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In May 2022, the monkeypox epidemic broke out worldwide. According to the cases collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of August 17, 2022, 13,517 cases were confirmed in the United States. Based on the 2022 U.S. monkeypox epidemic data collected by the CDC, the Prophet prediction model released by Facebook in 2017 was used to predict the future trend of the monkeypox epidemic in the United States. The range of daily confirmed cases for the 2022 U.S. Monkeypox epidemic applied from May 17, 2022, to August 10, 2022, with reporting date. The results forecast monkeypox trends in American monkeypox over periods as short as seven days and as long as 17 days, with all values of MAPE in this prediction having good forecasting accuracy between 0.018 and 0.117. The prediction model’s accuracy can be affected by the k-value biasing due to strange events and the implementation of epidemic prevention policies.

Organic near-infrared fluorescent dye mediated photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) suffer from heat shock response, since, heat shock proteins (HSPs) are overexpressed and can repair the proteins damaged by PTT and PDT. Starvation therapy by glucose oxide (GOx) can inhibit the heat shock response by limiting the energy supply. However, the delivery of sufficient and active GOx remains a challenge. To solve this problem, we utilize liposomes as drug carriers and prepare GOx loaded liposome (GOx@Lipo) with a high drug loading content (12.0%) and high enzymatic activity. The successful delivery of GOx shows excellent inhibition of HSPs and enhances PTT and PDT. Additionally, we apply the same liposome formulation to load near-infrared dye 1,1'-dioctadecyl-3,3,3',3'-tetramethylindotricarbo cyanine iodide (DiR) and prepare DiR contained liposomes (DiR@Lipo) for PTT and PDT. The liposomal formulation substantially enhances the PTT and PDT properties of DiR as well as the cellular uptake and tumor accumulation. Finally, the combination therapy shows excellent tumor inhibition on 4T1 tumor-bearing mice. Interestingly, we also find that the starvation therapy can efficiently inhibit tumor metastasis, which is probably due to the immunogenic effect. Our work presents a biocompatible and effective carrier for the combination of starvation therapy and phototherapy, emphasizing the importance of auxiliary starvation therapy against tumor metastasis and offering important guidance for clinical PTT and PDT.

Cancer phototheranostics involving optical imaging-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) is a localized noninvasive approach in treating cancer. Mitochondria-targeted near-infrared (NIR) cyanines are excellent therapeutic photosensitizers of cancer. However, most mitochondria-targeted cyanines exist in the form of hydrophobic structures, which in vivo may cause cyanine aggregation during blood circulation, resulting in poor biocompatibility and limited therapeutic efficacy. Therefore, we developed a trade-off strategy by encapsulating mitochondria-targeted cyanines into liposomal bilayers (CyBI7-LPs), which balanced hydrophilicity that favored blood circulation and hydrophobicity that enhanced mitochondria tumor targeting. Moreover, CyBI7-LPs greatly minimized photobleaching of cyanine as self-generated reactive oxygen species (ROS) could rapidly escape from the liposomal bilayer, affording enhanced PTT/PDT efficacy. Bioorthogonal-mediated targeting strategy was further employed to improve uptake of tumor cells by modifying the liposomal surface to generate CyBI7-LPB. The CyBI7-LPB probe produced a tumor-to-background ratio (TBR) of approximately 6.4 at 24 HPI. Guiding by highly sensitive imaging resulted in excellent anti-tumor therapy outcomes using CyBI7-LPB due to the enhanced photothermal and photodynamic effects. This proposed liposomal nanoplatform exhibited a simple and robust approach as an imaging-guided synergistic anti-tumor therapeutic strategy.

