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Involudispirones A (1) and B (2), a pair of cytotoxic sesterterpene stereoisomers containing a 1,2-dioxadispiro[ 5.2.5.2]hexadecane ring, were isolated from the rhizomes of Stahlianthus involucratus. Their structures and absolute configurations were established on the basis of spectroscopic data and chemical conversion. Both 1 and 2 are cytotoxic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To establish a rapid, specific and sensitive method for the detection of rabbit hair, and provide an effective detecting evidence for rabbit hair, a pair of primers and probe corresponding to the rabbit COX I gene for real time fluorescence quantitative PCR were designed, similar sequences were searched by Blast method, and the excellent primers and probe no cross reaction with common livestock were selected. DNA from common animal fiber such as duck down, sheep wool, cashmere, yak hair, alpaca fiber was used for specific test. The extracted rabbit DNA were serially diluted for real time PCR amplification, the sensitivity of method was tested. Three times repeated experiments with primer, verify its repeatability. The primers and probe according to the rabbit cox I gene could only amplify rabbit hair DNA, but not other reference animal fiber DNA. Real time fluorescence quantitative PCR can rapidly and accurately qualitative tests the rabbit hair contamination in fiber products with high specificity, repeatability and sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transmembrane protein with epidermal growth factor and two follistatin motifs 2 (TMEFF2) is a single-pass transmembrane protein, and it is downregulated in human gastric cancer and levels correlate with tumor progression and time of survival. However, the mechanism of its dysregulation in gastric cancer is little known. Here we investigate its regulatory mechanism and the bidirectional regulation between TMEFF2 and STAT3 in gastric carcinogenesis. TMEFF2 expression was decreased after Helicobacter pylori ( H. pylori) infection in vivo and in vitro. STAT3 directly binds to the promoter of TMEFF2 and regulates H. pylori-induced TMEFF2 downregulation in normal gastric GES-1 cells and gastric cancer AGS cells. Conversely, TMEFF2 may suppress the phosphorylation of STAT3 and TMEFF2-induced downregulation of STAT3 phosphorylation may depend on SHP-1. A highly inverse correlation between the expression of TMEFF2 and pSTAT3 was also revealed in gastric tissues. We now show the deregulation mechanism of TMEFF2 in gastric carcinogenesis and identify TMEFF2 as a new target gene of STAT3. The phosphorylation of STAT3 may be negatively regulated by TMEFF2, and the bidirectional regulation between TMEFF2 and STAT3 may contribute to H. pylori-associated gastric carcinogenesis.© 2014 UICC [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MelicolonesA (1) and B (2), a pair ofrearranged prenylated acetophenone epimers with an unusual 9-oxatricyclo[3.2.1.13,8]nonane core, were isolated from the leaves of Melicopeptelefolia.Further chiral high-performance liquid chromatographyresolution gave enantiomers (+)- and (−)-1, aswell as (+)- and (−)-2, respectively. The structuresand absolute configurations of the pure enantiomers were determinedby extensive spectroscopic data and single crystal X-ray diffraction.All the isolated enantiomers exhibited potent cell protecting activitiesagainst high glucose-induced oxidative stress in human vein endothelialcells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation and accumulation of hydrates in high pressure oil and gas pipelines bring great risks to field development and deep-water transportation. In this paper, a high pressure flow loop equipped with visual window was used to study the growth process of hydrates in a pipe flow system and slurry flow characteristics. Deionized water, industrial white oil and CO 2 were selected as the experiment medium. A series of experiments with different initial pressures (2.5-3 MPa), liquid loads (7-9 L), flow rates (25-35 kg min -1 ) and water cuts (60-100%) were designed and carried out. Specifically, hydrate formation and slurry flow characteristics in two different systems, pure water and oil-water emulsion system, were compared. Both of the systems experienced an induction stage, slurry flow stage and followed by a plugging stage. Although hydrate growth gradually ceased in the slurry flow stage, plugging still occurred due to the continuous agglomeration of hydrates. Visual observation showed that there were obvious stratification of the oil-water emulsion systems at the later time of slurry flow stage, which directly resulted in pipe blockage. The hydrate induction time of the flow systems gradually decreased with the increasing initial pressure, initial flow rate and water content. And the induction time tended to decrease first and then slowly increase with the increasing liquid loading. For emulsion systems, the apparent viscosity and friction coefficient of the hydrate slurry increased with the increasing water content, indicating that there were higher plugging risks compared to the pure water systems. Moreover, the results of sensitivity analysis showed that the water content was the main factor affecting the hydrate induction time, followed by the influence of liquid carrying capacity and flow rate, and the initial pressure had the least influence on the induction time. Conclusions obtained in this paper can provide some reference not only for the prevention and management of hydrates in pipelines, but also for the application of CO 2 hydrate as a refrigerant., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Layered Double Hydroxides (LDHs)-based drug delivery systems have, for many years, shown great promises for the delivery of chemical therapeutics and bioactive molecules to mammalian cells in vitro and in vivo. This system offers high efficiency and drug loading density, as well as excellent protection of loaded molecules from undesired degradation. Toxicological studies have also found LDHs to be biocompatible compared with other widely used nanoparticles, such as iron oxide, silica, and single-walled carbon nanotubes. A plethora of bio-molecules have been reported to either attach to the surface of or intercalate into LDH materials through co-precipitation or anion-exchange reaction, including amino acid and peptides, ATPs, vitamins, and even polysaccharides. Recently, LDHs have been used for gene delivery of small molecular nucleic acids, such as antisense, oligonucleotides, PCR fragments, siRNA molecules or sheared genomic DNA. These nano-medicines have been applied to target cells or organs in gene therapeutic approaches. This review summarizes current progress of the development of LDHs nanoparticle drug carriers for nucleotides, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer drugs and recent LDH application in medical research. Ground breaking studies will be highlighted and an outlook of the possible future progress proposed. It is hoped that the layered inorganic material will open up new frontier of research, leading to new nano-drugs in clinical applications.

The process of using solar energy to split water to produce hydrogen assisted by an inorganic semiconductor is crucial for solving our energy crisis and environmental problems in the future. However, most semiconductor photocatalysts would not exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity without loading suitable co-catalysts. Generally, the noble metals have been widely applied as co-catalysts, but always agglomerate during the loading process or photocatalytic reaction. Therefore, the utilization efficiency of the noble co-catalysts is still very low on a per metal atom basis if no obvious size effect exists, because heterogeneous catalytic reactions occur on the surface active atoms. Here, for the first time, we have synthesized isolated metal atoms (Pt, Pd, Rh, or Ru) stably by anchoring on TiO2 , a model photocatalystic system, by a facile one-step method. The isolated metal atom based photocatalysts show excellent stability for H2 evolution and can lead to a 6-13-fold increase in photocatalytic activity over the metal clusters loaded on TiO2 by the traditional method. Furthermore, the configurations of isolated atoms as well as the originality of their unusual stability were analyzed by a collaborative work from both experiments and theoretical calculations., (Copyright © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are promising alternatives to conventional silicon devices because of their simple fabrication procedure, low cost, and high efficiency. Platinum is generally used as a superior counter electrode (CE) material, but the disadvantages such as high cost and low abundance greatly restrict the large-scale application of DSCs. An efficient and sustainable way to overcome the limited supply of Pt is the development of high-efficiency Pt-free CE materials, which should possess both high electrical conductivity and superior electrocatalytic activity simultaneously. Herein, for the first time, a two-step strategy to synthesize ruthenium dioxide (RuO₂) nanocrystals is reported, and it is shown that RuO₂ catalysts exhibit promising electrocatalytic activity towards triiodide reduction, which results in comparable energy conversion efficiency to that of conventional Pt CEs. More importantly, by virtue of first-principles calculations, the catalytic mechanism of electrocatalysis for triiodide reduction on various CEs is investigated systematically and it is found that the electrochemical triiodide reduction reaction on RuO₂ catalyst surfaces can be enhanced significantly, owing to the ideal combination of good electrocatalytic activity and high electrical conductivity., (© 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Solar-driven water splitting to produce hydrogen may be an ideal solution for global energy and environment issues. Among the various photocatalytic systems, platinum has been widely used to co-catalyse the reduction of protons in water for hydrogen evolution. However, the undesirable hydrogen oxidation reaction can also be readily catalysed by metallic platinum, which limits the solar energy conversion efficiency in artificial photosynthesis. Here we report that the unidirectional suppression of hydrogen oxidation in photocatalytic water splitting can be fulfilled by controlling the valence state of platinum; this platinum-based cocatalyst in a higher oxidation state can act as an efficient hydrogen evolution site while suppressing the undesirable hydrogen back-oxidation. The findings in this work may pave the way for developing other high-efficientcy platinum-based catalysts for photocatalysis, photoelectrochemistry, fuel cells and water-gas shift reactions.

Photocatalytic water splitting using semiconductor photocatalysts has been considered as a "green" process for converting solar energy into hydrogen. The pioneering work on electrochemical photolysis of water at TiO(2) electrode, reported by Fujishima and Honda in 1972, ushered in the area of solar fuel. As the real ultimate solution for solar fuel-generation, overall water splitting has attracted interest from researchers for some time, and a variety of inorganic photocatalysts have been developed to meet the challenge of this dream reaction. To date, high-efficiency hydrogen production from pure water without the assistance of sacrificial reagents remains an open challenge. In this Focus Review, we aim to provide a whole picture of overall water splitting and give an outlook for future research., (Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

In this paper, a recombinant baculovirus containing the ORF of bovine interferon-beta (BoIFN-beta) gene, rBac-BoIFN-beta, was generated to express recombinant BoIFN-beta (rBoIFN-beta) in sf9 insect cells. The expression of rBoIFN-beta in rBac-BoIFN-beta infecting sf9 cells and its supernatants was confirmed by indirect immunofluorescence assay and Western blot. The antiviral activity of rBoIFN-beta in the supernatant can reach 10(6.0) AU/mL evaluated by the antiviral assay with VSV * GFP that expressed green fluorescence protein, and rBoIFN-beta could stimulate the expression of luciferase reporter gene controlled by chicken Mx promoter. All the results showed that rBac-BoIFN-beta constructed here could express high level recombinant BoIFN-beta in secreted form that had the bioactivity of natural type I IFN.

The research was aimed to detect the expression levels of retinoblastoma protein (pRb) in child acute leukemia cells, and to explore its possible association with leukemia cells cycle, the risk of disease, minimal residual disease (MRD) monitoring and prognosis of B-ALL. Flow cytometry (FCM) was used to detect the expression of pRb in 89 cases of acute leukemia (including 25 AML, 10 T-ALL and 54 B-ALL) and bone marrows from 7 normal children (control group). Meanwhile the cell cycle in some cases was analyzed. The results showed that (1) the FCM could accurately detect the expression of pRb in acute leukemia cells; (2) the high level of pRb expression was frequent in all types of child acute leukemias. In the same case, the expression of pRb was significantly increased in leukemia cells when compared with non-leukemia cells. And no detectable pRb protein was found in partial cases of acute leukemia; (3) there was a close relation between expression of pRb and the cell cycle of leukemia cells, the number of G(1) phase cells in pRb positive case of B-ALL was more than that in pRb negative case (92% vs 77%); (4) in B-ALL, the level of pRb expression in MRD positive group was significantly lower than that in MRD negative group (P < 0.05), but pRb expression was stable in non-leukemia cells during therapy; (5) pRb expression was related to the early response to therapy in B-ALL, the expression of pRb was significantly increased in sensitive group when compared with insensitive group (P < 0.05). It is concluded that high level or absence of pRb expression can be found in child acute leukemia cells. The expression of pRb is positively related to cell cycle of leukemia cells, MRD monitoring and the early response to therapy. In short, the detection of pRb expression level can guide the therapy and the evaluation of prognosis in B-ALL.