochromic spiropyrans and common fluorophores. The kinetics of the photoisomerization of the spiropyran and the FRET process of the composite were systematically investigated. Through tuning the ratios of the acceptor spiropyran and donor fluorophore and external light stimuli, a programmable FRET process was developed to obtain tunable outputs. More importantly, flexible microarrays were fabricated from such fluorochromic mixtures by inkjet printing (230 ppi) and the dynamic FRET process could also be applied to generate tunable fluorescence in ready-made microstructures. The flexible patterns created using the microarrays could be used as novel optically readable media for information storage by altering the composition and optical performance of every feature within the microarray. A key aspect of information storage such is anti-counterfeiting, and these colorful displays can be fabricated and integrated in a simple and straightforward system. The reliable fabrication and programmable optical performances of these large-scale flexible polymer microarrays represent a substantial step toward high-density and high-security information storage platforms.

Proliferation and differentiation study of melatonin functionalized polycaprolactone/gelatin electrospun fibrous scaffolds for nerve tissue engineering.

Melatonin (MLT), a pineal neurohormone with multiple neuroprotective, is often used for peripheral nerve recovery and regenerated nerve proliferation. In this study, Polycaprolactone/Gelatin (PG) fibrous electrospun scaffolds with various percentages of MLT (0, 1, 2, and 4%wt) were fabricated for nerve cell growth, the effects of different concentrations of MLT within PG fibers (PG, PGMLT1, PGMLT2, and PGMLT4) on the proliferation and differentiation for PC12 cells were quantitatively evaluated. The microstructures and morphologies of these scaffolds were analyzed by FE-SEM and digital camera. Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Water Contact Angle (WCA) were used to study the composition, ratio and properties of MLT functionalized PG scaffolds. MTT and CLSM analysis showed that appropriate amount of MLT was beneficial to the proliferation of PC12 cell. MLT can also promote cell differentiation, neurite germination, the expression levels of MAP2 mRNA and protein were dramatically increased on the composite scaffolds with the increase of MLT content, moderate addition of MLT (PGMLT2, 2%) had a prominent enhancement for neurite length. This work would provide a more comprehensive reference for further researches on MLT functionalized composite scaffolds and suggest that high-performance PGMLT fibrous scaffolds could be a promising alternative for nerve repair.

Highly Ordered 3D Tissue Engineering Scaffolds as a Versatile Culture Platform for Nerve Cells Growth.

Tissue engineering scaffolds provide an encouraging alternative for nerve injuries due to their biological support for nerve cell growth, which can be used for neuronal repair. Nerve cells have been reported to be mostly cultured on 2D scaffolds that cannot mimic the native extracellular matrix. Herein, highly ordered 3D scaffolds are fabricated for nerve cell culture by melt electrospinning writing, the microstructures and geometries of the scaffolds could be well modulated. An effective strategy for scaffold surface modification to promote nerve cell growth is proposed. The effects of scaffolds with different surface modifications, viz., plasma treatment, single poly-D-lysine (PDL) coating after plasma treatment, single laminin (LM) coating after plasma treatment, double PDL and LM coatings after plasma treatment, on PC12 cell growth are evaluated. Experiments show the scaffold modified with double PDL and LM coatings after plasma treatment facilitated the growth of PC12 cells most effectively, indicating the synergistic effect of PDL and LM on the growth of nerve cells. This is the first systematic and quantitative study of the effects of different scaffold surface modifications on nerve cell growth. The above results provide a versatile culture platform for growing nerve cells, and for recovery from peripheral nerve injury.

Ferroptosis inducer erastin downregulates androgen receptor and its splice variants in castration­resistant prostate cancer.

To date, there is no effective therapy available for the treatment of castration­resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), and patients generally succumb to the disease within 2 to 4 years. In the progression of CRPC, androgen receptor (AR) and its splice variants play critical roles. Hence, it is necessary to develop a drug to inhibit the expression and activity of the full­length and splice variants of AR for the treatment of CRPC. Erastin, as the first discovered drug to induce ferroptosis, has been studied in various types of cancer. However, there are few studies focusing on the relationship between erastin and AR. In the present study, western blotting, and sulforhodamine B cell viability, glutathione, lipid peroxidation and reactive oxygen species assays were performed to verify the ferroptosis of CRPC cells; reverse transcription­quantitative polymerase chain reaction, dual­luciferase reporter, and lentiviral packaging and lentivirus­infected cell assays were employed to evaluate how erastin affects AR. A mouse xenograft assay was used to determine the underlying mechanism in vivo. Erastin, as a classical inducer of ferroptosis, can suppress the transcriptional activities of both the full­length and splice variants in AR models in vitro and in vivo. In addition, when erastin was used for CRPC treatment combined with docetaxel, the growth inhibitory efficacy of docetaxel was found to be enhanced. Thus, these findings indicated that ferroptosis inducer erastin has potential in the treatment of CRPC via targeting AR.

