Search

The hypoxic nature of solid tumors has severely negative effects on oxygen-based photodynamic therapy. In this study, we used porous Pt nanoparticles as a catalase (CAT) nanozyme, the second near-infrared (NIR-II) region photothermal transition agents (PTAs), and carriers of photosensitizer chlorin e6 (Ce6) to synthesize a composite nanosystem Pt-Ce6. In this system, Pt-Ce6 can continuously and stably decompose H2O2 into oxygen, thereby alleviating tumor hypoxia and improving the effect of photodynamic therapy (PDT). With 650 nm illumination, the reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by Ce6 will decrease the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP, ΔΨm) to release cytochrome c (Cyt-c) from the mitochondria into the cytoplasm, eventually leading to mitochondrial-mediated cellular apoptosis during the PDT process. In addition, Pt-Ce6 has good photothermal stability and high photothermal conversion efficiency (52.62%) in the NIR-II region. In U14 tumor-bearing mice, Pt-Ce6 completely suppressed tumor growth and recurrence under laser irradiation. Thus the nanocomposite shows excellent PDT/photothermal therapy (PTT) synergistic performance in vitro and in vivo.

Biofilm processes have a better nitrogen removal ability than traditional activated sludge at low temperatures (

The rebound behaviors of droplets impacting on a self-fabricated superhydrophobic brass surface (WCA=164.5°) were observed and studied by using high-speed-camera. In accordance with energy conversion, theoretical analysis of different behaviors and rebound mechanism were given. At lower velocities, three behaviors in different velocity ranges were observed: partial rebounding, entire rebounding and ejecting during rebounding. At higher velocities, such two behaviors as rebound after splashing and rebound, ejecting after splashing, occurred alternately and exhibited certain periodicity. A function to predict the critical impact velocity is derived from energy conservation condition, and the prediction values tally with the experimental values, with the maximum relative error about 14%.

The relativistic problems of neutral fermions subject to a new partially exactly solvable PT-symmetric potential and an exactly solvable PT-symmetric hyperbolic cosecant potential in 1+1 dimensions are investigated. The Dirac equation with the double-well-like mass distribution in the background of the PT-symmetric vector potential coupling can be mapped into the Schrodinger-like equation with the partially exactly solvable double-well potential. The position-dependent effective mass Dirac equation with the PT-symmetric hyperbolic cosecant potential can be mapped into the Schrodinger-like equation with the exactly solvable modified Poschl-Teller potential. The real relativistic energy levels and corresponding spinor wavefunctions for the bound states have been given in a closed form.

Under the circumstance of equal scalar and vector potentials, we solve the Klein-Gordon equation with the improved Rosen-Morse potential energy model in D spatial dimensions. The relativistic bound state energy equation has been obtained by using the supersymmetric WKB approximation approach. For fixed vibrational quantum number and various rotational quantum numbers, the relativistic energies for the 33Σg+ state of the Cs2 molecule and the 51Δg state of the Na2 molecule increase as D increases. We observe that the behavior of the relativistic vibrational energies in higher dimensions remains similar to that of the three-dimensional system.

TRAIL preferentially induces apoptosis in tumor cells and virus-infected cells. Unlike other tumor necrosis factor family members, TRAIL does not kill cells from most normal tissues and has thus been proposed as a promising new cancer treatment. Our study demonstrated that IFNgamma combined with TRAIL can trigger apoptosis in vitro in several resistant thyroid tumor cell lines, such as thyroid anaplastic carcinoma cells (ARO cells), while either agent alone exerts only a minimal effect. We further tested this effect on a mouse thyroid tumor model, when in vivo tumor growth was also significantly inhibited by this combination. The mechanism of how IFNgamma sensitized thyroid carcinoma cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis was investigated by screening global gene alterations in ARO cells treated with IFNgamma. Microarray data revealed that a proapoptotic gene, Bak, is markedly upregulated by IFNgamma, and this was confirmed by RNase protection assay. Western blot analysis also showed a significant increase in Bak at the protein level. Upregulation of Bak and sensitization for apoptosis by IFNgamma was blocked by overexpression of antisense Bak in ARO cells. Furthermore, overexpression of Bak sensitized ARO cell to TRAIL-induced apoptosis without the need for IFNgamma pretreatment. This suggests that Bak is a regulatory molecule involved in IFNgamma-facilitated TRAIL-mediated apoptosis in thyroid cancer cells.

This study has been carried out under an International Cooperation Agreement between the People's Republic of China and Belgium. The final aim of the work is the detailed analysis of the geology, hydrogeology and engineering geology in the central area of Shanghai with an accurate simulation by a mathematical model of the subsidence occurring in this town and caused by groundwater withdrawals.