Long-Lived Weak Ion Pairs in Ionic Liquids: An Insight from All-Atom Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

The microstructure and local dynamics of ions in room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) have drawn a lot of attention due to their extensive potential applications in numerous fields. It is well-known that the widely used definitions of ion pairs (IPs) cannot reflect the full picture of RTILs. In this study, we find a universal residence time (τMR), which is regardless of the number of counterions in the first solvation shell in RTILs. Inspired by this, we propose a weak IP (WIP) model from a spatiotemporal perspective and demonstrate that the WIPs are long-lived and that their lifetimes obey a log-normal distribution, which is different from the literature. In addition, the electrostatic interactions are the main factors in the formation of WIPs, and the reorientations of ions are vital to the ruptures of WIPs. This research provides a new perspective for understanding the microstructural and dynamical properties of RTILs.

Circ_0003789 Facilitates Gastric Cancer Progression by Inducing the Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Through the Wnt/ß-Catenin Signaling Pathway.

Background: The role of circular RNAs in the pathogenesis of gastric cancer (GC) has been well documented by numerous studies. However, whether circ_0003789 plays a role during GC progression remains to be determined. Thus, this study investigated the biological functions of circ_0003789 during GC progression. Materials and Methods: Circ_0003789 expression was determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in GC and matched para-carcinoma normal tissues. Functional experiments were performed to estimate changes in the proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion of GC cells treated to silence circ_0003789. E-cadherin, vimentin, Wnt3a, and ß-catenin expression was determined using immunofluorescence staining and Western blot assays. Xenograft tumor growth and Ki67 expression were also evaluated in vivo. Results: Circ_0003789 was upregulated in GC tissues and cells, and its upregulation positively correlated with poor tumor differentiation, distal metastasis, and advanced clinical stage. Silencing circ_0003789 inhibited GC cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, the Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway was repressed by circ_0003789 silencing. Conclusions: Circ_0003789 facilitates GC progression by inducing the EMT through the Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway.

Adaptive dual-exposure fusion-based transport of intensity phase microscopy.

Via the transport of intensity phase microscopy, quantitative phase can be retrieved directly from captured multi-focal intensities. The accuracy of the retrieved phases depends highly on the quality of the recorded images; therefore, the exposure time should be carefully chosen for high-quality intensity captures. However, it is difficult to record well-exposure intensities to maintain rather a high signal to noise ratio and to avoid over-exposure due to the complex samples. In order to simplify the exposure determination, here the adaptive dual-exposure fusion-based transport of intensity phase microscopy is proposed: with captured short- and long-exposure images, the well-exposure multi-focal images can be numerically reconstructed, and then high-accurate phase can be computed from these reconstructed intensities. With both simulations and experiments provided in this paper, it is proved that the adaptive dual-exposure fusion-based transport of intensity phase microscopy not only provides numerically reconstructed well-exposure image with simple operation and fast speed but also extracts highly accurate retrieved phase. Moreover, the exposure time selection scope of the proposed method is much wider than that based on single exposure, and even though there is an over-exposure region in the long-exposure image, a well-exposure image can still be reconstructed with high precision. Considering its advantages of high accuracy, fast speed, simple operation, and wide application scope, the proposed technique can be adopted as quantitative phase microscopy for high-quality observations and measurements.