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Primary Sjogren's syndrome (pSS) is a chronic autoimmune disease involving exocrine glands. Current studies have found that the occurrence of the disease is closely related to genetic, environmental and neuroendocrine factors, as well as abnormal activation of T and B lymphocytes. The etiology and pathogenesis of pSS is complex, and there is a lack of specific targeted drugs. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) have been comprehensively investigated for their treatment effects on pSS. Through a systematic review of the literature, we summarized the TCMs used to treat pSS, and find that there are four major ways that TCMs are used, including upregulation of aquaporin proteins, suppression of cell apoptosis, suppression of the abnormal activation of B lymphocytes and suppression of the abnormal activation of T lymphocytes (balancing T helper type [Th]1/Th2 & Th17/Treg and suppressing follicular helper T [Tfh] cells). However, there are not enough data about the active constituents, quality control, pharmacokinetics, toxicity and modern preparations of these TCMs; therefore, more investigations are needed. This paper highlights the importance of TCMs for treating pSS and provides guidance for future investigations.

Ti (IV) modified vinyl phosphate magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3 O4 @SiO2 @KH570-PO4 -Ti (IV)) was prepared for simultaneous extraction of multiple arsenic species, followed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) - inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis. Inorganic arsenic (iAs), dimethyl arsenic acid (DMA), monomethyl arsenic acid (MMA), p-amino phenyl arsenic acid (p-ASA), 4-hdroxyphenylarsenic acid (4-OH), phenyl arsenic acid (PAA) and 3-nitro-4-hydroxyphenylarsenic acid (ROX) were investigated as interest analytes. It was found that they were quantitatively adsorbed on Fe3 O4 @SiO2 @KH570-PO4 -Ti (IV) at pH 5, and desorbed completely with 0.1 mol/L sodium hydroxide solution. Enrichment factor of 100-fold was obtained by consuming 100 mL sample solution. Under the optimal conditions, the method combining MSPE with HPLC-ICP-MS presented a linear range of 1-5000 ng/L for seven arsenic species. The limits of detection were 0.39, 0.60, 0.23, 1.85, 0.54, 0.48 and 0.84 ng/L for DMA, MMA, p-ASA, iAs, 4-OH, PAA, ROX, with the relative standard deviations (c = 10 ng/L, n = 7) of 3.6, 3.9, 5.5, 12.4, 6.1, 5.8, 5.0, respectively. The accuracy of the method was validated by analyzing BCR 627 Tuna fish. The application potential of the method was further evaluated by chicken muscle and liver samples. No target arsenic species were detected in these samples, and good recoveries (80.6-123%) were obtained for the spiked samples at low, medium and high concentration levels. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

The objective of this study was to investigate the inhibitory effect of scutellarin on the differentiation of colonic cancer stem cells in vitro and in vivo and to explore its underlying hedgehog signaling-based mechanism. The effect of scutellarin on the growth in vitro of HT-29 cells-derived cancer stem-like cells(HT-29 CSC) was observed with 3 D cell culture. The effect of scutellarin on the transformation of HT-29 CSC cells was assessed by soft agar colony formation assay. Fetal calf serum was used to induce differentiation of stem cells and observe the effect of scutellarin on HT-29 CSC cells differentiation in vitro. The effects of scutellarin on mRNA expressions of Lgr5, c-Myc, CK20 and Nanog in HT-29 CSC cells were determined by quantitative Real-time polymerase chain reaction(qRT-PCR). The effects of scutellarin on protein expressions of c-Myc, Gli1 and Lgr5 in HT-29 CSC cells were examined by Western blot. After subcutaneous implantation of HT-29 CSC cells in nude mice, the effect of scutellarin on the mouse body weight and the growth of HT-29 CSC-derived tumor were explored. qRT-PCR was used for evaluating the effect of scutellarin on mRNA levels of CD133, Lgr5, Gli1, Ptch1, c-Myc, Ki-67, CK20 and Nanog in tumor. Western blot and immunohistochemistry analysis were used to detect the effect of scutellarin on protein expressions of c-Myc, Gli1, Lgr5, CD133 and Ki-67 in tumor. The in vitro experiments showed that scutellarin inhibited the growth, transformation and differentiation of HT-29 CSC cells, significantly down-regulated the mRNA levels of Lgr5, c-Myc, CK20 and Nanog in HT-29 CSC cells as well as the protein expression levels of c-Myc, Gli1 and Lgr5 in HT-29 CSC cells. Additionally, animal experiments showed that scutellarin significantly inhibited the growth of subcutaneous xenografts in nude mice, and down-regulated the mRNA expressions of CD133, Lgr5, Gli1, Ptch1, c-Myc, Ki-67, CK20 and Nanog as well as the protein levels of c-Myc, Gli1, Lgr5, CD133 and Ki-67 of xenografts in nude mice. Taken together, scutellarin could inhibit the differentiation of colo-nic cancer stem cells in vitro and in vivo, potentially by down regulation of hedgehog signaling pathway activity.

ZIF-8 nanoparticles (NPs) has been demonstrated with good potential in drug delivery, which causes an increasing attention on relevant toxicity study. In this work, MTT (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide), glutathione (GSH), reactive oxygen species (ROS), stain analysis and gene detection assays were performed on ZIF-8 (50, 90 and 200 nm) incubated HepG2 cells. Moreover, time-resolved inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (TRA-ICP-MS) was applied for single cell analysis; the variation in cellular zinc amount and the proportion of zinc up-taken cells was investigated as a function of NPs size, incubation concentration/time and elimination. Smaller size of ZIF-8 NPs would lead to higher zinc accumulation and toxicity. The function of ZIF-8 on cells is assumed to be mainly related to zinc intracellular accumulation. The possible action path is presented as high accumulation of zinc in ZIF-8 incubated cells lead to high ROS level and cellular inflammation, ultimately inducing necrocytosis. For better understanding of the bio-effect of ZIF-8, ZnO NPs and Zn2+ incubated HepG2 cells were evaluated in the same way. Higher accumulation of zinc in larger part of the cell population was found in ZIF-8 incubated cells than that in ZnO NPs incubated cells. It demonstrated higher bioavailability for ZIF-8 over ZnO NPs. While, in drug delivery application, the possible risk of the remained intracellular ZIF-8 cannot be ignored.

A series of novel water-soluble amphiphilic copolymers containing ciprofloxacin (CPF) and quaternary ammonium salts were prepared by the free-radical copolymerization of methacrylate monomers with CPF, quaternary ammonium salt (QAS) monomers and butyl acrylate (BA). The copolymers were characterized by 1H-NMR, charge density and UV measurements. The antimicrobial activities of the copolymers, based on the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) against Escherichia coli (E. coli), varied with hydrophobic BA content in the copolymers. The incorporation of the antimicrobial moiety ciprofloxacin further enhanced the antibacterial activities of the copolymers, reducing the MIC to 4.0 ppm. The UV260 absorption measurements were applied to reveal the dynamic antimicrobial process of the copolymers. The results of inhibition zones and shaking flask methods of antimicrobial-modified fibers showed that the copolymers had excellent antimicrobial activities when applied to cellulose fibers. In the presence of 2 wt% (based on oven-dried fibers) of the copolymer, the growth inhibition reached 100%.