By improving the logistic regression function and selecting a step-by-step fitting result using the least square method as the input of the logistic regression model, this paper analyzes the situation of students failing the course. Compared with arctan-exp function and sigmoid function, the former has better robustness and stability and makes the results tend to 0 and 1 and be classified. An improved algorithm based on arctan−exp logistic regression and least square method, which combines the advantages of both functions, is studied. Finally, an implementation algorithm is presented to well meet the function. Besides, through a simulation example, both theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach, and it shows that the nonlinear arctan-exp function, which bases on the least square method, is used as the distribution function to predict the effectiveness of students’ failure. The algorithm has been compared and evaluated, which obtains superior results in terms of both accuracy rate and recall rate of the diagnosis results of the students failing.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) and fluorescence imaging offer the possibility of precise and personalized treatment of cancer, but low singlet oxygen production of a commercial photosensitizer and the quenching effect of fluorescent dyes limit the further application of PDT treatment and fluorescence imaging. In addition, the single nanoplatform that simultaneously achieved singlet oxygen and fluorescence enhancement is rare. In this paper, a novel simultaneously enhanced singlet oxygen and fluorescence production nanoplatform of AuNR@mSiO2-Ce6-Cy5.5 has been successfully designed and synthesized by surface plasmon resonance coupling. The as-synthesized nanoplatform achieved a 1.8-fold enhancement of the singlet oxygen production of Ce6 and a 5.0-fold enhancement of the fluorescence production of Cy5.5 by surface plasmon resonance coupling. The as-synthesized nanoplatform simultaneously enhances the photodynamic therapy and fluorescence imaging of cancer, which will have great potential in biomedical applications.

Mild temperature photothermal therapy is gaining more and more attention due to high safety, high specificity and moderate efficacy. However, the therapeutical outcome of mild photothermal therapy is limited due to the overexpression of heat shock proteins (HSPs). Therefore, the precise management of HSP expression is the key to improvement of mild temperature photothermal therapy. However, the correlation between HSP expression and photothermal temperature in vivo is still unclear. To precisely control the photothermal temperature by managing the HSP expression, we quantified the HSP expression at different photothermal temperatures after irradiation on liposome-templated gold nanoparticles, which have high photostability, high photothermal conversion efficiency and low temperature fluctuation (smaller than 1 ℃). We found that the expression of HSP70 was least at 47 ℃, which was the optimal temperature for HSP management. We chose to co-administrate HSP70 inhibitor during 47 ℃ photothermal therapy, leading to greatly enhanced tumor inhibition. Our precise temperature-controlled photothermal therapy based on HSP expression offers a new strategy for clinical tumor photothermal therapy.

In this study, a novel near-infrared fluorescent off-on probe for H2S based on seminaphthorhodafluor fluorophore is designed and constructed, which could be used in detection with 121-fold (23-fold) fluorescent (absorbance) enhancement at 630 nm (572 nm), fast responsiveness (completed within 5 min), high sensitivity, and lower cellular autofluorescence interference. Based on these excellent optical properties, the probe was employed to monitor H2S in red wine samples with satisfactory results. Moreover, the probe was successfully applied for monitoring and imaging H2S quantitatively in Hela cells and live athymic nude mice, indicating its potential application in biological science.

Nitroreductase (NTR) detection in tumor is critical because NTR level is correlated with hypoxia degree and cancer prognosis. With the feature of high sensitivity and selectivity, fluorescence organic probes for NTR detection exhibited a promising future for tumor hypoxia detection. However, the discovery and design of such probes have been impeded due to the lack of the understanding of spatial match and mismatch of these probes with NTR. Here, we have developed two new nitrophenyl-functionalized trimethincyanine (Cy3) probes with para- or meta- positions of nitro-group in phenyl ring. Para-nitrophenyl substituted Cy3 (pNP-Cy3) exhibited a remarkable response to NTR (20-fold fluorescence enhancement) with good selectivity and sensitivity. Experimental and theoretical analysis verified that the substituent position of nitro group on phenyl ring of dyes altered the spatial arrangement of nitro-substituent group, thereby modulated the spatial match and mismatch between Cy3 dyes and binding domain of NTR, and consequently led to a different fluorescent turn-on response. In tumor-bearing mice model, hypoxia status of A549 xenografted tumor of mice was successfully delineated by using pNP-Cy3. These results may provide a clue for designing new cyanine-derived NTR probe to monitor NTR-overexpressed hypoxia cancer cells.

