Nanomaterial-incorporated surfaces with microstructures have been widely used for marine antifouling coatings, yet limited green antifouling coatings are currently available for sustainable ...application, given the potential environmental effects of nanomaterial-based nanofillers. Here, by using natural sourced nanomaterials (cellulose nanocrystals, CNCs) as nanofillers, a nanocomposite superhydrophobic coating was fabricated via a simple sol-gel synthesis method. Notably, CNCs were firstly applied in the marine antifouling realm to form uniform and stable coatings, which were condensed with hydroxyl groups of hydrolyzed tetrapropyl zirconate, 3-glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane, and methyltrimethoxysilane. The synthesized coatings gained a biomimetic microscopic ridge-like surface, where more CNCs contents contributed to finer microstructures. As a result of the influence of CNCs content on surface wettability and antifouling properties, the coating with CNCs accounting for 20 wt% of the total solid content (CNC20) delivered the best antifouling performance. Furthermore, 90-day marine field tests verified CNC20's excellent antifouling ability, reducing fouling by 82 % in comparison to the control group. Such a biomimicry study provides a novel strategy for the development of environmentally friendly coatings with CNCs nanofillers.
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Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) can recognize and bind foreign peptides to present them to specialized immune cells, then initiate an immune response. Computational prediction of the peptide and HLA ...(pHLA) binding can speed up immunogenic peptide screening and facilitate vaccine design. However, there is a lack of an automatic program to optimize mutated peptides with higher affinity to the target HLA allele. Here, to fill this gap, we develop the TransMut framework—composed of TransPHLA for pHLA binding prediction and an automatically optimized mutated peptides (AOMP) program—which can be generalized to any binding and mutation task of biomolecules. First, TransPHLA is developed by constructing a transformer-based model to predict pHLA binding, which is superior to 14 previous methods on pHLA binding prediction and neoantigen and human papilloma virus vaccine identification. For vaccine design, the AOMP program is then developed by exploiting the attention scores generated by TransPHLA to automatically optimize mutated peptides with higher affinity to the target HLA allele and with high homology to the source peptide. The proposed framework may automatically generate potential peptide vaccines for experimentalists.The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex plays an important role in building an immune response, but it is hard to predict which peptides will bind to it. Chu et al. present a transformer-based approach to identify which peptides have a high binding affinity to HLA, a task that can also be translated to other binding problems.
Voluntary vaccination on hypergraph Nie, Yanyi; Su, Sheng; Lin, Tao ...
Communications in nonlinear science & numerical simulation,
12/2023, Letnik:
127
Journal Article
A novel BG composite sponge comprising of bacterial cellulose (BC) and gelatin has been synthesized using glutaraldehyde as the cross-linker by a facile method. The morphology, chemical composition ...and structures of the novel sponges were characterized by SEM, EDS and FTIR spectroscopy. The fabricated BG sponges have regular honeycomb-like structure with uniform pore distribution and large surface area. They have very high porosity of 94%–95% and great swelling property ranging from 3000 to 3150%. Moreover, the released rate of the model drug ampicillin (AP) from the composite sponges depends on the initial addition of AP that the diffusional constant (n) determined using Korsmeyer-Peppas model lies between 0.45 and 0.89, indicating the AP release from BG composite sponges follows non-Fickian diffusion. More interestingly, antibacterial activity of BG sponges was investigated by diffusion disk method against E.coli, C. albicans and S. aureus. The results demonstrated that the obtained BG sponges exhibit excellent antibacterial activity, thus making them have great potentials in various antibacterial applications, especially in the wound dressings.
•Bacterial cellulose-gelatin composite (BG) sponges exhibit a regular porous structure with a large specific surface area.•BG composite sponges show high porosity and great swelling performance.•The release of AP as the drug model from BG composite sponges follows non-Fickian diffusion.•BG composite sponges have excellent antibacterial property and good biocompatibility.
Heat management is crucial to the stable and high-efficiency operation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system. However, fin-tube heat exchangers (FTHE) of traditional internal ...combustion engine vehicles require further optimizations to be applicable to PEMFC vehicles. In the paper, a three-dimensional steady-state radiator model is developed in OpenFOAM to investigate three novel structural designs based on wavy-louvred (WL) fin and vortex generators (VGs). The established model has been carefully validated against experimental data and correlation reference. To comprehensively evaluate radiator performances, the air side heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop, outlet air temperature, heat flux, and JF factor are adopted. It is found that the FTHE with L-VGs has the highest heat transfer coefficient while the FTHE with WL-VGs has the highest pressure drop. The temperature, velocity, and pressure distribution are further demonstrated to reveal performance enhancement mechanisms. It is seen that the heat exchangers with additional VGs produce two sections of high-temperature wakes near the wall, which not only promotes the heat convection but also contributes to the heat exchange in the nearby area. Meanwhile, a low-speed vortex zone behind VGs appears and generates longitude vortex, making the air stream stay longer at fin surfaces. The air flow in FTHE with WL is not as much separated as the conventional FTHE since the zigzag wavy louver restricts flow separation. The paper gives valuable suggestions for cooling capability improvement and radiator volume diminution.
