Developing conductive underwater glue for fast sealing and in situ monitoring is critical for ocean exploration yet remains a challenge. The fluidity of glue is a double‐edged sword that is favorable ...for molecule spreading and formation of interlocking bonding network yet also leads to leakage of conductive ions. Herein, a polymeric glue possessing good conductivity and exhibiting rapid, strong, and long‐lasting underwater adhesion on diverse substrates at various harsh environments and extreme temperatures is developed. For molecular design, the nitrogen heterocyclic motif that prevails in biomolecular recognition is encoded with water‐resistant benzene block in one pendant group to serve as underwater binding sites; ionic liquids (ILs) of EMIMBF4 is employed as the solvent for fast water exchange that triggers rapid adhesion. Simultaneously, the polymer‐IL interaction is regulated, with the assistance of the theoretical calculations, to retain sufficient ILs within the adhesive for sensing. Finally, the glue is applied for underwater sealing and in situ monitoring various physical signals, while the fluorescent property is utilized for underwater labeling. This study should provide a new design strategy for the next‐generation of multifunctional underwater adhesives and promote their applications.
S. Y. Zheng, J. Zhou, S. Wang, Y.‐J. Wang, S. Liu, G. Du, D. Zhang, J. Fu, J. Lin, Z. L. Wu, Q. Zheng, J. Yang
A polymeric glue simultaneously exhibiting rapid, strong, and long‐lasting adhesion on diverse substrates against various harsh environments and extreme temperatures, along with functions of underwater sensing and fluorescent labeling is developed. The comprehensive adhesion efficiency of the adhesive outperforms most existing underwater adhesives and should provide a new strategy for the molecular design of the next‐generation underwater adhesives.
The present study aimed to select anti‐tumor‐associated antigen (TAA) autoantibodies as biomarkers in the immunodiagnosis of gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC) by the recursive partitioning approach (RPA) ...and further construct and evaluate a predictive model. A case‐control study was designed including 407 GAC patients as the case group and 407 normal controls. In addition, 67 serial serum samples from 25 GAC patients were collected at different time points before and after gastrectomy treatment. Autoantibodies against 14 TAA were measured in sera from all subjects by enzyme immunoassay. Finally, RPA resulted in the selection of nine‐panel TAA (c‐Myc, p16, HSPD1, PTEN, p53, NPM1, ENO1, p62, HCC1.4) from all detected TAA in the case‐control study; the classification tree based on this nine‐TAA panel had area under curve (AUC) of 0.857, sensitivity of 71.5% and specificity of 71.3%; The optimal panel also can identify GAC patients at an early stage from normal individuals, with AUC of 0.737, sensitivity of 64.9% and specificity of 70.5%. However, frequencies of the nine autoantibodies showed no correlation with GAC stage, tumor size, lymphatic metastasis or differentiation. GAC patients positive for more than two autoantibodies in the nine‐TAA panel had a worse prognosis than that of the GAC patients positive for no or one antibody. Titers of 10 autoantibodies in serial serum samples were significantly higher in GAC patients after surgical resection than before. In conclusion, this study showed that the panel of nine multiple TAAs could enhance the detection of anti‐TAA antibodies in GAC, and may be potential prognostic biomarkers in GAC.
Recursive partitioning approach (RPA) is a powerful method for selecting markers in cancer and a panel selected by RPA showed high diagnostic values for gastric adenocarcinoma. Antibody levels showed no correlation with tumor stage, size, or differentiation. Certain anti‐TAA antibodies increased after gastrectomy in gastric adenocarcinoma sera.
The land damaged by coal mining can be recovered to healthy condition through various reclamation methods. Fertilization is one of the effective methods to improve soil fertility and microbial ...activity. However, the effects of coal-derived compound fertilizers (SH) on bacterial communities in coal mining subsidence areas still remain unclear. Here, we studied the effects on the nutrient characteristics and bacterial communities in fertilizer-reclaimed soil (CK, without fertilizer; CF, common compound fertilizers; SH, coal-derived compound fertilizers) in coal mining subsidence areas and we applied SH with four different nitrogen application rates (90, 135, 180, and 225 kg/hm
). The results showed that the application of SH significantly increased the contents of available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK), total phosphorus (TP) and soil organic matter (SOM) compared with CK, as well as the bacterial richness (Chao1) and diversity (Shannon) in reclaimed soil that increased first and then decreased with the increase of nitrogen application. Under the same nitrogen application rate (135 kg/hm
), the nutrient content, Chao1 and Shannon of SH2 treatments were higher than those of CF treatment. Meanwhile, SH increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes. LEfSe analysis indicated that the taxa of Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria were significantly improved under SH treatments. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and Variance partitioning analysis (VPA) showed that SOM was the most important factor affecting the change of bacterial community structure in reclaimed soil. In conclusion, application of SH can not only increase nutrient content and bacterial diversity of reclaimed soil, but also improve bacterial community structure by increasing bacterial abundance.