Classical swine fever (CSF) is a devastating viral disease affecting pigs that causes major economic losses worldwide. Conventional assays to identify classical swine fever virus (CSFV) face challenges, such as the required molecular amplification of the target molecules via polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We designed a gold nanoflare probe to directly detect CSFV. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were conjugated with a pair of complementary DNA sequences that specifically recognized and captured CSFV RNA, resulting in a fluorescence signal to indicate the existence of CSFV. The constructed nanocomposite was then utilized in a quantitative analysis to recognize the virus sequence present at amounts as low as 50 pg/μL. The CSFV-AuNP probe enabled real-time, quantitative detection of native CSFV in response to doses of the specific RNA sequence (CSFV NS2) that indicated active viral replication of CSFV Shimen in macrophages after 12, 24, and 48 h. The potential diagnostic applications of the probe were demonstrated by measuring CSFV without nucleic acid amplification in samples from seven types of tissue samples, specifically heart, spleen, kidney, liver, lymph, intestine, and muscle samples obtained from one pig confirmed to suffer CSF. The speed, sensitivity, and versatility of this CSFV-AuNP biosensor make it an ideal candidate for further application in the prevention and control of animal epidemic diseases.

A rhodamine-based fluorescent probe for Cu2+ and ATP has been designed. The fluorescence intensity/absorbance was significantly enhanced upon the addition of Cu2+ owning to the opening of the spiro-ring of rhodamine, which quickly returned to the original level due to the reconstruction of the probe by the reacting with ATP. Cu2+/ATP-induced fluorescent intensity/aborbance changes showed a good linear relationship with the concentration of Cu2+/ATP in the range of 2–20 μM/0–10 μM with a detection limit of 0.1 μM/1.0 μM. The proposed method is simple in design and fast in operation, and is suitable for the reversible monitoring of Cu2+ and ATP in bioanalytical applications.

Tumor tissue imaging and drug release imaging are both crucial for tumor imaging and image-guided drug delivery. It is urgent to develop a multileveled tumor imaging platform to realize the multiple imaging applications. In this work, we synthesized an albumin-based fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) probe Cy5/7@HSA NPs containing two near-infrared cyanine dyes (CyBI5 and CyBI7) with high FRET efficiency (97 %). Excellent brightness and efficient FRET inside Cy5/7@HSA NPs enabled high-sensitive cell imaging and tumor imaging. This unique nanoprobe imaged 4T1 tumor-bearing mice with high sensitivity (TBR = 5.2) at 24 h post-injection and the dyes penetrated the tumor interior around 4 h post-injection. The release of dyes from nanoprobes was also tracked. This result shows the strong potential of this albumin-based FRET nanoprobe as multileveled tumor imaging platform for in vivo tumor imaging, drug delivery and image-guided surgery.

Classical swine fever (CSF) is a disease that is characterized by diffuse hemorrhaging, high fever, and high mortality rates. The pro-inflammatory characteristics of allograft inflammatory factor 1 (AIF1) have been well documented; however, insufficient attention has been given to porcine AIF1. In the present study, AIF1 was identified as a key player contributing to CSFV Shimen infection in porcine alveolar macrophage (PAM) 3D4/21 cell line. Our evaluation showed that AIF1 mRNA and protein are expressed at a time-dependent high level in CSFV Shimen-infected PAM 3D4/21 cells. The transcription and translation of IL6 were also significantly upregulated in infected PAM 3D4/21 cells. By utilizing overexpression RNAs approach, we showed that the cellular AIF1 induced an increased IL6 in PAM 3D4/21 cells. Furthermore, silencing of AIF1 suppressed CSFV Shimen-induced IL6 production in PAM 3D4/21 cells and also inhibited CSFV replication, whereas overexpression of recombinant AIF1 was beneficial for the replication of CSFV Shimen and promoting IL6 production in CSFV Shimen-infected PAM 3D4/21 cells. It is suggested CSFV Shimen induced IL6 in PAM 3D4/21 cells via AIF1 activation, which help clarify the AIF1-related inflammatory processes that occur on CSFV Shimen infected macrophages.

A reversible fluorescein-based fluorescent probe which exhibits high sensitivity and selectivity for Zn2+ and ATP, has been designed and synthesized. The sensing process was completed via fluorescence variation induced by an opening and closing of the spiro-ring of fluorescein. Zn2+/ATP-induced fluorescent intensity shows a good linear relationship with the concentration of Zn2+/ATP in the range of 0–10 μM with a detection limit of 0.1 μM/0.5 μM. Moreover, the probe was further applied to visualize and detect Zn2+and ATP in vitro and in vivo.

