Xylanases have useful applications in a wide range of industries. In this regard, Pichia pastoris has become one of the most attractive host platforms for large-scale production of xylanases. ...However, genomic engineering is still required for overexpression and efficient secretion. In this paper, we applied droplet-based method to screen directed evolved extracellular xylanase producing P. pastoris strain. Xylanase-producing P. pastoris cells were encapsulated in gel microdroplets with a fluorogenic reporter substrate. Improved production of xylanase increases fluorescence intensity of gel microdroplets, enabled accurate selection of evolved clones by droplet sorting. The screening strategy was validated by identifying yeast with improved xylanase production from a mixed sample with a positive selection accuracy of up to 98%. After three rounds of mutagenesis and selection, approximately 108 variants were screened, and a P. pastoris clone with more than 1.3-fold increase in xylanase activity was identified, representing cellular functions improvement of the production host. The throughput of this approach was at least 103-fold higher than that of the robot-assisted microtiter plate reader, and reagent consumption was reduced by ∼106-fold. Furthermore, the greatly shortened incubation time prior screening significantly accelerated the process of directed evolution.
Cancer patients with newly created ostomies face complications that reduce quality of life (QOL) and increase morbidity and mortality. This proof-of-concept study examined the feasibility, usability, ...acceptability, and initial efficacy of an eHealth program titled the "Patient Reported Outcomes-Informed Symptom Management System" (PRISMS) during post-ostomy creation care transition.
We conducted a 2-arm pilot randomized controlled trial among 23 patients who received surgical treatment with curative intent for bladder and colorectal cancer and their caregivers. After assessing QOL, general symptoms, and caregiver burden at baseline, participants were randomly assigned to PRISMS (n = 16 dyads) or usual care (UC) (n = 7 dyads). After a 60-day intervention period, participants completed a follow-up survey and post-exit interview. We used descriptive statistics and t-tests to analyze the data.
We achieved an 86.21% recruitment rate and a 73.91% retention rate. Among the PRISMS participants who used the system and biometric devices (n = 14, 87.50%), 46.43% used the devices for ≥ 50 days during the study period. Participants reported PRISMS as useful and acceptable. Compared to their UC counterparts, PRISMS patient social well-being scores decreased over time and had an increased trend of physical and emotional well-being; PRISMS caregivers experienced a greater decrease in caregiver burden.
PRISMS recruitment and retention rates were comparable to existing family-based intervention studies. PRISMS is a useful and acceptable multilevel intervention with the potential to improve the health outcomes of cancer patients needing ostomy care and their caregivers during post-surgery care transition. A sufficiently powered RCT is needed to test its effects.
ClinicalTrial.gov ID: NCT04492007. Registration date: 30/07/2020.
Purpose
This study aimed to examine the effects of participant role (patient vs. partner), race (white vs. non‐white), and place (less vs. more neighborhood deprivation) on health outcomes (quality ...of life QOL and symptoms) and stress‐coping‐related psychosocial factors (appraisals of illness and coping resources).
Methods
This descriptive study included 273 patients and their partners (dyads) who transitioned from PCa treatment to self‐management. We used established, psychometrically sound measures to assess health outcomes and psychosocial factors and conducted multilevel modeling analyses.
Results
Compared to partners, patients reported worse physical QOL; less frequent anxiety; less pain and fatigue; less bothersome hormonal problems; more bothersome urinary and sexual problems; greater self‐efficacy; and more instrumental support. Compared to their white counterparts, non‐white dyads reported better overall, emotional, and functional QOL; less depression; more positive appraisals, and greater self‐efficacy. Compared to dyads in low ADI neighborhoods, dyads in high ADI (more deprived) neighborhoods reported worse social QOL; more bothersome urinary, sexual, and hormonal symptoms; and less interpersonal support. White patients reported the highest emotional support among all groups, while white partners reported the lowest emotional support.
Conclusion
Our findings underscore the need to consider social determinants of health at multiple levels when investigating PCa disparities. Considering neighborhood‐level socioeconomic factors, in addition to race and role, improves our understanding of the PCa disparities in QOL, symptoms, and psychosocial factors among patients and partners. Targeted multilevel supportive care interventions should tailor to the needs of racially diverse PCa patients and partners residing in deprived neighborhoods are needed.
This study used a multilevel approach to examine the effects of role, race, and ADI on health outcomes and psychosocial factors among patients with PCa and their partners, controlling for various demographic and cancer‐related covariates. Our work contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of PCa disparities than previous research focusing on individual‐ and/or family‐level factors (e.g., race and role). In addition to personal‐ and family‐focused strategies, supportive care programs should be tailored at multiple levels and provide adequate support to address neighborhood resource disparities, and ultimately, to reduce PCa disparities for patients and their partners and improve their health outcomes.
