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A series of multifunctional castor oil-based epoxy resins, named methoxy castor oil polyglycidyl ether (MOCOGE), allyloxy castor oil polyglycidyl ether (AOCOGE), and castor oil-based non-glycidyl ether (CONGE), was designed through a ring-opening etherification reaction to broaden the application of E−51, a common type of bisphenol A epoxy resin. Research on its curing properties showed that adding castor-oil-based epoxy resins greatly enhanced the flexibility, toughness, and mechanical strength of E−51. In particular, when the blending amount was 10%, the tensile strength increased by 31.4%, 29.1%, and 34.4% compared to that of pure E−51, reaching 84.13, 82.66, and 86.07 MPa, respectively. The elongation at break increased by 29.2%, 29.8%, and 21.9%, respectively, and the impact strength increased by 59.5%, 39.5%, and 53.1%, respectively. Our results indicate that these castor oil-based epoxy resins improved E−51 properties, expanding the application of castor oil-based epoxy resins.

Abstract Background Increasing evidence has indicated that pyroptosis could regulate the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) to affect the tumor development. As a highly immunogenic tumor, clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) can benefit from immunotherapy, but related research on pyroptosis in the TIME of ccRCC is still deficient. Methods Available data derived from TCGA and GEO databases were analyzed to identify the different expression profiles of pyroptosis in ccRCC and normal tissues, and the correlation of pyroptosis regulators with TIME was evaluated in ccRCC. Results According to consensus clustering analysis, two differential expression levels of subtypes were identified to affect patient prognosis, and were related to histological tumor stage and grade. Immune cells were calculated by the CIBERSORT algorithm. Higher infiltrated levels of B cells naive, T cells CD4 memory resting, NK cells resting, monocytes, macrophages were observed in Cluster 1, while higher infiltrated levels of CD8+ T cells, T follicular helper cells, and Tregs were observed in Cluster 2. Gene set enrichment analysis indicated that Cluster 2 was enriched in multiple immune-related pathways, including the JAK-STAT signaling pathway. Moreover, overexpression of eight immune checkpoints was related to ccRCC development, especially in Cluster 2. As four potentially key pyroptosis regulators, AIM2, CASP5, NOD2, and GZMB were confirmed to be upregulated in ccRCC by RT-qPCR analysis and further verified by the HPA database. Further pan-cancer analysis suggested that these four pyroptosis regulators were differentially expressed and related to the TIME in multiple cancers. Conclusion The present study provided a comprehensive view of pyroptosis regulators in the TIME of ccRCC, which may provide potential value for immunotherapy.

Hypoxia is a common feature in various tumors that regulates aggressiveness. Previous studies have demonstrated that some dysregulated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are correlated with tumor progression, including bladder cancer (BCa). However, the prognostic effect of hypoxia-related lncRNAs (HRLs) and their clinical relevance, as well as their regulatory effect on the tumor immune microenvironment, are largely unknown in BCa. A co-expression analysis between hypoxia genes and lncRNA expression, which was downloaded from the TCGA database, was performed to identify HRLs. Univariate Cox regression analysis was performed to select the most desirable lncRNAs for molecular subtype, and further LASSO analysis was performed to develop a prognostic model. This molecular subtype based on four HRLs (AC104653, AL136084, AL139393, and LINC00892) showed good performance in the tumor microenvironment and tumor mutation burden. The prognostic risk model suggested better performance in predicting BCa patients’ prognosis and obtained a close correlation with clinicopathologic features. Furthermore, four of five first-line clinical chemotherapies showed different sensitivities to this model, and nine immune checkpoints showed different expression in the molecular subtypes or the risk model. In conclusion, this study indicates that this molecular subtype and risk model based on HRLs may be useful in improving the prognostic prediction of BCa patients with different clinical situations and may help to find a useful target for tumor therapy.