The content, migration and transformation of trace elements in living organisms play an important role in physiological activities. The analysis of trace elements in cells is of great significance to understand the function mechanism of trace elements in cells and organisms. Compared with conventional bulk analysis, many medical and clinical researches benefit from cell heterogeneity via single-cell analysis. Time-resolved analysis-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (TRA-ICP-MS) based strategies have the potential for both counting and quantitative assessment. It has been used to evaluate cell-to-cell difference in elemental content, cellular uptake of metal-containing drugs and nanoparticles. This review focuses on TRA-ICP-MS based methodologies for single-cell analysis over the past few decades. Recent advances in ICP-MS instrumentations (cell introduction systems and mass spectrometers), microfluidic platforms and their in-depth applications in single-cell analysis are summarized. This review also prospects future developments of TRA-ICP-MS for single-cell analysis.

The growing use of rare-earth doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) has caused increasing concern about their biosafety. Here, to understand the toxicity of UCNPs and their mechanism in HepG2 cells, we systematically study the cytotoxicity, uptake and elimination behaviors of three types of UCNPs combined multiple cytotoxicity evaluation means with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) detection. Sodium yttrium fluoride, doped with 18% (molar ratio) ytterbium and 2% erbium (NaYF4: Yb3+, Er3+) was selected as the model UCNPs with two sizes (35 and 55 nm), and the poly(acrylic acid) and polyethylenimine were selected as the representatives of negative and positive surface coating of UCNPs, respectively. UCNPs were found to induce cytotoxicity in time- and dose-dependent manners, which might be mediated by reactive oxygen species generation and oxidative stress. Apoptosis, inflammation, and metabolic process were enhanced after cells exposed to 200 mg/L UCNPs for 48 h. Increase in the protein levels of cleaved caspased-9, cleaved caspase-3 and Bax and decrease in the anti-apoptotic protein, Bcl-2 suggested that the mitochondria mediated pathway was involved in UCNP-induced apoptosis. With the aid of ICP-MS, it demonstrated that the cytotoxicity was associated with internalized amount of UCNPs, which largely relied on their surface properties rather than size in the tested range. By comparing UCNPs with Y3+ ions, it demonstrated that NPs properties played a nonnegligible role in the cytotoxicity of UCNPs. These findings provide new insights for fundamental understanding of cytotoxicity of UCNPs and may contribute to more rational use of these materials in the future.

Magnetic nanoparticle sorbents have a great influence on the separation and enrichment speed, enrichment factor, selectivity, antiinterference ability, and reproducibility of the magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE)-based methodologies. For the improvement of the analytical performance of MSPE-based methodologies and broadening of their application in real-world samples, a variety of materials have been introduced into the preparation of magnetic nanoparticle sorbents, including silica-based materials, carbon-based materials, metal/metal oxides, metal-organic frameworks, porous organic polymers, mesoporous materials, imprinted materials, and restricted access materials. In this chapter, the preparation method for magnetic nanoparticle sorbents, along with their characterization, are summarized. Different types of magnetic nanoparticle sorbents are discussed with illustrative examples of the preparation strategies, adsorption performance, and real applications.

Although metal chalcogenides have been widely utilized as microwave absorbers, it remains a challenge for them to achieve efficient and broadband absorption performance with low filler content. Herein, a series of rime-like carbon paper@Bi2S3 hybrid structures are manufactured by a facile one-step solvothermal process, whose morphology and microwave absorption properties also can be easily adjusted by the dosage control of raw materials. The Bi2S3 clusters are grown densely on the surface of carbon paper fibers, like the rime in winter. The collocation of carbon paper and Bi2S3 is beneficial to impedance matching and synergistically enhances microwave absorption capability based on various attenuation mechanisms, including interfacial/dipolar polarization loss, conduction loss, and multiple reflection. At a low filler content (only 5 wt%), the optimal reflection loss among these composites is −56.63 dB at 8.84 GHz with 3.3 mm thickness, and the broadest efficient absorption bandwidth is 7.32 GHz with a thickness of 2.4 mm, covering the whole Ku band. By adjusting the thickness, the total covered frequency range reaches 13.36 GHz (83.5% of 2–18 GHz). The as-prepared materials have unique microstructure and exhibit strong and broadband absorption performance with thin thickness and low filler content, enlightening future exploration of metal chalcogenides on high-quality microwave absorbers.

Arsenite (As(III)) has been considered as a human carcinogen associated with many human cancers especially skin cancer. Elucidation of the transformed species of As(III) during its metabolism in cells is beneficial for evaluation of its bioeffect. In this work, a hyphenated method of reversed phase ion pair high performance liquid chromatography - inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (RP-IP-HPLC-ICP-MS) equipped with collision/reaction cell technology (CCT) was developed for speciation of As(III) and its metabolites (arsenate [As(V)], monomethylarsonic acid [MMA(V)], and dimethylarsinic acid [DMA(V)]) in SCC-7 cells. The developed analytical method exhibits low limits of detection for interest arsenic species in the range of 14-27 ng/L and wide linear range up to four orders of magnitude, providing a sensitive tool for arsenic metabolites analysis and further understanding the metabolism of As(III) in SCC-7 cells. The effect of exposure time, exposure concentrations and elimination time on the arsenic species and total arsenic in SCC-7 cells incubated by As(III) were systematically studied. At low exposure concentrations (5 μM), large proportion of intracellular As(III) transformed to methylated metabolites, and the final methylated metabolite DMA(V), which could not be completely removed from the cells in the elimination process, is considered to play as the primary carcinogen. While at high exposure concentrations (5 μM), most of intracellular As(III) probably bound to biomacromolecules rather than followed biomethylation process, exhibiting different metabolism.

In this work, ethylenediamine modified poly(glycidyl methacrylate-ethylene dimethacrylate)(poly(GMA-EDMA-NH2)) was prepared for highly selective extraction of Se(VI) with high adsorption capacity of 0.825 mg m−1 (530 µm i.d.). Based on it, a novel method of polymer monolithic capillary microextraction (CME) on-line coupling with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was developed for the determination of inorganic selenium species (Se(IV)/Se(VI)) in natural waters. Under the optimized conditions, the analytical performance of the proposed on-line CME-ICP-MS method was evaluated for Se(VI). The limit of detection for Se(VI) was 14.2 ng L−1, and the enrichment factor was 50-fold with the sample throughput of 5 h−1. For Se(IV), the concentration was obtained by subtracting Se(VI) from the total Se(VI) obtained by the proposed method after oxidation of Se(IV) to Se(VI). The accuracy of the method was validated by the analysis of a Certified Reference Materials of GBW(E)080395. The proposed method was applied for the analysis of inorganic selenium species in natural waters with good recoveries. The developed method of monolithic CME-ICP-MS is sensitive, simple and rapid for the analysis of inorganic selenium species in natural waters.

