Search

Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the most aggressive forms of pancreatic cancer with a poor prognosis. YAP1 expression is markedly elevated in PDAC, but how it works is not clear. GL-V9, a derivative of the natural compound wogonin, effectively fights a variety of tumors; however, its effect on PDAC has not yet been studied. Methods: TCGA database analysis, Western blots, immunofluorescence, and real-time PCR were used to evaluate GL-V9's effect on YAP1 expression and mRNA levels. Immunofluorescence was used to examine the co-location of YAP1 with LAMP2 and p62. Co-immunoprecipitation was used to assess the binding of YAP1 to ubiquitin, p62, and TEAD1. A PDAC graft tumor model was used to test GL-V9's pharmacological effects. Western blots and immunohistochemistry were used to measure apoptosis- and autophagy-related protein expression. Results: GL-V9 effectively promoted the degradation of YAP1, reduced YAP1 nuclear localization, and induced mitochondrial apoptosis in PDAC cells. YAP1 overexpression led to the upregulation of Bcl-2 and attenuated the caspase cascade induced by GL-V9. Furthermore, we demonstrated that GL-V9 induced autophagosome–lysosome fusion via the AKT/mTOR/TFEB pathway, leading to mitochondrial apoptosis in PDAC cells. In vivo studies also confirmed that GL-V9 exerts anti-tumor effects by suppressing YAP1 expression, while also activating autophagy and inducing mitochondrial apoptosis in BXPC-3-bearing BALB/c nude mice. Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of autophagy-mediated YAP1 degradation in PDAC, providing a novel molecular rationale (GL-V9) as a promising treatment for this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensive use of chemical fertilizers in China to maintain high crop yields has led to significant environmental degradation and destabilized crop production. Returning straw to soil presents a potential alternative to reduce chemical fertilizer requirements and enhance soil fertility. This study investigates the effects of different nitrogen (N) input levels and straw additions on crop phosphorus (P) uptake and soil P availability based on a long-term N-fertilizer trial. The treatments included no fertilizer input (CK), conventional (NPK), reduced NPK (0.75NPK), and straw-amended (SNPK) treatments. Results indicate that SNPK significantly enhances shoot P uptake and crop yields by 43.7–61.9% and 29.3–39.6%, respectively. The SNPK treatment improved rhizosphere P availability and increased the phosphorus activation coefficient (PAC) by 1.72-fold compared to NPK alone. The enhanced soil P availability under SNPK was primarily attributed to an abundance of functional microbes, leading to higher P storage in the microbial biomass P pool and its turnover. Additionally, SNPK promoted root exudate and phosphate-mobilizing microbes, enhancing P mobilization and uptake. Nitrogen fertilization primarily influenced root functional traits related to P acquisition. These findings provide valuable insights for developing effective fertilizer management strategies in maize–oilseed rape rotation systems, emphasizing the benefits of integrating straw with chemical fertilizers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small molecules are significant risk factors for causing food safety issues, posing serious threats to human health. Sensitive screening for hazards is beneficial for enhancing public security. However, traditional detection methods are unable to meet the requirements for the field screening of small molecules. Therefore, it is necessary to develop applicable methods with high levels of sensitivity and specificity to identify the small molecules. Aptamers are short−chain nucleic acids that can specifically bind to small molecules. By utilizing aptamers to enhance the performance of recognition technology, it is possible to achieve high selectivity and sensitivity levels when detecting small molecules. There have been several varieties of aptamer target recognition techniques developed to improve the ability to detect small molecules in recent years. This review focuses on the principles of detection platforms, classifies the conjugating methods between small molecules and aptamers, summarizes advancements in aptamer−based conjugate recognition techniques for the detection of small molecules in food, and seeks to provide emerging powerful tools in the field of point−of−care diagnostics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of effective vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 remains a critical challenge amidst the ongoing global pandemic. This study introduces a novel approach to enhancing mRNA vaccine efficacy by leveraging the untranslated region (UTR) of TMSB10, a gene identified for its significant mRNA abundance in antigen-presenting cells. Utilizing the GEO database, we identified TMSB10 among nine genes, with the highest mRNA abundance in dendritic cell subtypes. Subsequent experiments revealed that TMSB10's UTR significantly enhances the expression of a reporter gene in both antigen-presenting and 293T cells, surpassing other candidates and a previously optimized natural UTR. A comparative analysis demonstrated that TMSB10 UTR not only facilitated a higher reporter gene expression in vitro but also showed