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Cancer metastasis accounts for nearly 90% of all cancer deaths. Metastatic cancer progression requires both cancer cell migration to the site of the metastasis and subsequent proliferation after colonization. However, it has long been recognized that cancer cell migration and proliferation can be uncoupled; but the mechanism underlying this paradox is not well understood. Here we report that TNFAIP8 (tumor necrosis factor-α-induced protein 8), a “professional” transfer protein of phosphoinositide second messengers, promotes cancer cell migration or metastasis but inhibits its proliferation or cancer growth. TNFAIP8-deficient mice developed larger tumors, but TNFAIP8-deficient tumor cells completely lost their ability to migrate toward chemoattractants and were defective in colonizing lung tissues as compared to wild-type counterparts. Mechanistically, TNFAIP8 served as a cellular “pilot” of tumor cell migration by locally amplifying PI3K–AKT and Rac signals on the cell membrane facing chemoattractant; at the same time, TNFAIP8 also acted as a global inhibitor of tumor cell growth and proliferation by regulating Hippo signaling pathway. These findings help explain the migration–proliferation paradox of cancer cells that characterizes many cancers.

Smart textiles are attracting great interest. Particularly, air-conditioning textiles are highly desired for their merits in energy conservation and personal temperature/humidity management. Currently, air-conditioning textiles can be fabricated by two strategies. One uses infrared-radiation-adaptive materials, and the other uses moisture-responsive actuators that can regulate temperature and humidity simultaneously. Here, the fabrication of a silk-yarn switch comprising electrospun highly aligned nanofibers is reported and its application in air-conditioning textiles is demonstrated. Silk yarn rotates in contact with liquid, and can be recovered by drying. The different responses and wetting behaviors of the switch to H2O and C2H6O is investigated. It is argued that alignment and surface hydrophilicity of nanofibers play important roles in this term. To elaborate, actuating trait is mainly controlled by reduction of the surface free energy of aligned silk nanofibers, during the wetting process. As proof of concept, the application of the sweat-driven silk-yarn switch in regulating the temperature/humidity of the human body is demonstrated in this work. Considering the large production, versatile processibility, and good biocompatibility, silk actuator may have practical applications in designing smart switches (or valves) for intelligent textiles, artificial muscles, and other application scenarios.

Low-temperature oxidation of anthracite coal has not been extensively investigated. In this study, variations in the structural parameters associated with aliphatic species (e.g., methyl and methylene) in anthracite coal were investigated during low-temperature oxidation (60 °C to 120 °C) using infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, and the influences on the molecular structure of coal are discussed. The results indicated that the oxidation of aliphatic species is divided into four stages. The aliphatic species were mainly oxidized at Stages 2 (80 °C to 120 °C) and 4 (>170 °C), and only slightly oxidized at Stages 1 (60 °C to 80 °C) and 3 (120 °C to 170 °C). The aliphatic species exhibited two modes of occurrence: at the edges of aromatic structure and in the interlayer spaces, which were mainly oxidized at Stages 2 and 4, respectively. The aliphatic species in the anthracite coal were dominated by those in the interlayer spaces (90.9% methylene and 88.8% methyl), followed by those at the edges (9.1% methylene and 11.2% methyl). The aliphatic species in the interlayer spaces showed a higher chemical stability than that of the species at the edges, resulting in the discontinuous low-temperature oxidation of the aliphatic species. The aliphatic chains in the interlayer spaces (A(CH3)/A(CH2)=0.77) were much longer than those at the edges (A(CH3)/A(CH2)=0.61), which was mainly attributed to coalification.

When a water droplet on a micropillar-structured hydrophobic surface is submitted to gradually increased pressure, the Cassie-Baxter wetting state transforms into the Wenzel wetting state once the pressure exceeds a critical value. It has been assumed that the reverse transition (Wenzel-to-Cassie-Baxter wetting state) cannot happen spontaneously after the pressure has been removed. In this paper, we report a new wetting-state transition. When external pressure is exerted on a droplet in the Cassie-Baxter wetting state on textured surfaces with high micropillars to trigger the breakdown of this wetting state, the droplet penetrates the micropillars but does not touch the base of the surface to trigger the occurrence of the Wenzel wetting state. We have named this state the suspended penetration wetting state. Spontaneous recovery from the suspended penetration wetting state to the initial Cassie-Baxter wetting state is achieved when the pressure is removed. Based on the experimental results, we built models to establish the penetration depth that the suspended penetration wetting state could achieve and to understand the energy barrier that influences the equilibrium position of the liquid surface. These results deepen our understanding of wetting states on rough surfaces subjected to external disturbances and shed new light on the design of superhydrophobic materials with a robust wetting stability.

Igneous intrusions significantly affect the mineralogical composition of coal. The Jingxi Coalfield, North China was subjected to the intrusion of a Mesozoic aplite; however, the resulting coal mineralogy has not been well investigated. This paper reports on a study of the mineralogical composition of five coal bench samples collected from the No. M3 coal in the Jingxi Coalfield, which was intruded by an aplite sill along the roof. The minerals present in the highest proportions in the No. M3 coal are margarite–paragonite group mineral (21.4%) and ammonian illite (72.7%), followed by ankerite (4.2%), anatase (0.7%), and rutile (0.9%). The formation of margarite, paragonite and ammonian illite is attributed to the intrusion of the aplite sill. The margarite and paragonite were formed prior to the formation of the ammonian illite. The proportion of the margarite–paragonite group mineral decreases, and the proportion of ammonian illite increases from the sill to the roof. The Ca2+ and K+ are more easily incorporated into the aluminosilicate mineral lattices than Na+ and NH4+, respectively. Thus, the Ca2+/Na+ ratio in the margarite–paragonite group mineral decreases, and the NH4+/K+ ratio in the ammonian illite increases from the sill to the roof. The formation of ankerite is also attributed to the igneous intrusion, but this mineral was formed later than the aluminosilicate minerals. The proportion of ankerite in the coal samples increases from the sill to the roof.

Purpose The pattern of eukaryotic macroorganisms varies with altitude is well-documented; by contrast, very little is known of how a bacterial pattern in soils varies with the elevation in a montane ecosystem. Mostly, previous studies on soil bacteria have either found a diversity decline, no trend, or a hump-back trend with increasing elevation. The aim of this study was to investigate the bacterial community composition and diversity patterns of Mount Nadu in Wolong Nature Reserve, Western Sichuan Plateau (3000–3945 masl).

The current research presents landslide susceptibility mapping by frequency ratio (FR) and weights of evidence (WoE) models based on geographic information system (GIS) and an assessment of their performances for the Shangzhou District of Shangluo City, China. Firstly, landslide locations of the study area were detected using aerial photographs as well as by carrying outfield survey. Then, a total of 145 landslides were mapped out of which 101 (70 % landslide locations) were randomly selected for training the models, and the remaining 44 (30 % landslide locations) were used for validating the models. The following ten landslide conditioning factors, such as slope aspect, curvature, slope angle, elevation, distance to rivers, distance to faults, lithology, peak ground acceleration, distance to roads and precipitation, were considered in this study. Subsequently, landslide susceptibility maps were produced using FR and WoE models in ArcGIS 10.0 software. The validation of landslide susceptibility maps were carried out using areas under the curve. The validation results showed that the training accuracy were 0.7635 (76.35 %) and 0.7450 (74.50 %) for the FR and WoE models, with predictive accuracy 0.7395 (73.95 %) and 0.7102 (71.02 %), respectively, indicating that landslide susceptibility mapping using FR model is more accurate than WoE model for the study area.