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Cell dielectric property measurement holds significant potential for application in cell detection and diagnosis due to its label-free and noninvasive nature. In this study, we developed a biosensor designed to measure the permittivity of liquid samples, particularly cell suspensions at the nanoliter scale, utilizing microwave and millimeter wave coplanar waveguides in conjunction with a microchannel. This biosensor facilitates the measurement of scattering parameters within a frequency domain ranging from 1 GHz to 110 GHz. The obtained scattering parameters are then converted into dielectric constants using specific algorithms. A cell capture structure within the microchannel ensures that cell suspensions remain stable within the measurement zone. The feasibility of this biosensor was confirmed by comparison with a commercial Keysight probe. We measured the dielectric constants of three different cell suspensions (HepG2, A549, MCF-7) using our biosensor. We also counted the number of cells captured in multiple measurements for each cell type and compared the corresponding changes in permittivity. The results indicated that the real part of the permittivity of HepG2 cells is 0.2–0.8 lower than that of the other two cell types. The difference between A549 and MCF-7 was relatively minor, only 0.2–0.4. The fluctuations in the dielectric spectrum caused by changes in cell numbers during measurements were smaller than the differences observed between different cell types. Thus, the sensor is suitable for measuring cell suspensions and can be utilized for label-free, noninvasive studies in identifying biological cell suspensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fibroblast activation protein (FAP) has shown high expression in inflammatory responses and fibrosis. Hypothesis: We speculated that FAP could serve as a diagnostic and monitoring target in the tendon healing process. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: A total of 72 Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into a tendon crush group and a half-partial tendon laceration group. Four rats in each group were injected with radiotracers weekly for 4 weeks after surgery, with aluminum fluoride–labeled 1,4,7-triazacyclononane-N,N′,N″-triacetic acid–conjugated FAP inhibitor (Al18F-NODA-FAPI-04) administered on the first day of each week and 18F-fludeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) on the next day. Small animal positron emission tomography (PET) imaging was performed, and tendon tissue was collected for pathology and quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis each week after surgery. Results: One week after surgery, both radiotracers showed signal concentration at the lesion site, which was the highest radioactive uptake observed during 4 weeks postoperatively, consistent with the severity of the lesion. Consistent trends were observed for inflammatory cytokines during qRT-PCR analysis. Additionally, Al18F-NODA-FAPI-04 PET exhibited a more precise lesion pattern, attributed to its high specificity for naive fibroblasts when referring to histological findings. Over time, the uptake of both radiotracers at the injury site gradually decreased, with 18F-FDG experiencing a more rapid decrease than Al18F-NODA-FAPI-04. In the fourth week after surgery, the maximum standardized uptake values of Al18F-NODA-FAPI-04 in the injured lesion almost reverted to the baseline levels, indicating a substantial decrease in naive fibroblasts and inflammatory cells and a reduction in inflammation and fibrosis, especially compared with the first week. Corresponding trends were also revealed in pathological and qRT-PCR results. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that inflammation is a prominent feature during the early stage of tendon injury. Al18F-NODA-FAPI-04 PET allows accurate localization and provides detailed morphological imaging, enabling continuous monitoring of the healing progress and assessment of injury severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since urban open spaces provide various benefits to the citizens, it is necessary to improve the outdoor thermal comfort in urban open spaces. However, global warming increases heat stress and at the same time decrease cold stress of outdoor spaces. The final impact of climate change on outdoor thermal comfort is not evident, and depends on the climate characteristics. This study investigated the influence of climate change on outdoor thermal comfort conditions of five selected cities (Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Miami, and Las Vegas) with distinctive climate patterns in the United States. It is found that all cities suffered from deterioration in thermal comfort. This is because the increases in the heat stress rate were greater than the decreases in cold stress rate. In the 2080s, the greatest reduction in acceptable thermal stress rate happened in Miami from 44.7% to 21.3% under high emission scenario.