marked superiority in vivo, leading to enhanced specific humoral and cellular immune responses against the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant RBD antigen. Specifically, vaccines incorporating TMSB10 UTR induced significantly higher levels of specific IgG antibodies and promoted a robust T-cell immune response, characterized by the increased secretion of IFN-γ and IL-4 and the proliferation of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. These findings underscore the potential of TMSB10 UTR as a strategic component in mRNA vaccine design, offering a promising avenue to bolster vaccine-induced immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and, potentially, other pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon geological storage (CGS) is an important global practice implemented to mitigate the effects of CO2 emissions on temperature, climate, sea level, and biodiversity. The monitoring of CGS leakage and the impact of storage on hydrogeological properties is important for management and long-term planning. In this study, we show the value of passive monitoring methods based on measuring and modeling water-level responses to tides. We review how monitoring can be used to identify time-varying horizontal and vertical permeabilities as well as independently detect time-varying fracture distribution in aquifer–caprock systems. Methods based on water-level responses to Earth tides are minimally invasive, convenient, economic (since they use existing groundwater wells), and time-continuous. We show how measurements can be used to detect aquifer leakage (caprock confinement) and the distribution of surrounding faults and fractures, which are the two most important unsolved quantities in assessing geological CO2 storage strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, reconfigurable coding metasurfaces have attracted extensive attention due to their dynamic and flexible manipulation of electromagnetic (EM) waves, making them an effective solution to connect physical reality and information science. Nevertheless, most previously reported reconfigurable metasurfaces suffer from limited applications, as they solely possess either phase or amplitude modulation. In this article, we propose a reconfigurable coding metasurface that can regulate both phase and amplitude response independently. In the field of the metasurface, the phase response can tailor the wavefronts, and the amplitude response can adjust the redistribution of the energy of the EM waves. Specifically, by integrating a PIN diode into the meta-atom and controlling its bias voltage, the reflection phase can be switched between two opposite phases with a phase difference of about 180°, and the reflection amplitude can be manipulated from 0.02 to 0.98 continuously at 11 GHz. The unit element consists of simple multi-layer structures, reducing its production cost and processing difficulty. By loading 1-bit phase code and multi-bit amplitude code to each unit element severally, this metasurface can modulate the distribution of reflected EM waves in two-dimensional (2-D) space while simultaneously suppressing the sidelobes for any quantity of scattered beams over a wide operating band ranging from 10.5 to 11.5 GHz. This metasurface exhibits promising potential for manipulating the distribution of EM wave energy and shaping of EM beams, which can be expected to facilitate wireless communication technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paclitaxel, a natural anticancer drug, is widely recognized and extensively utilized in the treatment of breast cancer (BC). However, it may lead to certain side effects or drug resistance. Fortunately, combination therapy with another anti-tumor agent has been explored as an option to improve the efficacy of paclitaxel in the treatment of BC. Herein, we first evaluated the synergistic effects of paclitaxel and flubendazole through combination index (CI) calculations. Secondly, flubendazole was demonstrated to synergize paclitaxel-mediated BC cell killing in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, we discovered that flubendazole could reverse the drug resistance of paclitaxel-resistant BC cells. Mechanistically, flubendazole was demonstrated to enhance the inhibitory effect of paclitaxel via HIF1α/PI3K/AKT signaling pathways. Collectively, our findings demonstrate the effectiveness of flubendazole in combination with paclitaxel for treating BC, providing an insight into exploiting more novel combination therapies for BC in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the feasibility of developing litchi leaves as silage, we determined the fermentation quality of four varieties of litchi leaves (including "Wanpu", "Wuyejiu", "Tongzai" and "Zhuangyuanhong") ensiled with or without Lactobacillus plantarum on day 3, 7, 14 and 30. The in vitro dry matter digestibility and gas production of litchi leaves silages were also determined after 30 days of ensiling. The results showed that Lactobacillus plantarum significantly reduced pH value (p < 0.01), inhibited coliform bacteria, and reduced the production of ammonia nitrogen (p < 0.01) in all the four kinds of litchi leaves silage. Moreover, Lactobacillus plantarum treated litchi leaves ("Wanpu" and "Zhuangyuanhong") had lower yeasts