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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a major imaging technique for studying neuroanatomy. By applying different pulse sequences and parameters, different modalities can be generated regarding the same anatomical structure, which can provide complementary information for diagnosis. However, limited by the scanning time and related cost, multiple different modalities are often not available for the same patient in clinic. Recently, many methods have been proposed for cross-modality MRI synthesis, but most of them only consider pixel-level differences between the synthetic and ground-truth images, ignoring the edge information, which is critical to provide clinical information. In this paper, we propose a novel edge-preserving MRI image synthesis method with iterative multi-scale feature fusion based generative adversarial network (EP_IMF-GAN). Particularly, the generator consists of a shared encoder and two specific decoders to carry out different tasks: 1) a primary task aiming to generate the target modality and 2) an auxiliary task aiming to generate the corresponding edge image of target modality. We assume that infusing the auxiliary edge image generation task can help preserve edge information and learn better latent representation features through the shared encoder. Meanwhile, an iterative multi-scale fusion module is embedded in the primary decoder to fuse supplementary information of feature maps at different scales, thereby further improving quality of the synthesized target modality. Experiments on the BRATS dataset indicate that our proposed method is superior to the state-of-the-art image synthesis approaches in both qualitative and quantitative measures. Ablation study further validates the effectiveness of the proposed components.

Aspergillus oryzae HML366 is a newly screened cellulase-producing strain. The endoglucanase HML ED1 from A. oryzae HML366 was quickly purified by two-step method ammonium sulfate precipitation and strong anion exchange column. SDS-PAGE electrophoresis indicated that the molecular weight of the enzyme was 68 kDa. The optimum temperature of the purified endoglucanase was 60 ℃ and the enzyme activity was stable below 70 ℃. The optimum pH was 6.5, and the enzyme activity was stable at pH between 4.5 to 9.0. The analysis indicated that additional Na+, K+, Ca2+, and Zn2+ reduced the catalytic ability of enzyme to the substrate, but Mn2+ enhanced its catalytic ability to the substrate.The Km and Vmax of the purified endoglucanase was 8.75 mg/mL and 60.24 μmol/min·mg, respectively. In this study, we for the first time reported that A. oryzae HML366 can produce a heat-resistant and wide pH tolerant endoglucanase HML ED1, which has potential industrial application value in bioethanol, paper, food, textile, detergent and pharmaceutical industries.

A lithium ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer sulfate (EVOH-SO3Li)/polyimide (PI) composite fiber membrane prepared via high-voltage electrospinning and impregnation was used as a lithium-ion battery separator for research purposes. The polyamic acid spinning solution was synthesized from 3,3′′,4,4′′-benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride and 4,4-diaminodiphenyl ether. The PI fiber membrane was prepared via high-voltage electrospinning and thermal imidization, and EVOH-SO3Li was then coated on the surface of the PI fiber to prepare an EVOH-SO3Li/PI composite fiber membrane material (t-EVOH-SO3Li/PI). Overall, the EVOH-SO3Li/PI membrane exhibits excellent basic physical properties, given the clear three-dimensional network microstructure. When compared with EVOH-SO3Li/PI composite fiber membrane prepared via the cospinning method (s-EVOH-SO3Li/PI), its electrolyte uptake and tensile strength can increase to 739% and 17.56 MPa, respectively. Additionally, the EVOH-SO3Li/PI composite fiber membrane prepared via high-voltage electrospinning and impregnation exhibits better heat shrinkage stability, electrochemical performance, and high-temperature self-closing pores function. The electrochemical stability window, electrochemical impedance, and ionic conductivity correspond to 5.8 V, 310 Ω, and 3.753 × 10−3 S cm−1, respectively. Specifically, at 200°C, the internal pores can close effectively, and this is extremely important for the safety of lithium-ion batteries.