This paper constructs a new physical system, i.e., the fractional-order Rabinovich system, and investigates its stability, chaotic behaviors, chaotic control and matrix projective synchronization. Firstly, two Lemmas of the new system's stability at three equilibrium points are given and proved. Next, the largest Lyapunov exponent, the corresponding bifurcation diagram and the chaotic behaviors are studied. Then, the linear and nonlinear feedback controllers are designed to realize the system's local asymptotical stability and the global asymptotical stability, respectively. It's particularly significant that, the fractional matrix projective synchronization between two Rabinovich systems is achieved and two kinds of proofs are provided for Theorem 4.1. Especially, under certain degenerative conditions, the fractional matrix projective synchronization can be reduced to the complete synchronization, anti-synchronization, projective synchronization and modified projective synchronization of the fractional-order Rabinovich systems. Finally, all the theoretical analysis is verified by numerical simulation.

A melamine-based porous organic polymer (mPMF) was synthesized as solid phase extraction (SPE) adsorbent for inline SPE-high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-ultraviolet detector (UV) analysis of five phytohormones. Melamine contributed to the rich π-electron and N-containing triazine structure for mPMF, which could form π-π interaction and intermolecular hydrogen bond with COOH containing phytohormones. The synthesized mPMF adsorbent shows extremely high extraction efficiency for five target analytes (>80%) including salicylic acid, indole-3-acetic acid, abscisic acid, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 1-naphthalene acetic acid. The factors affecting extraction of the target phytohormones were investigated and the optimized experimental conditions were established. The linear range was 0.2–100 μg/L with the limits of detection in the range of 0.06–0.11 μg/L for five target phytohormones. The developed method of mPMF-inline-SPE-HPLC-UV was applied for the analysis of trace target phytohormones in tomato and grape juice samples, and the recovery in the range of 83.1–116% and 87.2–121% was obtained for the spiked tomato and grape juice, respectively. This method has the advantages of high sensitivity and good reproducibility, and it has good application potential for the analysis of phytohormones in fruit samples. Moreover, inline analysis avoided the problems of sample pollution and sample loss, and provided a sample throughput of 5/h.

A dual column packed with a magnetic metal-organic framework composite (MFC) and mercapto-functionalized MFC nanoparticles (MFC-SH) in microfluidic chip channels is described for array chip-based magnetic solid phase microextraction of arsenic species including arsenite [As(III)], arsenate [As(V)], monomethylarsonous acid (MMA) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) in SCC-7 cells. At pH 6, the MFC-SH adsorbs As(III) while MFC quantitatively adsorbs As(V), DMA and MMA. The As(III) adsorbed on the MFC-SH can be desorbed with a 2% solution of thiourea in 0.5 M HNO3. The arsenic species MMA, DMA and As(V) are retained on the MFC but can be desorbed by ammonia. A sequential elution strategy was employed to elute MMA, DMA, As(V) and As(III) one by one for subsequent on-line determination by ICP-MS. The limits of detection are 4.8, 6.3, 3.8 and 7.1 ng L−1 for As(V), DMA, MMA and As(III), respectively. The enrichment factors are between 23 and 25, and the throughput is 7 samples per hour. The arsenic species in (spiked) SCC-7 cell samples were analyzed by the online system with adequate recoveries (89–110%).

Metal-organic framework (MOF)-derived porous metal/C composites have drawn considerable attention from the microwave absorption field owing to their large pore volumes and surface areas. Exploring single-MOF-derived materials with high intensity and broadband absorption is largely needed but remains a challenge. Here, porous Co/ZnO/C (CZC) microrods were fabricated easily from cuboid-shaped heterobimetallic MOFs. CZC provides an efficient platform for integrating different semiconductors (ZnO), magnetic metal (Co), and carbon sources into one particle, which enhances the electromagnetic (EM) wave-absorbing ability. The carbonization temperature which is critical for EM parameters was studied in detail. CZC annealed at 700 °C outperformed those obtained at 600 or 800 °C in terms of microwave wave-absorbing properties. The reflection loss (RL) was optimized to -52.6 (or -20.6) dB at 12.1 (or 14.8) GHz with an effective bandwidth (RL ≤ -10 dB) of 4.9 (or 5.8) GHz at the coating thickness of 3.0 (or 2.5) mm. Such enhancement of EM wave-absorbing capabilities is ascribed to the well-built porous structure, dielectric loss, and magnetic loss. This work offers a new way to prepare porous magnetic metal/C composites with excellent microwave-absorbing properties starting from heterobimetallic MOFs.

Double imprinted polymer coated magnetic nanoparticles were fabricated with 4-nm size ZnO nanoparticles acting as the sacrifice templates, which were co-imprinted with template Pb(II) ions. After template removal, abundant transfer pores derived from ZnO nanoparticles were left around the selective adsorption sites derived from Pb(II) ions. The magnetic sorbent exhibit good selectivity, rapid adsorption kinetic and large adsorption capacity for Pb(II). They were used to extract trace Pb(II) followed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry detection. After the optimization of extraction conditions, following merits are found: (a) rapid extraction (10 min), (b) high preconcentration factor (100 fold), (c) sensitive detection with the detection limit of 9.4 ng·L−1, and (d) low relative standard deviation (6.9%) at a level of 50 ng·L−1 of Pb(II) analyzed 7 times. The method was employed in extraction and quantification of trace Pb in biological and environmental samples with satisfactory recoveries of 87.5–104%.

N-doped magnetic porous carbon (N-MPC) is an emerging adsorbent for water pollution control. However, high cost and multisteps procedure make the direct fabrication of N-MPCs difficult until now. Herein, highly dispersed N-MPCs were synthesized by a facial one-pot solid-state pyrolysis strategy. Heating the mixture of ZnO, Co(OH)2, and 2-methylimidazole (HmIm), Zn/Co bimetallic ZIFs formed at the initial stages, being the primary self-template to produce N-MPCs during subsequent high-temperature treatment. By altering the pyrolysis temperature and the molar ratio of ZnO/Co(OH)2 in the precursor, the magnetism, nitrogen content, and surface areas of N-MPCs can be easily controlled. Due to its high special surface areas and the decoration of abundant nitrogen functional groups (pyrrole-N and pyridinic-N), the optimized N-MPC-700-7/3 exhibited a superior adsorption performance for Hg2+ uptake (489 mg g–1). Moreover, the N-MPCs exhibited fast dynamics in adsorption (K2 = 0.47 g mg–1 min–1) and good chemical s...