Healthcare Delivery Randomized clinical trials (RCT) that test the effects of dyadic interventions often face challenges in recruitment and retention. Because most cancer-focused RCTs recruit ...convenience samples from local cancer centers and hospitals, little is known about recruitment and retention using a population-based cancer cohort. This study describes the recruitment and retention of patient-partner dyads using a cancer registry to obtain participants for an RCT testing the efficacy of a dyadic, tailored eHealth intervention to improve quality of life in patients with prostate cancer and their partners. This study was a two-arm, parallel groups RCT. Men who recently completed treatment for localize prostate cancer were recruited from the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry Rapid Case Ascertainment (NCCCR RCA) from April 2018 to February 2021. Notably, recruitment coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. After receiving a list of patients from the NCCCR RCA, we mailed patients' physicians an introductory letter that included the ability to opt out if they preferred that their patient(s) not participate. Next, introductory letters were mailed to patients, who were further screened for eligibility, invited to participate, and asked for permission to contact their partner. Using the same procedure, we obtained informed consent from the partners for their study participation. After baseline assessments, patient-partner dyads were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Dyads completed follow-up surveys 4-, 8-, and 12-month post-baseline. Data for this report were extracted from the research administrative log and analyzed using descriptive analyses. See the Consort Diagram (Fig.i) for participant flow through the study. Of 3,078 patients referred from RCA, 2,899 were contacted for screening; 2,195 partners were approached after obtaining patients' permission; 280 patient-partner dyads completed baseline assessments and were randomized (enrollment rate: 12.76%; 95% CI (11.39%, 14.22%); and 221 dyads completed the 12-month follow-up (retention rate: 78.93%; 95% CI (73.68%, 83.56%). Referral and recruitment were significantly affected by the pandemic. Conclusions: Despite the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we used the NCCCR RCA to achieve a recruitment rate for patient-partner dyads that was equivalent to other epidemiologic cohort studies. Our retention rate was higher than the retention rates in most dyadic intervention studies (69%). A well-functioning research team and specific strategies (e.g. eHealth intervention, Internet phone, online surveys) facilitated recruitment and retention in this population-based, dyadic study with cancer patients and their partners.
Abstract Purpose To examine the associations of role (localized prostate cancer (PCa) patient vs. their intimate partner), area deprivation index (ADI—higher scores indicating higher neighborhood ...deprivation levels), and race (Black/African American (AA) vs. White) with health behaviors and body mass index (BMI) among PCa patients and partners. The behaviors include smoking, alcohol consumption, diet quality, sedentary behaviors, and physical activity (PA). Methods This study used the baseline data collected in a clinical trial. Given the nested structure of the dyadic data, multi-level models were used. Results Significant role-race interaction effects on smoking, ADI-race effects on alcohol consumption, and role-ADI effects on BMI were found. Meanwhile, patients smoked more cigarettes, decreased alcohol consumption, had less healthful diets, spent longer time watching TV, did fewer sedentary hobbies, had more confidence in PA, and had higher BMIs than their partners. High ADI was independently associated with lower odds of drinking alcohol, using computer/Internet, and doing non-walking PA, and higher BMI compared to low ADI controlling for role and race. Black/AA dyads had less smoking amount and alcohol consumption and higher sedentary time and BMI than White dyads when adjusted for role and ADI. Conclusions This study identified significant interaction and main effects of role, ADI, or race on health behaviors and BMI. Implications for Cancer Survivors Future behavioral interventions should address divergent individual needs between patients and partners, social and neighborhood barriers, and cultural indicators of racial groups to promote healthful behaviors and improve the quality of survivorship for PCa patients and partners.
Development of highly efficient circularly polarized organic light‐emitting diodes (CPOLEDs) has gained increasing interest as they show improved luminous efficiency and high contract 3D images in ...OLED displays. In this work, a series of binaphthalene‐containing luminogenic enantiomers with aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) and delayed fluorescence properties is designed and synthesized. These molecules can emit from green to red light depending on the solvent polarity due to the twisted intramolecular charge transfer effect. However, their solid powders show bright light emissions, demonstrating a phenomenon of AIE. All the molecules exhibit Cotton effects and circularly polarized luminescence in toluene solution and films. Multilayer CPOLEDs using the doped and neat films of the molecules as emitting layers are fabricated, which exhibit high external quantum efficiency of up to 9.3% and 3.5% and electroluminescence dissymmetry factor (gEL) of up to +0.026/−0.021 and +0.06/−0.06, respectively. Compared with doped CPOLEDs, the nondoped ones show higher gEL and much smaller current efficiency roll‐off due to the stronger AIE effect. By altering the donor unit, the electroluminescence maximum of the doped film can vary from 493 to 571 nm. As far as it is known, this is the first example of efficient CPOLEDs based on small chiral organic molecules.