The non-receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) SHP2 encoded by the PTPN11 gene is a critical regulator in a number of cellular signalling processes and pathways, including the MAPK and the immune-inhibitory programmed cell death PD-L1/PD-1 pathway. Hyperactivation and inactivation of SHP2 is of great therapeutic interest for its association with multiple developmental disorders and cancer-related diseases. In this work, we characterised a potent SHP2 allosteric inhibitor 2-((3 R,4R)-4-amino-3-methyl-2-oxa-8-azaspiro[4.5]decan-8-yl)-5-(2,3-dichlorophenyl)-3-methylpyrrolo[2,1-f][1,2,4]triazin-4(3H)-one (PB17-026-01) by using structure-based design. To study the structure-activity relationship, we compared co-crystal structures of SHP2 bound with PB17-026-01 and its analogue compound PB17-036-01, which is ∼20-fold less active than PB17-026-01, revealing that both of the compounds are bound to SHP2 in the allosteric binding pocket and PB17-026-01 forms more polar contacts with its terminal group. Overall, our results provide new insights into the modes of action of allosteric SHP2 inhibitor and a guide for the design of SHP2 allosteric inhibitor.

Two independent structures of the proton-pumping, respiratory cytochrome bo(3) ubiquinol oxidase (cyt bo(3)) have been determined by cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) in styrene–maleic acid (SMA) copolymer nanodiscs and in membrane scaffold protein (MSP) nanodiscs to 2.55- and 2.19-Å resolution, respectively. The structures include the metal redox centers (heme b, heme o(3), and Cu(B)), the redox-active cross-linked histidine–tyrosine cofactor, and the internal water molecules in the proton-conducting D channel. Each structure also contains one equivalent of ubiquinone-8 (UQ8) in the substrate binding site as well as several phospholipid molecules. The isoprene side chain of UQ8 is clamped within a hydrophobic groove in subunit I by transmembrane helix TM0, which is only present in quinol oxidases and not in the closely related cytochrome c oxidases. Both structures show carbonyl O1 of the UQ8 headgroup hydrogen bonded to D75(I) and R71(I). In both structures, residue H98(I) occupies two conformations. In conformation 1, H98(I) forms a hydrogen bond with carbonyl O4 of the UQ8 headgroup, but in conformation 2, the imidazole side chain of H98(I) has flipped to form a hydrogen bond with E14(I) at the N-terminal end of TM0. We propose that H98(I) dynamics facilitate proton transfer from ubiquinol to the periplasmic aqueous phase during oxidation of the substrate. Computational studies show that TM0 creates a channel, allowing access of water to the ubiquinol headgroup and to H98(I).

Two independent structures of the proton-pumping, respiratory cytochrome bo3 ubiquinol oxidase (cyt bo3) have been determined by cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) in styrene–maleic acid (SMA) copolymer nanodiscs and in membrane scaffold protein (MSP) nanodiscs to 2.55- and 2.19-A resolution, respectively. The structures include the metal redox centers (heme b, heme o3, and CuB), the redox-active cross-linked histidine–tyrosine cofactor, and the internal water molecules in the proton-conducting D channel. Each structure also contains one equivalent of ubiquinone-8 (UQ8) in the substrate binding site as well as several phospholipid molecules. The isoprene side chain of UQ8 is clamped within a hydrophobic groove in subunit I by transmembrane helix TM0, which is only present in quinol oxidases and not in the closely related cytochrome c oxidases. Both structures show carbonyl O1 of the UQ8 headgroup hydrogen bonded to D75I and R71I. In both structures, residue H98I occupies two conformations. In conformation 1, H98I forms a hydrogen bond with carbonyl O4 of the UQ8 headgroup, but in conformation 2, the imidazole side chain of H98I has flipped to form a hydrogen bond with E14I at the N-terminal end of TM0. We propose that H98I dynamics facilitate proton transfer from ubiquinol to the periplasmic aqueous phase during oxidation of the substrate. Computational studies show that TM0 creates a channel, allowing access of water to the ubiquinol headgroup and to H98I.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a typical nuclear imaging technique, which can provide crucial functional information for early brain disease diagnosis. Generally, clinically acceptable PET images are obtained by injecting a standard-dose radioactive tracer into human body, while on the other hand the cumulative radiation exposure inevitably raises concerns about potential health risks. However, reducing the tracer dose will increase the noise and artifacts of the reconstructed PET image. For the purpose of acquiring high-quality PET images while reducing radiation exposure, in this paper, we innovatively present an adaptive rectification based generative adversarial network with spectrum constraint, named AR-GAN, which uses low-dose PET (LPET) image to synthesize standard-dose PET (SPET) image of high-quality. Specifically, considering the existing differences between the synthesized SPET image by traditional GAN and the real SPET image, an adaptive rectification network (AR-Net) is devised to estimate the residual between the preliminarily predicted image and the real SPET image, based on the hypothesis that a more realistic rectified image can be obtained by incorporating both the residual and the preliminarily predicted PET image. Moreover, to address the issue of high-frequency distortions in the output image, we employ a spectral regularization term in the training optimization objective to constrain the consistency of the synthesized image and the real image in the frequency domain, which further preserves the high-frequency detailed information and improves synthesis performance. Validations on both the phantom dataset and the clinical dataset show that the proposed AR-GAN can estimate SPET images from LPET images effectively and outperform other state-of-the-art image synthesis approaches.

