Anion exchange membrane (AEM) materials were prepared from commercial polysulfone (PSf) by functionalization with tertiary amines via lithiation chemistry. By optimizing the reaction conditions, a ...degree of substitution (DS) of 0.81 could be achieved without evident polymer decomposition or cross-linking. The PSf containing pendent bis(phenyldimethylamine) substituents were then quaternized with CH3I and ion exchange reaction to provide bis(phenyltrimethylammonium) (PTMA) polymer with hydroxide-conductive properties. Flexible and tough membranes with various ion exchange capacities (IEC)s could be prepared by casting the polymers from DMAc solutions. The ionomeric membranes showed considerably lower water uptake (less than 20%), and thus dimensional swelling in water, compared with many reported AEMs. The hydroxide conductivities of the membranes were above 10 mS/cm at room temperature. The unusually low water uptake and good hydroxide conductivity may be attributed to the “side-chain-type” structures of pendent functional groups, which facilitate ion transport. Although the PTMA substituents on the AEM were found to have insufficient long-term stability for alkaline fuel cell application, the investigation gives some insight and directions for polymeric designs by postfunctionalization.
Improving cancer therapy by targeting the adverse tumor microenvironment (TME) rather than the cancer cells presents a novel and potentially effective strategy. In this study, we introduced Fe
Mo
S ...nanoparticles (NPs), which act as sequential bioreactors to manipulate the TME. Fe
Mo
S NPs were synthesized using thermal decomposition and modified with polyethylene glycol (PEG). Their morphology, chemical composition, and photothermal properties were characterized. The capability to produce ROS and deplete GSH was evaluated. Effects on CRC cells, including cell viability, apoptosis, and glycolysis, were tested through various in vitro assays. In vivo efficacy was determined using CRC-bearing mouse models and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models. The impact on the MAPK signaling pathway and tumor metabolism was also examined. The Fe
Mo
S NPs showed efficient catalytic activity, leading to increased ROS production and GSH depletion, inducing ferroptosis, and suppressing glycolysis in CRC cells. In vivo, the NPs significantly inhibited tumor growth, particularly when combined with NIR light therapy, indicating a synergistic effect of photothermal therapy and chemodynamic therapy. Biosafety assessments revealed no significant toxicity in treated mice. RNA sequencing suggested that the NPs impact metabolism and potentially immune processes within CRC cells. Fe
Mo
S NPs present a promising multifaceted approach for CRC treatment, effectively targeting tumor cells while maintaining biosafety. The nanoparticles exhibit potential for clinical translation, offering a new avenue for cancer therapy.
The accumulation of potentially toxic elements in soil poses significant risks to ecosystems and human well-being due to their inherent toxicity, widespread presence, and persistence. The Kangdian ...metallogenic province, famous for its iron-copper deposits, faces soil pollution challenges due to various potentially toxic elements. This study explored a comprehensive approach that combinescombines the spatial prediction by the two-point machine learning method and ecological-health risk assessment to quantitatively assess the comprehensive potential ecological risk index (PERI), the total hazard index (THI) and the total carcinogenic risk (TCR). The proportions of copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), and arsenic (As) concentrations exceeding the risk screening values (RSVs) were 15.03%, 5.1%, 3.72%, 1.24%, 1.1%, and 0.13%, respectively, across the 725 collected samples. Spatial prediction revealed elevated levels of As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, mercury (Hg), and Mn near the mining sites. Potentially toxic elements exert a slight impact on soil, some regions exhibit moderate to significant ecological risk, particularly in the southwest. Children face higher non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic health risks compared to adults. Mercury poses the highest ecological risk, while chromium (Cr) poses the greatest health hazard for all populations. Oral ingestion represents the highest non-oncogenic and oncogenic risks in all age groups. Adults faced acceptable non-carcinogenic risks. Children in the southwest region confront higher health risks, both non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic, from mining activities. Urgent measures are vital to mitigate Hg and Cr contamination while promoting handwashing practices is essential to minimize health risks.