Binaphthalene‐containing chiral aggregation‐induced emission luminogens with delayed fluorescence are designed and synthesized. Circularly polarized organic light‐emitting diodes using the doped and neat films of the molecules as emitting layers are fabricated. The devices exhibit external quantum efficiencies of up to 9.3% and 3.5% and electroluminescence dissymmetry factors of up to +0.026/−0.021 and +0.06/−0.06, respectively.
Mimicking fish lateral line for hydrodynamic sensing, various artificial lateral line systems have been developed for underwater robotics. However, previous studies of artificial lateral line systems ...for underwater source localization were based on a single sensing modality of either pressure or flow velocity. Inspired by the functions of flow and pressure receptors of fish, in this article, we developed an artificial lateral line system integrated with pressure sensors and flow velocity sensors. A dual-sensor fusion modality was proposed to locate near-field dipole source by measuring hydrodynamic signals. A multilayer perceptron neural network was constructed to process the pressure and flow velocity signals and to predict near-field dipole coordinates in two and three dimensions. In a 2-D plane, compared with a single pressure- or velocity-sensing modality, the dual-sensor fusion modality reduced the mean localization error by 30%. In a 3-D space, the mean localization error based on the dual-sensor fusion modality was approximately 0.1 body lengths, when considering a source located within one body length from the artificial lateral line. In addition, we studied the influence of the number of sensors on the localization accuracy via analysis of variance. Our experimental results indicated that the bio-inspired dual-sensor fusion modality is beneficial for improving the performance of artificial lateral line systems for underwater source localization.
Due to the high affinity with water molecules, amide compounds are easily contaminated by moisture; therefore, the water interference effect cannot be totally excluded from the amide‐involved ...reactions. Thus, the perfect solution is to use the interference effect but not shield it in a real application. In this work, we introduced different contents of sodium acrylate (AAS) to scavenge water from the monomers of N‐isopropylacrylamide (NIPAm) when copolymerized with TPA‐Vinyl‐4CN. Herein, water molecules play a role as nucleophilic reagents to attack highly active functional groups as –C=C–CN from TPA‐Vinyl‐4CN, leading to a blue emissive TPA‐Vinyl‐2CHO. From this study, we made a deep awareness of the interactions between three reaction partners of AAS and NIPAm as well as TPA‐Vinyl‐4CN. Our results clearly demonstrated the fact that water can be perfectly used and controlled by the water absorbent of AAS, developing a new approach to synthesizing multiple emission‐coloured polymers by using only one luminogen of TPA‐Vinyl‐4CN.
A set of full‐colour emission materials was successfully prepared by using a single fluorescent core of TPA‐Vinyl‐4CN. A deep awareness of the interactions between monomers of sodium acrylate (water absorbent) and N‐isopropylacrylamide (water supplier) as well as TPA‐Vinyl‐4CN (water sensor) during the radical polymerization process was achieved.
There is a great demand to understand cell transplantation, migration, division, fusion, and lysis. Correspondingly, illuminant object-labeled bioprobes have been employed as long-term cellular ...tracers, which could provide valuable insights into detecting these biological processes. In this work, we designed and synthesized a fluorescent polymer, which was comprised of hydrophilic N-isopropylacrylamide polymers as matrix and a hydrophobic tetraphenylethene (TPE) unit as AIE-active cross-linkers (DDBV). It was found that when the feed molar ratio of N-isopropylacrylamides to cross-linkers was 22:1, the produced polymers demonstrated the desirable LCST at 37.5 °C. And also, the temperature sensitivity of polymers could induce phase transfer within a narrow window (32–38 °C). Meanwhile, phase transfer was able to lead the florescent response. And thus, we concluded that two responses occur when one stimulus is input. Therefore, the new cross-linker of DDBV rendered a new performance from PNIPAm and a new chance to create new materials. Moreover, the resulted polymers demonstrated very good biocompatibility with living A549 human lung adenocarcinoma cells and L929 mouse fibroblast cells, respectively. Both of these cells retained very active viabilities in the concentration range of 7.8–125 μL/mg of polymers. Notably, P(NIPAm)22–(DDBV)1 (P6) could be readily internalized by living cells with a noninvasive manner. The cellular staining by the fluorescent polymer is so indelible that it enables cell tracing for at least 10 passages.
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