Background/Aims: Gap junctions, which are assembled by connexins, can directly connect the cytoplasm of adjacent cells and enable gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) as well as metabolic coupling between neighboring cells. Here, we investigated the role of connexin 43 (Cx43) and its derived GJIC in the interplay between non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). Methods: CAFs and NSCLC cells were co-cultured with direct contact and separated using flow cytometry. Glucose uptake, lactate production, and the expression and activity of PKM-2 and LDH-A in sorted CAFs were measured by a colorimetric assay, western blotting, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Meanwhile, E-cadherin and N-cadherin expression and the migration and invasion of sorted NSCLC cells were detected by western blotting, wound width, and Transwell assays. Pyruvate, acetyl-CoA, and citric acid levels, ATP levels, and LDH-B and α-KG activity in sorted NSCLC cells were determined by a colorimetric or fluorometric assay and ELISA, respectively. Functional GJIC between cells and the subcellular location of connexins were detected by a “Parachute” assay and immunofluorescence. Levels of α-SMA, Cx43, and LDH-B in tissue from patients with NSCLC were determined by immunohistochemistry. Results: Cx43 accumulated in the plasma membrane, which favored the assembly of asymmetric unidirectional GJIC from CAFs to NSCLC cells. CAFs underwent increased aerobic glycolysis and promoted the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, migration, and invasion of NSCLC cells. In contrast, NSCLC cells experienced enhanced oxidative phosphorylation upon CAF stimulation, with an increase in ATP generation and thereby activation of the PI3K/Akt and MAPK/ERK pathways. Metabolic coupling between CAFs and NSCLC cells was under the strict control of Cx43-formed unidirectional GJIC. Patients with high tri-expression of α-SMA, Cx43, and LDH-B had the shortest overall survival and relapse-free survival compared with those with individual overexpression or high bi-expression. Conclusion: Cx43-formed unidirectional GJIC plays a critical role in mediating close metabolic cooperation between CAFs and NSCLC cells to support the malignant progression of NSCLC.

The lack of annotated data is a common problem in medical image segmentation tasks. In this paper, we present a novel multi-task semi-supervised segmentation algorithm with a curriculum-style learning strategy. The proposed method includes a segmentation task and an auxiliary regression task. Concretely, the auxiliary regression task aims to learn image-level properties such as the size and centroid position of target region to regularize the segmentation network, enforcing the pixel-level segmentation result match the distributions of these regressions. In addition, these regressions are treated as pseudo labels for the learning of unlabeled data. For the purpose of decreasing noise from the deviation of inferred labels, we adopt the inequality constraint for the learning of unlabeled data, which would generate a tolerance interval where the prediction within it would not be published to reduce the impact of prediction deviation of regression network. Experimental results on both 2017 ACDC dataset and PROMISE12 dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.

OBJECTIVE The present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT) in the detection of the sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCAs) at our prenatal diagnosis centre. METHODS Among a cohort of 34,717 pregnancies, maternal plasma samples from our prenatal diagnosis centre were subject to analysis of SCAs using NIPT detection. Pregnant women with NIPT positive results of SCAs were recommended to undergo an invasive prenatal diagnosis (i.e. karyotyping and fluorescence in situ hybridization) to validate the prediction value of NIPT. RESULTS From 34,717 clinical pregnancies, 229 (0.66%) pregnancies were identified with SCAs. Of these, 78 (34.1%) cases were positive for 45,X and 151 (65.9%) cases comprised a sex chromosome trisomy. Of the 229 positive NIPT results, 193 (84.3%) cases had accepted an invasive diagnosis involving karyotyping analysis of the amniotic fluid, which confirmed 67 cases (34.7%) as true positive, as well as 126 cases (65.3%) as false positive. The positive predictive values were 23.07%, 50%, 36% and 27.27% respectively. The remaining 36 (15.7%) cases declined a prenatal diagnosis. The termination rates of 45,X, 47,XXY, 47,XXX and 47,XYY were 20.5%,46%,12.9% and 11.5% respectively. CONCLUSIONS NIPT demonstrated a lower accuracy in predicting monosomy X than sex chromosome trisomies. After invasive testing, the fetal chromosome with 45,X and 47,XXY were terminated more often than those with 47,XXX, 47,XYY. Because NIPT is a screening test, false positive/negative cases exist, and pre- and post-test counselling is essential for informing patients about the benefits and limitations of the test. Confirmatory testing of abnormal results is recommended prenatally or after birth, and the importance of confirmatory testing and benefits of early diagnosis should be addressed.