In this work, poly(1-vinylimidazole-ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate) (poly(VI-EDMA)) monolith coated stir bars were synthesized by one-pot polymerization, and they exhibited higher extraction efficiency and faster extraction dynamics for selected PFAAs than commercial ethylene glycol modified silicone (EG-silicone) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coated stir bars. Taking eleven PFAAs as target analytes, including C4-C12 perfluoroalkyl carboxylates (PFCAs) and C6, C8 perfluoroalkane sulfonates (PFSAs), a method combining monolith-based stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) − electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (ESI–MS/MS) was proposed for the determination of multiplex PFAAs in environmental water samples. Under the optimized conditions, low limits of detection (0.06–0.40 ng/L) and wide linear range (0.6–400 ng/L) were obtained for target PFAAs with. The developed method was then applied for the analysis of target PFAAs in environmental water samples, and recoveries of 80.1–117% and 80.3–122% were obtained for target PFAAs in spiked Yangtze River and East Lake water samples respectively.

A switchable hydrophilicity solvent (SHS) based liquid phase microextraction (LPME) method was proposed for the preconcentration of trace Pb (II) and Cd (II) followed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS) detection. The SHS of protonated triethylamine carbonate (P-TEA-C) was synthesized and applied as the extractant, which is environmentally friendly and low cost. Pb (II) and Cd (II) in ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (APDC) complex form was extracted into the triethylamine (TEA) phase by converting P-TEA-C to TEA. The vortex led to the rapid formation of fine droplets of the extractant in the aqueous solution, and enlarged contact surface between both immiscible liquids. The factors affecting the microextraction procedure, including sample pH, APDC concentration, volume of SHS and NaOH, sample volume and matrix effect were investigated. Under the optimal conditions, enrichment factor of 50 was achieved with consumption of 10 mL aqueous sample, and detection limits of 16 and 3.9 ng L−1 were obtained for Pb (II) and Cd (II), respectively. The accuracy of the proposed method was validated by the analysis of Certified Reference Materials of GSBZ50009-88 environmental water, GBW07605 tea and GBW07601(GSH-1) human hair. The method was also successfully applied for determination of Pb (II) and Cd (II) in water, tea and human hair samples.

A method based on ion-pair reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) hyphenated with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was developed for arsenic speciation in extract of tree moss. Under the optimal conditions, the limit of detection of eight arsenic species including arsenite (AsIII), arsenate (AsV), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA), dimethylarsonic acid (DMA), trimethylarsinoxide (TMAO), tetramethylarsonium (Tetra), arsenocholine (AsC) and arsenobetaine (AsB) is between 0.04 and 0.07 ng/mL, with a linear range of 0.2 - 500 ng/mL. Three unknown arsenic species (Unk1, Unk2 and Unk3) and six specific arsenic species (AsIII, AsV, DMA, TMAO, Tetra and AsB) were detected in the extract of tree moss. Unk3 was identified as a kind of arsenosugars (2,3-dihydroxypropyl-5-deoxy-5(dimethylarsenoso)furanoside, arsenosugar X) by electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ESI-qTOF-MS).

Aim This study sought to determine the rate of recurrence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) recurrence during the second pregnancies of women who were diagnosed with GDM during their first pregnancies, to identify risk factors associated with the probability of such recurrence and to evaluate the influence of GDM recurrence on pregnancy outcomes in north Zhejiang, China, after the recent adjustment to the nation's childbirth policy. Methods A retrospective longitudinal study was performed in north Zhejiang, China (at Jiaxing Maternal and Child Health Hospital). A total of 128 women who delivered two sequential live singleton infants and were diagnosed with diet-treated GDM during their first pregnancies were included. Results According to the 2013 World Health Organization diagnostic criteria for diabetes during pregnancy, the prevalence of gestational diabetes was 11.02% in northern Zhejiang. The recurrence rate of GDM in northern Zhejiang was 43.75% (56/128). The age at second pregnancy, weight gain during pregnancy, interpregnancy interval and macrosomia during the index pregnancy were risk factors for GDM recurrence. Among those women with recurrent GDM, GDM developed earlier and caesarean section was more frequently required during the second pregnancy; in addition, the second pregnancy was associated with more premature and low birthweight infants but less macrosomia. Conclusion The recurrence rate of GDM is high in northern Zhejiang. Glucose monitoring and management are needed during subsequent pregnancies for patients who previously presented with GDM to improve maternal and fetal outcomes.

Aim To assess the effects of hepatitis E virus (HEV) on the production of type I interferons (IFNs) and determine the underlying mechanisms. Methods We measured the production of interferon (IFN)-alpha and -beta (-α/β) in genotype 3 HEV-infected C3A cells at different time points (0, 8, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 120 h) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The expression levels of IFN-stimulated gene (ISG)15 in HEV-infected C3A cells at different time points were tested by western blotting. The plasmid-expressing open reading frame 3 (ORF3) or control plasmids (green fluorescent protein-expressing) were transfected into C3A cells, and the levels of IFN-α/β and ISG15 were evaluated, respectively. Furthermore, the plasmid-expressing ISG15 or small interfering RNA-inhibiting ISG15 was transfected into infected C3A cells. Then, the production of IFN-α/β was also measured by ELISA. Results We showed that genotype 3 HEV could enhance the production of IFN-α/β and induce elevation of ISG15 in C3A cells. HEV ORF3 protein could enhance the production of IFN-α/β and the expression of ISG15. Additionally, ISG15 silencing enhanced the production of IFN-α/β. Overexpression of ISG15 resulted in the reduction of IFN-α/β. Conclusion HEV may promote production of IFN-α/β and expression of ISG15 via ORF3 in the early stages, and increased ISG15 subsequently inhibited the production of IFN-α/β.

Tunable and high-efficiency electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption materials composed of a three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical reduced graphene oxide (RGO) aerogel network entrapped with TiO2/Ti3C2Tx hybrids were fabricated by a hydrothermal method and a mild chemical reduction treatment. The incorporation of the TiO2/Ti3C2Tx micronanoheterostructure and construction of the 3D well-designed hierarchical interconnected network can significantly reduce the agglomeration of RGO sheets together with the beneficial effect of a better impedance match. When the filler loading is 10 wt %, the maximum reflection loss of the composite aerogel reaches up to −65.3 dB with a matching thickness of 2.5 mm. Meanwhile, the effective absorption bandwidth (RL < −10 dB) is 4.3 GHz with the coating thickness of only 2.0 mm, and the tunable absorption bandwidth achieves at 13.74 GHz via modulating the absorber thicknesses in a range from 1.5 to 5.0 mm. The enhanced EMW absorbing performance is closely related to highly porous c...

