A Novel Enhanced-Fluorescent Probe Based on DHLA-Stabilized Red-Emitting Copper Nanoclusters for Methimazole Detection Via Aggregation-Induced Emission Effect.

Herein, an aqueous phase synthesis approach was presented for the fabrication of copper nanoclusters (Cu NCs) with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property, utilizing lipoic acid and NaBH4 as ligands and reducing agent, respectively. The as-synthesized Cu NCs exhibit an average size of 3.0 ± 0.2 nm and demonstrate strong solid-state fluorescence upon excitation with UV light. However, when dissolved in water, no observable fluorescent emission is detected in the aqueous solution of Cu NCs. Remarkably, the addition of Methimazole induced a significant red fluorescence from the aqueous solution of Cu NCs. This unexpected phenomenon can be ascribed to the aggregation of negatively charged Cu NCs caused by electrostatic interaction with positively charged imidazole groups in Methimazole, resulting in enhanced fluorescence through AIE mechanism. Therefore, there exists an excellent linear correlation between the fluorescent intensities of Cu NCs aqueous solution and the concentration of Methimazole within a range of 0.1-1.5 mM with a low limit of detection of 82.2 µM. Importantly, the designed enhanced-fluorescent nanoprobe based on Cu NCs exhibits satisfactory performance in assaying commercially available Methimazole tablets, demonstrating its exceptional sensitivity, reliability, and accuracy.

Synergistic Promotion of the Photocatalytic Preparation of Hydrogen Peroxide (H2 O2 ) from Oxygen by Benzoxazine and Si─O─Ti Bond.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ) is considered one of the most important chemical products and has a promising future in photocatalytic preparation, which is green, pollution-free, and hardly consumes any non-renewable energy. This study involves the preparation of benzoxazine with Si─O bonds via the Mannich reaction, followed by co-hydrolysis to produce photocatalysts containing benzoxazine with Si─O─Ti bonds. In this study, a benzoxazine photocatalyst with Si─O─Ti bonds is synthesized and characterized using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The size and elemental distribution of the nanoparticles are confirmed by transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The photocatalytic synthesis of H2 O2 is tested using the titanium salt detection method, and the rate is found to be 7.28 µmol h-1 . Additionally, the catalyst exhibits good hydrolysis resistance and could be reused multiple times. The use of benzoxazine with Si─O─Ti bonds presents a promising experimental and theoretical foundation for the industrial production of H2 O2 through photocatalytic synthesis.

ZnS QDs Stabilized Concurrently with Glutathione and L-cysteine for Highly Sensitive Determining Adriamycin Based on the Fluorescence Enhancement Mechanism.

In this work, a facile and fast aqueous-phase synthetic method is proposed to prepare water-soluble ZnS quantum dots stabilized simultaneously with glutathione and L-cysteine (ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys). As-synthesized ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys were monodispersed spherical nanocrystals with a mean diameter of 5.0 ± 0.7 nm. Besides, the obtained ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys emitted more intensive blue fluorescence and exhibited an improved stability in aqueous solution compared with ZnS quantum dots merely stabilized with GSH (ZnS QDs-GSH). Interestingly, Adriamycin, a representative anticancer drug, was added into the solution of ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys, the blue fluorescence of ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys was greatly enhanced instead of being quenched, which indicated that ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys can be used as an enhanced-fluorescence nanoprobe for determining Adriamycin. The observed fluorescent enhancement could be attributed to the blocking of photoinduced electron transfer (PET) in ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys due to the electrostatic interaction between the -COO- groups on the surface of quantum dots and the -NH3+ groups in Adriamycin, followed by the coordination interaction among ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys and Adriamycin. The fluorescence intensity of ZnS QDs-GSH/L-Cys presented a good linear response with the concentration of Adriamycin ranging from 2.0 to 20 µg•mL-1. The proposed fluorescent nanoprobe exhibited an excellent sensitivity with the LOD of 0.1 µg•mL-1 and a good accuracy for detecting Adriamycin.

miR-29c Suppresses the Malignant Phenotype of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cells In Vitro by Mediating TPX2 Associated with Immune Infiltration.