The traditional labeling method for targeted NIR fluorescence probes requires directly covalent-bonded conjugation of targeting domains and fluorophores in vitro. Although this strategy works well, it is not sufficient for detecting or treating cancers in vivo, due to steric hindrance effects that relatively large fluorophore molecules exert on the configurations and physiological functions of specific targeting domains. The copper-free, "click-chemistry"-assisted assembly of small molecules in living systems may enhance tumor accumulation of fluorescence probes by improving the binding affinities of the targeting factors. Here, we employed a vascular homing peptide, GEBP11, as a targeting factor for gastric tumors, and we demonstrate its effectiveness for in vivo imaging via click-chemistry-mediated conjugation with fluorescence molecules in tumor xenograft mouse models. This strategy showed higher binding affinities than those of the traditional conjugation method, and our results showed that the tumor accumulation of click-chemistry-mediated probes are 11-fold higher than that of directly labeled probes. The tracking life was prolonged by 12-fold, and uptake of the probes into the kidney was reduced by 6.5-fold. For lesion tumors of different sizes, click-chemistry-mediated probes can achieve sufficient signal-to-background ratios (3.5-5) for in vivo detection, and with diagnostic sensitivity approximately 3.5 times that of traditional labeling probes. The click-chemistry-assisted detection strategy utilizes the advantages of "small molecule" probes while not perturbing their physiological functions; this enables tumor detection with high sensitivity and specific selectivity.

Imaging of tumor apoptosis can provide invaluable information in regards to drug treatment effectiveness, drug development and tumor therapeutic response. Thus, the development of apoptotic specific and sensitive targeted fluorescence probes is critically needed. In this work, we developed a novel and simple one-step synthetic method for producing monocarboxylate near-infrared cyanine dyes. The hydrophobic cationic dyes possess advantageous optical properties and good membrane permeability. One hydrophilic zwitterionic probe is able to both increase specificity and image apoptotic cells owing to its inherent chemical structure. Furthermore, we conjugated the probe with the antitumor drug gemcitabine for effective apoptosis imaging and therapeutic targeting of gastric tumors in vitro and in vivo. The novel dye-drug conjugate imaged apoptosis successfully in vitro and in vivo and restricted the growth of SGC7901 subcutaneous xenograft models. This strategy may offer the advantages of NIR apoptosis imaging probes for non-invasive tumor imaging and should provide the application for targeted drug delivery and the evaluation of therapeutic efficacy.

Liposomes are of great interest and importance in tumor imaging, since they can greatly improve the imaging sensitivity and specificity by increasing the accumulation of contrast agents. Still, most liposome-based probes have high background signals during blood circulation, which limits enhancement of S/B ratio and tumor imaging sensitivity. To enhance the S/B ratio of tumor imaging, we construct a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and aggregation induced emission (AIE) based liposomal fluorescence probe TPE/BHQ-lipo with excellent FRET effect (99 %) and great fluorescence enhancement upon liposome rupture (120-fold) as well as efficient fluorescence recovery in tumor cell imaging. Finally, we used the TPE/BHQ-lipo to image 4T1 tumor upon intravenous injection of liposomes and the group showed enhanced signal to background ratio of 4.1, compared to 1.8 from control AIE-based liposomal group (TPE-lipo). Our work offers an excellent FRET and AIE-based liposomal probe for high-sensitive tumor imaging.

Molecular imaging is very important in disease diagnosis and prognosis. Liposomes are excellent carriers for different types of molecular imaging probes. In this work, we summarize current developments in liposome-based probes used for molecular imaging and their applications in image-guided drug delivery and tumour surgery, including computed tomography (CT), ultrasound imaging (USI), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), fluorescence imaging (FLI) and photoacoustic imaging (PAI). We also summarized liposome-based multimodal imaging probes and new targeting strategies for liposomes. This work will offer guidance for the design of liposome-based imaging probes for future clinical applications.