Amino-decorated Zr-based magnetic Metal-Organic Frameworks composites (Zr-MFCs) were prepared by a facile and efficient strategy. The nano-sized Fe3O4@SiO2 core (about 15 nm) was coated with a shell of Zr-MOFs (about 5 nm) by means of in-situ growth. And, Fe3O4@SiO2@UiO-66 and its amino derivatives (Fe3O4@SiO2@UiO-66-NH2 and Fe3O4@SiO2@UiO-66-Urea) were successfully prepared by using different precursors. The obtained Zr-MFCs were demonstrated to be efficient adsorbents for metal ions/organic dyes removal from aqueous solution, with high adsorption capacity and fast adsorption kinetics. It was found that the amine-decorated MFCs were highly efficient for metal ions/dyes removal compared to raw MFC-O. Among them, MFC-N exhibited the highest capacity for Pb2+ (102 mg g−1) and methylene blue (128 mg g−1), while MFC-O exhibited the highest capacity for methyl orange (219 mg g−1). Moreover, anionic and cationic dyes could be selectively separated and removed from the mixed solution just by adjusting the solution pH with Zr-MFCs as the adsorbents. And these Zr-MFCs materials can be easily regenerated by desorbing metal ions/organic dyes from the sorbents with appropriate eluents, and the adsorption capacity can be remained unchanged after 6 recycles. The obtained results demonstrated the great application potential of the prepared MFCs as fascinating adsorbents for water treatment.

In this study, poly(1-vinylimidazole) functionalized gold ion imprinted polymer coated magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs@PVIM-Au-IIP) were prepared and characterized. The adsorption behaviors of the prepared MNPs@PVIM-Au-IIP toward gold ions (Au(III)) were studied, it was found that MNPs@PVIM-Au-IIP has good selectivity, high adsorption capacity (185.4 mg g−1) and fast adsorption kinetic for Au(III). Based on it, a new method of ion imprinted magnetic solid phase extraction (II-MSPE) coupled with graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS) detection was proposed for the analysis of trace Au(III) in real samples with complicated matrix. Factors affecting MSPE including sample pH, desorption reagent, elution concentration and volume, elution time, sample volume and adsorption time were optimized. With high enrichment factor of 100-fold, the detection limit of the proposed method is 7.9 ng L−1 for Au(III) with the relative standard deviation of 7.4% (c = 50 ng L−1, n = 7). In order to validate the accuracy of the proposed method, the Certified Reference Material of GBW07293 geological sample (platinpalladium ore) was analyzed, and the determined value was in good agreement with the certified value. The proposed II-MSPE-GFAAS method is simple, fast, selective, sensitive and has been successfully applied in the determination of trace Au in ore, sediment, environmental water and human urine samples with satisfactory results.

Magnetic metal–organic framework composites (MFCs) were prepared in water at room temperature through a simple, low-cost and green strategy only by employing organic salts as anionic linker sources. Amino-functionalized MFCs (MFC-N) with different amino group contents were successfully prepared by varying the ratio of disodium of 2-aminoterephthalic (NH2-Na2BDC)/terephthalic acid (Na2BDC). The prepared nanoscale MFC-N-X (X represents the percentage of NH2-Na2BDC, i.e., X = 0, 50, and 100) showed high surface area, large pore volume, excellent magnetic response, and good water and thermal stability. Among these prepared MFC-N-X, MFC-N-100 exhibited the highest adsorption capacity of 358 mg g–1 for methylene blue (MB) and 71 mg g–1 for As(V) due to its porous structure and abundant amino groups. The prepared MFC-N-100 was successfully applied to remove MB and As(V) from different water samples (tap water, lake water, and domestic sewage) with a high removal efficiency and a rapid separation of the sorbent f...

In this paper, magnetic mesoporous carbon composites were prepared by calcination of the mixture of magnesium citrate and Fe3O4@SiO2 in an inert atmosphere. A high content of Fe3O4@SiO2 and MgO was in situ embedded in a carbon matrix. After removing the MgO template by diluted acid, the resulting material (Fe3O4@SiO2@mC) was subjected to further H2O2 oxidation treatment. The formed oxygen-containing functional groups on the products provided plenty of active sites for the adsorption of analytes of interest. The obtained composites (Fe3O4@SiO2@mC-H2O2) exhibited a mesoporous structure with a high specific surface area of 731 m2 g–1. The adsorption capacities of Fe3O4@SiO2@mC-H2O2 for Cu(II) and Pb(II) were calculated to be 86.5 and 156 mg g–1, respectively. Under optimal conditions, the adsorption isotherm of Cu(II) and Pb(II) onto Fe3O4@SiO2@mC-H2O2 fitted the Langmuir model and the adsorption kinetic was well-correlated with the pseudo-second-order model. Besides, Fe3O4@SiO2@mC-H2O2 exhibited fast removal dynamics (within less than 1 min) for Cu(II) and Pb(II), demonstrating great application potential in wastewater treatment.

In this work, Ti3C2Tx MXenes were fabricated by using HF solution for diverse etching time and then investigated as electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbing materials in the centimetre-band (2–18 GHz). Besides, the impact of etching time on the structure, morphology, surface termination and dielectric properties was explored. With growing etching time, the crystal structure and surface morphology of Ti3C2Tx MXenes were gradually destroyed and more C was exposed. Among the etching samples, Ti3C2Tx-24 exhibited optimal RLmin of − 42.5 dB and broad tunable absorption bandwidth of 13.8 GHz. The extraordinary absorption could be attributed to multiple reflections and scatterings and interfacial polarizations. More importantly, comprehensive comparisons were made among two-dimensional Ti3C2Tx MXenes, typical two-dimensional carbon-related and MoS2 materials. The thorough explorations supplement and improve the study of dielectric properties and EM wave absorption performance of Ti3C2Tx MXenes in centimetre-band, thus broadband Ti3C2Tx based hybrids absorbers can be constructed reasonably and effectively.

In this study, multilayer sandwich heterostructural Ti3C2Tx MXenes decorated with polypyrrole chains have been synthesized successfully via HF etching treatment and in-situ chemical oxidative polymerization approach. The hybrids were investigated as EM wave absorbers for the first time. It is found that the composites consisting of 25 wt% Ti3C2Tx/PPy hybrids in a paraffin matrix exhibit a minimum reflection loss of −49.2 dB (∼99.99% absorption) at the thickness of 3.2 mm and a maximum effective absorption bandwidth of 4.9 GHz (12.4–17.3 GHz) corresponding to an absorber thickness of 2.0 mm. Additionally, a broad effective absorption bandwidth of 13.7 GHz (4.3–18.0 GHz) can be reached up by adjusting the thickness from 1.5 to 5.0 mm. Furthermore, the highest effective absorption bandwidth of 5.7 GHz can be reached when the mass fraction is 15 wt%. The enhanced comprehensive electromagnetic wave absorption has close correlation with the well-designed heterogeneous multilayered microstructure, generated heterogeneous interfaces, conductive paths, surface functional groups, localized defects and synergistic effect between laminated Ti3C2Tx and conductive polypyrrole network, which significantly improve impedance matching and attenuation abilities. The superior absorbing performance together with strong absorption and broad bandwidth endows the Ti3C2Tx/PPy hybrids with the potential prospect to be advanced EM wave absorbers.

Development of multimodal detection technologies for accurate diagnosis of cancer at early stages is in great demand. In this work, we report a novel approach using an aptamer-based dual-functional probe for rapid, sensitive, and specific counting and visualization of MCF-7 cells by inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and fluorescence imaging. The probe consists of a recognition unit of aptamer to catch cancer cells specifically, a fluorescent dye (FAM) moiety for fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based “off-on” fluorescence imaging as well as gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) tag for both ICP-MS quantification and fluorescence quenching. Due to the signal amplification effect and low spectral interference of Au NPs in ICP-MS, an excellent linearity and sensitivity were achieved. Accordingly, a limit of detection of 81 MCF-7 cells and a relative standard deviation of 5.6% (800 cells, n = 7) were obtained. The dynamic linear range was 2 × 102 to 1.2 × 104 cells, and the recoveries i...

Fe3O4/MOF (metal organic framework)/L-cysteine was synthesized and applied for the removal of Cd(II) from wastewater. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms were investigated, and the results indicated that the adsorption obeyed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherm. The maximum adsorption capacity was calculated to be 248.24 mg g−1. Fe3O4/MOF/L-cysteine was further applied to determine trace amounts of Cd(II) in real water samples using ICP-AES (inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy) based on magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE). The determination limit was 10.6 ng mL−1. Additionally, Fe3O4/MOF/L-cysteine can also be used as a fluorescent sensor for “turn-off” detection of Cd(II), and the detection limit was 0.94 ng mL−1.

A facile template-free hydrothermal method was proposed to synthesize 3D flower-like hollow Mg-Al layered double hydroxides (LDHs) microspheres. The structure and morphology characterization revealed that 3D flower-like hollow Mg-Al LDHs microspheres with a diameter of about 2.5 μm were assembled with numerous nanosheets. Interestingly, based on the optical diffusing test, 3D flower-like hollow Mg-Al LDHs microspheres exhibited suitable light transmittance, good diffusion capacity, and low incident angle dependence as light scattering materials for optical diffusers. Moreover, the possible light scattering mechanism was discussed and illustrated for the first time. Therefore, the results achieved in this study may provide valuable insights into the development of light scattering materials for high-performance optical diffusers.

In this work, silica nanoparticle-covered cross-linking graphene oxide (GOES) was successfully synthesized in a stacking graphene oxide (GOE) solution where ethylenediamine (EDA) was used for simultaneous reduction and functionalization of the graphene oxide (GO). The GOES-filled thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) composites were prepared through solution mixing and the mechanical properties of GOES/TPU were systematically investigated. The results revealed that the properties of composites filled with the cross-linked (GOE, GOES) filler are better than those of un-cross-linked (GO, GOS) filler. Furthermore, with a loading of 2 wt%, the tensile strengths and the tensile strains of GOES/TPU composites were significantly enhanced (48.9 MPa, 2140%), as compared to pure TPU (30.6 MPa, 1370%). The improvement in mechanical properties of GOES/TPU is attributed to the homogeneous dispersion of GOES in the TPU matrix and the strong interfacial interactions between them.

Cyanuric chloride and 4,4′-diamino-p-terphenyl were adopted as monomers to synthesize poly (4,4′-diamino-p-terphenyl-triazine) (PDT) covalent organic polymer. PDT coated stir bar was prepared and evaluated for the extraction of five phthalate esters (PAEs) with relatively lower logP values (2.7-4.9), including diethyl phthalate, diallyl phthalate, dipropyl phthalate, benzylbutyl phthalate and dibutyl phthalate. It exhibited higher extraction recovery (> 65%) and faster extraction kinetics (50 min vs 240 min) for target PAEs over commercial polydimethylsiloxane coated stir bar. Based on the superior performance, PDT coated stir bar sorptive extraction was combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection for trace analysis of five PAEs plasticizers. The limits of detection for target PAEs were 0.04-0.27 μg/L, with the enrichment factors of 54-80-fold. The potential of the method was demonstrated by detecting five target PAEs in Chinese liquor and mineral water samples. No target analytes were detected in Chinese liquor sample, and recoveries of 85.4-109% were obtained for target analytes in spiked liquor samples; trace diethyl phthalate (1.19-2.98 μg/L) and dibutyl phthalate (0.77-0.91 μg/L) were detected in two mineral water samples, with recoveries of 85.4-117% and 87.4-117% respectively in spiked mineral water samples.

In this study, spherical imine-linked covalent organic frameworks (COFs) were fabricated from 2,5-dimethoxybenzene-1,4-dialdehyde (DMTP) and 1,3,5-tris (4-aminophenyl) benzene (TAPB) and named as TAPB-DMTP-COFs. The resulting powders were coated onto bare glass bars via physical-adhesion to obtain TAPB-DMTP-COFs coated stir bars. The self-made stir bars exhibited higher extraction efficiency (74–85%) and faster dynamics (50 min) towards non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) over ethylene glycol-Silicone (42–68%, 180 min) and polydimethylsiloxane (3–61%, 180 min) coated stir bars. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), zeta potential and water contact angle were employed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the adsorption mechanism between the coating and analytes. The results displayed that methoxy group worked as an adsorption site helping the adsorption of interest NSAIDs onto the TAPB-DMTP-COFs coating and hydrogen bonds formed between the O atoms and the analytes. Additionally, the adsorption mechanisms possibly also involved π-π interaction and hydrophobic interaction. Moreover, TAPB-DMTP-COFs coated stir bars exhibited good stability and could be reused more than 60 times. Subsequently, a method by combining TAPB-DMTP-COFs coated stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) with liquid chromatography (HPLC)-ultraviolet detector (UV) was established for the determination of four NSAIDs in environmental waters. Under the optimized conditions, the established method showed a wide linear range of 0.2/1–500 μg/L for interest NSAIDs, the limits of detection varied from 0.039 to 0.312 μg/L. Yangtze River water, East Lake water and Spring water were subjected to the proposed method, the recoveries in spiked samples were 84.7–104%, 81.2–101% and 82.6–97.6%, respectively.

