Cancer immunotherapy has emerged as a novel cancer treatment, although recent immunotherapy trials have produced suboptimal outcomes, with durable responses seen only in a small number of patients. ...The tumor microenvironment (TME) has been shown to be responsible for tumor immune escape and therapy failure. The vital component of the TME is tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), which are usually associated with poor prognosis and drug resistance, including immunotherapies, and have emerged as promising targets for cancer immunotherapy. Recently, nanoparticles, because of their unique physicochemical characteristics, have emerged as crucial translational moieties in tackling tumor-promoting TAMs that amplify immune responses and sensitize tumors to immunotherapies in a safe and effective manner. In this review, we mainly described the current potential nanomaterial-based therapeutic strategies that target TAMs, including restricting TAMs survival, inhibiting TAMs recruitment to tumors and functionally repolarizing tumor-supportive TAMs to antitumor type. The current understanding of the origin and polarization of TAMs, their crucial role in cancer progression and prognostic significance was also discussed in this review. We also highlighted the recent evolution of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-macrophage cell therapy.
Utilizing waste lignocellulosic biomass to synthesize biofuel precursors constructs an important way to solve the current energy crisis. In this work, we have prepared a sulfonated acid catalyst from ...pine needles derived biochar using chlorosulfonic acid for conversion of fructose to levulinic acid and levulinic acid to ethyl levulinate. In the best optimized conditions, sulfonated biochar as a catalyst exhibited excellent catalytic activity for the fructose conversion to levulinic acid and its esterification to ethyl levulinate with yield 33% and 97%.
•Biochar (BC) has been prepared from pine needles biomass waste.•Sulfonation of biochar (SBC) results in Brønsted acidic sites.•SBC has been used as catalyst for the conversion of fructose to levulinic acid.•Ethyl levulinate has been synthesized from levulinic acid in 97% yield.
Nanoarchitectonics has gained recent attention from researchers and can be utilized in the development of catalytic systems with unique morphological features, high surface area and engineered ...catalytic sites. In this work, biomimetic substrates have been fabricated by replicating wings of a grasshopper insect with interesting surface hierarchical architecture by employing a soft lithography technique. Further, the substrates were engineered to form a hetero-nanojunction of gold and silver nanolayers by using the sputtering technique. The replicated substrates possess multi-wall supported sharp edged pods type morphology and provide a good degree of adhesion to the deposited metal layers with increased surface area in comparison to a flat control substrate. The catalytic potential of these metal-coated nanoarchitectonics-based substrates was examined as dip catalysts for degradation of a model organic pollutant, methylene blue in the presence of sodium borohydride as a reducing agent. The biomimetic substrate showed higher photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue due to the enhanced plasmonic effect in comparison to the flat control substrate. The mechanism of the degradation has been discussed in detail in the presence and absence of light irradiation. This work paves way for the design and development of recyclable and efficient dip catalysis substrates by combining the nanoarchitectonics and biomimetic approaches.
With the rapid development of nanotechnology, much has been anticipated with copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NP) due to their extensive industrial and commercial application. However, it has raised ...concern over the environmental safety and human health effects. In this study, CuO nanoparticles were synthesized using the green method with floral extract of Calotropis gigantea and characterized by standard physiochemical techniques like DLS, Zeta potential determination, UV- Visible Spectroscopy, XRD, FTIR, FESEM, and TEM. Mechanistic cytotoxicity studies were performed using experimental and computational assays including morphological analysis, hatching, and viability rate analysis along with ROS and apoptosis analysis. Physiochemical characterization of CuO NP determined the size and zeta potential of synthesized nanoparticles to be 30 ± 09 nm to 40 ± 2 nm and -38 mV ± 12 mV respectively. Cytotoxicity evaluation with Zebrafish revealed malfunctioned organ development with differential viability and hatching rate at 48 hpf and 72 hpf with LC50 of 175 ± 10 mg/l. Computational analysis depicted the influential role of CuO nanoparticles on zebrafish embryo's he1a, sod1 and p53 functional expression through hydrophobic and hydrogen bond interaction with amino acid residues. Study demonstrated valuable information of cytotoxic impact which can be influential in further studies of their eco-toxicological effects.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a significant public health emergency in recent times. It is a respiratory illness caused by the novel virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome ...coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was initially reported in late December 2019. In a span of 6 months, this pandemic spread across the globe leading to high morbidity and mortality rates. Soon after the identification of the causative virus, questions concerning the impact of environmental factors on the dissemination and transmission of the virus, its persistence in environmental matrices, and infectivity potential begin to emerge. As the environmental factors could have far-reaching consequences on infection dissemination and severity, it is essential to understand the linkage between these factors and the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to improve our current understanding over this topic, the present article summarizes topical and substantial observations made regarding the influences of abiotic environmental factors such as climate, temperature, humidity, wind speed, air, and water quality, solid surfaces/interfaces, frozen food, and biotic factors like age, sex, gender, blood type, population density, behavioural characteristics, etc. on the transmission, persistence, and infectivity of this newly recognized SARS-CoV-2 virus. Further, the potential pathways of virus transmission that could pose risk to population health have been discussed, and the critical areas have been identified which merits urgent research for the assessment and management of the COVID-19 outbreak. Where possible, the knowledge gaps requiring further investigation have been highlighted.