Herein, we presented two novel turn-on colorimetric and fluorescent probes based on a F− triggered Si O bond cleavage reaction, which displayed several desired properties for the quantitative detection for F−, such as high specificity, rapid response time (within 3 min) and naked-eye visualization. The fluorescence intensity at 574 nm (absorbance at 544 nm) of the solution was found to increase linearly with the concentration of F− (0.00–30.0 μM) with the detection limit was estimated to be 0.47 μM/0.48 μM. Based on these excellent optical properties, the probes were employed to monitor F− in real water samples and tea samples with satisfactory. Furthermore, it was successfully applied for fluorescent imaging of F− in living nude mice, suggesting that it could be used as a powerful tool to predict and explore the biological functions of F− in physiological and pathological processes.

A series of merocyanine dyes with excellent spectral properties were synthesized through changing the heterocyclic base structure for protein labeling and imaging in biological science, such as living cells and living mice. Dyes 7c–7h showed solvent-dependent changes on emission wavelength and fluorescence intensity in water and hydrophobic solvents, which were further analyzed by theoretical calculations and absorption spectra. The interaction of dye 7d with bovine serum albumin (BSA) showed an obvious ratiometric fluorescence response to solvent/protein environment, with the potential to report protein conformational changes. Investigation of the cytotoxicity and bioimaging capability displayed that dyes 7b–7h showed low cytotoxicity, and could stain living cell cytoplasm and be used for imaging in living mice with bright fluorescence at the application dose, which was suggested as fluorescent reagents for imaging in biological science.

In this research, we designed the core/shell/shell model of NaYF4@SiO2@Au with adjustable gold nanoparticles (different sizes and distributions) on the surface to enhance the up-conversion luminescence (UCL) intensity. The discrete dipole approximation (DDA) simulation results indicate that the position of the model extinction peak can be changed through changing the number of gold nanoparticles. In theory, if the extinction peak is red-shifted without overlapping with the model emission peak, the luminescence will be effectively enhanced. Then, we synthesized composite with different amounts of gold nanoparticles coated on the surface using layer-by-layer (LBL) electrostatic adsorption methods, and the UCL enhancement effect of difference gold nanoparticles is exactly consistent with the results of DDA simulation. When the extinction peak is best crossed with the excitation (near infrared) region and the extinction peak is not crossed with the emission (visible) region, the enhancement achieves the highest. Therefore, the lanthanide-gold composite with effectively improved UCL intensity could be designed and guided by DDA simulation.

The design and exploration of fluorescent probes with high-sensitivity and low-background are essential for noninvasive optical molecular imaging. The in vivo and in situ activated aggregation-induced emission (AIE) probes were found to be ideal for achieving higher signal-to-background ratios for tumor detections. We herein developed novel tetraphenylethene-encapsulated liposomes (TPE-LPs) constructed by loading TPE-trimethincyanine into liposomes for the first time, and the probes were applied to tumor bioimaging in vivo. TPE-functionalized trimethincyanines were synthesized with a new and efficient one-pot reaction. In TPE-LPs, TPE-functionalized bicarboxylic acids benzoindole trimethinecyanine (TPE-BICOOH) fluorophores were found to be well dispersed in lipid bilayers (with non-restricted rotation) during the blood circulation, and then aggregated (with restriction of intramolecular rotation) upon liposome rupture in the tumor tissue, achieving a low-background and high-target signal for tumor imaging. The in situ activated AIE probes not only had great accumulation at the tumor site after intravenous injection in 4T1 tumor-bearing mice but also demonstrated excellent signal-to-background ratios, as well as low cytotoxicity and excellent biocompatibility. The proposed strategy is believed to be a simple and powerful tool for the sensitive detection of tumors.