Staphylococcus aureus
is a zoonotic opportunistic pathogen that represents a significant threat to public health. Previous studies have shown that tannic acid (TA) has an inhibitory effect on a ...variety of bacteria. In this study, the proteome and transcriptome of
S. aureus
were analyzed to comprehensively assess changes in genes and proteins induced by TA. Initial observations of morphological changes revealed that TA damaged the integrity of the cell membrane. Next, proteomic and genetic analyses showed that exposure to TA altered the expression levels of 651 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs, 283 upregulated and 368 downregulated) and 503 differentially expressed genes (DEGs, 191 upregulated and 312 downregulated). Analysis of the identified DEPs and DEGs suggested that TA damages the integrity of the cell envelope by decreasing the expression and protein abundance of enzymes involved in the synthesis of peptidoglycans, teichoic acids and fatty acids, such as
murB, murQ
,
murG, fmhX
and
tagA
. After treatment with TA, the assembly of ribosomes in
S. aureus
was severely impaired by significant reductions in available ribosome components, and thus protein synthesis was hindered. The levels of genes and proteins associated with amino acids and purine synthesis were remarkably decreased, which further reduced bacterial viability. In addition, ABC transporters, which are involved in amino acid and ion transport, were also badly affected. Our results reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of TA on
S. aureus
and provide a theoretical basis for the application of TA as an antibacterial chemotherapeutic agent.
The number of young patients diagnosed with breast cancer is on the rise. We studied the rate trend of local recurrence (LR) and regional recurrence (RR) in young breast cancer (YBC) patients and ...outcomes among these patients based on molecular subtypes.
A retrospective cohort study was conducted based on data from Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital for patients ≤ 35 years of age with pathologically confirmed primary invasive breast cancer surgically treated between 2006 and 2014. Patients were categorized according to molecular subtypes on the basis of hormone receptor (HR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status. The 5-year rates for LR, RR, and distant metastases (DM) were estimated by Kaplan-Meir statistics. Nelson-Aalen cumulative-hazard plots were used to describe local recurrence- and distant metastasis-free intervals.
We identified 25,284 patients with a median follow-up of 82 months, of whom 1099 (4.3%) were YBC patients ≤ 35 years of age. The overall 5-year LR, RR, and DM rates in YBC patients were 6.7%, 5.1%, and 16.6%, respectively. The LR and RR rates demonstrated a decreasing trend over time (P = 0.028 and P = 0.015, respectively). We found that early-stage breast cancer and less lymph node metastases increased over time (P = 0.004 and P = 0.007, respectively). Patients with HR-/HER2+ status had a significantly higher LR (HR 20.4; 95% CI, 11.8-35.4) and DM (HR 37.2; 95% CI, 24.6-56.3) at 10 years. Breast-conserving surgery (BCS) or mastectomy did not influence rates of LR and RR. In the overall population, the 5-year survival of YBC patients exceeded 90%.
The rates of LR and RR with YBC patients demonstrated a downward trend and the proportion of early-stage breast cancer increased between 2006 and 2014. We report the highest LR rates in this young population were associated with HR-/HER2+ tumors.
Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) steroid receptor RNA activator (SRA) has been identified to activate steroid receptor transcriptional activity and participate in tumor pathogenesis. This case-control ...study evaluated the association between two haplotype tagging SNPs (htSNPs) (rs10463297, rs801460) of the whole SRA sequence and breast cancer risk. We found that rs10463297 TC genotype significantly increased BC risk compared with CC genotype in both the codominant (TC vs. TT: OR=1.43, 95 % CI=1.02-2.00) and recessive (TC+CC vs. TT: OR=1.39, 95 % CI=1.01-1.92) genetic models. Both TC, TC + CC genotypes of rs10463297 and GA, AA, GA+AA genotypes of rs801460 were significantly associated with estrogen receptor (ER) positivity status. rs10463297 TC (2.09 ± 0.41), CC (2.42 ± 0.51) and TC + CC (2.20 ± 0.47) genotypes were associated with higher blood plasma SRA mRNA levels compared with the TT genotype (1.45 ± 0.34). Gene-reproductive interaction analysis presented a best model consisted of four factors (rs10463297, age, post-menopausal, No. of pregnancy), which could increase the BC risk with 1.58-fold (OR=1.58, 95 % CI=1.23-2.03). These findings suggest that SRA genetic variants may contribute to BC risk and have apparent interaction with reproductive factors in BC progression.
To examine the efficacy and safety of a sequential combination of chemotherapy and autologous cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cell treatment in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients.
A total of ...294 post-surgery TNBC patients participated in the research from January 1, 2009 to January 1, 2015. After adjuvant chemotherapy, autologous CIK cells were introduced in 147 cases (CIK group), while adjuvant chemotherapy alone was used to treat the remaining 147 cases (control group). The major endpoints of the investigation were the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Additionally, the side effects of the treatment were evaluated.
