Abstract
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have become a research hotspot in recent years with their universality, diversity, stability, conservativeness, and spatiotemporal specificity. N
6
-methyladenosine ...(m
6
A), the most abundant modification in the eukaryotic cells, is engaged in the pathophysiological processes of various diseases. An increasing amount of evidence has suggested that m
6
A modification is common in circRNAs and is associated with their biological functions. This review summarizes the effects of m
6
A modification on circRNAs and their regulation mechanisms in cancers, providing some suggestions of m
6
A-modified circRNAs in cancer therapy.
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Emulsion polymerization is a versatile approach to produce different polymeric nanoparticle morphologies, which can be useful in a variety of applications. However, the detailed ...mechanism of the morphology formation is not entirely clear. We study the kinetics of nanoparticle morphology evolution during a seeded emulsion polymerization using both experimental and computational tools. Lightly crosslinked polystyrene seeds were first synthesized using dispersion polymerization. Then the seed particles were swollen in tert-butyl acrylate and styrene monomers, and subsequently polymerized into nanoparticles of dumbbell and multilobe morphologies. It was discovered that both the seed and final particle morphology were affected by the methanol concentration during the seed synthesis. Systematically adjusting the methanol amount will not only yield spherical seed particles of different size, but also dumbbell particles even without the second monomer polymerization. In addition to methanol concentration, morphology can be controlled by crosslinking density. The kinetics studies revealed an interesting transition from multilobe to dumbbell geometries during the secondary polymerization. Based on the results, a nucleation-growth model has been proposed to describe the morphology evolution and verification was offered by computer simulation. The key discovery is that nanoparticle morphology can be kinetically controlled by diffusion of the protrusions on the seed particles. The condition of seed synthesis and crosslinking density will drastically change the seed and final nanoparticle morphology.
Toroidal droplets are inherently unstable in viscous oils; they either shrink to a single drop or break into several spherical droplets due to Rayleigh–Plateau instability. In this paper, the breakup ...dynamics of toroidal droplets in immiscible viscous oils have been numerically investigated. A two-dimensional model combined level-set method is proposed. Numerical results reveal that the initial aspect ratios, interfacial tensions, and outer liquid viscosities play important roles in determining the breakup dynamics of toroidal droplets. The initial aspect ratios dominate the number of split droplets, which is consistent with a linearly scaling law n = 0.57 R0/a0. By considering key factors of interfacial tension in this process, it is found that interfacial tension is crucial in the initial morphology of the toroidal droplet and helps to retard the unstable breakup dynamics. Interestingly, reducing the interfacial tension stabilizes it against breakup. We further study the effect of viscosity on the breakup dynamics. The surrounding viscous oils contribute to stabilizing the interfacial-tension-driven instabilities and extending the breakup time. Thus, for a toroidal droplet in high viscosity oils and a sufficiently low interfacial tension system, the unstable breakup dynamics could be delayed. Our findings provide a novel fundamental understanding of toroidal droplets and are beneficial to applications involving the manipulation of toroidal droplets.
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•A green, low-cost and efficient adsorbent, polydopamine/β-cyclodextrin polymer/coal fly ash composite (PDA/β-CD/CFA), was first prepared to extract uranium.•The introduce of β-CD and ...PDA could not only enhance the hydrophily of CFA, but also bring abundant functional groups with good affinities to uranyl ions, like -NH2/NH.•The desorption efficiency of uranium by PDA/β-CD/CFA was still more than 90% after five cycles.•Uranium was mainly adsorbed by PDA/β-CD/CFA through chelation, complexing action, electrostatic interaction and hydrogen bonding.