A rhodamine-based fluorescent probe for Cu

// Pengbo Ning 1,2,3 , Congxia Hu 4 , Xuepeng Li 1 , Yulu Zhou 3 , Aoxue Hu 1 , Ya Zhang 5 , Lifang Gao 3 , Cunmei Gong 3 , Kangkang Guo 6 , Xianghan Zhang 1,2 and Yanming Zhang 6 1 School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, PR China 2 Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging Ministry of Education, Xi’an, Shaanxi, PR China 3 College of Science, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, PR China 4 Bio-ID Center, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, PR China 5 Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital, Xi’an, Shaanxi, PR China 6 College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, PR China Correspondence to: Pengbo Ning, email: // Keywords : CSFV Shimen, p53 pathway, p21, cell cycle dysregulation, macrophages, Pathology Section Received : February 08, 2017 Accepted : June 18, 2017 Published : July 05, 2017 Abstract Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) replicates in macrophages and causes persistent infection. Despite its role in disastrous economic losses in swine industries, the molecular mechanisms underlying its pathogenesis are poorly understood. The virus evades the neutralizing immune response, subverting the immune system to ensure its own survival and persistence.Our genome-wide analysis of porcine alveolar macrophage transcriptional responses to CSFV Shimen infection using the Solexa/Illumina digital gene expression system revealed that p53 pathway components and cell cycle molecules were differentially regulated during infection compared to controls. Further, we investigated the molecular changes in macrophages infected with CSFV Shimen, focusing on the genes involved in the p53 pathway. CSFV Shimen infection led to phosphorylation and accumulation of p53 in a time-dependent manner. Furthermore, CSFV Shimen infection upregulated cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 1A (p21) mRNA and protein. In addition, CSFV Shimen infection induced cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase, as well as downregulation of cyclin E1 and cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2). The expression of genes in the p53 pathway did not change significantly after p53 knockdown by pifithrin-α during CSFV Shimen infection. Our data suggest that CSFV Shimen infection increases expression of host p53 and p21, and inhibits expression of cyclin E1 and CDK2, leading to cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase. CSFV may utilize this strategy to subvert the innate immune response and proliferate in host cells.

Liposome-nanoparticle assemblies (LNAs) are promising drug carriers that can easily encapsulate drugs and probes and can manifest smart responses to the environment. Here in this work, we constructed a GNP–liposome complex, called GNP–DPPC, by decorating GNPs onto the surface of thermal-responsive DPPC liposomes using noncovalent interactions. We found that the introduction of GNP not only gives GNP–DPPC a higher CLT (critical leakage temperature), but also causes GNP–DPPC to have a faster leakage near its CLT. Furthermore, GNP–DPPC could release contents under the illumination of a 532 nm laser beam, which is a relatively mild condition. Moreover, GNP–DPPC is stable in cell media and can be absorbed into cells. Such light-induced contents release behavior and fast thermal response, as well as its cellular behavior, would make it a candidate for further use in drug delivery in living cells.

A convenient approach for the direct synthesis of meso-substituted thiazole orange (meso-TO) analogues has been unprecedentedly developed through the AlCl3-catalyzed reaction of parent TO with benzyl alcohol derivatives. Single-crystal X-ray structures show that the prepared new meso-TO analogues are nonplanar, forming a sharp contrast to planar TO. The spectral properties show that nonplanar meso-TO analogues do not aggregate, existing in monomer form (M) in PBS buffer, and have little effect of solvatochromism in different solvents. In comparison with the parents, meso-TO analogues exhibit a large Stokes shift, excellent light fastness, and inertness to singlet oxygen. A cellular association study demonstrates that incorporation of a benzyl group at the meso position methine of parent TO can decrease the cytotoxicity, change staining area in cells, and emit long-wavelength fluorescence for an extended time, which are useful for the development of smarter TOs for imaging in biological science.

Macrophages are at the frontline of defense against pathogenic microorganisms. However, very little is known about the cell invasion mechanism of classical swine fever virus (CSFV) Shimen strain. To elucidate the infective mechanism of this important pathogen, we screened deep-sequencing data derived from macrophages infected with CSFV Shimen and uninfected macrophages, and identified a role of caveolin-1 (CAV1). Digital gene expression profiling showed that CAV1 was differentially expressed in CSFV Shimen-infected macrophages. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot analyses showed that the transcription and translation of CAV1 were significantly up-regulated in CSFV Shimen-infected macrophages. In addition, immunofluorescent confocal microscopy analysis suggested that CAV1 was temporally colocalized with CSFV E2 throughout the course of the infection. Through the overexpression of recombinant CAV1 or the silencing of CAV1 expression using small interfering RNA in macrophages, we demonstrated that CAV1 expression is beneficial for the replication of CSFV Shimen. However, RNA silencing of CAV1 did not prevent viral replication, which may indicate that CSFV can also enter macrophages by other mechanisms. Our findings suggest that CAV1-mediated endocytosis is advantageous for productive CSFV Shimen infection in macrophages, providing a new insight into the mechanisms of evasion of host immunity for successful viral infection.

