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Enteric tuft cells are chemosensory epithelial cells gaining attention in the field of host-parasite interactions. Expressing a repertoire of chemosensing receptors and mediators, these cells have the potential to detect lumen-dwelling helminth and protozoan parasites and coordinate epithelial, immune, and neuronal cell defenses against them. This review highlights the versatility of enteric tuft cells and sub-types thereof, showcasing nuances of tuft cell responses to different parasites, with a focus on helminths reflecting the current state of the field. The role of enteric tuft cells in irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and intestinal viral infection is assessed in the context of concomitant infection with parasites. Finally, the review presents pertinent questions germane to understanding the enteric tuft cell and its role in enteric parasitic infections. There is much to be done to fully elucidate the response of this intriguing cell type to parasitic-infection and there is negligible data on the biology of the human enteric tuft cell—a glaring gap in knowledge that must be filled.

Water pollution has caused serious water shortage, and this trend becomes increasingly serious in the world. Therefore, how to efficiently access water resources is crucial for human beings. Considering the easy blockage problem of traditional fog-harvesting mesh, we used the fog catcher brushes structure to avoid the problem effectively. Besides, most of the modified coatings on fog-harvesting materials contain fluorosilane, which is expensive, harmful and unstable for a long time using. In addition to the general properties of dimethyl silicone oil, hydrogen methyl silicone oil can participate in a variety of chemical reactions and have a good film-forming performance due to its molecular structure containing active Si–H keys compared to the similar studies about the oil-infused coating. Besides, the low contact angle hysteresis of the droplet can benefit for the droplet sliding off the surface, which further improve the fog-harvesting efficiency. In this paper, mechanical cutting method, water bath method, and spray coating method were successfully combined to construct slippery “fog catcher brushes” with alumina micro-needle structured surfaces from micro control to macro design. Furthermore, the effect of wettability, pattern shape and pattern size on fog-harvesting performance were investigated. Experiment results indicated that slippery surface benefited for the fog deposition and transportation compared with the superhydrophilic and plain surface. When the fog droplets passed through the sample with 10-teeth arc-shaped pattern, it would fully contact the surface, and only a small amount of fog droplets escaped from the surface. With the adjacent droplets coalescing, the droplets slided off along both sides of the pattern, then the contact surface decreased gradually from the top to the bottom, so droplets could transport rapidly. Analysis demonstrated that the slippery arc-shaped fog catcher brushes with 10-teeth had a good effect on the capturing and transporting of fog droplets, which offered a way to rationally construct materials with enhanced fog-harvesting performance from micro control to macro design.

Two experimental paradigms were adopted to explore host–helminth interactions involved in the regulation of colitis and to understand if colitis affects the outcome of helminth infection. First, male BALB/c mice infected with H. diminuta were challenged 4 days later with dinitrobenzene sulphonic acid (DNBS) and necropsied 3 days later. Second, mice were infected with H. diminuta 3 days after DNBS treatment and necropsied 11 or 14 days post-DNBS. Mice were assessed for colitic disease severity and infectivity with H. diminuta upon necropsy. Supporting the concept of helminth therapy, mice are protected from DNBS–colitis when infected with H. diminuta only 4 days previously, along with parallel increases in splenic production of Th2 cytokines. In the treatment regimen, H. diminuta infection produced a subtle, statistically significant, enhanced recovery from DNBS. Mice regained body weight quicker, had normalized colon lengths, and showed no overt signs of disease, in comparison to the DNBS-only mice, some of which displayed signs of mild disease at 14 days post-DNBS. Unexpectedly, colitis did not affect the hosts’ anti-worm response. The impact of inflammatory disease on helminth infection is deserving of study in a variety of models as auto-inflammatory diseases emerge in world regions where parasitic helminths are endemic.

SnO2 has attracted great attention at energy storage due to the high capacity. The electrochemical conversion behavior of SnO2 as well as its influence on the lithium-storage performance remains unclear because of its pulverization and aggregation. In this paper, SnO2-carbon aerogel (CA) composites were characterized by TEM, SEM, XRD, XPS, FTIR, TG/DTG and BET. SnO2-CA anode materials exhibit excellent cycling stability and a strong rate capacity. The nanostructural evolution of SnO2-CA as anode material were studied by in situ electrochemical-grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) technique. The GISAXS results demonstrate that the multihierarchical scatterers in the SnO2-CA as anode material can be roughly divided into interspace, SnO2 nanoparticles, nanopores and so on during the first lithiation. The nanostructural evolution of SnO2 nanoparticles are observed and subsequently some cracks occur that result from the existence of tension stress during the first discharge process. At the same time, the volumes of interspaces and nanopores also expand slightly during Li-ion intercalation process. A schematic model has been tentatively proposed to describe the first lithiation of SnO2-CA anode. It is firmly believed that these results will help further understanding of the complicated reaction mechanism of nanostructured Sn-based anode materials and provide a valuable insight into designing new electrode materials.

Recently, the development and application of porous materials have attracted increasing attention, and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have become “stars” in the emerging material field because of their high porosities and ultra-high specific surface areas. In this review, the calculated works of MOFs in this field in the past ten years were summarized, especially for MOF adsorbents. With the continuous growth of the number of adsorbent materials, simulations have gradually transitioned from the single simulation, high-throughput computational screening (HTCS) to machine-learning (ML)-assisted HTCS. The purpose of this paper is to sort out the research progress and current ideas for the adsorption simulations of MOFs. Finally, we highlight the bottlenecks and challenges for the future commercialization of HTCS based on ML and the ML-assisted HTCS methods that are suitable for solving the research problems in this field. We also speculate about the future development directions of this field, hoping to promote the practical application of porous adsorbents.

The Mo modified MnFe2O4 (MnFe2−x Mo x O4, x ≤ 0.05) powders were prepared by using a wet-chemical synthesis method and the related ceramics were obtained by a traditional ceramic sintering technology. The effect of Mo contents on the phase component and related electrical properties of the ceramics were investigated. The results show that the prepared ceramics have a spinel-type cubic crystalline structure, and show a typical characteristic of negative temperature coefficient (NTC) of resistivity. The thermal sensitivity constants are around 6100 K over a wide temperature range from 25 to 250 °C. The analysis of impedance spectra reveals that both grain effect and grain boundary effect contribute to the NTC feature. The conduction mechanisms for the ceramics are mainly proposed to be the electron hopping conduction inside the grains and the thermally activated charge carrier transport by overcoming the energy barrier for the grain boundary conduction.

Foldamer, inspired by the structures and functions of biopolymers, is defined as an artificial molecular architecture that can fold into a three-dimensional structure in solution and has been a growing and active field in supramolecular chemistry. The central issue in foldamer science is to understand how the primary sequence of oligomer folds into conformationally ordered structures as well as how individual subunits self-associate into assembly. For duplex structures, these two issues are always interrelated and inseparable with each other. Although the emergence of new foldamer keeps growing, the detailed mechanism remains elusive. On the basis of an artificially synthesized arylamide oligoamide foldamer with its crystal structure available, we constructed a set of four foldamers with a similar backbone but different substituents and aimed at dissecting the folding and self-association mechanisms of a double-helical foldamer with computations. Using molecular simulations at a microsecond time scale, we observed very consistent processes of the spontaneous self-assembly of two single-helical motifs into an entwined complex. Our results reveal that aggregation of two single-helical motifs driven by extensive π-π interactions is energetically favorable and that this spontaneous self-assembly proceeds through an "unwinding-threading-rewinding" mechanism. The detailed mechanisms about the folding and self-assembly in an aromatic oligoamide foldamer we present here disclose how the sequence is associated with a well-ordered three-dimensional structure at atomic level and therefore may have implications for designing new foldamers with versatile functions.

SUMMARY We propose a new low-rank based noise attenuation method using an efficient algorithm for tracking subspaces from highly corrupted seismic observations. The subspace tracking algorithm requires only basic linear algebraic manipulations. The algorithm is derived by analysing incremental gradient descent on the Grassmannian manifold of subspaces. When the multidimensional seismic data are mapped to a low-rank space, the subspace tracking algorithm can be directly applied to the input low-rank matrix to estimate the useful signals. Since the subspace tracking algorithm is an online algorithm, it is more robust to random noise than traditional truncated singular value decomposition (TSVD) based subspace tracking algorithm. Compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms, the proposed denoising method can obtain better performance. More specifically, the proposed method outperforms the TSVD-based singular spectrum analysis method in causing less residual noise and also in saving half of the computational cost. Several synthetic and field data examples with different levels of complexities demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the presented algorithm in rejecting different types of noise including random noise, spiky noise, blending noise, and coherent noise.

Objectives Previous studies have shown that Helicobacter pylori infection might make clinical status worse in patients with Parkinson’s disease and Helicobacter pylori eradication might improve clinical status by modifying the pharmacokinetics of L-dopa. Here, we investigate whether Helicobacter pylori eradication could benefit idiopathic parkinsonism and Helicobacter pylori infection will effect which aspect of motor symptom significantly. Patients and methods A cohort study involving idiopathic Parkinson’s disease patients, screened for Helicobacter status by 13 C urea breath test. Clinical status was evaluated by using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and Hoehn-Yahr stage. If patients had motor complications, they were quantified at the “on” time. The Helicobacter pylori positive patients could choose to receive Helicobacter pylori eradication or not by themselves. Group 1 was Helicobacter pylori negative patients. Group 2 was Helicobacter pylori positive patients who didn’t receive eradication treatment. Group 3 was Helicobacter pylori positive patients who received successful eradication treatment. Repeat clinical assessments and 13 C urea breath test was performed at 1 year later. Numerical data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD) Results Ninety-four consecutive patients with Parkinson’s disease were recruited and underwent the initial 13 C urea breath test, but only forty-eight patients successfully completed the total study. In Group 3, the UPDRS-III scores (=Motor Examination Section Scores) were significantly lower 1 year later compared to baseline (18.3 ± 8.38 vs. 25.9 ± 8.37, P = 0.007). The differences were main in UPDRS-23 (=Finger Taps) (1.7 ± 1.16 vs. 2.4 ± 1.51, P = 0.045), UPDRS-25 (Rapid Alternation Movements of Hands) (1.6 ± 1.35 vs. 2.4 ± 1.71, P = 0.031) and UPDRS-26 (=Leg Agility) (1.3 ± 1.25 vs.2.1 ± 0.99, P = 0.011). There was difference among three groups in the UPDRS-26 (P = 0.040) of clinical status change of one year. Conclusion The eradication of Helicobacter might improve the clinical status of idiopathic parkinsonism, especially on bradykinesia.

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) which emitted blue-green fluorescence (abbreviated as CQDs-1) were prepared by grinding organic small molecule acetone under alkaline conditions. Upon adding KF (or KCl) and grinding with acetone, the fluorescence emission peak of CQDs shifts from 500 nm (CQDs-1) to 560 nm (CQDs-2). And red fluorescent CQDs-3 with a fluorescence emission peak of 600 nm (CQDs-3) were obtained when KF (or KCl) was changed to KBr (or KI) under the same conditions. UV-Vis absorption spectrum and fluorescence spectrum were used to study their optical properties. And their morphologies and microstructures were characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectra. The formation mechanism of CQDs was explored. The results show that CQDs prepared by such simple mechanical trituration method exhibit low cytotoxicity, high water solubility and good biocompatibility, thus they can be used for tumor cell imaging.

Relative energies and binding energies are crucial quantities that determine various molecular properties of ice and water. We developed a new effective method to compute those energies of bulk ice–liquid water systems. In this work, ten ice–liquid 144-mers and ten periodic ice–liquid (H2O)64 systems are taken from the molecular dynamics simulations in the melting process of ice-Ih crystals. They are investigated at the levels of density functional theory (DFT), explicitly correlated second-order Moller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2-F12), and coupled-cluster singles and doubles with noniterative triples corrections [CCSD(T)-F12b] in the framework of generalized energy-based fragmentation approach. Our results show that the changing of noncovalent interactions significantly influences the performances of DFT and electron correlation methods for those systems in the melting process of ice. Various DFT methods predict quite different results for ice and mixed ice–liquid structures but give similar results...

The generalized energy-based fragmentation (GEBF) method has been applied to investigate relative energies of large water clusters (H2O)n (n = 32, 64) with the coupled-cluster singles and doubles with noniterative triple excitations (CCSD(T)) and second-order Moller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) at the complete basis set (CBS) limit. Here large water clusters are chosen to be representative structures sampled from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of liquid water. Our calculations show that the GEBF method is capable of providing highly accurate relative energies for these water clusters in a cost-effective way. We demonstrate that the relative energies from GEBF-MP2/CBS are in excellent agreement with those from GEBF-CCSD(T)/CBS for these water clusters. With the GEBF-CCSD(T)/CBS relative energies as the benchmark results, we have assessed the performance of several theoretical methods widely used for ab initio MD simulations of liquids and aqueous solutions. These methods include density functiona...

Objective: The goal of this study was to use the results from nasopharyngeal tube polysomnography (NPT-PSG) to detect glossopharyngeal airway obstruction in patients with obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) and to compare the results with those obtained by observing sleep apnea/ hypopnea after nasopharyngeal tube insertion during drug-induced sleep.

The reaction mechanism of the C–H bond activation of toluene promoted by the hypervalent iodine compound TIPP-I(OH)OTs was investigated in detail by density functional theory calculations. Our calculations show that a plausible reaction pathway of the C–H bond activation of toluene contains two stages: (1) the ligand exchange process on TIPP-I(OH)OTs, involving the substitution of the hydroxyl group and tosyloxyl group with TfOH, and (2) the C–H bond activation of toluene promoted by the hypervalent iodine center with the assistance of the triflate anion. The second step is the rate-limiting step with a relatively low free energy barrier of 19.6 kcal mol–1 in acetonitrile, which is in accord with the experimental fact that the reaction takes place at room temperature. Frontier molecular orbits and natural population analysis show that partial electron transfer from the toluene to the hypervalent iodine moiety occurs in the charge-transfer complex, resulting in the activation of the C–H bond at the para po...

Density functional theory investigations revealed that the pyridine-boryl radical generated in situ using 4-cyanopyridine and bis(pinacolato)diboron could be used as a bifunctional "reagent", which serves as not only a pyridine precursor but also a boryl radical. With the unique reactivity of such radicals, 4-substituted pyridine derivatives could be synthesized using α,β-unsaturated ketones and 4-cyanopyridine via a novel radical addition/C-C coupling mechanism. Several controlled experiments were conducted to provide supportive evidence for the proposed mechanism. In addition to enones, the scope could be extended to a wide range of boryl radical acceptors, including various aldehydes and ketones, aryl imines and alkynones. Lastly, this transformation was applied in the late-stage modification of a complicated pharmaceutical molecule.

Cell division cycle 6 (CDC6), an androgen receptor (AR) target gene, is implicated in regulating DNA replication and checkpoint mechanisms. CDC6 expression is increased during prostate cancer (PCa) progression and positively correlates with AR in PCa tissues. AR or CDC6 knockdown, together with AZD7762, a Chk1/2 inhibitor, results in decreased TopBP1-ATR-Chk1 signaling and markedly increased ataxia-telangiectasia-mutated (ATM) phosphorylation, a biomarker of DNA damage, and synergistically increases treatment efficacy. Combination treatment with the AR signaling inhibitor enzalutamide (ENZ) and the Chk1/2 inhibitor AZD7762 demonstrates synergy with regard to inhibition of AR-CDC6-ATR-Chk1 signaling, ATM phosphorylation induction, and apoptosis in VCaP (mutant p53) and LNCaP-C4-2b (wild-type p53) cells. CDC6 overexpression significantly reduced ENZ- and AZD7762-induced apoptosis. Additive or synergistic therapeutic activities are demonstrated in AR-positive animal xenograft models. These findings have important clinical implications, since they introduce a therapeutic strategy for AR-positive, metastatic, castration-resistant PCa, regardless of p53 status, through targeting AR-CDC6-ATR-Chk1 signaling.

A refined QM/MM approach demonstrated that a monomer model is suitable for describing the emission spectra of crystals without the ππ stacking interaction. Whereas for the crystals with notable intermolecular ππ stacking interaction, the most stable trimer model (or at least a dimer model) should be used for accurately describing the corresponding emission spectra. This approach is applied to understand the emission properties of two kinds of organic polymorphs.

Three kinds of chiral BINOL-based polymers could be synthesized by polymerization in a Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction. The resulting chiral polymers can exhibit strong mirror image Cotton effects. Interestingly, only P2 and P3 can emit circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) signals, which can be attributed to the chirality transfer of the BINOL moiety via the rigid π-conjugation chain backbone structure system. This work can develop a new strategy for the design of novel CPL materials.

This paper researches on some key technologies of anti-jamming of an air-borne radar receiver, the automatic testing of AGC, IAGC and multi-filtering under one million noisy pulses by the computer simulation system. The system tests the width of the jamming pulse whose width is 100% bigger, 60% bigger and 100% smaller than the Radar signal’s respectively and show the SNR curve.

Density functional theory calculations were performed to elucidate the mechanism of the methylation reaction of the N,N-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP)-modified meta-phenylene ethynylene foldamer with eight methyl sulfonate esters with different alkyl groups. The helical structure of the DMAP-modified mPE foldamer results from multiple intramolecular π–π stacking interactions between m-phenylene ethynylene arms, which can be characterized by the helical energy. The noncovalent interactions between the foldamer and the substrate can stabilize the transition state and result in an acceleration of the methylation reaction of the foldamer. Due to the different shapes of the alkyl chains of the methylating agents, the methylation rates of the foldamers with linear and branched substrates show different rules. It is expected that these mechanistic insights into supramolecular catalysis can be used in the design and preparation of supramolecular catalysts and reactors.

A novel and straightforward strategy for functionalized 1H-indazoles is realized by the Rh(III)-catalyzed double C–H activation and C–H/C–H cross coupling of readily available aldehyde phenylhydrazones. The reaction is scalable and various 1H-indazoles could be afforded in moderate to high yields with good functional-group compatibility. Mechanism experiments and DFT calculations suggest the distinctive Rh(III)-catalyzed C–H/C–H cross coupling reaction underwent a cascade C(aryl)–H bond metalation, C(aldhyde)–H bond insertion and reductive elimination process.

Hollow selenium (Se) nanospheres encapsulated within 3D graphene hydrogels were prepared by a two-step solution process and researched as lithium–selenium (Li–Se) battery cathode materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed that the hollow Se nanospheres were coated by homogeneous graphene shells. Thermogravimetric analysis indicated that the Se content in the nanocomposite was about 70%. The nanocomposite, as a cathode, had excellent capacity and cycling stability (343 mA h g−1 after 50 cycles at 0.2C). The remarkable electrochemical performance was due to the high content of Se and the synergistic effects of graphene. It was shown that the structure, comprising hollow Se nanospheres encapsulated into graphene, was beneficial to the practical application of the nanocomposite in Li–Se batteries.

To explore the application of three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction technology for midline glossectomy in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Fifteen patients with OSA were included in this study. Each of them received computed tomography angiography (CTA) examination of lingual arteries in the resting tongue position and fully extended tongue position respectively. The two-dimensional CTA images were converted to 3D models using 3D reconstruction technology. We simulated the midline glossectomy in different tongue positions with a safe margin of 3 mm. The differences in the distances between bilateral lingual arteries, the depths of the lingual arteries and the surgical resectable volumes of the tongue were compared between different tongue positions in 3D models. The depths of the lingual arteries, the distances between bilateral lingual arteries based on three measuring sections and the surgical resectable volumes of the tongue in the fully extended tongue position were significantly smaller than those in the resting tongue position (P

The success of checkpoint inhibitors in cancer treatment is associated with the infiltration of tissue-resident memory T (Trm) cells. In this study, we found that about 30% of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in the tumor microenvironment of gastric adenocarcinoma were CD69

Our previous study showed that sulfatide-activated type II natural killer T (NKT) cells can prevent allergic airway inflammation in an ovalbumin (OVA)-induced murine model of asthma, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. Recently, sulfatide-activated type II NKT cells were shown to modulate the function of dendritic cells in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and nonobese diabetic mice. Thus, it was hypothesized that sulfatide-activated type II NKT cells may modulate the function of lung dendritic cells (LDCs) in asthmatic mice. Our data showed that, in our mouse models, activation of type II NKT cells by sulfatide administration and adoptive transfer of sulfatide-activated type II NKT cells resulted in reduced expression of surface maturation markers and proinflammatory cytokine production of LDCs. LDCs from sulfatide-treated asthmatic mice, in contrast to LDCs from PBS-treated asthmatic mice, significantly reduced allergic airway inflammation in vivo. However, we found no influence of sulfatide-activated type II NKT cells on the phenotypic and functional maturation of bone marrow-derived dendritic cells in vitro. In addition, adoptive transfer of sulfatide-activated type II NKT cells did not influence the phenotypic and functional maturation of LDCs in CD1d−/− mice, which lack both type I and II NKT cells, immunized and challenged with OVA. Our data reveal that sulfatide-activated type II NKT cells can suppress immunogenic maturation of LDCs to reduce allergic airway inflammation in mouse models of asthma, and it is possible that the immunomodulatory effect needs type I NKT cells.

To investigate the effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with enteral nutrition on perioperative immunity, inflammation and intestinal flora in gastric cancer patients.A total of 96 gastric cancer patients scheduled to undergo operation were selected and randomly divided into the observation group (n=48) and the control group (n=48). The patients in the control group were treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy before operation, while those in the observation group received enteral nutrition before operation based on the treatment in the control group. The changes in immune indexes, inflammatory indexes and intestinal flora were compared between the two groups.After treatment, the levels of serum interleukin-2 (IL-2), IL-6, IL-10 and C-reactive protein (CRP) elevated gradually, while the level of serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) lowered gradually in both groups (p0.05). The indexes of nutritional status in the control group declined gradually after operation, and the levels of nutritional indexes, T cell subsets and immunoglobulins in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group (p0.05). In the observation group, after operation, the levels of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus rose gradually, but those of Escherichia coli and Enterococcus exhibited progressive decline (p0.05).Neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with enteral nutrition can markedly relieve the perioperative inflammatory responses, improve the body immunity and maintain the structure of intestinal flora in gastric cancer patients, so it has certain clinical application value.

The detailed mechanism of the AuCN-catalyzed annulation of salicylaldehyde (SA) and phenyl acetylene leading to isoflavanone-type complexes has been investigated via density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Reaction pathways and possible stationary points are obtained with the combined molecular dynamics and coordinate driving (MD/CD) method. Our calculations reveal that the cyanide ion promoted umpolung hydroacylation/intramolecular oxa-Michael addition mechanism is more favorable than the Au(I)/Au(III) redox mechanism proposed previously. In the umpolung mechanism, the hydroxyl of SA is found to strongly stabilize the cyanide ion involved intermediates and transition states via hydrogen bond interaction, while the Au(I) ion always acts as a counter cation. The overall reaction is exergonic by 41.8 kcal/mol. The hydroacylation of phenyl acetylene is the rate-determining step and responsible for the regioselectivity with a free energy barrier of 27.3 kcal/mol. These calculated results are in qualitative accord with the experimental findings.

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains one of the leading causes of death in patients with cancer. The association of CD155 with CD96 transmits an inhibitory signal and suppresses antitumor immune response. This study investigates the effect of CD155/CD96 on immune suppression in LUAD. We demonstrate that LUAD patients with high CD155 expression suffer from immune suppression and experience a poor prognosis, which coincides with an inhibited AKT-mTOR signaling pathway in CD8 T cells and subsequently up-regulated CD96 expression. Moreover, the inhibition effect can be reversed by CD96 blocking antibody. High CD155 expression inhibited the release of IFNγ from CD8 cells. Moreover, Blocking CD96 restored IFNγ production in CD8 T cells and neutralized the inhibition of IFNγ production in CD8 T cells mediated by CD155. Animal experiments showed that CD155-mediated LUAD growth might depend on its suppression antitumor immune response in the tumor microenvironment in PDX mice. In conclusion, our results suggest that LUAD cells suppress antitumor immune response in the tumor microenvironment through CD155/CD96. CD155/CD96 could be a potential therapeutic target for LUAD patients.AbbreviationsLUAD: lung adenocarcinoma; IFNγ: interferon gamma; PDX: patient-derived xenograft; NSCLC: non-small cell lung cancer; PRR: poliovirus receptor–related; MDSCs: myeloid-derived suppressor cells; PRR: poliovirus receptor–related; STR: short tandem repeat; IRS: immunoreactive score; SI: staining intensity; PP: percentage of positive cells; RT-PCR: reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction; PBS: phosphate-buffered saline; PBMCs: peripheral blood mononuclear cells; SDS–PAGE: sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; rCD155: recombinant human CD155; LUAD cells: lung adenocarcinoma cells; TILs: tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes; GzmB: granzyme B; IL-2 (Interleukin-2); TNF-α : tumor necrosis factor-alpha; PI: propidium Iodide; PDX: patient-derived xenograft; TIGIT: T cell immunoreceptor with Igand ITIM domains; WBC: white blood cells; MFI: mean fluorescence intensity; HPF: high power field

Three stereoisomers of Troger’s Base-based dimeric macrocycles Trogerophane 1 (T1) including one pair of enantiomers (rac-T1) and one meso isomer (R2NS2N-T1) were obtained and fully characterized by X-ray analysis. In the crystalline stacking state R2NS2N-T1 showed heterochiral self-sorting behavior along a axis with cofacial π-π stacking interactions, while rac-T1 showed heterochiral self-sorting behavior along c axis with slipped π-π stacking interactions, respectively. Meanwhile both of them showed homochiral self-sorting behavior along b axis as well as one pair of supramolecular helixes were formed in both cases. All the self-sorting behaviors are controlled by two chiral Troger’s Base units from neighbouring molecules. To the best of our knowledge, such chiral self-sorting and supramolecular helixes of N-centered chiral superstructures is a rare example. In addition, R2NS2N-T1 and rac-T1 demonstrated different adsorption capacities towards the vapor of dichloromethane and acetone, respectively.

An efficient analytical energy gradient algorithm for the cluster-in-molecule (CIM) second order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) method is presented. In our algorithm, the gradient contributions from the nonseparable term of the two-body density matrix on a given atom is extracted from calculations on a cluster constructed for this atom. The other terms in the CIM-MP2 energy gradient expression are evaluated by constructing the density matrices of the whole system with the contributions from all clusters constructed. For basis sets with diffuse functions, tight CIM parameters are necessary to obtain accurate gradients. Benchmark calculations show that the CIM-MP2 method can accurately reproduce the conventional MP2 gradients and geometries for larger systems. The optimized structure of a 174-atom oligopeptide using the CIM-MP2 method with the cc-pVDZ basis set is in good agreement with the corresponding crystal structure. The present CIM-MP2 gradient program can be used for optimizing the geometries of large systems with hundreds of atoms on ordinary workstations.

The acquisition of susceptibility to necrotrophy over the course of ripening is one of the critical factors limiting shelf life. In this study, phytopathology and molecular biology were employed to explore the roles of pectinase in fruit susceptibility and ripening. Solanum lycopersicum fruit softened dramatically from entirely green to 50% red, which was accompanied by a continuously high expressed SlPG2 gene. The necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea further activated the expression of SlPGs and SlPMEs to accelerate cell wall disassembly, while most of the polygalacturonase inhibitor proteins encoding genes expression were postponed in ripe fruit following the pathogen attack. Pectin induced the antagonistic yeast to secrete pectinolytic enzymes to increase fruit resistance against gray mold. The activities of pathogenic pectinase of B. cinerea were correspondingly depressed in the pectin-inducible yeast enzyme elicited ripe fruit. These data suggest that pectinase is a molecular target for regulation of disease resistance during fruit ripening.

The photoexcitation mechanism in photochemistry and photophysics is a key to understanding the photostability and photoreaction of nucleobases. Using a combination of the generalized energy-based fragmentation (GEBF) and quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical (GEBF-QM/MM) approach and the QM/MM approach, we have investigated the electronic absorption spectra for the π-π* transition of uracil in aqueous solution, amorphous solid, and crystal. Our results indicate that the intermolecular interactions in terms of molecular packing are crucial for the investigation of the absorption spectra of uracil in different environments. There is a large red-shift (relative to uracil in the gas-phase) for uracil in the amorphous phase, which arises from hydrogen-bonding (HB) and close π-π stacking interactions. In contrast, the relatively smaller red-shift of uracil in aqueous solution can be attributed to the cooperative HB and long-range electrostatic and polarization interactions. Due to the HB and weak π-π interactions, the red-shift of the crystal is smaller than that of amorphous uracil. Furthermore, the results suggest that a large system is required to obtain the accurate absorption spectra of solutions, whereas small electrostatically embedded cluster models could be used to obtain the corresponding results for amorphous solids and molecular crystals.

Background Circulating tumor cells (CTC) shows great prospect to realize precision medicine in cancer patients. Methods We developed the NanoVelcro Chip integrating three functional mechanisms. NanoVelcro CTC capture efficiency was tested in stage III or IV lung adenocarcinoma. Further, ALK-rearrangement status was examined through fluorescent in situ hybridization in CTCs enriched by NanoVelcro. Results NanoVelcro system showed higher CTC-capture efficiency than CellSearch in stage III or IV lung adenocarcinoma. CTC counts obtained by both methods were positively correlated (r = 0.45, p

Additional file 1. Supplementary data.

Aspergillus flavus is a soilborne pathogenic fungus that poses a serious public health threat due to it contamination of food with carcinogenic aflatoxins. Our previous studies have demonstrated that benzenamine displayed strong inhibitory effects on the mycelial growth of A. flavus. In this study, we systematically investigated the inhibitory effects of benzenamine on the development, aflatoxin biosynthesis, and virulence in A. flavus, as well as the underlying mechanism. The results indicated that benzenamine exhibited great capacity to combat A. flavus at a concentration of 100 &micro, L/L, leading to significantly decreased aflatoxin accumulation and colonization capacity in maize. The transcriptional profile revealed that 3589 genes show altered mRNA levels in the A. flavus after treatment with benzenamine, including 1890 down-regulated and 1699 up-regulated genes. Most of the differentially expressed genes participated in the biosynthesis and metabolism of amino acid, purine metabolism, and protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum. Additionally, the results brought us to a suggestion that benzenamine affects the development, aflatoxin biosynthesis, and pathogenicity of A. flavus via down-regulating related genes by depressing the expression of the global regulatory factor leaA. Overall, this study indicates that benzenamine have tremendous potential to act as a fumigant against pathogenic A. flavus. Furthermore, this work offers valuable information regarding the underlying antifungal mechanism of benzenamine against A. flavus at the level of transcription, and these potential targets may be conducive in developing new strategies for preventing aflatoxin contamination.

Background: The Guideline for Management of Parkinson’s Disease in China was published in 2006 to standardize Parkinson’s disease treatment. Our objective was to compare the initial PD treatment and their accordance with the recommendations before and after the guideline publication. Methods: We identified 136 PD patients as part of a hospital-based study in Beijing, and compared the prescriptions of dopamine agonists (DA) and levodopa (LD) as initial therapy to evaluate the impact of the publication of Chinese guideline on the therapy of PD. Results: We found that the publication of the guideline resulted in no difference in the initial treatment of PD patients > 65 years. In patients < 65 years, the prescription of DA was significantly increased after the publication of the guideline. There were no significant differences in initial treatment between patients treated in hospitals of different levels or patients with different types of insurance. Conclusions: The guideline promoted DA utilization as initial treatment in young patients.

Aspergillus flavus is a soilborne pathogenic fungus that poses a serious public health threat due to it contamination of food with carcinogenic aflatoxins. Our previous studies have demonstrated that benzenamine displayed strong inhibitory effects on the mycelial growth of A. flavus. In this study, we systematically investigated the inhibitory effects of benzenamine on the development, aflatoxin biosynthesis, and virulence in A. flavus, as well as the underlying mechanism. The results indicated that benzenamine exhibited great capacity to combat A. flavus at a concentration of 100 µL/L, leading to significantly decreased aflatoxin accumulation and colonization capacity in maize. The transcriptional profile revealed that 3589 genes show altered mRNA levels in the A. flavus after treatment with benzenamine, including 1890 down-regulated and 1699 up-regulated genes. Most of the differentially expressed genes participated in the biosynthesis and metabolism of amino acid, purine metabolism, and protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum. Additionally, the results brought us to a suggestion that benzenamine affects the development, aflatoxin biosynthesis, and pathogenicity of A. flavus via down-regulating related genes by depressing the expression of the global regulatory factor leaA. Overall, this study indicates that benzenamine have tremendous potential to act as a fumigant against pathogenic A. flavus. Furthermore, this work offers valuable information regarding the underlying antifungal mechanism of benzenamine against A. flavus at the level of transcription, and these potential targets may be conducive in developing new strategies for preventing aflatoxin contamination.

To determine the incidence of surgical site infection (SSI) after abdominal surgery and to further evaluate the related risk factors of SSI in China.The multicenter cross-sectional study collected clinical data of all adult patients who underwent abdominal surgery from May 1, 2018 to May 31, 2018 in 30 domestic hospitals, including basic information, perioperative parameters, and incisional microbial culture results. The primary outcome was the incidence of SSI within postoperative 30 days. SSI was classified into superficial incision infection, deep incision infection, and organ/gap infection according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria. The secondary outcome variables were ICU stay, postoperative hospital stay, total hospital stay, 30-day mortality and treatment costs. Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors of SSI.A total of 1666 patients were enrolled in the study, including 263 cases of East War Zone Hospital of PLA, 140 cases of Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, 108 cases of The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, 87 cases of Central War Zone Hospital of PLA, 77 cases of West China Hospital, 74 cases of Guangdong General Hospital, 71 cases of Chenzhou First People's Hospital, 71 cases of Zigong First People's Hospital, 64 cases of Zhangjiagang First People's Hospital, 56 cases of Nanyang City Central Hospital, 56 cases of Lanzhou General Hospital of Lanzhou Military Command, 56 cases of Shandong Provincial Hospital, 52 cases of Shangqiu First People's Hospital, 52 cases of People's Hospital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, 48 cases of The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, 48 cases of Chinese PLA General Hospital, 44 cases of Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, 38 cases of Hunan Province People's Hospital, 36 cases of Dongguan Kanghua Hospital, 30 cases of Shaoxing Central Hospital, 30 cases of Northern Jiangsu People's Hospital, 29 vases of The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, 27 cases of General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, 22 cases of Zigong Fourth People's Hospital, 21 cases of The Second Hospital of University of South China, 18 cases of Tongji Hospital, 15 cases of Nanchong Central Hospital, 12 cases of The 901th Hospital of PLA, 11 cases of Hunan Cancer Hospital, 10 cases of Lanzhou University Second Hospital. There were 1019 males and 647 females with mean age of (56.5±15.3) years old. SSI occurred in 80 patients (4.8%) after operation, including 39 cases of superficial incision infection, 16 cases of deep incision infection, and 25 cases of organ/interstitial infection. Escherichia coli was the main pathogen of SSI, and the positive rate was 32.5% (26/80). Compared with patients without SSI, those with SSI had significantly higher ICU occupancy rate [38.8%(31/80) vs. 13.9%(220/1586), P0.001], postoperative hospital stay (median 17 days vs. 7 days, P0.001) and total hospital stay (median 22 days vs. 13 days, P0.001), and significantly higher cost of treatment (median 75 000 yuan vs. 44 000 yuan, P0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that male rise(OR=2.110, 95%CI:1.175-3.791, P=0.012), preoperative blood glucose level rise(OR=1.100, 95%CI: 1.012-1.197, P=0.026), operative time (OR=1.006, 95%CI:1.003-1.009, P0.001) and surgical incision grade (clean-contaminated incision:OR=10.207, 95%CI:1.369-76.120, P=0.023; contaminated incision: OR=10.617, 95%CI:1.298-86.865, P=0.028; infection incision: OR=20.173, 95%CI:1.768-230.121, P=0.016) were risk factors for SSI; and laparoscopic surgery (OR=0.348, 95%CI:0.192-0.631, P=0.001) and mechanical bowel preparation(OR=0.441,95%CI:0.221-0.879, P=0.020) were protective factors for SSI.The incidence of postoperative SSI in patients with abdominal surgery in China is 4.8%. SSI can significantly increase the medical burden of patients. Preoperative control of blood glucose and mechanical bowel preparation are important measures to prevent SSI.

Polycaprolactone/polyvinyl alcohol (PCL/PVA) core-shell nanofibers with pH-responsive properties were successfully prepared by coaxial electrospinning, in which PCL and PVA constituted the core and shell, respectively. The nanofibers can be effectively degraded under acidic or neutral condition. Additionally, the as-prepared PCL/PVA fibers can be used as carriers for anticancer drug paclitaxel (PTX) and the PTX loaded fibers showed pH-responsive release of the drug. After cultured with colon cancer LoVo cells, PTX from the fibers can inhibit the proliferation and growth of the cells completely, even kill them. The PCL/PVA core-shell nanofibers were promising biomaterials in the application of biomedical and tissue engineering fields.

Isopropanol and acetonitrile are important chemical raw materials that are widely used in the chemical industry. However, mixtures of acetonitrile, isopropanol, and water are difficult to separate as these compounds form azeotropes. The solvents were screened based on their relative volatility and toxicity. To reduce the energy consumption, a heat pump-assisted extractive distillation process was proposed. Furthermore, the pervaporation–distillation hybrid process was studied. Life cycle assessment was used to evaluate the environmental impact of the processes. The total annual cost and energy consumption of the hybrid process were 21.11% and 45.91% lower, respectively, than those of the basic process. The values of global warming potential and acid potential of the hybrid process are 810.57 and 1.45, respectively, which are the smallest among those of processes studied. It is concluded that the hybrid process can not only reduce energy consumption, but is also more environmentally friendly than the other processes.

To understand the distribution of Parkinson's disease questionnaire-39 (PDQ-39) scores in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with or without depression, and to analyze the factors that influence the quality of life of PD patients.300 PD patients were enrolled. Patients' general information and the results of assessments including UPDRS, H-Y, HAMD, HAMA, ADL and PDQ-39 were collected. They were divided into depression group and non-depression group according to HAMD score. The relationship between PD-related depression and quality of life and the factors that influence the quality of life of PD patients were analyzed based on PDQ-39 score.111 patients with depression (37.0 %) and 189 patients without depression (63.0 %) were enrolled. The scores of PDQ-39 summary index (PDQ-39 SI) in the depression group were significantly higher than those in the non-depression group in all domains (P0.05). Patients in the depression group had a longer disease duration (6.89 ± 4.70 vs. 5.52 ± 4.12, P0.038), a higher UPDRS-III score (30.1 ± 13.55 vs. 25.2 ± 11.73, P0.001), and a higher H-Y stage level (2.41 ± 0.853 vs. 2.13 ± 0.707, P0.001), compared with patients in the non-depression group. All factors including age, disease duration, UPDRS-III, H-Y stage, HAMD score and HAMA score, may independently affected PDQ-39SI in PD patients, among which HAMD had the greatest effect. HAMD and HAMA were correlated with PDQ-39 in its all eight domains.PD patients with psychological problems such as anxiety and depression may lead to a significant decline in the quality of life of patients in all domains.