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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.

Families of bio-based hyperbranched epoxy (HBPEEs) were successfully prepared using renewable xylitol, bisphenol A and epichlorohydrin as feedstocks. The structure and physical performances of HBPEEs were characterized by FTIR, NMR, GPC and viscosity evaluation. Then, they were used as high efficient tougheners for diglycidyl of bisphenol A/diethylenetriamine (DGEBA/DETA) networks. The results indicated that the incorporation of HBPEEs into the DGEBA system can significantly enhance the mechanical properties and solvent resistance properties of the hybrid (HBPEEs/DGEBA). In particular, toughened hybrids with 15 wt% HBPEE-2 exhibited the outstanding impact strength than that of neat DGEBA (37.4 kJ/m2 vs. 11.8 kJ/m2) due to its excellent compatibility of with DGEBA. Simultaneously, the ductile fracture morphology of the modified hybrids was also confirmed by SEM. In addition, the activation energies of HBPEE-2/DGEBA hybrids calculated from the non-isothermal curing kinetics were lower than that of neat DGEBA. All of the results suggested that the bio-based HBPEEs could be used as efficient tougheners applied in epoxy resins industry.

A series of new environment-friendly plasticizers was synthesized from castor oil and used to plasticize nitrile rubber (NBR). The test results showed that tensile strength, elongation at break, and tear strength of NBR vulcanizates plasticized by castor oil-based plasticizers were found to be better than that of dioctyl phthalate (DOP). The aging test taken demonstrated that the castor oil-based plasticizers could improve the hot air and oil aging resistance of NBR vulcanizates. The thermal stability test illustrated that castor oil-based plasticizers enhanced the thermal stability of NBR vulcanizates, and the initial decomposition temperatures (T10%) were about 100 °C higher than that of DOP. In general, the studies manifested that EACO and EBCO can replace DOP to plasticize NBR and are used in fields that require high mechanical properties, aging resistance, and thermal stability. This study emphasizes the effects of sustainable, cost-effective, and high-efficiency plasticizers on NBR.

Developing vegetable oil-derived primary plasticizers for poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is still a challenge because of their insufficient compatibility. As described in this work, we report the synthesis of plasticizers through the esterification of polyethylene glycol methyl ether and dimer acid, in which dimer acid is renewable material prepared via a two-step reaction (1) the hydrolysis of fatty acids from soybean oil at 70 °C and (2) subsequent Diels−Alder reaction at 250 °C. The resulting plasticizers, dimer acid-derived polyethylene glycol methyl ether esters (DA-2n, 2n = 2, 4, 6 or 8 referring to the number of oxethyl units per molecule), were blended with PVC. It was found that the tensile properties, transparency, and thermal stability of plasticized PVC (PVC-DA-2n) increased significantly with an increase in the number of oxyethyl units. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed that its good compatibility can be attributed to the strong interaction between oxyethyl units and PVC. As the number of the oxyethyl units of plasticizer increased, the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the corresponding plasticized PVC samples decreased from 62.3 (PVC-DA-2) to 35.4 °C (PVC-DA-8). Owing to the excellent plasticization of DA-8, the performances of PVC-DA-8 were comparable or better than that of the PVC plasticized using commercial dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP). The simple but efficient method of this study provides a new avenue for the preparation of vegetable oil-based plasticizers for PVC.