The aim of this article is to investigate the influence of a tracer injection dose (ID) and camera integration time (IT) on quantifying pharmacokinetics of Cy5.5-GX1 in gastric cancer BGC-823 cell xenografted mice. Based on three factors, including whether or not to inject free GX1, the ID of Cy5.5-GX1, and the camera IT, 32 mice were randomly divided into eight groups and received 60-min dynamic fluorescence imaging. Gurfinkel exponential model (GEXPM) and Lammertsma simplified reference tissue model (SRTM) combined with a singular value decomposition analysis were used to quantitatively analyze the acquired dynamic fluorescent images. The binding potential (Bp) and the sum of the pharmacokinetic rate constants (SKRC) of Cy5.5-GX1 were determined by the SRTM and EXPM, respectively. In the tumor region, the SKRC value exhibited an obvious trend with change in the tracer ID, but the Bp value was not sensitive to it. Both the Bp and SKRC values were independent of the camera IT. In addition, the ratio of the tumor-to-muscle region was correlated with the camera IT but was independent of the tracer ID. Dynamic fluorescence imaging in conjunction with a kinetic analysis may provide more quantitative information than static fluorescence imaging, especially for a priori information on the optimal ID of targeted probes for individual therapy.

We quantified molecular specificity of Cy5.5-GX1 in vivo with dynamic fluorescence imaging to better understand its kinetic properties. According to whether or not free GX1 was injected and when it was injected, twelve of BGC-823 xenografted mice were randomly divided into three groups and underwent a 60 minute dynamic fluorescence scanning. Combined with a principal-component analysis, the binding potential (Bp) of the probe was determined by both Logan graphical analysis with reference tissue model (GARTM) and Lammertsma simplified reference tissue model (SRTM). The sum of the pharmacokinetic rate constants (SKRC) was quantified by the Gurfinkel exponential model (GEXPM). Cy5.5-GX1 specifically targeted tumor both in vitro and in vivo. We obtained similar quantification results of Bp (GARTM Bp = 0.582 ± 0.2655, SRTM Bp = 0.618 ± 0.2923), and obtained a good linear relation between the Bp value and the SKRC value. Our results indicate that the SKRC value is more suitable for an early-stage kinetic data analysis, and the Bp value depicts kinetic characteristics under the equilibrium state. Dynamic fluorescence imaging in conjunction with various kinetic models are optimal tools to quantify molecular specificity of the Cy5.5-GX1 probe in vivo.

Two merocyanine dyes, each with an isoxazolone nucleus, were synthesized and characterized by NMR, IR, UV–Vis spectroscopy, elemental analyses and single X-ray diffraction. Crystallographic data revealed that one dye crystallized in an orthorhombic system, Cmca space group, while the other dye crystallized in a monoclinic system, P21/n space group. In the case of both dyes, the molecules adopted the most stable ketonic tautomeric form, and the crystal packing was stabilized by hydrogen bonds and π–π stacking interactions. The absorption spectra of the dyes in various solvents of different polarities were studied at room temperature. The equilibrium geometries, vibrational data and electronic spectra of the compounds were also investigated by the B3LYP method. Importantly, the predicted results fit to the experimental data, showing that this quantum chemical technology is an efficient approach to predict the properties of merocyanine dyes.

A novel printed wideband monopole antenna for multiband operations is presented. Good impedance matching in a wide dual-band can be achieved by a simple circular monopole and a rectangular conductor-backed plane with a square hole. The measured 10 dB bandwidth for return loss is from 1.78 to 4.19 GHz about 80% and 5.12 to 6.35 GHz about 21.4% which covering all the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN, 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX, DCS (1710–1880 MHz), PCS (1850–1990 MHz), UMT (1920–2170 MHz), and IMT-2000 (1900–2025 MHz) bands applications. Peak antenna gains have been obtained about 3.39 and 3.96 dBi for the lower and upper bands, respectively.

