Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are involved in the regulation of cell physiological activity and the reconstruction of extracellular environment. Matrix vesicles (MVs) are a type of EVs released by ...bone-related functional cells, and they participate in the regulation of cell mineralization. Here, we report bioinspired MVs embedded with black phosphorus (BP) and functionalized with cell-specific aptamer (denoted as Apt-bioinspired MVs) for stimulating biomineralization. The aptamer can direct bioinspired MVs to targeted cells, and the increasing concentration of inorganic phosphate originating from BP can facilitate cell biomineralization. The photothermal effect of the Apt-bioinspired MVs can also promote the biomineralization process by stimulating the upregulated expression of heat shock proteins and alkaline phosphatase. In addition, the Apt-bioinspired MVs display outstanding bone regeneration performance. Our strategy provides a method for designing bionic tools to study the mechanisms of biological processes and advance the development of medical engineering.
Cancer cells are known to undergo metabolic reprogramming to sustain survival and rapid proliferation, however, it remains to be fully elucidated how oncogenic lesions coordinate the metabolic switch ...under various stressed condi- tions. Here we show that deprivation of glucose or glutamine, two major nutrition sources for cancer cells, dramat- ically activated serine biosynthesis pathway （SSP） that was accompanied by elevated cMyc expression. We further identified that cMyc stimulated SSP activation by transcriptionally upregulating expression of multiple SSP enzymes. Moreover, we demonstrated that SSP activation facilitated by cMye led to elevated glutathione （GSH） production, cell cycle progression and nucleic acid synthesis, which are essential for cell survival and proliferation especially un- der nutrient-deprived conditions. We further uncovered that phosphoserine phosphatase （PSPH）, the final rate-lim- iting enzyme of the SSP pathway, is critical for cMyc-driven cancer progression both in vitro and in vivo, and impor- tantly, aberrant expression of PSPH is highly correlated with mortality in hepatocellular carcinoma （HCC） patients, suggesting a potential causal relation between this cMyc-regulated enzyme, or SSP activation in general, and cancer development. Taken together, our results reveal that aberrant expression of cMyc leads to the enhanced SSP activa- tion, an essential part of metabolic switch, to facilitate cancer progression under nutrient-deprived conditions.
•We review operational models in service supply chain management (SSCM).•We examine and discuss the definitions of SSCM.•We classify the literature into three major areas.•We derive insights into the ...current state of knowledge in each area.•We identify the research challenges of SSCM.
Given the growing importance of service supply chain management (SSCM) in operations, we review a selection of papers in the operations research and the management science (OR/MS) literature that focus on innovative measures associated with the SSCM. First, we review and discuss the definitions of service supply chains (SSCs) and categorize SSCs into the Service Only Supply Chains (SOSCs) and the Product Service Supply Chains (PSSCs). Second, by classifying the literature into three major areas, namely service supply management, service demand management, and the coordination of service supply chains, we derive insights into the current state of knowledge in each area, and examine the evolution of the SSCM research over the past decade. Finally, we identify some associated research challenges and explore future directions for research on SSCM from an operational perspective.
This study investigates a supply chain comprising an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and a contract manufacturer (CM), in which the CM acts as both upstream partner and downstream competitor to ...the OEM. The two parties can engage in one of three Cournot competition games: a simultaneous game, a sequential game with the OEM as the Stackelberg leader, and a sequential game with the CM as the Stackelberg leader. On the basis of these three basic games, this study investigates the two parties' Stackelberg leadership/followership decisions. When the outsourcing quantity and wholesale price are exogenously given, either party may prefer Stackelberg leadership or followership. For example, when the wholesale price or the proportion of production outsourced to the CM is lower than a threshold value, both parties prefer Stackelberg leadership and, consequently, play a simultaneous game in the consumer market. When the outsourcing quantity and wholesale price are decision variables, the competitive CM sets a wholesale price sufficiently low to allow both parties to coexist in the market, and the OEM outsources its entire production to this CM. This study also examines the impact of the supply chain parties' bargaining power on contract outcomes by considering a wholesale price that is determined via the generalized Nash bargaining scheme, finding a Stackelberg equilibrium to be sustained when the CM's degree of bargaining power is great and the non‐competitive CM's wholesale price is high.