To obtain a green, low-cost and efficient adsorbent, polydopamine (PDA) and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) were adopted to modify coal fly ash (CFA) to prepare polydopamine/β-cyclodextrin/coal fly ash composite (PDA/β-CD/CFA). The successful introduction of PDA and β-CD was proved by FT-IR, XRD and XPS. The uranium extraction efficiency on PDA/β-CD/CFA reached 95.6% (pH = 5.0, T = 298 K, C0 = 10 mg/L and m/V = 0.2 g/L) and the whole adsorption process was perfectly fitted by the Pseudo-second-order model (R2 = 0.999), illustrating that uranium was extracted via chemisorption. The correlation coefficient R2 of Langmuir model was 0.999, which was higher than other models, meaning that uranium extraction behavior on PDA/β-CD/CFA was uniform monolayer adsorption. The maximum extraction capacity of uranium on PDA/β-CD/CFA calculated by Langmuir model was 537.6 mg/g, which was larger than most of reported adsorbents, indicating that PDA/β-CD/CFA was a potential candidate for uranium extraction from water environment. Moreover, PDA/β-CD/CFA performed excellent uranium extraction properties with the existence of coexisting ions and the desorption efficiency of uranium by PDA/β-CD/CFA was higher to 95.8% at the fifth cycles, fully suggesting that PDA/β-CD/CFA possessed good selectivity and cycle stability. Characterization results demonstrated that uranium was immobilized on PDA/β-CD/CFA through chelation, complexing action, electrostatic interaction and hydrogen bonding.
It has been reported that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can be regarded as a biomarker and had particular clinical significance for early screening and gastric cancer (GC) diagnosis. Therefore, this ...study aimed to investigate whether serum HCP5 could be a new diagnostic biomarker.
Filtered out the HCP5 from the GEO database. The specificity of HCP5 was verified by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR), and then the stability of HCP5 was verified by room temperature storage and repeated freeze-thaw experiments. Meanwhile, the accuracy of HCP5 was verified by agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE) and Sanger sequencing. Simultaneously, the expression level of serum HCP5 was detected by qRT-PCR in 98 patients with primary gastric cancer, 21 gastritis patients, 82 healthy donors, and multiple cancer types. Then, the methodology analysis was carried on. Moreover, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) was used to evaluate its diagnostic efficiency.
qRT-PCR method had good repeatability and stability in detecting HCP5. The expression level of HCP5 in the serum of gastric cancer patients was remarkably higher than that of healthy controls, and it could distinguish gastritis patients from healthy donors. Besides, the expression of HCP5 was increased dramatically in MKN-45 and MGC-803. The FISH assay showed that HCP5 was mainly distributed in the cytoplasm of MKN-45 and BGC-823 cells. When HCP5 was combined with existing tumor markers, the diagnostic efficiency of HCP5 was the best, and the combined diagnosis of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen199 (CA199), and HCP5 can significantly improve the diagnostic sensitivity. Besides, compared with the expression levels of thyroid cancer (THCA), colorectal cancer (CRC), and breast cancer (BRCA), serum HCP5 in gastric cancer was the most specific. Moreover, the high expression of serum HCP5 was related to differentiation, lymph node metastasis, and nerve invasion. The term of serum HCP5 after the operation was significantly lower than that of patients with primary gastric cancer.
Serum HCP5 can be used as a potential biomarker of non-invasive fluid biopsy, which had a unique value in the early diagnosis, development, and prognosis of gastric cancer.
Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the malignant tumors with the highest morbidity and mortality in the world. Early diagnosis combined with surgical treatment can significantly improve the prognosis of ...patients. Therefore, it is urgent to seek higher sensitivity and specificity biomarkers in GC. tRNA-derived small RNAs are a new non-coding small RNA that widely exists in tumor cells and body fluids. In this study, we explore the expression and biological significance of tRNA-derived small RNAs in GC.
First of all, we screened the differentially expressed tRNA-derived small RNAs in tumor tissues by high-throughput sequencing. Agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE), Sanger sequencing, and Nuclear and Cytoplasmic RNA Separation Assay were used to screen tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD as a potential tumor biomarker for the diagnosis of GC. Then, we detected the different expressions of tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD in 24 pairs of GC and paracancerous tissues, the serum of 111 GC patients at first diagnosis, 89 normal subjects, 48 superficial gastritis patients, and 28 postoperative GC patients by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Finally, we used the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to analyze its diagnostic efficacy.
The expression of tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD has good stability and easy detection. tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD was highly expressed in tumor tissue, serum, and cell lines of GC, and the expression was significantly related to TNM stage, depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis, and vascular invasion. The expression of serum tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD in the GC patients decreased after the operation (
= 0.0003). Combined with ROC curve analysis, tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD has better detection efficiency than conventional markers.
The expressions of tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD in the tumor and paracancerous tissues, the serum of GC patients and healthy people, and the serum of GC patients before and after operation were different. tRF-31-U5YKFN8DYDZDD is not only a diagnostic biomarker of GC but also a predictor of poor prognosis.