A novel printed antenna having a frequency band-notched function for UWB applications is proposed and studied. With a pair of inverted C-shaped slots introduced around the microstrip line on the gr...

In this paper, we propose a novel printed wideband monopole antenna with simple structure and compact size. The proposed antenna can provide two separate impedance bandwidths of 1.55 GHz about 48.8% (from 2.4 to 3.95 GHz) and 1.275 GHz about 22.4% (from 5.05 to 6.325 GHz), making it easily cover the required bandwidths for wireless local area network (WLAN) and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) operations. Also, good antenna performances such as radiation patterns and antenna gains over the operating bands have been observed. Details of the proposed antenna design and experimental results are presented and discussed.

A small printed antenna is described with subband rejection for ultrawideband (UWB) applications [1]. Two notches are incorporated in the radiating structure of the antenna to act as a bandstop filter to reject the undesired subband within the whole bandwidth [2]. The designed antenna features a compact size of 26×25 mm2, and satisfies the VSWR requirement of less than 2.0 in the frequency band from 3 GHz to more than 12 GHz excluding any undesired subband such as 4.65–5.65 GHz. Good monopole-like radiation patterns and antenna gains have also been obtained.

The appearance of x-ray luminescence computed tomography (XLCT) opens new possibilities to perform molecular imaging by x ray. In the previous XLCT system, the sample was irradiated by a sequence of narrow x-ray beams and the x-ray luminescence was measured by a highly sensitive charge coupled device (CCD) camera. This resulted in a relatively long sampling time and relatively low utilization of the x-ray beam. In this paper, a novel cone beam x-ray luminescence computed tomography strategy is proposed, which can fully utilize the x-ray dose and shorten the scanning time. The imaging model and reconstruction method are described. The validity of the imaging strategy has been studied in this paper.In the cone beam XLCT system, the cone beam x ray was adopted to illuminate the sample and a highly sensitive CCD camera was utilized to acquire luminescent photons emitted from the sample. Photons scattering in biological tissues makes it an ill-posed problem to reconstruct the 3D distribution of the x-ray luminescent sample in the cone beam XLCT. In order to overcome this issue, the authors used the diffusion approximation model to describe the photon propagation in tissues, and employed the sparse regularization method for reconstruction. An incomplete variables truncated conjugate gradient method and permissible region strategy were used for reconstruction. Meanwhile, traditional x-ray CT imaging could also be performed in this system. The x-ray attenuation effect has been considered in their imaging model, which is helpful in improving the reconstruction accuracy.First, simulation experiments with cylinder phantoms were carried out to illustrate the validity of the proposed compensated method. The experimental results showed that the location error of the compensated algorithm was smaller than that of the uncompensated method. The permissible region strategy was applied and reduced the reconstruction error to less than 2 mm. The robustness and stability were then evaluated from different view numbers, different regularization parameters, different measurement noise levels, and optical parameters mismatch. The reconstruction results showed that the settings had a small effect on the reconstruction. The nonhomogeneous phantom simulation was also carried out to simulate a more complex experimental situation and evaluated their proposed method. Second, the physical cylinder phantom experiments further showed similar results in their prototype XLCT system. With the discussion of the above experiments, it was shown that the proposed method is feasible to the general case and actual experiments.Utilizing numerical simulation and physical experiments, the authors demonstrated the validity of the new cone beam XLCT method. Furthermore, compared with the previous narrow beam XLCT, the cone beam XLCT could more fully utilize the x-ray dose and the scanning time would be shortened greatly. The study of both simulation experiments and physical phantom experiments indicated that the proposed method was feasible to the general case and actual experiments.

Purpose: The appearance of x-ray luminescence computed tomography (XLCT) opens new possibilities to perform molecular imaging by x ray. In the previous XLCT system, the sample was irradiated by a sequence of narrow x-ray beams and the x-ray luminescence was measured by a highly sensitive charge coupled device (CCD) camera. This resulted in a relatively long sampling time and relatively low utilization of the x-ray beam. In this paper, a novel cone beam x-ray luminescence computed tomography strategy is proposed, which can fully utilize the x-ray dose and shorten the scanning time. The imaging model and reconstruction method are described. The validity of the imaging strategy has been studied in this paper.