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Pesticides, fine chemicals and many other chemical industries usually produce a large amount of waste solid salt which is detrimental to the environment when treated by burning and rigid landfill. In contrast to traditional disposal strategies, resource utilization of waste salt is beneficial for both the environment and economy. However, the current technique for the resource utilization of waste salt, such as nanofiltration, is high-cost and hard to popularize. In this study, the photoelectrocatalytic treatment of waste salt obtained from the glyphosate industry and its utilization as a raw material for chlor-alkali electrolysis are proved feasible. The waste salt consists mainly of NaCl, with ~1.31 wt% of organic impurities. By virtue of photoelectrocatalytic treatment with a TiO2 nanotube electrode, the percentage of the total organic carbon (PTOC) of the waste salt, which was prepared into the brine, can be reduced to 5*10⁻4, with a removal ratio of 85%, and it is able to meet the standard of refined brine in the chlor-alkali industry (PTOC4) after further treatment. A study on the photoelectrocatalytic mechanism reveals that the main oxidative substances contributing to the degradation are holes (h⁺) and chlorine active substances other than Cl· under the condition of high Cl⁻ concentration. The organic impurities in the waste salt are poisonous to both the electrode and membrane in the process of chlor-alkali electrolysis, leading to an increase in the voltage. With photoelectrocatalytic treatment, most of the organic impurities can be removed so that the waste salt can be utilized as a raw material for chlor-alkali electrolysis.

To investigate the associations between different patterns of intramammary edema on preoperative 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) TBetween May 2014 and December 2020, 191 patients with invasive breast cancer who had undergone preoperative MRI and mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery were retrospectively enrolled. The relationships between different patterns of intramammary edema and invasive breast cancer molecular subtypes and clinical-pathologic features were evaluated using the Student's t-test or Mann-Whitney U test and the χ2 test or Fisher's exact test.Patients with luminal B (HER2 positive), HER2-enriched and triple negative breast cancers respectively had different patterns of intramammary edema (P 0.001). There was a significant association between intramammary edema and clinical-pathologic factors, including larger tumor size, higher Ki-67 index, lymph node metastasis and lymphovascular invasion (all P 0.001).Intramammary edema may provide added values of predicting molecular subtypes and clinical-pathologic prognosis, enhancing the ability to individualize the treatment of patients with invasive breast cancer.

Personality is defined as consistency in an individual's behavioral responses towards a given situation over time. Previous studies reported the presence of bold personality (BP) and shy personality (SP) in the olive flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus). Links between personality and the stress response have been studied in teleost fish; however, the response of SP and BP flounder to salinity stress is unknown. In this study, salinity tolerance of larvae at 25 days after hatch (DAH) and juvenile (50 DAH) flounders was investigated at salinities of 3, 5, 25, 45 and 50 parts per thousand (ppt). On 25 DAH, at salinities of 5 and 25 ppt, both SP and BP flounder keep 80% survival rate, while BP flounder larvae had higher survival rates at salinity of 45 ppt when compared with SP flounder. On 50 DAH, salinity tolerance of SP and BP flounder greatly improved, with 70% survival at salinitie of 3, 5 and 25 ppt but low survival rates (35%) at 50 ppt. At 45 ppt, BP exhibited slightly higher survival rate (80%) than SP flounder (60%) after a 96 h challenge. In addition, juvenile BP flounder (8 months) had lower plasma cortisol level, were more motivated to feed and showed more active responses during net confinement. Furthermore, Na+/K+/ATPase α1 (NKAα1) mRNA expression showed no significant difference between SP and BP flounder in SW, but was up-regulated after transfer to FW in SP and BP flounder. BP flounder expressed higher levels of gill Na+/K+/2Cl− cotransporter (NKCC1) mRNA than SP flounder in seawater (SW), while there were no differences between groups after transfer to freshwater (FW). Taken together, BP flounder had a low plasma cortisol level and an elevated appetite, as well as hyper-osmoregulatory ability. Selection for BP flounder in aquaculture is potentially important to improve animal welfare and increase production efficiency.

Rationale and Objective The study aimed to investigate the possible correlation between mean (MeanADC) and minimum (MinADC) apparent diffusion coefficient values with the clinicopathological features and evaluate the diagnostic potential of MinADC values and MeanADC values in predicting the behavior of rectal cancer. Materials and Methods In total, 148 pathologically verified lesions that were subjected to conventional MR imaging and diffusion weighted imaging prior to operation were included. The MeanADC values and MinADC values were calculated and their correlation with clinicopathological characteristics were investigated. Results Both MeanADC values and MinADC values correlated with T classification (MeanADC: t = 2.841, p = 0.005; MinADC: t = 2.356, p = 0.020), N classification (MeanADC: t = 3.468, p = 0.001; MinADC: t = 3.072, p = 0.003), tumor histological grade (MeanADC: F = 8.175, p = 0.000; MinADC: F = 22.038, p = 0.000), perineural invasion (MeanADC: t = 2.547, p = 0.012; MinADC: t = 3.081, p = 0.002), and extramural venous invasion (MeanADC: t = 2.157, p = 0.033; MinADC: t = 2.635, p = 0.009) in rectal cancer, but no significant correlation with gender, age, and tumor location (p > 0.05). The MinADC values showed a higher diagnostic efficacy in discriminating the well or poor differentiation of rectal cancer compared to MeanADC values, with a threshold value of ≥0.929 × 10−3 mm2/s (sensitivity, 80%; specificity, 88.1%) or ≤0.752 × 10−3 mm2/s (sensitivity, 94.1%; specificity, 74%). Conclusion Both MeanADC values and MinADC values might be used as a quantitative parameter to evaluate the aggressiveness of rectal cancer. The MinADC values could be as the better predictor in identifying tumor differentiation compared to the MeanADC values.

