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The high level of serum cholesterol caused by the excessive absorption of cholesterol can lead to hypercholesteremia, thus promoting the occurrence and development of cancer. Ezetimibe is a drug that reduces cholesterol absorption and has been widely used for the treatment of patients with high circulating cholesterol levels for many years. Mechanistically, ezetimibe works by binding to NPC1L1, which is a key mediator of cholesterol absorption. Accumulating data from preclinical models have shown that ezetimibe alone could inhibit the development and progression of cancer through a variety of mechanisms, including anti-angiogenesis, stem cell suppression, anti-inflammation, immune enhancement and anti-proliferation. In the past decade, there has been heated discussion on whether ezetimibe combined with statins will increase the risk of cancer. At present, more and more evidence shows that ezetimibe does not increase the risk of cancers, which supports the role of ezetimibe in anti-cancer. In this review, we discussed the latest progress in the anti-cancer properties of ezetimibe and elucidated its underlying molecular mechanisms. Finally, we highlighted the potential of ezetimibe as a therapeutic agent in future cancer treatment and prevention.

To evaluate the effect of Foxo3a gene over-expression on the development of rat ovarian granulosa cells and in prevention of cisplatin-induced ovarian damage in rats.Rat ovarian granulose cells released mechanically from the ovaries were cultured in vitro and identified with HE staining and immunohistochemical staining for FSHR. A recombinant adenovirus carrying Foxo3a gene was constructed for infecting the granulose cells, and the cell growth and expressions of cyclin D1, p27, Bax, and Bim were detected; the cell apoptosis and cell cycle changes were detected using Hoechst/PI 33342 staining and flow cytometry, respectively. The transfected cells were challenged with cisplatin and the cell apoptosis was detected with flow cytometry.Over 90% of the cultured cells survived and contained more than 95% ovarian granulose cells. Infection of the cells with the recombinant adenovirus resulted in over-expressions of Foxo3a at the mRNA and protein levels at 36 h and 48 h after the infection, respectively. The infected cells showed suppressed proliferation, increased apoptotic rate and cell cycle arrest in G1 phase with increased expressions of Bim, p27, and cyclin D1 but without significant changes in Bax expression. Cisplatin exposure caused a significantly higher apoptosis rate in the infected cells than in the control cells.Over-expression of Foxo3a gene can promote granulose cell apoptosis by increasing Bim expression and cause cell cycle arrest in G1 phase by increasing cyclin D1 and p27 expressions, but can not prevent the toxic effects of cisplatin on ovarian granulosa cells.

The structural and electronic properties of TiC(110) surfaces are calculated using the first-principles total-energy plane-wave pseudopotential method based on density functional theory. The calculated results of structural relaxation and surface energy for TiC(110) slab indicate that slab with 7 layers shows bulk-like characteristic interiors, and the changes of slab occur on the outmost three layers, which shows that the relaxation only influences the top three layers. Meanwhile, the strong Ti-C covalent bonding can be found in the distribution of charge density on the (100) plane. The interlayer Ti-C chemical bonds are reinforced and the outermost interlayer distance is reduced as a result of the charge depletion in the vacuum and the charge accumulations in the interlayer region between the first and second layers. The surface energy of TiC(110) is calculated to be 3.53 J/m 2 .

The structural and electronic properties of bulk and (001) plane of TiC were investigated by the first-principles total-energy pseudopotential method based on density functional theory. The calculated bulk properties indicate that bonding nature in TiC is a combination of ionicity, covalency and metallicity, in which the Ti-C covalent bonding is the predominate one. The calculated results of structural relaxation and surface energy for TiC(001) slab indicate that slab with 7 layers shows bulk-like characteristic interiors, and the changes of slab occur on the outmost three layers, which shows that the relaxation only influences the top three layers. Meanwhile, the strong Ti-C covalent bonding can be found in the distribution of charge density on the (110) and (001) planes. Ti-C covalent bonding is enhanced by the charge depletion and accumulation in the vacuum and the interlayer region between top two atomic layers.

Cylinder pressure is an important parameter for engine combustion analysis and fault diagnosis. In order to improve the estimation precision and the tracking speed of cylinder pressure, the method of engine cylinder pressure estimation based on the robust sliding mode observer is proposed. On the basis of the establishment of the engine dynamic model, it designes the robust sliding mode observer. According of the Lyapunov stability theory, it gets the feedback matrix of the robust sliding mode observer to guarantee the observer convergence, simultaneously, it proposes the robust control strategy to ensure the robustness for the nonlinear uncertain part of the observer. The simulated result show that, compared with the conventional sliding mode observer, the method of engine cylinder pressure estimation based on the robust sliding mode observer not only has higher estimation precision, but also has quicker tracking speed.