•A three-dimensional steady-state FTHE model is developed in OpenFOAM.•Novel structural designs based on wavy-louvred fin and VGs are proposed.•L-VGs has highest heat transfer coefficient while WL-VGs has highest pressure drop.•VGs generates high-temperature wakes and promotes local heat convection.•Vortex zone behind VGs makes air stream stay longer at fin surfaces.
Over 50% of patients with heart failure have preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), rather than reduced ejection fraction. Complexity of its pathophysiology and the lack of animal models hamper the ...development of effective therapy for HFpEF.
This study was designed to investigate the metabolic mechanisms of HFpEF and test therapeutic interventions using a novel animal model.
By combining the age, long-term high-fat diet, and desoxycorticosterone pivalate challenge in a mouse model, we were able to recapture the myriad features of HFpEF. In these mice, mitochondrial hyperacetylation exacerbated while increasing ketone body availability rescued the phenotypes. The HFpEF mice exhibited overproduction of IL (interleukin)-1β/IL-18 and tissue fibrosis due to increased assembly of NLPR3 inflammasome on hyperacetylated mitochondria. Increasing β-hydroxybutyrate level attenuated NLPR3 inflammasome formation and antagonized proinflammatory cytokine-triggered mitochondrial dysfunction and fibrosis. Moreover, β-hydroxybutyrate downregulated the acetyl-CoA pool and mitochondrial acetylation, partially via activation of CS (citrate synthase) and inhibition of fatty acid uptake.
Therefore, we identify the interplay of mitochondrial hyperacetylation and inflammation as a key driver in HFpEF pathogenesis, which can be ameliorated by promoting β-hydroxybutyrate abundance.
Periodontitis is a common public health problem worldwide and an inflammatory disease with irregular defect of alveolar bone caused by periodontal pathogens. Both antibacterial therapy and bone ...regeneration are of great importance in the treatment of periodontitis. In this study, injectable and thermosensitive hydrogels with 3D networks were used as carriers for controlled release of osteo-inductive agent (BMP-2) and Near Infrared Region-II (NIR-II) phototherapy agents (T8IC nano-particles). T8IC nano-particles were prepared by reprecipitation and acted as photosensitizer under 808 nm laser irradiation. Besides, we promoted photodynamic therapy (PDT) through adding H2O2 to facilitate the antibacterial effect instead of increasing the temperature of photothermal therapy (PTT). Hydrogel + T8IC + Laser + BMP-2 + H2O2 incorporated with mild PTT (45 °C), enhanced PDT and sustained release of BMP-2. It was present with excellent bactericidal effect, osteogenic induction and biosafety both in vitro and in vivo. Besides, immunohistochemistry staining and micro-CT analyses had confirmed that PTT and PDT could promote bone regeneration through alleviating inflammation state. Altogether, this novel approach with synergistic antibacterial effect, anti-inflammation and bone regeneration has a great potential for the treatment of periodontitis in the future.
MET exon 14 skipping is one of the rare mutations in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), involving its pathogenesis and progression. The performances of several MET inhibitors in clinical trials have ...been validated based on NGS, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and gene copy number assessments. Thus, a detailed understanding of the relationship between these markers and prognosis is required.
This study has recruited patients (n = 17) with MET exon 14 skipping mutation and initially screened genes (n = 10) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from 257 specimens of NSCLC, including small biopsies and surgical resection. Further, the IHC analysis detected MET overexpression and recorded the score using the MetMAb trial (rial ( recruited patients (n = 17) with MET exstainings). Finally, the fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) resulted in the MET amplification with a MET copy number initially screened genes (n = 10) by p.
PCR results indicated strong MET staining ( 3+) in more than 50% of tumor cells. Among the recruited 17 cases of MET exon 14 skipping, 9 cases presented MET amplification, and 10 cases with MET overexpression. These attributes were not correlated to the clinicopathological characteristics and overall survival. In addition, 4 cases showed gene amplification, and 3 cases presented polyploidy condition. The correlation analysis showed a significant relationship between MET amplification and MET overexpression (Pearson's r2 = 0.4657, P < 0.005).
Together, these findings indicated a significant correlation between MET overexpression and MET amplification in NSCLC patients but no correlation to prognosis.
Type IV secreted effectors (T4SEs) can be translocated into the cytosol of host cells via type IV secretion system (T4SS) and cause diseases. However, experimental approaches to identify T4SEs are ...time- and resource-consuming, and the existing computational tools based on machine learning techniques have some obvious limitations such as the lack of interpretability in the prediction models. In this study, we proposed a new model, T4SE-XGB, which uses the eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) algorithm for accurate identification of type IV effectors based on optimal features based on protein sequences. After trying 20 different types of features, the best performance was achieved when all features were fed into XGBoost by the 5-fold cross validation in comparison with other machine learning methods. Then, the ReliefF algorithm was adopted to get the optimal feature set on our dataset, which further improved the model performance. T4SE-XGB exhibited highest predictive performance on the independent test set and outperformed other published prediction tools. Furthermore, the SHAP method was used to interpret the contribution of features to model predictions. The identification of key features can contribute to improved understanding of multifactorial contributors to host-pathogen interactions and bacterial pathogenesis. In addition to type IV effector prediction, we believe that the proposed framework can provide instructive guidance for similar studies to construct prediction methods on related biological problems. The data and source code of this study can be freely accessed at https://github.com/CT001002/T4SE-XGB.
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