To obtain high-quality positron emission tomography (PET) image at low dose, this study proposes an end-to-end 3D generative adversarial network embedded with transformer, namely Transformer-GAN, to reconstruct the standard-dose PET (SPET) image from the corresponding low-dose PET (LPET) image. Specifically, considering the convolutional neural network (CNN) can well describe the local spatial features, while the transformer is good at capturing the long-range semantic information due to its global information extraction ability, our generator network takes advantages of both CNN and transformer, and is designed as an architecture of EncoderCNN-Transformer-DecoderCNN. Particularly, the EncoderCNN aims to extract compact feature representations with rich spatial information by using CNN, while the Transformer targets at capturing the long-range dependencies between the features learned by the EncoderCNN. Finally, the DecoderCNN is responsible for restoring the reconstructed PET image. Moreover, to ensure the similarity of voxel-level intensities as well as the data distributions between the reconstructed image and the real image, we harness both the voxel-wise estimation error and the adversarial loss to train the generator network. Validations on the clinical PET data show that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in both qualitative and quantitative measures.

To explore the cause for the failure of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and feasibility of repeated testing.Clinical data, test results and pregnancy outcomes of 40 311 pregnant women who received NIPT test from January 2011 to December 2018 were reviewed.Among all the pregnant women, 1116 cases failed in the first test, 9 cases (0.81%) had fetal free DNA concentration lower than 4%, 663 cases (59.41%) were retested after the establishment of Z value gray area, and the remainder 444 cases (39.78%) needed to be retested after the blood collection due to the fetal free DNA concentration lower than 4%. After retesting, 1069 cases (95.78%) obtained effective NIPT results. The results showed that 53 cases were at high risk (6 cases for trisomy 21, 6 cases for trisomy 18, 13 cases for trisomy 13, 16 cases for sex chromosomal abnormality, 12 cases for chromosomal copy number variation). Forty-eight cases were selected for invasive prenatal diagnosis, and 2 cases of 47, XXY and 2 CNV were confirmed. A total of 47 cases (0.12%) did not obtain results because the concentration of fetal free DNA was lower than 4%. Only 16 cases (34%) chose invasive prenatal diagnosis.Repeated detection of the gray area of Z value can reduce the false positive rate of NIPT and invasive prenatal diagnosis, and the feasibility of repeated detection is high. In the case of fetal free DNA concentration lower than 4%, the success rate of obtaining effective NIPT results by re-sampling and re-detection increases with the increase of gestational age, but may delay the diagnosis for fetal aneuploidies. Therefore, personalized estimation should be made according to gestational age and clinical indications. It is suggested that pregnant women should choose invasive prenatal diagnosis when they have failed in the retest.

In view of the problem that emergency events are to be reported only following with the time sequence and theme types tend to be difficult to be distinguished from the texts. This paper first attempt to describe the reporting texts through events, in accordance with co-occurrence events appear in the texts, then endeavors to explore the properties such as distance and correlation between co-occurrence events in the text on the basis of the semantic relations between events to cluster the high similarity texts and eventually achieves text classification. Experiment shows that combining semantic relations between events with the relationship between co-occurrence events are more effective for text categorization.