This paper proposes a research framework for investigating the travel patterns of dockless bike-sharing and accomplishing the large-scale bike rebalancing at the city level. A case study involving Shanghai combines GPS-based bike-sharing usage data and road network data. First, the spatiotemporal mobility patterns are analyzed visually; then community detection is used to divide the study area into management sub-areas according to the mobility characteristics of bike-sharing users; in addition, a clustering algorithm is used to identify virtual stations. On this basis, a heuristic algorithm is used to generate a rebalancing scheme that enables multiple visits to a given station. The results show that Shanghai can be divided into 28 bike-sharing management sub-areas. Static rebalancing based on the identified management sub-areas reduces the number and driving distance of rebalancing vehicles in use, which is a better outcome than that with a method based on administrative divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of magneto-mechanical force to kill cancer cells has attracted significant attention in recent years. However, many reports have focused on in vitro experiments with a single treatment. Herein, CaO2-coated Fe3O4 core—shell magnetic nanoenzymes (Fe3O4/CaO2) are developed for low frequency vibrating magnetic field (VMF)-induced multimodal cancer therapy. Fe3O4/CaO2 are shown to efficiently generate O2, H2O2, and ·OH through hydrolysis of CaO2 and a CaO2-strengthened Fenton reaction, killing laryngeal carcinoma cells and inhibiting mouse tumor growth (chemodynamic therapy (CDT)). Both Fe3O4 and Fe3O4/CaO2 triggered by a VMF are shown to damage the cytoskeleton of cancer cells through magneto-mechanical force (maxima: 223 piconewtons or larger by Fe3O4/CaO2 aggregations) and induce the generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the VMF-triggered Fe3O4/CaO2 is shown to generate additional intracellular ROS. Upon exposure to a VMF, the cell killing efficiency and tumor growth inhibition were further significantly improved by Fe3O4/CaO2 through CDT, magnetomechanical force, force-induced ROS, and the cytotoxicity of Ca2+ ions. In addition, the Fe3O4/CaO2 nanoenzymes and VMF-induced treatment are shown to be safe for mice. The results of this study open the door for treating solid tumors without inducing multidrug resistance through the combination of CDT and force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove a divisibility property of the fixed field in a cyclotomic field Q (e 2 i π / k) of the Frobenius automorphism Gal (Q (e 2 i π / k) / Q) ∋ τ : ξ ↦ ξ p , where p is a prime, k is a positive integer relatively prime to p, and ξ is any k th -root of unity. This implies that, for a finite group G, recent Navarro-Tiep's conjecture on fields of values of p ′ -degree irreducible characters of G follows from the celebrated Galois-McKay conjecture under a natural condition on p and the order of G. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting the intention of mode choice is indispensable for policymakers to develop sustainable transportation in large cities. This paper constructs a conceptual framework and tests it in the travel mode sector to investigate the influence mechanism between commuter's low-carbon literacy and intention of mode choice. Commuter's low-carbon literacy (LCL) was assessed through four critical attributes: low-carbon knowledge (LCK), low-carbon awareness (LCAW), low-carbon habits (LCH) and low-carbon affection (LCAF). Based on a questionnaire survey in Shanghai, empirical evidence was concluded using the Structural Equation Model of Partial Least Square (PLS-SEM). The results of this study are as follows: (1) low-carbon knowledge, habits and affection have direct influences on commuter's intention of mode choice, whereas low-carbon awareness influences commuter's intention through these three low-carbon attributes indirectly; (2) low-carbon affection has the highest impact rating on the intention of mode choice in both performance and importance; (3) commuting trips are less closely associated with the influence of low-carbon literacy than other trips. These findings have several implications for transportation demand management and are beneficial for urban trip structure optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug resistance is an inherent challenge during cancer chemotherapy. Cancer cells favor fatty acid metabolism through metabolic reprogramming to achieve therapeutic resistance. However, an effective approach to overcoming the switch from glycolysis-dependent to fatty acid beta-oxidation-dependent anabolic and energy metabolism remains elusive. Here, we developed a macromolecular drug (folate-polySia, FpSA) to induce the extracellular microcalcification of cervical cancer cells with cisplatin resistance. Microcalcification attenuated the uptake of fatty acids and the beta-oxidation of fatty acids by mitochondrial dysfunction but boosted the glycolysis pathway. Consequently, cotreatment with Pt and FpSA inhibited cisplatin-resistant tumor growth and improved tumor-bearing mice's survival rates, indicating that FpSA switched fatty acid metabolism to glycolysis to sensitize cisplatin-resistant cells further. Taken together, cancer cell calcification induced by FpSA provides a reprogramming metabolic strategy for the treatment of chemotherapy-resistant tumors., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: This research aims to improve the bioavailability and anti-hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) efficacy of Ginsenoside Rg3 by modification with poly (lactic acid hydroxyacetic acid)-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLGA-PEG)., Methods: PLGA-PEG-Rg3 was obtained by emulsification and evaluated it physiochemical characterization by FTIR, SEM, laser particle-size analyzer and HPLC. The effect of the PLGA-PEG-Rg3 and Rg3 on HepG2 cells was compared in vitro studies, including cell proliferation, transwell and a series of apoptosis detection, and in-situ HCC model., Results: The PLGA-PEG-Rg3 were 122 nm in size and 0.112 in polydispersity index with sustained release profile in vitro . Compared to Rg3, PLGA-PEG-Rg3 was more effective in suppressing HepG2 growth and inducing apoptosis by the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway in vitro . And PLGA-PEG modification enhanced the liver-targeting ability and drug circulation time of Rg3 in vivo , resulting in PLGA-PEG-Rg3 possessing superior performance in inhibiting tumor growth and prolonging the survival time of tumor-bearing mice than Rg3., Conclusions: Overall, these results showed PLGA-PEG-Rg3 enhanced the anti-tumor effect of Rg3 in HCC.