BACKGROUND: miR-29-3p, an important tumor suppressor, with inhibitory effects in multiple cancers that have been studied. Its exact molecular function is in HCC, however, still not been explored clearly. The purpose of our study is to make certain how miR-29c-3p affects HCC through TPX2. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Expression profile data of miR-29c-3p and TPX2 were acquired and downloaded from the TCGA database, and the respective differential expression was verified by qPCR and immunohistochemistry. The StarBase and dual luciferase reporter confirmed TPX2 targeting miR-29c-3p. Their effects on the biological functions of Hep3B and HepG2 were investigated by cellular assays. RESULTS: miR-29-3p was found to be significantly down-regulated in HCC, and the miR-29-3p low expression group had a poor prognosis. Overexpression of miR-29-3p was detrimental to invasion and migration ability of HCC cells and promoted their apoptosis. We identified miR-29c-3p targeting TPX2 by predictive analysis. TPX2 was significantly upregulated in HCC, and patients with high TPX2 expression had a poor prognosis. TPX2 knockdown partially counteracted the promoting effect of miR-29-3p inhibition on hepatocellular carcinoma cells, and its effect on hepatocellular carcinoma cell biology was similar to miR-29c-3p overexpression. CONCLUSION: miR-29c, a key gene regulating HCC, is lowly expressed in HCC, its overexpression can remarkably inhibit the biological function of tumor cells. miR-29c can perform this function by regulating the expression of TPX2.

A panel of platelet-associated circulating long non-coding RNAs as potential biomarkers for colorectal cancer.

Evidence has suggested the potential of tumor-educated platelets as a biomarker trove for cancer diagnostics, but the difficulty in isolation limits its application. Since most of the circulating RNAs are derived from platelets, the change of RNA profile in platelets may lead to altered RNA expression in serum. Here, we identified a panel of platelet-associated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and evaluated its diagnostic capacity in serum of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Four lncRNAs, LNCAROD, SNHG20, LINC00534, and TSPOAP-AS1, were upregulated in both platelets and serum of CRC patients. A binary logistic model derived from them has validated area under roc curve of 0.78 indicating great performance. Furthermore, the expression levels of LNCAROD and TSPOAP-AS1 were correlated with cancer staging and tumor location. Together, our results add novel lncRNA biomarkers to the list of blood tests for CRC diagnostics and provide molecular evidence for the cross-talk between CRC platelets and serum.

Metal-Organic Frameworks Encapsulating Carbon Dots Enable Fast Speciation of Mono- and Divalent Copper.

Copper is an essential element to play significant roles in human health associated to the strong redox properties of Cu(I) and Cu(II). The concurrent monitoring of copper species in biological matrixes is highly desired. Herein, a dual-channel fluorescence nanoprobe was designed for the speciation of mono- and divalent copper by conjugating carbon dots (CDs) with Eu-based metal-organic frameworks (Eu-MOFs). The obtained Eu-MOFs@CD nanoprobe exhibits fluorescence at λex/λem = 380/454 nm from CDs and λex/λem = 275/615 nm from Eu-MOFs. Bathocuproine disulfonate (BCS) specifically chelates Cu+ to produce a BCS-Cu+ adduct with absorption at 480 nm, which quenches the fluorescence of CDs at 454 nm due to the inner filter effect. On the other hand, Cu2+ quenches the fluorescence of Eu-MOFs due to the replacement of Eu3+ by Cu2+. Thus, Eu-MOFs@CDs enable extremely fast detection of Cu+ and Cu2+ within 1 min. Furthermore, the nanoprobe is demonstrated by monitoring the variation of Cu+ and Cu2+ in the degradation process of copper nanoparticles and Cu-based MOFs.

Dissecting the Molecular Regulation of Natural Variation in Growth and Senescence of Two Eutrema salsugineum Ecotypes.

Salt cress (Eutrema salsugineum, aka Thellungiella salsuginea) is an extremophile and a close relative of Arabidopsis thaliana. To understand the mechanism of selection of complex traits under natural variation, we analyzed the physiological and proteomic differences between Shandong (SD) and Xinjiang (XJ) ecotypes. The SD ecotype has dark green leaves, short and flat leaves, and more conspicuous taproots, and the XJ ecotype had greater biomass and showed clear signs of senescence or leaf shedding with age. After 2-DE separation and ESI-MS/MS identification, between 25 and 28 differentially expressed protein spots were identified in shoots and roots, respectively. The proteins identified in shoots are mainly involved in cellular metabolic processes, stress responses, responses to abiotic stimuli, and aging responses, while those identified in roots are mainly involved in small-molecule metabolic processes, oxidation-reduction processes, and responses to abiotic stimuli. Our data revealed the evolutionary differences at the protein level between these two ecotypes. Namely, in the evolution of salt tolerance, the SD ecotype highly expressed some stress-related proteins to structurally adapt to the high salt environment in the Yellow River Delta, whereas the XJ ecotype utilizes the specialized energy metabolism to support this evolution of the short-lived xerophytes in the Xinjiang region.