Chemical fertilizer has been excessively used for high yield of citrus around the world, especially in China; meanwhile, it deteriorates the citrus orchard soil environment. To resolve the conflict, the use of organic fertilizer provides a promising solution. However, the data about organic fertilizer used in citrus orchard is rarely available. Here, four treatments including CK (no fertilizer), CF (chemical fertilizer), OF + CF (chemical fertilizer reduction combined with organic fertilizer; application of N, P2O5, K2O fertilizer and organic fertilizer is 0.564, 0.236, 0.336 and 10 kg/plant), and BF + CF (chemical fertilizer reduction combined with bioorganic fertilizer; application of N, P2O5, K2O fertilizer and bioorganic fertilizer is 0.508, 0.320, 0.310 and 10 kg/plant) were performed in a ‘Ponkan’ (Citrus reticulata Blanco) orchard to evaluate the effect of organic fertilizer on citrus yield, growth, soil properties etc. when nutrients of fertilizer of each treatment were equal except CK. The data obtained in 2019 and 2020 showed that both OF + CF and BF + CF were beneficial to improve soil fertility (soil physicochemical and microbe properties) and citrus growth physiology (growth, nutrient and photosynthesis), alleviate NO3−-N leaching, and promote yields. Comprehensive evaluation indicated that BF + CF was more effective than OF + CF. Together, organic fertilizer has the potential to substitute partial chemical fertilizer with improvement in soil properties, growth physiology, and yield of citrus.

Significance. Gliomas are the most common type of primary brain tumors and have different grades. Accurate grading of a glioma is therefore significant for its clinical treatment planning and prognostic assessment with multiple-modality magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Objective and Approach. In this study, we developed a noninvasive deep-learning method based on multimodal MRI for grading gliomas by focusing on effective multimodal fusion via leveraging collaborative and diverse high-order statistical information. Specifically, a novel high-order multimodal interaction module was designed to promote interactive learning of multimodal knowledge for more efficient fusion. For more powerful feature expression and feature correlation learning, the high-order attention mechanism is embedded in the interaction module for modeling complex and high-order statistical information to enhance the classification capability of the network. Moreover, we applied increasing orders at different levels to hierarchically recalibrate each modality stream through diverse-order attention statistics, thus encouraging all-sided attention knowledge with lesser parameters.Main results. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, extensive experiments were conducted on The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) and Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation Benchmark 2017 (BraTS2017) datasets with five-fold cross validation to demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve high prediction performance, with area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity values of 95.2%, 94.28%, 95.24%, and 92.00% on the BraTS2017 and 93.50%, 92.86%, 97.14%, and 90.48% on TCIA datasets, respectively.

Avian influenza viruses are the pathogens of global poultry epidemics, and may even cause the human infections. Here, we proposed a novel inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) based immunoassay with gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) labeling for the determination of H9N2 virions. Magnetic-beads modified with anti-influenza A H9N2 hemagglutinin mono-antibody (mAb-HA) were utilized for the capture of H9N2 virions in complex matrix; and Au NPs conjugated with mAb-HA were employed for the specific labeling of H9N2 virions for subsequent ICP-MS detection. With a sandwich immunoassay strategy, this method exhibited a high specificity for H9N2 among other influenza A virions such as H1N1 and H3N2. Under the optimized conditions, this method could detect as low as 0.63 ng mL − 1 H9N2 virions with the linear range of 2–400 ng mL − 1 , the relative standard deviation for seven replicate detections of H9N2 virions was 7.2% (c = 10 ng mL − 1 ). The developed method was applied for the detection of H9N2 virions in real-world chicken dung samples, and the recovery for the spiking samples was 91.4–116.9%. This method is simple, rapid, sensitive, selective, reliable and has a good application potential for virions detection in real-world samples.

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/MIL-100(Fe) coated stir bar was prepared by sol gel technique, and good preparation reproducibility was achieved with relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranging from 2.6% to 7.5% (n=7) and 3.6% to 10.8% (n=7) for bar-to-bar and batch-to-batch, respectively. Compared with commercial PDMS coated stir bar (Gerstel) and PEG coated stir bar (Gerstel), the prepared PDMS/MIL-100(Fe) stir bar showed better extraction efficiency for target triazines compounds. It also exhibited relatively fast extraction/desorption kinetics and long lifespan. Based on it, a method of PDMS/MIL-100(Fe) coated stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE)-high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detector (HPLC-UV) was developed for the determination of six triazines (simazine, atrazine, prometon, ametryn, prometryne and prebane) in environmental water samples. Several parameters affecting SBSE of six target triazines including extraction time, stirring rate, sample pH, ionic strength, desorption solvent and desorption time were investigated. Under the optimal experimental conditions, the limits of detection (LODs, S/N=3) were found to be in the range of 0.021-0.079μgL-1. The repeatability RSDs were in the range of 2.3-6.3% (n=7, c=0.5μgL-1) and the enrichment factors (EFs) ranged from 51.1 to 102-fold (theoretical EF was 200-fold). The proposed method was applied to the analysis of target triazines in environmental water samples, with recoveries of 98.0-118% and 94.0-107% for spiked East Lake water and local pond water samples, respectively.

A new-type of composite combined by helical polysilane (HPS) and hollow spherical indium oxide (In 2 O 3 ) was designed and fabricated via solution blending. The hollow spheres constructed by In 2 O 3 particles were synthesized via a facile hydrothermal route where it demonstrated larger surface area, enabling the combination of HPS and In 2 O 3 more easily. Meanwhile, the synergetic effect between functional group of HPS and surface hydroxyl of In 2 O 3 improve the reduction of infrared emission. Consequently, the composite shows a superior low infrared emissivity performance at the value of 0.416 (8–14 μm), and the covering of HPS make the composite disperse well in the polar reagent. This work develops a feasible strategy that utilizes metallic oxide to design and synthesize hollow spherical matrix for preparing the low infrared emissivity materials.

Magnetic porous organic polymers (MOPs) with abundant thiol groups were synthesized successfully in high yield through a template-free and catalyst-free diazo-coupling reaction. The reaction was conducted under mild conditions in aqueous solution, in which the introduction of magnetism and thiol-functionalization was realized simultaneously, avoiding the use of environment-unfriendly organic solvents. The magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were embedded into hierarchical porous network structures of porous organic polymers (POPs) physically and the magnetism of thiol-functionalized MOPs (MOP-SH) was easily controlled by varying the amount of spiked MNPs. The obtained MOP-SH exhibited high thermal stability and chemical stability within a wide pH range (2–13), and good adsorption performance for Hg(II) over a wide pH range due to the abundant thiols in its hierarchical structure. After the adsorption process by using MOP-SH, the concentration of Hg in the spiked domestic sewage reached 1.1 μg L–1, which is even...