This study aimed to explore metabolic features in the peritumoral tissue of different-rank brain astrocytic tumors using multivoxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (A total of 82 patients with brain astrocytic tumors, confirmed by postoperative pathological evaluation, were divided into low-grade astrocytic tumors [World Health Organization (WHO) grade I-II; 32 cases] and high-grade astrocytic tumors (WHO grade III-IV; 50 cases). The semi-quantitative and relative quantitative metabolite ratios of the parenchyma area, peritumoral tissue area, and normal area were measured. The P value was set as0.05.The relative quantitative ratios of choline (Cho)/creatine (Cr) and Cho/N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) significantly differed in the peritumoral tissues of the high-grade astrocytic tumors and low-grade astrocytic tumors (P0.05), but NAA/Cr showed no significant difference.The changes in the metabolite ratio of the peritumoral tissue area in brain astrocytic tumors reflect the biological behavior of different tumors. They have a significant clinical value in classifying brain astrocytic tumors and indicating the scope of invasion.

Decoding protein C-termini is a challenging task in protein chemistry using conventional chemical and enzymatic approaches. With the rapid development in modern mass spectrometer, many advanced mass spectrometry (MS)-based protein C-termini analysis approaches have been established. Although great progress is being continually achieved, it is still necessary to develop more efficient approaches in order to discover a proteome-scale protein C-termini (C-terminome) and consequently to help understand their biological functions. In this report, we describe the BaSCX method, for

Prolactin (PRL) and growth hormone (GH) play important roles in regulating salt and water balance through osmoregulatory organs in vertebrates. The aim of this study was to investigate the dynamic changes of GH/PRL hormone gene expressions in the pituitary gland and their receptors in gill and kidney, as well as the plasma osmolality when the olive flounder fish Paralichthys olivaceus were acclimated in freshwater (FW) conditions. After transfer from seawater (SW) to freshwater (FW), the osmolality of FW-adaption fish reached the lowest level at 1d which rose slightly afterwards. However, the hormone gene expression of PRL increased from 2d, reaching its peak at 5d, and then decreased at 14d. At this time, the value was still significantly higher than the control, showing a similar trend to the plasma hormone PRL. In contrast, the pituitary mRNA level of GH significantly decreased at 1d and then returned to normal levels. The mRNA levels of PRL receptor (PRLR) in both gill and kidney displayed a similar trend to the pituitary PRL. We also observed the synchronous expression trend of the renal PRLR with pituitary PRL (5d) and the asynchronous expression peaks between branchial (8d) and renal PRLR (5d). Significant responses of GH and its receptor (GHR) in both gill and kidney during the FW-acclimation were not observed. Nevertheless, the gene expression of GH receptor variant (GHR-V) in both gill and kidney declined at 2d, indicating unknown osmoregulatory functions of GHR-V. Collectively, our results provided more insights of the PRL, GH and their corresponding receptors in modulating osmoregulatory responses, representing an important aspect of FW-acclimation in flounder fish.

Overcoming resistance to chemotherapy is an arduous challenge in the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC), particularly since the underlying molecular mechanisms remain obscure. In the present study, we reported that miR‑874-3p was markedly downregulated in CRC tissues compared with that in adjacent normal colorectal epithelial tissues. Upregulation of miR-874-3p attenuated the chemoresistance of CRC cells to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in vitro and in vivo. Conversely, inhibition of miR-874-3p yielded an opposite effect. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that miR-874-3p directly inhibited the expression of transcriptional co-activators YAP and TAZ of the Hippo signaling pathway, resulting in the inactivation of the TEAD transcription. Thus, our findings clarify a novel mechanism by which miR-874-3p restores chemotherapeutic sensitivity of CRC to 5-FU, indicating that offering miR-874-3p mimics in combination with 5-FU may serve as a new therapeutic strategy to circumvent the chemoresistance in CRC.

Ulva prolifera can protect human skin fibroblast from being injured by hydrogen peroxide. This work studied the composition of Ulva prolifera polysaccharide and identified its physicochemical properties. The results showed that the cell proliferation of 0.5 mg/mL crude polysaccharide was 154.4% of that in negative control group. Moreover, ROS detection indices, including DCFH-DA, GSH-PX, MDA and CAT, indicated that crude polysaccharide could improve cellular ability to scavenge free radical and decrease the injury on human skin fibroblast by hydrogen peroxide. In purified polysaccharide, the activity of fraction P1-1 was the highest, with 174.6% of that in negative control group. The average molecular weight of P1-1 was 137 kD with 18.0% of sulfate content. This work showed the inhibition of hydrogen peroxide induced injuries on human skin fibroblast by Ulva prolifera polysaccharide, which may further evaluate the application of U. prolifera on cosmetics.