An update of fire needle acupuncture for acute herpes zoster and prevention of postherpetic neuralgia in adults: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Herpes zoster, is one of the most familiar skin diseases in conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis in 2018 showed that fire needle acupuncture can relieve the pain caused by herpes zoster quickly and prevent the outcome of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), with little side effects. The purpose of this study is to update the systematic review with the latest evidence. METHODS: Four English (PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, the Web of Science) and 4 Chinese databases (CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, and CBM) will be searched dating until 30 June 2020 for randomized controlled trials with no language restrictions. In addition, a hand search of the reference lists of included studies will also be done. Adults (aged 18-70) with acute herpes zoster (less than 7 days) using fire needle acupuncture will be included. Pairs of researchers will independently conduct the search, screen titles and abstracts, retrieve full texts of potentially eligible studies, assess the risk of bias, and conduct date extraction and synthesis. If there is any discrepancy in the whole process, consult a third researcher. For meta-analysis, the primary outcome is the pain intensity (visual analogue scale [VAS] pain scale; pain relieve of 30%, duration of pain), and the second outcome is incidence of PHN. A sequential analysis will be done to test the robustness of results of meta-analysis. The quality of evidence will be assessed using GRADE system. RESULTS: The results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. CONCLUSION: This study will provide the latest systematic review and meta-analysis of fire needle acupuncture for acute herpes zoster and prevention of PHN.

CUDC-907, a novel dual PI3K and HDAC inhibitor, in prostate cancer: Antitumour activity and molecular mechanism of action.

Targeting the androgen receptor (AR) signalling pathway remains the main therapeutic option for advanced prostate cancer. However, resistance to AR-targeting inhibitors represents a great challenge, highlighting the need for new therapies. Activation of the PI3K/AKT pathway and increased expression of histone deacetylases (HDACs) are common aberrations in prostate cancer, suggesting that inhibition of such targets may be a viable therapeutic strategy for this patient population. Previous reports demonstrated that combination of PI3K inhibitors (PI3KIs) with histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) resulted in synergistic antitumour activities against preclinical models of prostate cancer. In this study, we demonstrate that the novel dual PI3K and HDAC inhibitor CUDC-907 has promising antitumour activity against prostate cancer cell lines in vitro and castration-resistant LuCaP 35CR patient-derived xenograft (PDX) mouse model in vivo. CUDC-907-induced apoptosis was partially dependent on Mcl-1, Bcl-xL, Bim and c-Myc. Further, down-regulation of Wee1, CHK1, RRM1 and RRM2 contributed to CUDC-907-induced DNA damage and apoptosis. In the LuCaP 35CR PDX model, treatment with CUDC-907 resulted in significant inhibition of tumour growth. These findings support the clinical development of CUDC-907 for the treatment of prostate cancer.

Polarization dependent cladding modes coupling and spectral analyses of excessively tilted fiber grating.

We report on the detailed analyses of mode coupling from fiber core to cladding in excessively tilted fiber gratings (ETFGs). Cladding modes responsible for the typical dual peak pairs in the transmission spectrum of ETFGs are identified with phase matching condition, which suggests two set of dual peak pairs generated from coupling to cladding modes with even and odd azimuthal order. The polarization dependence of those dual peak pairs are also investigated by calculating the coupling coefficients of cladding modes for two orthogonal polarizations. With the calculated coupling coefficients, the measured polarization dependent spectra can be reproduced numerically.

Integration of multi-scale defects for optimizing thermoelectric properties of n-type Cu1-xCdxFeS2 (x = 0-0.1).

The performance of thermoelectric (TE) materials is strongly influenced by multi-scale defects. Some defects can improve the TE performance but some are unfavorable. Therefore, the multi-scale defects need to be integrated rationally to enhance the TE properties. Here, the defects including atomic-scale point defects, high-density grain boundaries and nano-precipitates were integrated into CuFeS2, an n-type and Earth-abundant TE material. Primitively, a Cd dopant with high scattering factor was introduced to form point defects in Cu1-xCdxFeS2 (x = 0-0.1) according to the calculated scattering parameters. Furthermore, the processes of quenching, annealing, high-energy ball milling (QAH) and sintering were carried out to integrate the multi-scale defects into Cu1-xCdxFeS2. The results suggested that point defects and antisite defects were achieved and the unfavorable Cd'Fe defects were suppressed effectively, leading to a higher electrical conductivity. Moreover, the CdS nano-precipitates played a vital role in carrier filtering to increase the Seebeck coefficient. Meanwhile, the high-density grain boundaries suppressed the lattice thermal conductivity. As a result, a peak ZT value of 0.39 at 723 K was obtained in Cu0.92Cd0.08FeS2, which is the highest value reported so far in the CuFeS2 family.

Advances in Conjugated Polymer Lasers.

This paper provides a review of advances in conjugated polymer lasers. High photoluminescence efficiencies and large stimulated emission cross-sections coupled with wavelength tunability and low-cost manufacturing processes make conjugated polymers ideal laser gain materials. In recent years, conjugated polymer lasers have become an attractive research direction in the field of organic lasers and numerous breakthroughs based on conjugated polymer lasers have been made in the last decade. This paper summarizes the recent progress of the subject of laser processes employing conjugated polymers, with a focus on the photoluminescence principle and excitation radiation mechanism of conjugated polymers. Furthermore, the effect of conjugated polymer structures on the laser threshold is discussed. The most common polymer laser materials are also introduced in detail. Apart from photo-pumped conjugated polymer lasers, a direction for the future development of electro-pumped conjugated polymer lasers is proposed.

One-Dimensional Programmable Polymeric Microfiber Waveguide with Optically Reconfigurable Photonic Functions.

Programmable materials and reconfigurable photonic components, which can change their physicochemical properties and functionalities upon external stimuli, are a major topic of interest in modern science. However, most conventional reconfigurable photonic components rely heavily on mechanical deformation, restricting their application. Herein, a novel strategy based on a dynamically tunable fluorescence resonance energy transfer process to design and fabricate programmable fluorescent micropatterns within single polymer microfiber is proposed. A set of reconfigurable photonic components (including optical switchable waveguide systems, photonic analogies of diodes and transistors, as well as one-dimensional (1D) optical encoding) can be achieved within a single polymeric waveguide microfiber straightforwardly, in which such photonic components can be written, erased, and rewritten as 1D binary patterns with tailored external optical stimuli. These results might be of great fundamental value for the rational design of novel reconfigurable photonic devices with numerous potential applications in highly integrated optical communication components and optical computing devices.

Raddeanin A down-regulates androgen receptor and its splice variants in prostate cancer.

Castration-resistant progression of prostate cancer is a major cause of prostate cancer mortality, and increased expression and activity of the full-length and the splice variants of androgen receptor (AR) have been indicated to drive castration resistance. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop agents that can target both the full-length and the splice variants of AR for more effective treatment of prostate cancer. In the present study, we showed that raddeanin A (RA), an oleanane-type triterpenoid saponin, suppresses the transcriptional activities of both the full-length and the splice variants of AR. This is attributable to their decreased expression as a result of RA induction of proteasome-mediated degradation and inhibition of the transcription of the AR gene. We further showed the potential of using RA to enhance the growth inhibitory efficacy of docetaxel, the first-line chemotherapy for prostate cancer. This study identifies RA as a new agent to target both the full-length and the splice variants of AR and provides a rationale for further developing RA for prostate cancer treatment.

Electrochemical performance of graphene-coated activated mesocarbon microbeads as a supercapacitor electrode.

Hybrid activated carbon/graphene materials are prospective candidates for use as high performance supercapacitor electrode materials, since they have the superior characteristics of high surface area, abundant micro/mesoporous structure due to the presence of activated carbon and good electrical conductivity as a result of the presence of graphene. In this work, the electrochemical performance of facile and low-cost graphene-coated activated mesocarbon microbeads (g-AM) is carefully studied. The results show that g-AM can only be formed at a very high temperature over a long activation time, resulting in the formation of a large pore size and low specific surface area, further resulting in poor electrochemical performance (110 F g-1 at 0.1 A g-1 in 6 M KOH solution). Ball milling for a short time is an effective way to improve the electrochemical performance (191 F g-1 at 0.1 A g-1 in 6 M KOH solution). Moreover, due to the strong resistance to aggregation and good electrical conductivity of graphene flowers, the g-AM had nearly 100% rate capability when increasing the current density from 5 to 50 A g-1. The as-assembled two-electrode symmetric supercapacitor exhibits a high energy and power density (5.28 W h kg-1 at 10 000 W kg-1) in organic LiPF6 electrolyte, due to its better electrical conductivity. It is expected that this type of hybrid structure holds great potential for scalable industrial manufacture as supercapacitor electrodes.