In this work, zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8)/poly (methyl methacrylate-ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate) (MMA-EGDMA) composite monolith was in situ synthesized on stir bar by one-pot polymerization. Compared with the neat monolith, ZIF-8/poly(MMA-EGDMA) composite monolith has larger surface area and pore volume. It also exhibits higher extraction efficiency for target phytohormones than poly(MMA-EGDMA) monolith and commercial polyethylene glycol (PEG) coated stir bar. Based on it, a method of ZIF-8/poly(MMA-EGDMA) monolith coated stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE)-high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV) was established for the analysis of five phytohormones in apple and pear samples. The developed method exhibited low limits of detection (0.11-0.51μg/L), wide linear range (0.5-500μg/L) and good recoveries (82.7-111%), which demonstrated good application potential of the ZIF-8/monolith coated stir bar in trace analysis of organic compounds.

Objective : This study aims to explore the neuroprotective effects of dexmedetomidine (Dex) in rats suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) via the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. Methods A weight drop model was performed for TBI model establishment. A total of 150 Sprague Dawley rats were selected and assigned into control, sham, TBI, TBI + Dex, TBI + LY294002 (LY) and TBI + Dex + LY groups. Modified Neurological Severity Score (mNSS) was conducted in order to evaluate the neurological injury. The water content in brain tissues was measured. The expressions of PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway-related proteins, tight junction proteins (ZO-1 and Claudin-5) and autophagy proteins (LC3 I/II and Beclin-1) were detected using Western blot assay. A TUNEL assay was applied for cell apoptosis, immunofluorescence was employed for the detection of the positive expression of LC3, and ELISA was applied for detection of levels of inflammatory factors [tumor necrosis factor-alph (TNF-a), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interferon-γ (INF-γ) as well as IL-6], respectively. Results Compared with the control group, the other four groups exhibited increased mNSS, brain water content, expression of LC3, TNF-a, IL-1β, INF-γ and IL-6, and positive expression of LC3, expression of LC3 I/II and Beclin-1, but decreased expression of pp-PI3K/t-PI3K, p-Akt/t-Akt, p-mTOR/t-mTOR, ZO-1 and Claudin-5. Compared with the TBI group, the TBI + Dex group exhibited reduced mNSS, brain water content, expression of LC3, TNF-a, IL-1β, INF-γ and IL-6, positive expression of LC3, as well as expression of LC3 I/II and Beclin-1 but demonstrated an elevated expression of pp-PI3K/t-PI3K, p-Akt/t-Akt, p-mTOR/t-mTOR, ZO-1 and Claudin-5, while opposite trends were observed in the TBI + LY group. The TBI + Dex group exhibited reduced mNSS, brain water content, expression of LC3, TNF-a, IL-1β, INF-γ and IL-6, positive expression of LC3, as well as expression of LC3 I/II and Beclin-1 but demonstrated an elevated expression of pp-PI3K/t-PI3K, p-Akt/t-Akt, p-mTOR/t-mTOR, ZO-1 and Claudin-5, while opposite trends were observed in the TBI + LY group, as compared with the TBI + Dex + LY group. Conclusion The data shows that Dex exerts a neuroprotective effect via the activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway in rats with TBI.

Passive daytime radiative cooling materials significantly alleviate the current energy shortage and global warming without consuming any energy. However, conventional inorganic nanoparticles can hardly achieve excellent cooling effect during daytime due to their low reflectivity. Broadband super white nanoparticle-based radiators demonstrate excellent solar reflectivity under direct sunlight and low absorption. Accordingly, we introduced TiO2 nanoparticles with the advantages of high refractive index, high infrared emissivity and low solar absorption into the porous cellulose-based film via a facile phase separation strategy. The cavities were distributed around 5 μm in size due to the limited evaporation of solvents, while the introduction of TiO2 nanoparticles effectively enhanced the solar reflectance to 0.97. Moreover, the scattering model demonstrated that the high solar reflectivity was mainly produced by the randomly agglomerate effect of nanoparticles and these nano-clusters also contribute to a high mid-infrared emissivity. As a result, the photonic film presented about 10 °C cooling capacity even under the high-density solar radiation (~897 W/m2) according to the out-door measurement. The random nano-clusters filling strategy avoids the complicate process of specific size particles and has a significant potential for propel the polymer-based cooling technology to satisfy the need of large-scale thermal management.

As an amplification tool, DNA walker nanomachine exhibits promising potential in the fields of biosensing. To further improve amplification efficiency of DNA walker, a number of cascade amplification systems have been developed, but they still suffer from separated steps and long reaction time. Herein, by combining entropy-driven catalytic (EDC) amplification with DNAzyme reaction, a highly integrated cascade three-dimensional (3D) DNA walker is constructed, which allows the autonomous DNA circuit to be completed in one step. Further combined with element tag and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) detection, the cascade walker can be used for quantification of miRNA-21. Specifically, the reactant of EDC (WLT complex) and the substrate of DNAzyme (Substrate-Tb) are both fixed on magnetic beads (MBs) to assemble the track of walker. Once cascade DNA walker is triggered by target miRNA, EDC amplification runs first and keeps circulating to liberate many DNAzyme strands. DNAzyme can repeatedly cleave Substrate-Tb with autonomously walking along the substrate on MBs. As a result, a great number of fragments of Substrate-Tb, as output signal, are generated within 1 h, resulting in elemental signal response in ICP-MS and reflecting the amount of miRNA-21. A good linear relationship was obtained with miRNA-21 concentration in the range of 0.02−1 nmol L−1, and the detection limit of 5 pmol L−1 was achieved. The recoveries of miRNA-21 in human serum were 92.0–107 %. The developed method provided a novel idea for constructing highly integrated and efficient cascade DNA walker with ICP-MS strategy for bioanalysis.

A novel magnetic N-doped porous carbon material (MNPC) was obtained by mixing urea, sucrose and Fe3O4@SiO2 and calcinating for carbonization. With g-C3N4 as intermediate template, the synthesized material has large BET surface area of 219.4 m2 g−1 and high nitrogen content of 9.4 wt%. With using MNPC material as sorbent, a new method by coupling magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was established for enrichment and determination of Cd(II) and Pb(II) in environmental waters. The conditions affecting MSPE were optimized including the effects of pH, sample volume, amount of sorbent usage, adsorption/desorption time and eluent type/concentration/volume. Under the optimized conditions, the developed MSPE-ICPMS method exhibited a good linear dynamic range of more than three orders of magnitude (2–5000 pg mL−1 for Cd(II) and 10–5000 pg mL−1 for Pb(II)) and a low detection limits of 0.49 and 3.1 pg mL−1 for Cd(II) and Pb(II), respectively. The relative standard deviations were in the range of 6.9%–7.3% for the target metal ions. The adsorption/desorption kinetics of the developed MSPE procedure was fast, and the total extraction procedure only cost 7 min (5 min for adsorption and 2 min for desorption) for each sample. The sorbent could be used for at least 5 times. The MSPE-ICPMS method has great potential for the determination of trace and even ultra-trace Cd(II) and Pb(II) in the environment waters.