than the untreated litchi leaves during ensiling. The number of molds in Lactobacillus plantarum treated groups ("Tongzai" and "Zhuangyuanhong") was below the detected level after 30 days ensiling, which was lower than that of the untreated groups. The addition of Lactobacillus plantarum also contributed to improving IVDMD and markedly reduced (p < 0.01) gas production of all litchi leaves silages. Conclusions: Lactobacillus plantarum can improve the fermentation quality and in vitro digestion characteristics of litchi leaves silage. Developing litchi leaves as silage material is a feasible way to recycle litchi leaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N,N-dihydroxyethyl-(5-methyl-[1,3,4] thiadiazol-2-sulfur)-carbonyl acetamide was synthesized and used as an inhibitor to protect Q235 carbon steel in a 1 M HCl solution. The results showed an increased inhibition efficiency with the increase in the concentration of this inhibitor, and an inhibition efficiency higher than 96% at 40 mg/L can be obtained from weight loss, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and potentiodynamic polarization results. The inhibition effect was determined by the adsorption film according to the surface morphology and elemental distribution of the carbon steel surface. The adsorption consists of physical adsorption and chemical adsorption in view of the free adsorption energy of −40.64 kJ/mol derived from the Langmuir adsorption isotherm line. The lone pair electrons of N, O and S and π electronics of double bonds in molecules form stable covalent coordination bonds with the empty d orbitals of iron atoms, which is beneficial to chemical adsorption of the inhibitor. The high inhibiton efficiency of this inhibitor is important for the potential application in pickling field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undesirable side effects and multidrug tolerance are the main holdbacks to the treatment of cancer in conventional chemotherapy. Fortunately, targeted drug delivery can improve the enrichment of drugs at the target site and reduce toxicity to normal tissues and cells. A targeted drug delivery system is usually composed of a nanocarrier and a targeting component. The targeting component is called a "ligand". Aptamers have high target affinity and specificity, which are identified as attractive and promising ligands. Therefore, aptamers have potential application in the development of smart targeting systems. For instance, aptamers are able to efficiently recognize tumor markers such as nucleolin, mucin, and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Besides, aptamers can also identify glycoproteins on the surface of tumor cells. Thus, the aptamer-mediated targeted drug delivery system has received extensive attention in the application of cancer therapy. This article reviews the application of aptamers as smart ligands for targeted drug delivery in cancer therapy. Special interest is focused on aptamers as smart ligands, aptamer-conjugated nanocarriers, aptamer targeting strategy for tumor microenvironment (TME), and aptamers that are specified to crucial cancer biomarkers for targeted drug delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safe and effective vaccines for Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) can prevent the virus from infecting human populations and treat patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In this study, we discuss the inhibitory abilities of primary and booster vaccine-induced antibodies inhibitory ability toward the SARS-CoV-2 wild-type strain, as well as B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1, B.1.617.2, and B.1.1.529. We confirmed these antibodies had the strongest inhibitory effects on the wild-type strain and cross-inhibition activities against other mutant strains after two inactivated vaccine doses. However, the B.1.351, B.1.617.2 and B.1.1.529 mutants exhibit antibody resistance in the vaccine serum. Antibodies induced by homologous inactivated vaccines (n = 92) presented more effective inhibition against tested SARS-CoV-2 strains (p < 0.0001), especially B.1.351, B.1.617.2, and B.1.1.529 mutant strains, which had strong immune escape characteristics. In addition, a heterologous booster vaccination (n = 50) of a protein subunit vaccine ZifiVax (ZF2001) significantly restored humoral immune responses and even showed an increasing response against wild-type, B.1.351, B.1.617.2, and B.1.1.529 than homologous inactivated vaccines. Our analysis of the humoral immune response elicited by the different vaccine regimens, including inhibiting antibodies, indicated that a booster, whether homologous or heterologous, could be essential for achieving greater efficacy against SARS-CoV-2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the provisions of the Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan for industrial and mining enterprises as a quasi-natural experiment and constructs a difference-in-differences (DID) model to study its effect on increasing the quantity and improving the quality of green innovation based on a panel of 453 industrial and mining enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares in China from 2011 to 2020. The results show that the Soil Plan can significantly promote the increase of green innovation and the quality of industrial and mining enterprises, and the results are still valid after a series of robustness tests. The mechanism test shows that the Soil Plan promotes the quality of green innovation by alleviating the financing constraints of industrial and mining enterprises, but the impact on their incremental quantity is not significant. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of the Soil Plan on the quality of green innovation is stronger in the sample with a more independent board of directors and a digital mine transformation. This paper enriches the results in the field of soil pollution prevention and industrial and mining enterprises, and has important implications for the practice of promoting green innovation in Chinese enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), an annual herbaceous cash crop, is widely used for the remediation of heavy metal-contaminated soils due to its short growth cycle, high tolerance, high biomass, and lack of susceptibility to transfer heavy metals into the human food chain. In this study, a significant increase in proanthocyanidins was found in Yunnan hemp no. 1 after cadmium stress. Proanthocyanidins are presumed to be a key secondary metabolite for cadmium stress mitigation. Therefore, to investigate the effect of proanthocyanidins on industrial hemp under cadmium stress, four experimental treatments were set up: normal environment, cadmium stress, proanthocyanidin treatment, and cadmium stress after pretreatment with proanthocyanidins. The phenotypes from the different treatments were compared. The experimental results showed that pretreatment with proanthocyanidins significantly alleviated cadmium toxicity in industrial hemp. The transcriptome and metabolome of industrial hemp were evaluated in the different treatments. Proanthocyanidin treatment and cadmium stress in industrial hemp mainly affected gene expression in metabolic pathways associated with glutathione metabolism, phenylpropanoids, and photosynthesis, which in turn altered the metabolite content in metabolic pathways of phenylalanine, vitamin metabolism, and carotenoid synthesis. The combined transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis revealed that proanthocyanidins mitigated cadmium toxicity by enhancing photosynthesis, secondary metabolite synthesis, and antioxidant synthesis. In addition, exogenous proanthocyanidins and cadmium ions acted simultaneously on EDS1 to induce the production of large amounts of salicylic acid in the plant. Finally, overexpression of CsANR and CsLAR, key genes for proanthocyanidins synthesis in industrial hemp, was established in Arabidopsis plants. The corresponding plants were subjected to cadmium stress, and the results showed that CsLAR transgenic plants were more tolerant to cadmium than the CsANR transgenic and wild-type Arabidopsis plants. The results showed that salicylic acid and jasmonic acid were increased in Arabidopsis overexpressing CsLAR compared to AT wild-type Arabidopsis, and levels of secondary metabolites were significantly higher in Arabidopsis overexpressing CsLAR than in AT wild-type Arabidopsis. These results revealed how proanthocyanidins alleviated cadmium stress and laid the foundation for breeding industrial hemp varieties with higher levels of proanthocyanidins and greater tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a prevailing solution for visual tracking, Siamese networks manifest high performance via convolution neural networks and weight-sharing schemes. Most existing Siamese networks have adopted various offline training strategies to realize precise tracking by comparing the extracted target features with template features. However, their performances may degrade when dealing with unknown targets. The tracker is unable to learn background information through offline training, and it is susceptible to background interference, which finally leads to tracking failure. In this paper, we propose a twin-branch architecture (dubbed SiamOT) to mitigate the above problem in existing Siamese networks, wherein one branch is a classical Siamese network, and the other branch is an online training branch. Especially, the proposed online branch utilizes feature fusion and attention mechanism, which is able to capture and update both the target and the background information so as to refine the description of the target. Extensive experiments have been carried out on three mainstream benchmarks, along with an ablation study, to validate the effectiveness of SiamOT. It turns out that SiamOT achieves superior performance with stronger target discrimination abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the current study was to determine the appropriate spatial shapes for classroom occupants while saving energy. The research used parametric design and Genetic Algorithm (GA) to achieve this. Four recognized performance indicators, Energy Use Intensity (EUI), Useful Daylight Illuminance (UDI), Daylight Factor (DF), and Daylight Autonomy (DA), were used as the evaluation indexes for the research. The tests took place in six east–west-oriented classrooms at Shanghai University, China. The methodology was based on four steps: (1) parametric 3D modeling by Rhino and Grasshopper; (2) using building performance simulation tools; (3) running algorithm optimization; (4) outputting the useful results. The results proved that the methodology worked successfully in reducing energy consumption: optimized classrooms could be reduced by 7.5~14.5%, and classrooms with east directions were generally 4.8~8.3% more efficient than west-facing ones. The indoor lighting environment was also significantly improved, being slightly better than north–south-oriented classrooms in terms of the UDI index (60~75%) and inferior (but still high) in terms of the DF (4.0~7.0%) and DA (60~80%) indexes. The conclusion can help save design time in the early design process of teaching spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lithium-ion batteries will generate a large amount of heat during high-rate charging and discharging. By transferring the heat to the environment in time, the batteries can be kept in a suitable temperature range. This allows them to work normally, prolongs their cycle life, and reduces the risk of thermal runaway. Immersion cooling is a simple and efficient thermal management method. In this paper, a battery thermal management system (BTMS) with immersion cooling was designed by immersing the lithium-ion cells in the non-conductive coolant—dimethyl silicone oil. The electric–thermal coupled model was adopted to obtain the heat production and temperature distribution of the cell during discharging, and the performance of the system was obtained by numerical calculation. It was found that, compared with natural cooling, immersion cooling could significantly reduce both the maximum temperature (MAT) of the cell and the temperature of the tabs during the 3C discharging process. However, the maximum temperature difference (MATD) of the cell was significantly increased. To solve this problem, the effects of the flow rate, viscosity, specific heat capacity, and thermal conductivity of the coolant on the performance of immersion cooling were further investigated and discussed, including the MAT and MATD of the cell, and the pressure drop of the coolant. The method and results could provide references for the design and application of the BTMS with immersion cooling in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydraulic fracturing is an important technology for the exploitation of unconventional oil or gas reservoirs. In order to increase the production of oil or gas, ultra-lightweight proppants with a high compressive strength are highly desirable in hydraulic fracture systems. In this work, a new type of ultra-lightweight proppant, poly(styrene-co-methyl methacrylate)/fly ash (poly(St-co-MMA)/FA) composites with a high compressive strength were prepared via in situ suspension polymerization. The Fourier transform infrared (IR) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) analyses confirmed that the poly(St-co-MMA)/FA composites were successfully prepared. The morphology analysis indicated that the composite microspheres show good sphericity, and FA powder was evenly dispersed in the matrix. The apparent density of the microspheres was between 1 and 1.3 g/cm3, which is suitable for hydraulic fracturing. Furthermore, the compressive strength and thermostability were dramatically improved with the incorporation of FA, which could withstand high pressures and temperatures underground. The obtained poly(St-co-MMA)/FA composite microspheres are promising for application as an ultra-lightweight (ULW) proppant in oil or gas exploitation, which provides a new approach for the design of high performance proppants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhubarb is an important ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine known as Rhei radix et rhizome. However, this common name refers to three different botanical species with different pharmacological effects. To facilitate the genetic identification of these three species for their more precise application in Chinese medicine we here want to provide chloroplast sequences with specific identification sites that are easy to amplify. We therefore sequenced the complete chloroplast genomes of all three species and then screened those for suitable sequences describing the three species. The length of the three chloroplast genomes ranged from 161,053 bp to 161,541 bp, with a total of 131 encoded genes including 31 tRNA, eight rRNA and 92 protein-coding sequences. The simple repeat sequence analysis indicated the differences existed in these species, phylogenetic analyses showed the chloroplast genome can be used as an ultra-barcode to distinguish the three botanical species of rhubarb, the variation of the non-coding regions is higher than that of the protein coding regions, and the variations in single-copy region are higher than that in inverted repeat. Twenty-one specific primer pairs were designed and eight specific identification sites were experimentally confirmed that can be used as special DNA barcodes for the identification of the three species based on the highly variable regions. This study provides a molecular basis for precise medicinal plant selection, and supplies the groundwork for the next investigation of the closely related Rheum species comparing and correctly identification on these important medicinal species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]