Water-in-oil Pickering emulsion using ergosterol as an emulsifier solely.

As a crucial component of the fungal cell membranes, ergosterol has been demonstrated to possess surface activity attributed to its hydrophobic region and polar group. However, further investigation is required to explore its emulsification behavior upon migration to the oil-water interface. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the interface properties of ergosterol as a stabilizer for water in oil (W/O) emulsion. Moreover, the emulsion prepared under the optimal conditions was utilized to load the water-soluble bioactive substance with the chlorogenic acid as the model molecules. Our results showed that the contact angle of ergosterol was 117.017°, and its dynamic interfacial tension was obviously lower than that of a pure water-oil system. When the ratio of water to oil was 4: 6, and the content of ergosterol was 3.5 % (ergosterol/oil phase, w/w), the W/O emulsion had smaller particle size (438 nm), higher apparent viscosity, and better stability. Meanwhile, the stability of loaded chlorogenic acid was improved under unfavorable conditions (pH 1.2, 90 °C, ultraviolet irradiation, and oxidation), which were 73.87 %, 59.53 %, 62.53 %, and 69.73 %, respectively. Additionally, the bioaccessibility of chlorogenic acid (38.75 %) and ergosterol (33.69 %), and the scavenging rates of the emulsion on DPPH radicals (81.00 %) and hydroxyl radicals (82.30 %) were also enhanced. Therefore, a novel W/O Pickering emulsion was prepared in this work using ergosterol as an emulsifier solely, which has great potential for application in oil-based food and nutraceutical formulations.

Role of optical coherence tomography in pipeline embolization device for the treatment of vertebral-basilar artery dissecting aneurysms.

BACKGROUND: Vertebral-basilar artery dissecting aneurysms (VADAs) are an uncommon phenomenon in all fields of cerebrovascular disease. The flow diverter (FD) can be used as an endoluminal reconstruction device that promotes neointima formation at the aneurysmal neck and preserves the parent artery. To date, imaging examinations such as CT angiography, MR angiography, and DSA are the main methods used to evaluate the vasculature of patients. However, none of these imaging methods can reveal the situation of neointima formation, which is of great importance in evaluating occlusion of VADAs, especially those treated with a FD. METHODS: Three patients were included in the study from August 2018 to January 2019. All patients underwent preprocedural, postprocedural, and follow-up evaluations with high resolution MRI, DSA, and optical coherence tomography (OCT), as well as the formation of intima on the surface of the scaffold at the 6 month follow-up. RESULTS: Preprocedural, postoperative, and follow-up high resolution MRI, DSA, and OCT of all three cases successfully evaluated occlusion of the VADAs and occurrence of in stent stenosis from different views of intravascular angiography and neointima formation. CONCLUSIONS: OCT was feasible and useful to further evaluate VADAs treated with FD from a near pathological perspective, which may contribute toward guiding the duration of antiplatelet medication and early intervention of in stent stenosis.

Computer-aided profiling of a unique broad-specific antibody and its application to an ultrasensitive fluoroimmunoassay for five N-methyl carbamate pesticides.

Pollution of N-methyl carbamate (NMC) pesticides is threatening the non-target organisms' survival. Thus, broad-specific antibodies and class-selective immunoassays are demanding for multiple NMCs determination. In this study, we employed a molecular docking-based virtual screening strategy to fast profile antibody spectrum, based on a designed chemical pool containing 17 compounds. A monoclonal antibody (mAb)-6G against carbofuran was used as the objective. The recombinant full-length IgG was successfully expressed to validate the antibody sequences for homology modeling. After docking, we manually categorized the antibody-chemical binding strength into three groups. Non-competitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR) demonstrated the mAb-6G affinitive binding toward five NMCs (carbofuran, isoprocarb, propoxur, carbaryl and carbosulfan), which were classified into strong and moderate binding categories. Antibody binding properties were confirmed again by ic-ELISA and lateral flow immunochromatographic strip. Subsequently, an ultrasensitive indirect competitive fluoromicrosphere-based immunoassay (ic-FMIA) was established with the IC50 (half-maximal inhibitory concentration) values of 0.08-3.37 ng/mL. This portable assay presented a 30-230-fold improved sensitivity than traditional ic-ELISA and was applied in European surface water analysis. Overall, our work provides an efficient platform integrating in-silico and experimental methodologies to accelerate the characterization of hapten-specific antibody binding properties and the development of high-sensitive immunoassays for multi-pollutants monitoring.

