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Abstract Background The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula 01 for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC01) is used in the management of head and neck cancers (HNCs), but whether NPC01 has an impact on the HR-QOL of patients with HNCs is unknown. Methods This was a retrospective study of patients with HNCs who were treated between January 2019 and January 2020 at the Head & Neck Cancer Center of Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute & Hospital. The patients were grouped according to whether they received NPC01 or not (controls). All patients routinely completed the EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-H&N35 modules before and after 3 months of systemic treatment. Health economics were collected. Results The patients who received NPC01 were older than the controls (48.6 ± 11.4 vs. 43.4 ± 8.8 years, P = 0.004). All other characteristics were comparable between the two groups (all P > 0.05). In EORTC QLQ-C30, physical functioning (P = 0.03), fatigue (P = 0.04), pain (P = 0.02), appetite loss (P = 0.02), and constipation (P = 0.01) scores were improved more in the NPC01 group than in controls. In EORTC H&N35, the scores for pain (P = 0.02), swallowing (P = 0.01), and dry mouth (P = 0.02) were better in the NPC01 group than in controls. The NPC01 cost was 38.94 RMB/patient compared with 12.81 RMB/patient for regular follow-up, but considering insurance coverage, the financial burden was not higher. Conclusions The results suggest that NPC01 improves HNCs-related symptoms and HR-QOL.

Antibiotic resistance induced by antibiotic abuse is considered as one of the most serious public health problems. Antibacterial photodynamic therapy (APDT) using an efficient photosensitizer has been gaining increasing attention in recent years owing to its high efficacy and lack of drug resistance. Herein, we reported a photosensitizer system composed of tetra-aminophenyl porphyrin (TAPP) loaded in a guanidinium-based ionic covalent framework (COFTGTp) via π–π interactions to form TAPP/COFTGTp. The aim was to use it for APDT, which will not only solve the problems with TAPP as a photosensitizer, wherein it easily aggregates in aqueous solution and is ineffective against Gram-negative bacteria, but can combine the antibacterial activity of the cationic COFTGTp with the APDT induced by TAPP to achieve optimal antibacterial effects on both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. After TAPP loading in COFTGTp, the stability of TAPP/COFTGTp in aqueous solution was enhanced compared with TAPP, and the drug-loading efficiency could reach 27%. Under white-light irradiation, TAPP/COFTGTp can be activated to catalyze oxygen conversion into reactive oxygen species (ROS) including singlet oxygen (1O2); this will annihilate bacteria via the full use of the positive charge of cationic COFTGTp, which closes the distance between the bacteria and ROS. In addition, MTT and hemolysis experiments showed that TAPP/COFTGTp was almost noncytotoxic and did not cause hemolysis. Most remarkably, the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of TAPP/COFTGTp for E. coli and S. aureus were 100 μg mL−1 and 50 μg mL−1, respectively. As a result, TAPP/COFTGTp is expected to be an antibacterial material and have promise for substituting traditional antibiotics to solve antibiotic resistance and the emergence of superbacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultra-high nickel layered cathode materials with very high specific capacity are the future direction of power battery development, but they also face many challenges such as poor cycling stability and high-rate performance. In this paper, we adopt an effective Mo/PANI co-modification strategy on a LiNi0.96Co0.02Mn0.02O2 (NCM9622) cathode material and achieve excellent electrochemical performances. The optimized modified NCM9622 cathode material can reach 209.3 mA h g−1 with an upper cut-off voltage of 4.4 V at 1C, and its capacity retention reaches 95.7% after 100 cycles, which exceeds that of similar materials reported so far. In addition, the material also has outstanding high-rate properties, and its discharge specific capacity reaches 167.1 mA h g−1 at 10C. The excellent electrochemical properties are well demonstrated by the results of Li+ migration barriers and electronic density of states (DOS) calculated by density functional theory (DFT). We believe that the cooperative modification strategy of high-valence ion doping and conductive polymer coating will provide technical support for solving the key problems of ultra-high nickel cathode materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

V2O5, as a potential cathode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), is limited by poor activity and structural stability. Herein, a series of 3D shuttle V2O5 materials are obtained by a simple solvothermal method combined with subsequent calcination. When the calcination temperature was set to 600°C, the obtained V2O5 porous material (V-MOFs-600) had the largest specific surface area and pore volume, which conferred more Li+ embedding sites and thus accelerated Li+ embedding/de-embedding. Based on this, paired with a lithium anode, the V-MOFs-600 cathode exhibits excellent lithium storage performance parameters of 162.1 mAh·g-1 at 1A·g-1 and 78.3% capacity retention after 200 cycles. These results indicate that the 3D shuttle V2O5 porous nanoelectrode materials assembled from particles are highly promising as long-life, high-rate cathode materials for next-generation LIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-molecule detection can reveal time trajectories and reaction pathways of individual intermediates/transition states in chemical reactions and biological processes, which is of fundamental importance to elucidate their intrinsic mechanisms. We present a reliable, label-free single-molecule approach that allows us to directly explore the dynamic process of basic chemical reactions at the single-event level by using stable graphene-molecule single-molecule junctions. These junctions are constructed by covalently connecting a single molecule with a 9-fluorenone center to nanogapped graphene electrodes. For the first time, real-time single-molecule electrical measurements unambiguously show reproducible large-amplitude two-level fluctuations that are highly dependent on solvent environments in a nucleophilic addition reaction of hydroxylamine to a carbonyl group. Both theoretical simulations and ensemble experiments prove that this observation originates from the reversible transition between the reactant and a new intermediate state within a time scale of a few microseconds. These investigations open up a new route that is able to be immediately applied to probe fast single-molecule physics or biophysics with high time resolution, making an important contribution to broad fields beyond reaction chemistry.

SpnF is the first monofunctional Diels-Alder/[6+4]-ase that catalyzes a reaction leading to both Diels-Alder and [6+4] adducts through a single transition state. The environment-perturbed transition-state sampling method has been developed to calculate free energies, kinetic isotope effects, and quasi-classical reaction trajectories of enzyme-catalyzed reactions and the uncatalyzed reaction in water. Energetics calculated in this way reproduce the experiment and show that the normal Diels-Alder transition state is stabilized by H bonds with water molecules, while the ambimodal transition state is favored in the enzyme SpnF by both intramolecular hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic binding. Molecular dynamics simulations show that trajectories passing through the ambimodal transition state bifurcate to the [6+4] adduct and the Diels-Alder adduct with a ratio of 1:1 in the gas phase, 1:1.6 in water, and 1:11 in the enzyme. This example shows how an enzyme acts on a vibrational time scale to steer post-transition state trajectories toward the Diels-Alder adduct.