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•Spatial prediction unveils potentially toxic element distinct patterns and hotspots.•Chromium poses the highest health risks for all groups in the metallogenic province.•Oral ingestion has the highest non-oncogenic and oncogenic risks in all age groups.•Kids face higher ecological-health risks than adults due to hand-to-mouth habits.
A new bisphenol monomer, 9,9-bis(3,5-dimethoxy-4-hydroxyphenyl) fluorene, was synthesized and polymerized to form fluorene-based poly(arylene ether sulfone) copolymers containing tetra-methoxy groups ...(MPAES). After converting the methoxy group to the reactive hydroxyl group, the respective side-chain type sulfonated copolymers (SPAES) were obtained by sulfobutylation. The polymers were characterized by 1H NMR, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), water uptake, and proton and methanol transport for fuel cell applications. These SPAES copolymers had good overall properties as polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) materials, having high proton conductivity in the range of 0.061–0.209 and 0.146–0.365 S/cm at 30 and 80 °C (under hydrated conditions), respectively. SPAES-39 (IEC = 1.93 mequiv/g) showed higher or comparable proton conductivity than that of Nafion 117 at 50–95% RH (relative humidity). The methanol permeabilities of these membranes were in the range of 3.22 to 13.1 × 10–7 cm2/s, which is lower than Nafion (15.5 × 10–7 cm2/s). In comparison with some reported sulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone)s containing pendent sulfophenyl groups, the present fluorene-based SPAES containing clustered flexible pendent aliphatic sulfonic acid groups displayed better properties, such as lower water uptake and higher proton conductivities. A combination of high proton conductivities, low water uptake, and low methanol permeabilities for selected SPAES indicates that they are good candidate proton exchange membrane materials for evaluation in fuel cell applications.
The cancer testis antigen, melanoma-associated antigen A9 (MAGE-A9), is expressed in many kinds of different human cancers, and is an important target for immunotherapy. However, the ...clinicopathologic significance of MAGE-A9 in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is unknown. In this study, real-time PCR (12 carcinomas of high FIGO stage, 12 carcinomas of low FIGO stage, and 20 normal ovary or fallopian tube tissues) and immunohistochemistry by tissue microarrays (128 carcinomas and 112 normal ovary or fallopian tube tissues, benign or borderline ovarian tumor tissues) were performed to characterize expression of MAGE-A9 in EOC. We found that significantly higher MAGE-A9 mRNA expression in EOC tumors than that in normal ovary or fallopian tube tissues (all P < 0.05). Protein expression of MAGE-A9 was significantly associated with FIGO stage, high histological grade, level of CA-125 and metastasis. Consistent with the associated poor clinicopathologic features, patients with MAGE-A9(H (high-expressing)) tumors had a worse overall survival as compared to patients with MAGE-A9(L (low or none-expressing)) tumors. Further studies revealed that MAGE-A9 overexpression was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (OS). Multivariate analysis showed that patients with MAGE-A9 overexpressing tumors had extremely poor OS. These findings indicate that MAGE-A9 expression may be helpful in predicting EOC prognosis.
contains a variety of monoterpenoid indole alkaloids (MIAs), among which bisindole alkaloids vinblastine and vincristine are well-known to have antitumor effects and widely used in clinical ...treatment. However, their contents in
is extremely low and difficult to meet market demands. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the transcriptional regulation mechanism of MIAs biosynthesis for high yielding of bisindole alkaloids in
. Studies have shown that MIAs biosynthesis in
has complex temporal and spacial specificity and is under tight transcriptional regulation, especially bisindole alkaloids. In this study, an AP2/ERF transcription factor CrERF5 was selected by RNA-seq of
organs, and its full-length sequence was cloned and characterized. CrERF5 responds to both ethylene and JA signals and is localized in the nucleus. CrERF5 could activate the transcriptional activity of the TDC promoter. Transient overexpressing CrERF5 in
petals caused a significant increase of the expression levels of key genes in both the upstream and downstream pathways of MIAs biosynthesis while silencing
resulted in a decrease of them. Accordingly, the contents of bisindole alkaloids anhydrovinblastine and vinblastine, monoindole alkaloids ajmalicine, vindoline, and catharanthine were strongly enhanced in
-overexpressing petals while their contents decreased in
-silenced plants. These results suggested that CrERF5 is a novel positive ethylene-JA-inducible AP2/ERF transcription factor upregulating the MIAs biosynthetic pathway leading to the bisindole alkaloids accumulation.
Abstract
The physics principle of pulse flight positioning is the main theoretical bottleneck that restricts the spatial resolution of the existing Raman distributed optical fiber sensing scheme. ...Owing to the pulse width of tens of nanoseconds, the spatial resolution of the existing Raman distributed optical fiber sensing scheme with kilometer-level sensing distance is limited to the meter level, which seriously restricts the development of the optical time-domain reflection system. In this paper, a chaos laser is proposed in the context of the physical principle of the Raman scattering effect, and a novel theory of chaos Raman distributed optical fiber sensing scheme is presented. The scheme reveals the characteristics of chaos Raman scattering light excited by a chaotic signal on the sensing fiber. Further, the chaos time-domain compression demodulation mechanism between the temperature variation information and chaos correlation peak is demonstrated. Then, the position of the temperature variation signal is precisely located using the delay time of the chaos correlation peak combined with the chaos pulse flight time. Based on this novel optical sensing mechanism, an experiment with 10 cm spatial resolution and 1.4 km sensing distance was conducted, and the spatial resolution was found to be independent of the sensing distance. Within the limit of the existing spatial resolution theory, the spatial resolution of the proposed scheme is 50 times higher than that of the traditional scheme. The scheme also provides a new research direction for optical chaos and optical fiber sensing.
In this paper, a novel bat algorithm with an asymmetrical weighed variational method (AWVM-BA) is proposed. The proposed algorithm employs the BA with a point-to-point modified asymmetrical variation ...above the three-dimensional flying region, which treats the space as sets of geodesics in a second order Euclidean weighed warped space. Mutation and the local selection procedure can be avoided at the same time, which solves the problem of a local optimum in concave regions. As shown in the results, the proposed algorithm does not have much impact on the calculation complexity and time in convex regions. It can greatly reduce the calculation time and avoid local optimization in concave regions. The disadvantage of the proposed algorithm is that the iteration number increases comparatively faster with the increase in the deviation of the wind speed. Therefore, it requires a higher hardware calculation ability.
In this paper, an on-chip bandpass filter with enhanced notch-band is proposed based on the artificial spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) structure around 60 GHz. The shapes of the tabs are ...modified to incorporate complementary slit-ring resonators (CSRRs) between tabs. The passband is produced by the first higher mode of the SSPP structure. By adding CSRRs, two notch frequencies have been produced in the passband. The advantage of the proposed structure is that these two transmission zeros are almost independent of each other and they do not have much impact on the frequency of the passband. Based on the measured results, the proposed filter has an insertion loss of 2.6 dB with the bandwidth of 14.3 GHz. The return loss is better than 12 dB. The notch-band has a bandwidth of 3.3 GHz with a suppression level over 20 dB. The proposed filter can be applied in the shared millimeter waveband of 5G communication systems.
Breeders and fanciers have established many peculiar morphological phenotypes in ornamental goldfish. Among them, the twin-tail and dorsal-finless phenotypes have particularly intrigued early and ...recent researchers, as equivalent morphologies are extremely rare in nature. These two mutated phenotypes appeared almost simultaneously within a short time frame and were fixed in several strains. However, little is known about how these two different mutations could have co-occurred during such a short time period. Here, we demonstrate that the chordin gene, a key factor in dorsal-ventral patterning, is responsible not only for the twin-tail phenotype but also for the dorsal-finless phenotype. Our F2 backcrossing and functional analyses revealed that the penetrance/expressivity of the dorsal-finless phenotype can be suppressed by the wild-type allele of chdS. Based on these findings, we propose that chdS
may have masked the expression of the dorsal-finless phenotype, acting as a capacitor buffering gene to allow accumulation of genetic mutations. Once this gene lost its original function in the twin-tail goldfish lineages, the dorsal-finless phenotype could be highly expressed. Thus, this study experimentally demonstrates that the rapid genetic fixation of morphological mutations during a short domestication time period may be related to the robustness of embryonic developmental mechanisms.
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