Delhi is a commercial city and the people’s living standard is also comparatively high. Due to that, different active security agencies hire security guards and deploy them in various areas to ...protect people and properties. These security guards generally perform their duties outside the premises or near the roadside, leading to their continuous exposure to different size fractions of particulate matter. The present study is an effort to analyze the security guards’ exposure to different size particulate matter (PM2.5, PM1, PM0.5, and PM0.25) and toxic metals in different urban environments. The study showed that the PM2.5 concentrations were higher at all the selected locations, while the construction site depicted the highest concentration of all-size particles among all the identified locations. The ratio of PM1/PM2.5 was observed to be higher and indicated more contribution of PM1 size particles, specifically in commercial, construction, and roadside areas. After analyzing heavy metal presence in PM2.5 and PM1, out of 11 heavy metals, six metals (Fe, Cu, Pb, Cr, Mg, Zn) were found below the detection limit. Mg was found at higher concentrations in commercial, construction, and industrial areas in PM2.5 and PM1, while Zn was also found at higher concentrations in PM2.5 and PM1 at the roadside and residential sites. At the industrial site, the Cr concentration was observed highest in PM1, representing a serious concern to security guards of that area.
This paper gives an overview of the deep-water ventilation studies carried out over the world oceans using radiocarbon. There is a consensus that aged water mass existing in the abyssal ocean during ...the last glacial, dissipated during the Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1; 17.5–14.7 ka) and the Younger Dryas (YD; 12.9–11.7 Ka, cold event) and hence ventilation increased. The data from the Arabian Sea is in agreement with global records and shows a significant aging of intermediate waters during HS1 and to a lesser extent during the YD and also shows an outgassing of CO
2
centered on the early Bølling Allerød (B-A). Though several studies have been carried out in the Atlantic and Pacific, the Indian Ocean remains scantily studied. Hence it is extremely important to have sufficient data on the ventilation aspect from specific locations in the Indian Ocean chosen to be in the pathway of the deep water circulation branch directing southern sourced waters up north.
Amide proton transfer (APT) imaging is a novel molecular MRI technique to detect endogenous mobile proteins and peptides through chemical exchange saturation transfer. In this preliminary study, the ...purpose was to evaluate the feasibility of APT imaging in monitoring the early therapeutic response to nitroxoline (NTX) in a temozolomide (TMZ)-resistant glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) mouse model, which was compared with diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Here, we prepared TMZ-resistant GBM mouse model (n = 12), which were treated with 100 mg/kg/day of NTX (n = 4) or TMZ (n = 4), or saline (n = 4) for 7 days for the evaluation of short-term treatment by using APT imaging and DWI sequentially. The APT signal intensities and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were calculated and compared before and after treatment. Moreover, immunohistological analysis was also employed for the correlation between APT imaging and histopathology. The association between the APT value and Ki-67 labeling index was evaluated by using simple linear regression analysis. The short-term NTX treatment resulted in significant decrease in APT value as compared to untreated and TMZ group, in which APT signals were increased. However, we did not observe significantly increased mean ADC value following short-term NTX treatment. The Ki-67 labeling index shows a correlation with APT value. APT imaging could show the earlier response to NTX treatment as compared to ADC values in a TMZ-resistant mouse model. We believe that APT imaging can be a useful imaging biomarker for the early therapeutic evaluation in GBM patients.
The incidence of tracheal extubation failure in high-risk patients is higher, and non-invasive ventilation is suggested to avoid tracheal reintubation. This study compares the effectiveness of ...bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP) and high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) to reduce the rate of reintubation in intensive care unit (ICU) patients with increased risk of extubation failure.
This randomised comparative trial was conducted on 60 high-risk patients on mechanical ventilators admitted to the ICU, ready for weaning after a spontaneous breathing trial. They were randomised to Group H for HFNC and Group B for BiPAP therapy. Designated therapy was administered in these high-risk patients for up to 48 hours after tracheal extubation. Haemodynamic parameters mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), a saturation of peripheral oxygen (SpO
), electrocardiogram (ECG), arterial blood gas analysis (ABG) parameter potential of hydrogen (pH), partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO
), partial pressure of oxygen/fraction of inspired oxygen (paO
/FiO
) ratio, the effectiveness of cough, comfort level was recorded and continuous monitoring for signs of respiratory distress and failure was done.
Most of the patients were obese and had more than two risk factors for extubation failure. Several patients in Group B have significantly higher successful extubation than in Group H (
= 0.044). Most of the reintubation took place within 24 hours. The HFNC therapy was more comfortable and acceptable to patients.
BiPAP therapy was more efficient than HFNC in preventing tracheal reintubation among patients with a high risk of extubation failure.
To investigate the biocompatibility of green synthesized copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO Np) using floral extract of Calotropis gigantea in room condition.
Green synthesized and characterized CuO Np ...was evaluated for their cellular and molecular biocompatibility by experimentally and computational molecular docking.
Synthesized CuO NP was found to have a size 32 ± 09 nm with ζ potential -35 ± 12 mV. LC
value was found to be 190 μg/ml. In vitro and in silico cytotoxicity analysis with HEK293 cells revealed the cytotoxic effect of CuO Np as consequences of interaction with histidine and arginine amino acid residues of Sod3 and p53 proteins via hydrogen bond of length 3.09 and 3.32 Å leading to oxidative stress ensuing toward apoptosis and cell cycle arrest.
The outcomes proved the synthesized material as an alternative to the conventional method of synthesizing copper nanoparticles for biomedical and clinical applications.
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