Application of Deep Learning for Early Screening of Colorectal Precancerous Lesions under White Light Endoscopy.

METHODS: We collected and sorted out the white light endoscopic images of some patients undergoing colonoscopy. The convolutional neural network model is used to detect whether the image contains lesions: CRC, colorectal adenoma (CRA), and colorectal polyps. The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity rates are used as indicators to evaluate the model. Then, the instance segmentation model is used to locate and classify the lesions on the images containing lesions, and mAP (mean average precision), AP50, and AP75 are used to evaluate the performance of an instance segmentation model. RESULTS: In the process of detecting whether the image contains lesions, we compared ResNet50 with the other four models, that is, AlexNet, VGG19, ResNet18, and GoogLeNet. The result is that ResNet50 performs better than several other models. It scored an accuracy of 93.0%, a sensitivity of 94.3%, and a specificity of 90.6%. In the process of localization and classification of the lesion in images containing lesions by Mask R-CNN, its mAP, AP50, and AP75 were 0.676, 0.903, and 0.833, respectively. CONCLUSION: We developed and compared five models for the detection of lesions in white light endoscopic images. ResNet50 showed the optimal performance, and Mask R-CNN model could be used to locate and classify lesions in images containing lesions.

Characterization of Variable Region Genes and Discovery of Key Recognition Sites in the Complementarity Determining Regions of the Anti-Thiacloprid Monoclonal Antibody.

Sequence-defined recombinant antibodies (rAbs) have emerged as alternatives to hybridoma-secreted monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for performing immunoassays. However, the polyploidy nature of hybridomas often leads to the coexistence of aberrant or non-specific functional variable region (VR) gene transcripts, which complicates the identification of correct VR sequences. Herein, we introduced the use of LC-MS/MS combined with next-generation sequencing to characterize VR sequences in an anti-thiacloprid mAb, which was produced by a hybridoma with genetic antibody diversity. The certainty of VR sequences was verified by the functional analysis based on the recombinant antibody (rAb) expressed by HEK293 mammalian cells. The performance of the rAb was similar to that of the parental mAb, with IC50 values of 0.73 and 0.46 µg/L as measured by ELISAs. Moreover, molecular docking analysis revealed that Ser52 (H-CDR2), Trp98, and Trp93 (L-CDR3) residues in the complementarity determining regions (CDRs) of the identified VR sequences predominantly contributed to thiacloprid-specific recognition through hydrogen bonds and the CH-π interaction. Through single-site-directed alanine mutagenesis, we found that Trp98 and Trp93 (L-CDR3) showed high affinity to thiacloprid, while Ser52 (H-CDR2) had an auxiliary effect on the specific binding. This study presents an efficient and reliable way to determine the key recognition sites of hapten-specific mAbs, facilitating the improvement of antibody properties.

Transparent and through thickness conductive polystyrene films using external magnetic fields for "Z" alignment of nickel nanoparticles.

A combination of transparency, electrical conductivity and flexibility is desired in the emerging flexible electronics industry for current and future applications. In this paper, we report the development of through thickness electrical conductivity in polystyrene films filled with nickel nanopowder by external magnetic field application. This process leads to the formation of nanocolumns of nickel spanning across the thickness direction while generating nanoparticle depleted regions in between. This leads to directionally dependent enhancement in optical light transmission particularly in the normal direction of the films. With the use of as little as 2 wt% (0.22 vol%) nickel we were able to achieve high through thickness conductivity under the influence of a magnetic field. While these films exhibit high through thickness conductivity they remain non-conductive in their planes as a result of the unique nanomorphology created which eliminates potential side branch formations. These films are anticipated to be used as electrodes for touch screens, electric dissipative materials for electronic packaging and other sensors.