More and more studies have shown that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play an essential role in the occurrence and development of tumors. Hence, they can be used as biomarkers to assist in diagnosing ...tumors. This study focuses on exploring the role of circular RNA (hsa_circ_0070354) in the diagnosis and prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
First of all, high-throughput sequencing was used to find the difference in the expression of circular RNA between NSCLC and adjacent tissues. The circRNAs with higher differences in expression were selected to verify their expressions in tissues, cells, and serum using qRT-PCR. Secondly, the hsa_circ_0070354 with a significant difference was chosen as the research goal, and the molecular properties were verified by agarose gel electrophoresis and Sanger sequencing, etc. Then, actinomycin D and repeated freeze-thaw were used to explore the stability and repeatability of hsa_circ_0070354. Finally, the expression of hsa_circ_0070354 in serum of 133 patients with NSCLC and 97 normal donors was detected, and its sensitivity, specificity, and prognosis as tumor markers were statistically analyzed.
Hsa_circ_0070354 was highly expressed in tissues, cells, and serum of NSCLC, and it has the characteristics of sensitivity, stability, and repeatability. The ROC curve indicates that hsa_circ_0070354 is superior to conventional tumor markers in detecting NSCLC, and the combined diagnosis is of more significance in the diagnosis. The high expression of hsa_circ_0070354 is closely related to the late-stage, poor differentiation of the tumor and the short survival time of the patients, which is an independent indicator of poor prognosis.
Hsa_circ_0070354 is not only a novel sensitive index for the diagnosis of NSCLC but also a crucial marker for bad biological behavior.
Exosomes are a group of nano-sized membrane vesicles and are important mediators of intercellular communication, particularly in tumor microenvironment. Recently, researchers have found that circular ...RNAs (circRNAs), with the great research significance, are enriched and stable in exosomes. In this review, we summarize the research significance of exosomal circRNAs, sorting mechanisms and their functioning mechanisms in tumor progression. Their clinical applications as clinical tumor biomarkers and as therapeutic targets in inhibiting tumor metastasis, anti-cancer immunity response and drug resistance have been widely discussed.
Natural rubber formulation methodologies implemented within industry primarily implicate a high dependence on the formulator's experience as it involves an educated guess-and-check process. The ...formulator must leverage their experience to ensure that the number of iterations to the final blend composition is minimized. The study presented in this paper includes the implementation of blend formulation methodology that targets material properties relevant to the application in which the product will be used by incorporating predictive models, including linear regression, response surface method (RSM), artificial neural networks (ANNs), and Gaussian process regression (GPR). Training of such models requires data, which is equal to financial resources in industry. To ensure minimum experimental effort, the dataset is kept small, and the model complexity is kept simple, and as a proof of concept, the predictive models are used to reverse engineer a current material used in the footwear industry based on target viscoelastic properties (relaxation behavior, tanδ, and hardness), which all depend on the amount of crosslinker, plasticizer, and the quantity of voids used to create the lightweight high-performance material. RSM, ANN, and GPR result in prediction accuracy of 90%, 97%, and 100%, respectively. It is evident that the testing accuracy increases with algorithm complexity; therefore, these methodologies provide a wide range of tools capable of predicting compound formulation based on specified target properties, and with a wide range of complexity.
Despite the continuous improvement of various therapeutic techniques, the overall prognosis of tumors has been significantly improved, but malignant tumors in the middle and advanced stages still ...cannot be completely cured. It is now evident that cell adhesion-mediated resistance (CAM-DR) limits the success of cancer therapies and is a great obstacle to overcome in the clinic. The interactions between tumor cells and extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules or adjacent cells may play a significant role in initiating the intracellular signaling pathways that are associated with cell proliferation, survival upon binding to their ligands. Recent studies illustrate that these adhesion-related factors may contribute to the survival of cancer cells after chemotherapeutic therapy, advantageous to resistant cells to proliferate and develop multiple mechanisms of drug resistance. In this review, we focus on the molecular basis of these interactions and the main signal transduction pathways that are involved in the enhancement of the cancer cells’ survival. Furthermore, therapies targeting interactions between cancer cells and their environment to enhance drug response or prevent the emergence of drug resistance will also be discussed.
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