Regulation of Plant Responses to Salt Stress.

Salt stress is a major environmental stress that affects plant growth and development. Plants are sessile and thus have to develop suitable mechanisms to adapt to high-salt environments. Salt stress increases the intracellular osmotic pressure and can cause the accumulation of sodium to toxic levels. Thus, in response to salt stress signals, plants adapt via various mechanisms, including regulating ion homeostasis, activating the osmotic stress pathway, mediating plant hormone signaling, and regulating cytoskeleton dynamics and the cell wall composition. Unraveling the mechanisms underlying these physiological and biochemical responses to salt stress could provide valuable strategies to improve agricultural crop yields. In this review, we summarize recent developments in our understanding of the regulation of plant salt stress.

Preparation of a Pt/Active Carbon Fiber Catalyst and Its Application in the Synthesis of p-Chloroaniline with Catalytic Hydrogenation.

In this study, a Pt loaded active carbon fiber (Pt/ACF) catalyst was prepared by immobilizing Pt nanoparticles on ACF. The catalyst accelerated hydrogenation of p-chloronitrobenzene (p-CNB) to p-chloroaniline (p-CA) at lower temperature and atmospheric pressure, resulting in approximately 100% yield and selectivity. Several factors that affect p-CA yield were investigated. The nitro reduction rate reached 100% under the optimal reaction conditions, indicating excellent selectivity of the prepared catalyst. This process will overcome the environmental pollution problems associated with the traditional process, and is a green synthetic process.

Gut microbiota in wild and captive Guizhou snub-nosed monkeys, Rhinopithecus brelichi.

Many colobine species-including the endangered Guizhou snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus brelichi) are difficult to maintain in captivity and frequently exhibit gastrointestinal (GI) problems. GI problems are commonly linked to alterations in the gut microbiota, which lead us to examine the gut microbial communities of wild and captive R. brelichi. We used high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to compare the gut microbiota of wild (N = 7) and captive (N = 8) R. brelichi. Wild monkeys exhibited increased gut microbial diversity based on the Chao1 but not Shannon diversity metric and greater relative abundances of bacteria in the Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae families. Microbes in these families digest complex plant materials and produce butyrate, a short chain fatty acid critical to colonocyte health. Captive monkeys had greater relative abundances of Prevotella and Bacteroides species, which degrade simple sugars and carbohydrates, like those present in fruits and cornmeal, two staples of the captive R. brelichi diet. Captive monkeys also had a greater abundance of Akkermansia species, a microbe that can thrive in the face of host malnutrition. Taken together, these findings suggest that poor health in captive R. brelichi may be linked to diet and an altered gut microbiota.

Access Control Based on Ciphertext Attribute Authentication and Threshold Policy for the Internet of Things.

The development of the Internet of Things has led to great development of data sharing and data interaction, which has made security and privacy more and more a concern for users. How to ensure the safe sharing of data, avoid the leakage of sensitive information, and protect the privacy of users is a serious challenge. Access control is an important issue to ensure the trust of the Internet of Things. This paper proposes an access control scheme based on ciphertext attribute authentication and threshold policy, which uses the identity authentication of hidden attributes and divides the user's permission grade by setting the threshold function with the user's attributes. Users obtain different permission grades according to attribute authentication and access data of different sensitivity grades to achieve fine-grained, flexible and secure access to data in the cloud server while protecting personal privacy issues. In addition, when the resource is acquired, the identity and permission joint authentication method is adopted to avoid the collusion attack of the illegal member, which makes the resource access control more secure.

Diet Versus Phylogeny: a Comparison of Gut Microbiota in Captive Colobine Monkey Species.

Both diet and host phylogeny shape the gut microbial community, and separating out the effects of these variables can be challenging. In this study, high-throughput sequencing was used to evaluate the impact of diet and phylogeny on the gut microbiota of nine colobine monkey species (N = 64 individuals). Colobines are leaf-eating monkeys that fare poorly in captivity-often exhibiting gastrointestinal (GI) problems. This study included eight Asian colobines (Rhinopithecus brelichi, Rhinopithecus roxellana, Rhinopithecus bieti, Pygathrix nemaeus, Nasalis larvatus, Trachypithecus francoisi, Trachypithecus auratus, and Trachypithecus vetulus) and one African colobine (Colobus guereza). Monkeys were housed at five different captive institutes: Panxi Wildlife Rescue Center (Guizhou, China), Beijing Zoo, Beijing Zoo Breeding Center, Singapore Zoo, and Singapore Zoo Primate Conservation Breeding Center. Captive diets varied widely between institutions, but within an institution, all colobine monkey species were fed nearly identical or identical diets. In addition, four monkey species were present at multiple captive institutes. This allowed us to parse the effects of diet and phylogeny in these captive colobines. Gut microbial communities clustered weakly by host species and strongly by diet, and overall, colobine phylogenetic relationships were not reflected in gut microbiota analyses. Core microbiota analyses also identified several key taxa-including microbes within the Ruminococcaceae and Lachnospiraceae families-that were shared by over 90% of the monkeys in this study. Microbial species within these families include many butyrate producers that are important for GI health. These results highlight the importance of diet in captive colobines.