In the CIK group, the DFS and OS intervals of the patients were significantly longer than those of the control group (DFS:
= 0.047; OS:
= 0.007). The multivariate analysis demonstrated that the TNM (tumor-node-metastasis) stage and adjuvant CIK treatment were independent prognostic factors for both DFS hazard ratio (HR) = 0.520, 95% confidence interval (CI):0.271-0.998,
= 0.049; HR = 1.449, 95% CI:1.118-1.877,
= 0.005, respectively and OS (HR=0.414, 95% CI:0.190-0.903,
= 0.027; HR = 1.581, 95% CI:1.204-2.077,
= 0.001, respectively) in patients with TNBC. Additionally, longer DFS and OS intervals were associated with increased number of CIK treatment cycles (DFS:
= 0.020; OS:
= 0.040). The majority of the patients who benefitted from CIK cell therapy were relatively early-stage TNBC patients.
Chemotherapy in combination with adjuvant CIK could be used to lower the relapse and metastasis rate, thus effectively extending the survival time of TNBC patients, especially those at early stages.
Autoantibodies against tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) are attractive non-invasive biomarkers for detection of cancer due to their inherently stable in serum. Serum autoantibodies against 9 TAAs ...from gastric cancer (GC) patients and healthy controls were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). A logistic regression model predicting the risk of being diagnosed with GC in the training cohort (n = 558) was generated and then validated in an independent cohort (n = 372). Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was used to assess the diagnostic performance. Finally, an optimal prediction model with 6 TAAs (p62, c-Myc, NPM1, 14-3-3ξ, MDM2 and p16) showed a great diagnostic performance of GC with AUC of 0.841 in the training cohort and 0.856 in the validation cohort. The proportion of subjects being correctly defined were 78.49% in the training cohort and 81.99% in the validation cohort. This prediction model could also differentiate early-stage (stage I-II) GC patients from healthy controls with sensitivity/specificity of 76.60%/72.34% and 80.56%/79.17% in the training and validation cohort, respectively, and the overall sensitivity/specificity for early-stage GC were 78.92%/74.70% when being combined with two cohorts. This prediction model presented no significant difference for the diagnostic accuracy between early-stage and late-stage (stage III - IV) GC patients. The model with 6 TAAs showed a high diagnostic performance for GC detection, particularly for early-stage GC. This study further supported the hypothesis that a customized array of multiple TAAs was able to enhance autoantibody detection in the immunodiagnosis of GC.
The present study aims to investigate the physico-chemical structural evolution characteristics of char structure of CO
2
atmosphere torrefaction pretreated sludge with Yangchangwan bituminous coal ...(YC) during co-gasification. The co-gasification reactivity of torrefied sludge and YC was measured using a thermogravimetric analyzer. The co-gasification reactivity of torrefied sludge with YC was thoroughly explored in depth by in situ heating stage microscope coupled with traditional characterization means of char sample (Scanning electron microscope, nitrogen adsorption analyzer, laser Raman spectroscopy). The results show that the gasification reaction rate of sludge treated under CO
2
atmosphere and coal blended char was better than other char samples at 1100–1200 °C. The torrefied sludge under CO
2
atmosphere promoted its thermal decomposition to the maximum extent, so that it eventually was transformed into a large number of small broken particles. The specific surface area and I
D1
/I
G
ratio of blended char of torrefied sludge under CO
2
atmosphere and YC were 1.70 and 1.07 times higher than that of YC, respectively. The in situ technique revealed that YC char with the addition of torrefied sludge undergo gasification by shrinking core modes and the presence of obvious ash melting flow phenomenon. It was more obvious than that of YC.
The 30-year normalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series from AVHRR MODIS satellite sensors was used in this study to assess the regional vegetation dynamic changes in the Tao River ...Basin, which cuts across the Eastern Tibetan Plateau (ETP) and the Southwestern Loess Plateau (SLP). First, principal component and correlation analyses were carried out to determine the key climatic variables driving ecological change in the region. Then, regression models were tested to correlate NDVI with the selected climatic variables to determine their predictive power. Finally, Sen's slope method was used to determine how terrestrial vegetation has responded to regional climate change in the region. The results indicated an average winter season NDVI value of 0.14 in the ETP but only 0.04 in the SLP. Primarily driven by increasing temperature, vegetation growth has generally been enhanced since 1981; spring NDVI increased by 0.03 every 10 years in the ETP and 0.02 in the SLP. Further, results from trend analyses suggest vegetation growth in the ETP shifted to earlier-start and earlier-end dates, however in the SLP, the growing season has been extended with an earlier-start and later-end date. The precipitation threshold for vegetation germination, measured by the cumulative spring rainfall, was found to be 44 mm for both the ETP and SLP.
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