Abuse of antibiotics and their residues in the environment results in the emergence and prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria and leads to serious health problems. Herein, a photon-controlled ...antibacterial platform that can efficiently kill drug-resistant bacteria and avoid the generation of new bacterial resistance was designed by encapsulating black phosphorus quantum dots (BPQDs) and pharmaceuticals inside a thermal-sensitive liposome. The antibacterial platform can release pharmaceuticals in a spatial-, temporal-, and dosage-controlled fashion because the BPQDs can delicately generate heat under near-infrared light stimulation to disrupt the liposome. This user-defined delivery of drug can greatly reduce the antibiotic dosage, thus avoiding the indiscriminate use of antibiotics and preventing the generation of superbugs. Moreover, by coupling the photothermal effect with antibiotics, this antibacterial platform achieved a synergistic photothermal-/pharmaco-therapy with significantly improved antibacterial efficiency toward drug-resistant bacteria. The antibacterial platform was further employed to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria-caused skin abscess and it displayed excellent antibacterial activity in vivo, promising its potential clinical applications. Additionally, the antibacterial mechanism was further investigated. The developed photon-controlled antibacterial platform can open new possibilities for avoiding bacterial resistance and efficiently killing antibiotic-resistant bacteria, making it valuable in fields ranging from antiinfective therapy to precision medicine.
Pathogenic bacterial infections and drug resistance make it urgent to develop new antibacterial agents with targeted delivery. Here, a new targeting delivery nanosystem is designed based on the ...potential interaction between bacterial recognizing receptors on macrophage membranes and distinct pathogen‐associated molecular patterns in bacteria. Interestingly, the expression of recognizing receptors on macrophage membranes increases significantly when cultured with specific bacteria. Therefore, by coating pretreated macrophage membrane onto the surface of a gold–silver nanocage (GSNC), the nanosystem targets bacteria more efficiently. Previously, it has been shown that GSNC alone can serve as an effective antibacterial agent owing to its photothermal effect under near‐infrared (NIR) laser irradiation. Furthermore, the nanocage can be utilized as a delivery vehicle for antibacterial drugs since the gold–silver nanocage presents a hollow interior and porous wall structure. With significantly improved bacterial adherence, the Sa‐M‐GSNC nanosystem, developed within this study, is effectively delivered and retained at the infection site both via local or systemic injections; the system also shows greatly prolonged blood circulation time and excellent biocompatibility. The present work described here is the first to utilize bacterial pretreated macrophage membrane receptors in a nanosystem to achieve specific bacterial‐targeted delivery, and provides inspiration for future therapy based on this concept.
To solve the challenge of targeted delivery, macrophage‐membrane‐coated nanocages with the ability to recognize bacteria with photo‐thermal effect is designed to enhance efficient and effective targeted delivery at the infection site. This novel therapy shows excellent bacterial binding with great antibacterial properties, and demonstrates Sa‐M‐GSNCs are promising prospects in the field of antibacterial agents and drug delivery.
Obesity resulting from interactions of genetic and environmental factors becomes a serious public health problem worldwide with alterations of the metabolic phenotypes in multiple biological matrices ...involving multiple metabolic pathways. To understand the contributions of gut microbiota to obesity development, we analyzed dynamic alterations in fecal metabonomic phenotype using NMR and fecal microorganism composition in rats using pyrosequencing technology during the high-fat diet (HFD) feeding for 81 days (pre-obesity state). Integrated analysis of these two phenotypic datasets was further conducted to establish correlations between the altered rat fecal metabonome and gut microbiome. We found that one-week HFD feeding already caused significant changes in rat fecal metabonome and such changes sustained throughout 81-days feeding with the host and gut microbiota co-metabolites clearly featured. We also found that HFD caused outstanding decreases in most fecal metabolites implying enhancement of gut absorptions. We further established comprehensive correlations between the HFD-induced changes in fecal metabonome and fecal microbial composition indicating contributions of gut microbiota in pathogenesis and progression of the HFD-induced obesity. These findings provided essential information about the functions of gut microbiota in pathogenesis of metabolic disorders which could be potentially important for developing obesity prevention and treatment therapies.
