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Hypoxia is a common feature in various tumors that regulates aggressiveness. Previous studies have demonstrated that some dysregulated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are correlated with tumor progression, including bladder cancer (BCa). However, the prognostic effect of hypoxia-related lncRNAs (HRLs) and their clinical relevance, as well as their regulatory effect on the tumor immune microenvironment, are largely unknown in BCa. A co-expression analysis between hypoxia genes and lncRNA expression, which was downloaded from the TCGA database, was performed to identify HRLs. Univariate Cox regression analysis was performed to select the most desirable lncRNAs for molecular subtype, and further LASSO analysis was performed to develop a prognostic model. This molecular subtype based on four HRLs (AC104653, AL136084, AL139393, and LINC00892) showed good performance in the tumor microenvironment and tumor mutation burden. The prognostic risk model suggested better performance in predicting BCa patients’ prognosis and obtained a close correlation with clinicopathologic features. Furthermore, four of five first-line clinical chemotherapies showed different sensitivities to this model, and nine immune checkpoints showed different expression in the molecular subtypes or the risk model. In conclusion, this study indicates that this molecular subtype and risk model based on HRLs may be useful in improving the prognostic prediction of BCa patients with different clinical situations and may help to find a useful target for tumor therapy.

Expoxy acylated ricinoleic acid binary alcohol ether ester (EARABAEE) is a kind of novel bio-based environmental-friendly plasticizer. EARABAE was synthesized from ricinoleic acid and binary alcohol ether and it's chemical structure was characterized by FT-IR, 1H NMR, ESI-TOF-MS. EARABAEE was mixed with the poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and mechanical property was investigated. The static mechanical property tests indicated that the PVC film plasticized by epoxy benzoylated ricinoleic acid ethylene glycol butyl ether ester (2c) has better tensile strength and the film plasticized by epoxy acetylated ricinoleic acid propylene glycol methyl ether ester (3d) has higher elongation at break. The dynamic mechanical property was evaluated by balanceable torque and mixing process energy, Haake rheometer tests showed that the 3d-plasticized PVC film has bigger balanceable torque and mixing process energy. In addition, the proportion of 3d and DOTP markedly affected the dynamic mechanical property. When the 3d content was more than 25%, the balanceable torque and mixing process energy decreased significantly with the 3d content increased.

A series of environment-friendly plasticizers has been synthesized from castor oil through a mild esterification/epoxidation reaction. The modified epoxy acetylated castor oil (EACO) can plastify poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) efficiently, even better than the commercial plasticizers dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP) and epoxidized soybean oil (ESO), in terms of in tensile strength, migration stability, solvent extraction stability and thermal stability. Specifically, the tensile strength and elongation at break of a PVC sample plastified by epoxy acetylated castor oil (EACO) were 18.5 and 10.0% higher than that of DOTP, and 13.9 and 23.8% higher than that of ESO, respectively. Volatility, migration, solvent extraction and thermal stability tests indicated that the presence of carbon-carbon double bonds and hydroxy groups reduce the compatibility of a plasticizer with PVC while the presence of epoxy groups and ester bonds can improve the plasticizing effect of the plasticizer on PVC. In addition, alkyl groups can improve the plasticizing effect on PVC while benzene rings increase the rigidity of the PVC. The design strategy based on castor oil highlights a sustainable avenue for preparing cost-effective and high-efficiency plasticizers.

In this work, dimer acid diglycidyl ester (DAGE) was synthesized from the dimer acid via a two-step method and applied as a bio-based toughener for bisphenol A epoxy resin (DGEBA). Mechanical tests demonstrated that DAGE had significant effects on the flexibility of DGEBA. When 5 wt% DAGE was incorporated into DGEBA system, there was an enhancement of 2.56 times of the impact strength. Meanwhile, the tensile strength and elongation at break increased by 17.2 % and 13.4 %, respectively. In addition, the curing behavior of DAGE/DGEBA system was kinetically modeled based on non-isothermal DSC data. The incorporation of DAGE has little effect on the apparent activation energy of the system. Moreover, the curing process can be accurately described by the Sestak-Berggren model. The bio-derived DAGE holds great potential for practical applications.

Direct transformation of monomer fatty acids derived from the dimer acid manufacturing into high value-added green plasticizers represents a sustainable approach for reutilizing industrial wastes. However, this process is challenging due to the few double bonds and long-chain alkyl in monomer fatty acid-based derivatives, resulting in poor compatibility with polymer matrix and inferior plasticization. Herein, we develop a sustainable and low-cost strategy via direct esterification between monomer fatty acids and polyethylene glycol methyl ether to produce plasticizers featured by high plasticization and compatibilization. The performances of monomer acid-based ethoxylated esters as resulting plasticizers for nitrile butadiene rubber were highly structure-dependent. Extensive experiments demonstrated that oxethyl unit played critical roles in both improving the compatibility between monomer acid-based ethoxylated esters and nitrile butadiene rubber and in promoting the dispersion of carbon black in nitrile butadiene rubber matrix. Specially, the processing, freezing resistance, oil resistance, thermal and mechanical stabilities of nitrile butadiene rubber plasticized by monomer acid-based ethoxylated esters with three or four oxethyl units were comparable or better than those of nitrile butadiene rubber blended with dioctyl phthalate. This study opens a simple, general and industrialized strategy to produce valuable and sustainable plasticizers as alternatives of toxic dioctyl phthalate.

A series of new environment-friendly plasticizers was synthesized from castor oil and used to plasticize nitrile rubber (NBR). The test results showed that tensile strength, elongation at break, and tear strength of NBR vulcanizates plasticized by castor oil-based plasticizers were found to be better than that of dioctyl phthalate (DOP). The aging test taken demonstrated that the castor oil-based plasticizers could improve the hot air and oil aging resistance of NBR vulcanizates. The thermal stability test illustrated that castor oil-based plasticizers enhanced the thermal stability of NBR vulcanizates, and the initial decomposition temperatures (T10%) were about 100 &deg, C higher than that of DOP. In general, the studies manifested that EACO and EBCO can replace DOP to plasticize NBR and are used in fields that require high mechanical properties, aging resistance, and thermal stability. This study emphasizes the effects of sustainable, cost-effective, and high-efficiency plasticizers on NBR.

Developing vegetable oil-derived primary plasticizers for poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is still a challenge because of their insufficient compatibility. As described in this work, we report the synthesis of plasticizers through the esterification of polyethylene glycol methyl ether and dimer acid, in which dimer acid is renewable material prepared via a two-step reaction (1) the hydrolysis of fatty acids from soybean oil at 70 &deg, C and (2) subsequent Diels&ndash, Alder reaction at 250 &deg, C. The resulting plasticizers, dimer acid-derived polyethylene glycol methyl ether esters (DA-2n, 2n = 2, 4, 6 or 8 referring to the number of oxethyl units per molecule), were blended with PVC. It was found that the tensile properties, transparency, and thermal stability of plasticized PVC (PVC-DA-2n) increased significantly with an increase in the number of oxyethyl units. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed that its good compatibility can be attributed to the strong interaction between oxyethyl units and PVC. As the number of the oxyethyl units of plasticizer increased, the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the corresponding plasticized PVC samples decreased from 62.3 (PVC-DA-2) to 35.4 &deg, C (PVC-DA-8). Owing to the excellent plasticization of DA-8, the performances of PVC-DA-8 were comparable or better than that of the PVC plasticized using commercial dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP). The simple but efficient method of this study provides a new avenue for the preparation of vegetable oil-based plasticizers for PVC.