A series of novel pyrazolyl acrylonitrile derivatives was designed, targeting Tetranychus cinnabarinus, and synthesized. Their structures were identified by combination of 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and MS spectra. The structures of compounds 18 and 19 were further confirmed by X-ray diffraction. Extensive greenhouse bioassays indicated that compound 19 exhibits excellent acaricidal activity against all developmental stages of T. cinnabarinus, which is better than the commercialized compounds cyenopyrafen and spirodiclofen. It was shown that the acute toxicity of compounds 19 to mammals is quite low. The structure–activity relationships are also discussed.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) profiles in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) during non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) progression. Materials & methods: Differentially expressed lncRNAs and mRNAs were detected by lncRNA microarray between three patient-paired CAFs and the adjacent normal fibroblasts, which were obtained from tumoral and nontumoral portions of surgically resected lung tissue from three primary NSCLCs. Bioinformatic analyses including gene ontology and pathway analysis were applied to these differentially expressed mRNAs. The qRT-PCR was conducted to identify the change of selected lncRNAs that might be involved in contribution of CAFs toward NSCLC. Results: A total of 766 lncRNAs and 750 mRNAs abnormally expressed in CAFs (fold-change >2, p

Additional file 1: Table S1. Primers used to amplify FGFR3 in the AMP method.

BackgroundDuring human pregnancy, Placental trophectoderm cells can release exosomes into maternal circulation. Trophoblast cells also give rise to cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and has been used for noninvasive prenatal screening for chromosomal aneuploidy. We intended to prove the existence of exosomal DNA (exoDNA) in the exosomes of maternal blood and compared exoDNA with plasma cfDNA in terms of genome distribution, fragment length, and the possibility of detecting genetic diseases.MethodsMaternal blood from 20 euploid pregnancies, 9 T21 pregnancies, 3 T18 pregnancies, 1 T13 pregnancy and 2 pregnancies with FGFR3 mutations were obtained. Exosomes enriched from maternal plasma were confirmed by transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), western blotting and flow cytometry. ExoDNA was extracted and its fetal origin was confirmed by realtime fluorescence quantitative PCR(Q-PCR). Besides, exoDNA content was uncovered by Q-PCR. To characterize exoDNA and compare with cfDNA, pair-end whole genome sequencing was performed. Lastly, the fetal risk of genetic diseases was analyzed using the exoDNA sequencing data.ResultsExoDNA span on all 23 pairs of chromosomes and mitochondria, sharing a similar distribution pattern and higher GC content comparing with cfDNA. ExoDNA showed shorter fragments yet lower fetal fraction than cfDNA. ExoDNA could be used to determine fetal gender correctly, and all trisomies as well as de novo FGFR3 mutations.ConclusionsWe proved that fetal exoDNA could be identified in the exosomes extracted from maternal plasma. ExoDNA shared some similar features to cfDNA and could potentially be used to detect genetic diseases in fetus.

TiO2 /PVA composite nanofiber mat was prepared via an electrospinning technology. SH-TiO2 -SiO2 hybrid particles and PVA solution were injected through a coaxial syringe, yielding a composite nanofiber mat. The as-prepared SH-TiO2 -SiO2 /PVA composite nanofiber mat was immersed in Cd(2+) cation solution and S(2-) anion solution in turn. Thus, yellow TiO2 @CdS/PVA composite nanofiber mats were prepared. By adjusting the number of times a mat was immersed in the Cd(2+) and S(2-) solutions, different amounts of CdS particles attaching to the mats were obtained. Both SH-TiO2 -SiO2 /PVA and TiO2 @CdS/PVA composite nanofiber mats were employed to catalyze the photodegradation of a model dye, methylene blue. The photodegradation performance could be greatly enhanced by the introduction of CdS particles anchoring onto TiO2 particles. The photodegradation efficiency reached 99.2% within 180 min. Also, the nanofiber mat could be recycled and reused at least 10 times. The photodegradation efficiency of TiO2 @CdS/PVA composite nanofiber mats remained 68.8% for 10 cycles.

Porous organic polymers (POPs) were prepared via two-step reactions. In the first step, dialdehyde compounds were synthesized using the Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reaction, and in the second step, the dialdehyde compounds reacted with hydrazine hydrate to form polymers using Schiff’s base formation reactions. These POPs are nanosheet-layer structured, crystalline and fluorescent. They were studied using FTIR, fluorescence spectra, UV-Vis, SEM, TEM, XRD, DSC, and TGA. It was found that the pore parameters, such as specific surface areas and pore diameters, of the POPs could be adjusted by changing the reaction time and temperature. The specific surface areas increased with the increasing of reaction time and temperature. The maximum specific surface area could reach 715.6 m2 g−1. Furthermore, the POPs could detect and remove Pd(II) ions and organic dyes. When in contact with Pd(II) ions, the fluorescence of the POPs was quenched, and the POPs could absorb Pd(II) ions as well. The maximum absorption capacity for Pd(II) ions could reach 20.6 mg g−1 within 5 min. Meanwhile, the POPs could absorb two model dyes, rhodamine B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB), with high efficiency within 5 min.