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•A novel label-free electrochemical immunosensor was designed for detecting CEA.•Flower-like Ag/MoS2/rGO were employed as the signal amplification platform.•Ag/MoS2/rGO nanocomposites ...have a high electrocatalytic activity towards H2O2.•The immunosensor exhibited a high sensitivity and a low detection limit.
In this work, a label-free electrochemical immunosensor was developed for the quantitative detection of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). Flower-like Ag/MoS2/rGO nanocomposites were employed as the signal amplification platform of the designed immunosensor for the first time. Due to the synergistic effect between molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and Ag nanoparticles (NPs), Ag/MoS2/rGO nanocomposites could provide a high sensitivity for the label-free electrochemical immunosensor. The detection mechanism was based on the monitoring of the electrocatalytic current response change towards the reduction of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) when immunoreaction occurred on the surface of the electrode modified with Ag/MoS2/rGO nanocomposites. Using amperometric i-t curve to record the electrocatalytic process, the proposed immunosensor achieved an ultrasensitive and specific detection of CEA with a low detection limit of 1.6 fg/mL. Under optimal conditions, the fabricated immunosensor exhibited acceptable reproducibility, selectivity and excellent stability. This designed immunosensor could provide an effective method in the clinical diagnosis of other tumor markers.
•A hierarchical three-dimensional composite (rGO/LDH) was prepared and well characterized.•Uranium (VI) removal using rGO/LDH was studied for the first time.•The adsorption process for uranium (VI) ...removal was studied in detail.•rGO/LDH exhibited fast and efficient sorption for uranium (VI).
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This study presents a facile route for the fabrication of a hierarchical three-dimensional composite (layered double hydroxide/graphene). The composite was obtained via in situ growth of layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheet arrays onto graphene sheets. The materials were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscope, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area measurement. This particularly structured composite has a large specific surface area and typical mesoporous characteristics, which are favorable for achieving high adsorption performance. The influence of conditions for uranium adsorption, including pH of aqueous solution, adsorbent dose, shaking time, and temperature were investigated. The results reveal that the maximum adsorption capacity of the layered double hydroxide/graphene toward uranium (VI) is 277.80mgg−1, displaying a high efficiency for the removal of uranium (VI) from aqueous solution. The thermodynamic parameters, such as ΔH°, ΔS°, and ΔG° show that the process is endothermic and spontaneous. The kinetic adsorption can be described by a pseudo-second-order rate equation. This work describes an efficient, fast, and convenient approach for the removal of uranium (VI) from aqueous solutions.
Many epidemiologic studies have investigated the association between carotenoids intake and risk of Prostate cancer (PCa). However, results have been inconclusive.
We conducted a systematic review ...and dose-response meta-analysis of dietary intake or blood concentrations of carotenoids in relation to PCa risk. We summarized the data from 34 eligible studies (10 cohort, 11 nested case-control and 13 case-control studies) and estimated summary Risk Ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using random-effects models.
Neither dietary β-carotene intake nor its blood levels was associated with reduced PCa risk. Dietary α-carotene intake and lycopene consumption (both dietary intake and its blood levels) were all associated with reduced risk of PCa (RR for dietary α-carotene intake: 0.87, 95%CI: 0.76-0.99; RR for dietary lycopene intake: 0.86, 95%CI: 0.75-0.98; RR for blood lycopene levels: 0.81, 95%CI: 0.69-0.96). However, neither blood α-carotene levels nor blood lycopene levels could reduce the risk of advanced PCa. Dose-response analysis indicated that risk of PCa was reduced by 2% per 0.2mg/day (95%CI: 0.96-0.99) increment of dietary α-carotene intake or 3% per 1mg/day (95%CI: 0.94-0.99) increment of dietary lycopene intake.
α-carotene and lycopene, but not β-carotene, were inversely associated with the risk of PCa. However, both α-carotene and lycopene could not lower the risk of advanced PCa.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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