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Faced with the end stage of heart disease, the current treatments only slow worsening of heart failure. Stem cells have the potential of self-renewal and differentiation. It is expected to replace and repair damaged myocardium. But many clinical trials have shown that the stem cell therapy of heart failure is modest or not effective. The possible causes for the limited effects of stem cell in curing heart failure are the stem cells which have been transplanted into the ischemic heart muscle may suffer low survival rate, affected by inflammatory molecules, proapoptotic factor, and lack of nutrients and oxygen, and then the stem cells which home and have been completely transplanted to the site of myocardial infarction become very small. Therefore, through preconditioning of stem cells and appropriate choice of genes for mesenchymal stem cell modification to improve the survival rate of stem cells, ability in homing and promoting angiogenesis may become the newly effective strategies for the application of stem cells therapy in heart failure.

With the aim of developing new and effective drug delivery systems for cancer treatments, great effort has been devoted to the field of porous metal–organic framework (MOF) platforms because of their controlled drug release performance, high drug loading, and acceptable biocompatibility. In this contribution, we report a MOF [Gd2(H2O)3(SDBA)3](DMA)3] (1 , DMA = N , N -dimethylacetamide) with open O donor sites functionalised 1D pores, which has been fabricated using a bent polycarboxylic acid organic linker 4,4′-sulfonyldibenzoic acid (H2SDBA) under solvothermal conditions. Single crystal X-ray diffraction (SCRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), elemental analysis, X-ray powder diffraction (XPRD), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis were used to characterise the as-prepared complex 1. 5-Fluorouracil (5-Fu) loaded 1 was soaked in phosphate buffer saline (PBS) and the in vitro drug release performance was monitored by HPLC analysis under different pH conditions. At the pH values of 7.4 and 6.5, different profiles of pH-responsive release were achieved, indicating that the drug release performance of 5-Fu loaded 1 is pH sensitive. Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulation results demonstrate that the open O donor sites in the framework of 1 account for the slower drug release rate. The prepared carrier is found to be bio-compatible with MG63 cells (cancerous tissue) and oral epidermal cells (normal tissue), when tested by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The 5-Fu loaded carrier also shows a promising growth inhibition effect towards the human bone tumour cells MG63. In this study, we report a biocompatible metal–organic framework (MOF) [Gd2(H2O)3(SDBA)3](DMA)3] with open O donor sites functionalised 1D pores, which has been fabricated using a bent polycarboxylic acid organic linker 4,4′-sulfonyldibenzoic acid (H2SDBA) under solvothermal conditions. X-ray single crystal diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis , elemental analysis, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and gas sorption measurements were used to characterise the as-prepared complex 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mild-to-moderate closed-head injury (mmCHI) is an acute disease induced by high-altitudes. It is general practice to transfer patients to lower altitudes for treatment, but the pathophysiological changes at different altitudes following mmCHI remain unknown. The present study simulated acute high-altitude exposure (6,000 m above sea level) in rats to establish a model of mmCHI and recorded their vital signs. The rats were then randomly assigned into different altitude exposure groups (6,000, 4,500 and 3,000 m) and neurological severity score (NSS), body weight (BW), brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), brain water content (BWC) and the ratio of BW/BWC at 6, 12 and 24 h following mmCHI, and the glial fibrillary acidic protein levels were analysed in all groups. The results revealed that within the first 24 h following acute high-altitude exposure, mmCHI induced dehydration, brain oedema and neuronal damage. Brain injury in rats was significantly reversed following descent to 4,500 m compared with the results from 6,000 or 3,000 m. The results indicated that subjects should be transported as early as possible. Furthermore, avoiding large-span descent altitude was beneficial to reduce neurological impairment. The examination of brain-specific biomarkers and MRI may further be useful in determining the prognosis of high-altitude mmCHI. These results may provide guidance for rescuing high altitude injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging two-dimensional semiconductor materials possess a giant second order nonlinear response due to excitonic effects while the monolayer thickness of such active materials limits their use in practical nonlinear devices. Here, we report 3300 times optomechanical enhancement of second harmonic generation from a MoS2 monolayer in a doubly resonant on-chip optical cavity. We achieve this by engineering the nonlinear light-matter interaction in a microelectro-mechanical system enabled optical frequency doubling device based on an electrostatically tunable Fabry-Perot microresonator. Our versatile optomechanical approach will pave the way for next generation efficient on-chip tunable light sources, sensors, and systems based on molecularly thin materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the most common primary malignant brain tumors, gliomas cause more years of life lost than do any other tumors. Recently, abnormalities of the eukaryotic initiation factors ( EIFs) have been reported in gliomas. Yet the role of EIF3D, which encodes a subunit of EIF3 multiprotein complex, remains poorly understood. In this study, we found EIF3D expression was positively correlated with WHO grades of gliomas. Furthermore, we employ lentivirus-mediated RNA interference ( RNAi) to examine the physiological role of EIF3D in glioma cells. Decreased EIF3D expression in U251 and U87 MG glioma cells caused a delay in cell growth and a disruption in colony formation. In addition, EIF3D knockdown induced G0/G1 phase cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Cells with suppressed expression of EIF3D had a lower capacity to migrate in the transwell assay. These results suggest that EIF3D plays an important role in glioma development and may serve as a potential therapeutic target for human glioma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]