Immune cell-based cancer therapies, such as chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T)-cell immunotherapy, have demonstrated impressive potency against hematological tumors. However, the efficacy of CAR-T cells against solid tumors remains limited. Herein, we designed tumor-targeting molecule-sialidase conjugates that potently and selectively stripped different sialoglycans from a variety of cancer cells. Desialylation enhanced induced pluripotent stem cell-derived chimeric antigen receptor-macrophage (CAR-iMac) infiltration and activation. Furthermore, the combination of cancer cell desialylation and CAR-iMac adoptive cellular therapy exerted a dramatic therapeutic effect on solid tumors and significantly prolonged the survival of tumor-bearing mice; these effects were mainly dependent on blockade of the checkpoint composed of sialic acid-binding immunoglobulin-like lectin (Siglec)-5 and Siglec-10 on the macrophages, and knockout of the glycoimmune checkpoint receptors could construct a CAR-iMac cell with stronger anticancer activity. This strategy that reverts the immune escape state ("cold tumor") to a sensitive recognition state ("hot tumor") has great significance for enhancing the effect of cellular immunotherapy on solid tumors. Therefore, desialylation combined with CAR-iMac cellular immunotherapy is a promising approach to enhance treatment with cellular immunotherapy and expand the valid indications among solid tumors, which provides inspiration for the development of cellular immunotherapies with glycoimmune checkpoint inhibition for the treatment of human cancer.

Background: The cell adhesion molecule (CAM) N-cadherin has become an important target for tumor therapy. The N-cadherin antagonist, ADH-1, exerts significant antitumor activity against N-cadherin-expressing cancers., Methods: In this study, [ 18 F]AlF-NOTA-ADH-1 was radiosynthesized. An in vitro cell binding test was performed, and the biodistribution and micro-PET imaging of the probe targeting N-cadherin were also studied in vivo., Results: Radiolabeling of ADH-1 with [ 18 F]AlF achieved a yield of up to 30% (not decay-corrected) with a radiochemical purity of >97%. The cell uptake study showed that Cy3-ADH-1 binds to SW480 cells but weakly binds to BXPC3 cells in the same concentration range. The biodistribution results demonstrated that [ 18 F]AlF-NOTA-ADH-1 had a good tumor/muscle ratio (8.70±2.68) in patient-derived xenograft (PDX) tumor xenografts but a lower tumor/muscle ratio (1.91±0.69) in SW480 tumor xenografts and lowest tumor/muscle ratio (0.96±0.32) in BXPC3 tumor xenografts at 1 h post-injection (p.i.) These findings were in accordance with the immunohistochemistry results. The micro PET imaging results revealed good [18F]AlF-NOTA-ADH-1 tumor uptake in pancreatic cancer PDX xenografts with strong positive N-calcium expression, while lower tumor uptake in SW480 xenografts with positive expression of N-cadherin, and significantly lower tumor uptake in BXPC3 xenografts with low expression of N-cadherin, which was consistent with the biodistribution and immunohistochemistry results. The N-cadherin-specific binding of [18F]AlF-NOTA-ADH-1 was further verified by a blocking experiment involving coinjection of a non radiolabeled ADH-1 peptide, resulting in a significant reduction in tumor uptake in PDX xenografts and SW480 tumor., Conclusion: [ 18 F]AlF-NOTA-ADH-1 was successfully radiosynthesized, and Cy3-ADH-1 showed favorable N-cadherin-specific targeting ability by in vitro data. The biodistribution and microPET imaging of the probe further showed that [18F]AlF-NOTA-ADH-1 could discern different expressions of N-cadherin in tumors. Collectively, the findings demonstrated the potential of [ 18 F]AlF-NOTA-ADH-1 as a PET imaging probe for non-invasive evaluation of the N-cadherin expression in tumors., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Liu, Wen, Huang, Dong, Wang, Alhaskawi, Zhang, Wang, Ye, Zhou, Lu and Dong.)