Objective To evaluate the efficacy of non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT) in the detection of chromosomal aneuploidy according to the follow-up information from a single prenatal diagnosis center. Methods A total of 40,311 cases were retrospectively reviewed. The screening was performed using a BGI protocol, pre-test and post-test genetic counseling was provided, and the pregnancy outcomes were recorded. The results of NIPT and clinical follow-up data were analyzed together with the pregnancy outcomes, confirmatory testing results, and ultrasound findings. Results Of the 40,311cases were includes in the study, successful follow-up was conducted in 468 (1.16%) cases with high risk, 225 (0.56%) cases with rare autosomal trisomy (RAT) and copy number variation (CNV). 39,572 (98.17%) cases with low risk and 623 (1.57%) cases of which were confirmed with adverse pregnancy outcomes. 46 (0.1%) cases with failed tests. Among them, 398 (84.7%) cases with high-risk results chose invasive testing, revealing 198 true positive cases. In cases with RAT and CNV results, 189 cases underwent invasive testing, revealing 5 cases RAT and 4 pathogenic CNVs. Conclusions NIPT appears to be effective in detecting the fetal chromosomal aneuploidies T21, T18 and SCAs, but it exist false positive/negative cases, unconfirmed high-risk cfDNA results, and the high false positive rate in cases with RAT and CNV results implied the limitations of this screening method. Our study showed the importance to associate cfDNA screening results with clinical follow-up data and provided information that may help with result interpretation, genetic counseling and the decision making in clinic.

Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing for common fetal trisomies (T21, T18, T13) is highly effective. However, the usefulness of cfDNA testing in detecting other chromosomal abnormalities is unclear. We evaluated the performance of cfDNA testing for genome-wide abnormalities, and analyzed the incremental yield by reporting extra abnormalities. We performed genome-wide cfDNA testing in 15,626 consecutive pregnancies prospectively enrolled in this study. cfDNA testing results were reported and counseling was given depending on the presence of extra chromosomal abnormalities. cfDNA testing identified 190 cases (1.2%) of chromosomal abnormalities including 100 common trisomies and 90 additional abnormalities. By expanding the cfDNA reporting range to genome-wide abnormalities, the false positive rate increased to 0.39% (P

The development of promising superhydrophobic absorption materials for the treatment of oil spills and chemical leakage is significant to environmental protection. Herein, a novel superhydrophobic poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-TiO2 coated polyurethane (PU) sponge was facilely fabricated by sol–gel growth of TiO2 nanoparticles on the surface of PU sponge, followed by in situ polymerization of PDMS. The as-prepared PDMS-TiO2-PU sponge shows a superhydrophobic surface with a water contact angle of 154° and exhibits high sorption capacities of more than 16.7 g g−1 for the studied oils and organic compounds, such as pump oil, diesel oil, silicone oil, edible oil, kerosene, dichloromethane, and chloroform. Fast sorption speed and high sorption selectivity are achieved for diesel oil sorption. The absorbed oil can be retrieved by simple mechanical extruding the sponge, and the recovered sponge can be used repeatedly over 60 times without obvious decrease in sorption capacity. These results suggest that the prepared PDMS-TiO2-PU sponge may be used in the cleanup of oil spills and the removal of organic pollutants from water.

A new method was developed for the simultaneous determination of three catecholamines in urine using aminophenylboronic acid functionalized magnetic nanoparticles extraction followed by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. Novel aminophenylboronic acid functionalized magnetic nanoparticles were prepared by multi-step covalent modification, and characterized by transmission electron microscopy, Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and vibrating sample magnetometry. With the help of the high affinity between the boronate and cis-diol group, the particles were used for the highly selective separation and enrichment of three major catecholamines, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine. Effects of the pH of the feed solution, the extraction time, the composition of the buffer solution, the amount of the magnetic particles, the elution conditions, and the recycling of aminophenylboronic acid functionalized magnetic nanoparticles were explored. Under the optimized conditions, 13-17-fold enrichment factors were obtained. The linear ranges were 0.01-2.0 μg/mL for the studied analytes. The limits of detection and quantification were in the range of 2.0-7.9 and 6.7-26.3 ng/mL, respectively. The relative recoveries were in the range of 92-108%, with intraday and interday relative standard deviations lower than 6.8%. This method was successfully applied to analysis of catecholamines in real urine.