Design, synthesis and biological activities of tetrandrine and fangchinoline derivatives as antitumer agents.

The isolation and modification of natural products is always a very important resources to anti-tumor drugs. Therefore, a novel series of tetrandrine and fangchinoline derivatives were designed and synthesized, and their antiproliferative activities against HepG2, MCF-7 cells were evaluated and described. From the activity result obtained, high to very high activity in vitro has been found, one of the tested compounds (compound 5d) exhibited the most significant cytotoxic effects. Compound 5d increased 29.2, 7.37 times anti-proliferative activity for HepG2 cells and MCF-7 cells compared to sunitinib (IC50=16.06µM and 25.41µM). Finally flow cytometry determined that compound 5d could indeed inhibit the proliferation of HepG2 cells via inducing apoptosis.

Oxidation of Chlorpromazine by Lipoxygenase Immobilized on Magnetic Fe3O4 Nanoparticles.

In this work, soybean lipoxygenase enzyme was immobilized on the magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles to oxidate chlorpromazine (CPZ). The physicochemical properties of the nanoparticles were characterized with transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and the magnetic properties were detected by a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The TEM images indicated the surface and the size of the immobilized enzyme were much rougher and thicker than those of the naked particles. The analyses of XRD patterns showed that the structure of the magnetic nanoparticles had no significant change while the nanoparticles also exhibited higher superparamagnetism at room temperature. Compared to free enzyme or the enzyme immobilized with other methods, the optimal pH, temperature and H2O2 concentration for the activity of immobilized enzyme did not have great changes, but the immobilized enzyme was more stable and less sensitive to the change of the influence factors than free counterpart. The immobilized enzyme could be recovered easily by magnetic separation and could be reused for many times in the process of CPZ oxidation. The results obtained by simulating the model of Michaelis-Menten indicated that the reaction of CPZ oxidation followed Michaelis-Menten kinetics and the enzyme still retained its affinity for CPZ while the enzyme was immobilized.

Enhancing adversarial attacks with resize-invariant and logical ensemble.

In black-box scenarios, most transfer-based attacks usually improve the transferability of adversarial examples by optimizing the gradient calculation of the input image. Unfortunately, since the gradient information is only calculated and optimized for each pixel point in the image individually, the generated adversarial examples tend to overfit the local model and have poor transferability to the target model. To tackle the issue, we propose a resize-invariant method (RIM) and a logical ensemble transformation method (LETM) to enhance the transferability of adversarial examples. Specifically, RIM is inspired by the resize-invariant property of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). The range of resizable pixel is first divided into multiple intervals, and then the input image is randomly resized and padded within each interval. Finally, LETM performs logical ensemble of multiple images after RIM transformation to calculate the final gradient update direction. The proposed method adequately considers the information of each pixel in the image and the surrounding pixels. The probability of duplication of image transformations is minimized and the overfitting effect of adversarial examples is effectively mitigated. Numerous experiments on the ImageNet dataset show that our approach outperforms other advanced methods and is capable of generating more transferable adversarial examples.

Haplotype-resolved chromosome-level genome assembly of Ehretia macrophylla.

Ehretia macrophylla Wall, known as wild loquat, is an ecologically, economically, and medicinally significant tree species widely grown in China, Japan, Vietnam, and Nepal. In this study, we have successfully generated a haplotype-resolved chromosome-scale genome assembly of E. macrophylla by integrating PacBio HiFi long-reads, Illumina short-reads, and Hi-C data. The genome assembly consists of two haplotypes, with sizes of 1.82 Gb and 1.58 Gb respectively, and contig N50 lengths of 28.11 Mb and 21.57 Mb correspondingly. Additionally, 99.41% of the assembly was successfully anchored into 40 pseudo-chromosomes. We predicted 58,886 protein-coding genes, of which 99.60% were functionally annotated from databases. We furthermore detected 2.65 Gb repeat sequences, 659,290 rRNAs, 4,931 tRNAs and 4,688 other ncRNAs. The high-quality assembly of the genome offers a solid basis for furthering the fields of molecular breeding and functional genomics of E. macrophylla.

Chemical upcycling of polyethylene, polypropylene, and mixtures to high-value surfactants.

Conversion of plastic wastes to fatty acids is an attractive means to supplement the sourcing of these high-value, high-volume chemicals. We report a method for transforming polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) at ~80% conversion to fatty acids with number-average molar masses of up to ~700 and 670 daltons, respectively. The process is applicable to municipal PE and PP wastes and their mixtures. Temperature-gradient thermolysis is the key to controllably degrading PE and PP into waxes and inhibiting the production of small molecules. The waxes are upcycled to fatty acids by oxidation over manganese stearate and subsequent processing. PP ꞵ-scission produces more olefin wax and yields higher acid-number fatty acids than does PE ꞵ-scission. We further convert the fatty acids to high-value, large-market-volume surfactants. Industrial-scale technoeconomic analysis suggests economic viability without the need for subsidies.

Development of a Novel Model for Predicting Postoperative Short-Term Outcome in Patients with Hepatitis B-Related Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure Undergoing Liver Transplantation.

BACKGROUND We aimed to create a novel predictive model through comparing the prognostic accuracy of the current mainstream scoring models in predicting the short-term outcome of patients with hepatitis B-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (HBACLF) undergoing liver transplantation (LT). MATERIAL AND METHODS Data on patients with HBACLF undergoing LT were retrospectively collected and analyzed. The area under the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve of 16 scoring models was calculated to evaluate their performance in predicting short-term survival after LT. Univariate analyses and LASSO regression were used to identify the independent variables, which were further selected by Cox stepwise regression. RESULTS A total of 135 patients were enrolled. Among the 16 scoring models, MELD-Na performed the best in predicting 3-month mortality after LT, with an AUC of 0.716. LASSO regression analysis revealed that only the MELD-Na was confirmed as an independent predictor (HR 1.0481, 95% C.I [1.0136, 1.0838], P<0.05). Cox stepwise regression identified 4 variables - MELD-Na, sex, systemic infection, and placement of T-tube during operation - which were used to construct a novel prognostic model with a C-index of 0.844 and a Brier score of 0.131 after internal validation and a C-index of 0.824 (95% C.I [0.658, 0.989]) and a Brier score of 0.119 in the external validation cohort at 3 months. CONCLUSIONS Compared with other scoring models, MELD-Na was an independent factor in predicting short-term outcome after LT. The constructed novel predictive model could exert clinical benefits on early prognostic assessment and case selection.

The Benefits of Radical Treatments with Synchronous Splenectomy for Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Portal Hypertension.

Background: The survival benefits of radical treatment (resection or radiofrequency ablation) combined with splenectomy for primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with liver-cirrhosis-associated portal hypertension (PH) remain to be clarified. Methods: 96 patients undertaking HCC radical treatment combined with splenectomy (HS group) were retrospectively analyzed, 48 of whom belonged to HCC stage T1 (HSS group). Another 42 patients at stage T1 with PH who received hepatectomy (or radiofrequency ablation) alone (HA group) during the same period served as the control group. Recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) were compared at each time point between the HSS and HA group. The risk factors affecting early RFS and OS were confirmed through COX multivariate analysis. Results: The median RFS was 22.3 months and the mean median OS was 46 months in the HS group. As such, 1-year, 2-year, 3-year, and 5-year RFS rates in the HSS and HA group were 95% and 81% (p = 0.041), 81% and 67% (p = 0.05), 64% and 62% (p = 1.00), and 29% and 45% (p = 0.10), respectively. Further, 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year OS rates in the HSS and HA group were 98% and 98% (p = 1.00), 79% and 88% (p = 0.50), and 60% and 64% (p = 0.61), respectively. Cox multivariate analysis showed that preoperative irregular anti-viral therapy, Child-Pugh grade B liver function, vascular invasion, and microvascular invasion (MVI) were independent risk factors for early postoperative RFS (within 2 years), and preoperative irregular anti-viral therapy and vascular invasion were independent risk factors for 5-year OS. Conclusions: Radical treatment of HCC combined with synchronous splenectomy, especially applicable to patients with Child-Pugh grade A liver function, can significantly improve early postoperative RFS in patients with stage T1 HCC and liver-cirrhosis-associated portal hypertension, but fail to improve OS.