Porous ZnS and ZnO nano-crystal films were fabricated via a three-step procedure. First, Zn(CH3 COO)2 /Silk Fibroin nanofiber mats were prepared by coaxial electrospinning. Second, Zn(CH3 COO)2 /Silk Fibroin mats were immersed in NaS solution to react with S2- to obtain ZnS/Silk Fibroin nanofiber mats. Finally, ZnO porous films were prepared by calcination of ZnS/Silk Fibroin composite mat at 600°C in air atmosphere. When ZnS/Silk Fibroin mats were calcinated in nitrogen, ZnS/Carbon composite mats were obtained accordingly. The resulting porous films were fully characterized. The ZnO porous films were the aggregation of ZnO nano-crystal with hexagonal wurtzite structure. The seize of ZnO was estimated in the range of 10-20 nm. Both of the ZnS and ZnO nano-crystal films exhibited high photocatalytic activities for the photodegradation of Methylene blue and Rhodamine B. It was also found that ZnO porous films are better than ZnS/Carbon nanofiber mats. In addition, photocatalysis of a real wastewater sample from a printing and dyeing company was conducted. The ZnO porous films exhibited excellent performance to treat the real samples. Moreover, the porous ZnO nano-crystal photocatalyst could easily be recycled without notable loss of catalysis ability.

To investigate the antitumor efficacy and mechanism of HSP90 inhibitor FW-04-806 against Bcr/Abl(+) leukemia K562 and HL60 cells and their mechanisms of action.MTT assay was used to assess the proliferation-inhibiting effect of FW-04-806. Cell cycle was analyzed with propidium iodide by flow cytometry. Cell apoptosis was determined using the FITC mV apoptosis detection kit. Western blot was applied to reveal the protein expression of related proliferative and apoptotic signaling pathways. The changes of mitochondrial membrane potential were detected by flow cytometry. Protein-protein interactions was shown by co-immunoprecipitation. The level of mRNA was assessed by real-time RT-PCR.FW-04-806 obviously inhibited cell proliferation in the HL60, K562 and HL60/Bcr-Abl cell lines, with an IC50 of (30.89 ± 0.12) µmol/L, (9.76 ± 0.19) µmol/L and (8.03 ± 0.26) µmol/L, respectively (P0.001). Compared with the vehicle group, the two increasing doses of FW-04-806 showed inhibition of tumor growth at a rate of (17.40 ± 0.34)% and (34.33 ± 5.00)%, respectively, in the K562 cell line groups (P=0.003), and (18.90 ± 1.45)% and (35.60 ± 3.55)% (P=0.001) in the HL60/Bcr-Abl cell line groups. FW-04-806 dissociated Hsp90/Cdc37 chaperon/co-chaperon complex, followed by degradation of the Hsp90 proteins through proteasome pathway without affecting mRNA expression. FW-04-806 induced apoptosis and led to G2/M arrest.Our findings indicate that FW-04-806 displays potential antitumor effect by suppressing the proliferation and apoptosis in Bcr/Abl(+) leukemia cells in vivo.

Cyenopyrafen and its geometric isomer were synthesized by various methods, and the structures were characterized by 1 H NMR. 13 C NMR, IR, elemental analyses and X-ray diffraction analyses. The bioassay tests showed that cyenopyrafen exhibited a higher acaricidal activity than its isomer. Cyenopyrafen can be isomerized from the Z form in the presence of a base.

BACKGROUND: The intermediate derivatisation method based on bioisosteric replacement led to the discovery of the lead strobilurin compound 5a. To produce new strobilurin analogues with improved activity, a series of substituted pyrimidines were synthesised and bioassayed. RESULTS: The compounds were identified by 1H NMR, IR, MS and elemental analysis. The highly active compound 5g was studied by X-ray diffraction. Preliminary bioassays demonstrated that some of the title compounds exhibited excellent acaricidal activity against Tetranychus cinnabarinus (Boisd.) at 10 mg L−1. The relationship between structure and acaricidal activity is reported. CONCLUSION: The present work demonstrates that strobilurin derivatives containing pyrimidine moieties can be used as possible lead compounds for developing novel acaricides. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry