Breast cancer is regarded worldwide as a severe human disease. Various genetic variations, including hereditary and somatic mutations, contribute to the initiation and progression of this disease. ...The diagnostic parameters of breast cancer are not limited to the conventional protein content and can include newly discovered genetic variants and even genetic modification patterns such as methylation and microRNA. In addition, breast cancer detection extends to detailed breast cancer stratifications to provide subtype-specific indications for further personalized treatment. One genome-wide expression-methylation quantitative trait loci analysis confirmed that different breast cancer subtypes have various methylation patterns. However, recognizing clinically applied (methylation) biomarkers is difficult due to the large number of differentially methylated genes. In this study, we attempted to re-screen a small group of functional biomarkers for the identification and distinction of different breast cancer subtypes with advanced machine learning methods. The findings may contribute to biomarker identification for different breast cancer subtypes and provide a new perspective for differential pathogenesis in breast cancer subtypes.
The development of cancer diagnostic imaging and treatment is a major concern worldwide. By integrating imaging and therapy into one theranostic nanoplatform for simultaneously detecting tumors, ...evaluating the targeting ability and timely monitoring therapeutic responses provide more opportunities for precision medicine. Among various theranostic nanosystems, a series of single‐component nanoparticles (NPs) have been developed for “all‐in‐one” theranostics, which presents the unique properties of facile preparation, simple composition, defined structure, high reproducibility, and excellent biocompatibility. Specifically, utilizing single‐component NPs for both diagnostics and therapeutics can reduce the possible numerous untoward side effects and risks to the living body. In this review, the recent progress of multifunctional single‐component NPs in the applications of cancer theranostics is systematically summarized. Notably, the structure design, categories of NPs, targeted strategies, biomedical applications, potential barriers, challenges, and prospects for the future clinical practice of this rapidly growing field are discussed.
The development of cancer diagnostic imaging and treatment is a major concern worldwide. This review systematically summarizes the recent progress of multifunctional single‐component nanoparticles in the applications of cancer theranostics. The structure design, categories of nanoparticles, targeted strategies, biomedical applications, potential barriers, challenges, and prospects for the future clinical practice of this rapidly growing field are discussed.
A silver-loaded carbon-chitosan-polyvinyl alcohol gel (C/CTS/PVA) was designed for suppressing microbial growth and dye adsorption. The antibacterial test results showed that C/CTS/PVA gel had a good ...antibacterial ability against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The inhibition rate in water was 100 %, and the antibacterial rate remained above 95 % within 35 days after preparation. The tight spatial structure provided by the adhesive effect of PVA and CTS effectively prevented water loss and enhanced the stability of the gel. The adsorption curves of the gel were fitted by establishing the pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order kinetic models. The adsorption curves were more consistent with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The best adsorption effect for Malachite green was 128.12 mg/g. C/CTS/PVA gel had a remarkable adsorption effect on Malachite green, Congo red, Methyl orange, and Methylene blue. In general, C/CTS/PVA gels have great potential for the treatment of sewage in the future.
•A biochar-based gel was designed for suppressing microbial growth and dye absorption.•This gel had good antibacterial against S. aureus, E. coli, and P. aeruginosa.•The dye adsorption curve was consistent with the quasi-second-order kinetic model.•The best adsorption effect for malachite green was 128.12 mg/g.•C/CTS/PVA gels have great potential for the treatment of sewage.
Adult neural stem cells (NSCs) are a group of multi‐potent, self‐renewing progenitor cells that contribute to the generation of new neurons and oligodendrocytes. Three subtypes of NSCs can be ...isolated based on the stages of the NSC lineage, including quiescent neural stem cells (qNSCs), activated neural stem cells (aNSCs) and neural progenitor cells (NPCs). Although it is widely accepted that these three groups of NSCs play different roles in the development of the nervous system, their molecular signatures are poorly understood. In this study, we applied the Monte‐Carlo Feature Selection (MCFS) method to identify the gene expression signatures, which can yield a Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) value of 0.918 with a support vector machine evaluated by ten‐fold cross‐validation. In addition, some classification rules yielded by the MCFS program for distinguishing above three subtypes were reported. Our results not only demonstrate a high classification capacity and subtype‐specific gene expression patterns but also quantitatively reflect the pattern of the gene expression levels across the NSC lineage, providing insight into deciphering the molecular basis of NSC differentiation.
The program of MCFS method produced six IF‐THEN rules for identification of different subtypes of NSCs. The performance of these IF‐THEN rules is quite good and these rules provide a more clear picture for the classification of each NSC.
NAND flash memory is ubiquitous in everyday life today because its capacity has continuously increased and cost has continuously decreased over decades. This positive growth is a result of two key ...trends: 1) effective process technology scaling; and 2) multi-level (e.g., MLC, TLC) cell data coding. Unfortunately, the reliability of raw data stored in flash memory has also continued to become more difficult to ensure, because these two trends lead to 1) fewer electrons in the flash memory cell floating gate to represent the data; and 2) larger cell-to-cell interference and disturbance effects. Without mitigation, worsening reliability can reduce the lifetime of NAND flash memory. As a result, flash memory controllers in solid-state drives (SSDs) have become much more sophisticated: they incorporate many effective techniques to ensure the correct interpretation of noisy data stored in flash memory cells. In this article, we review recent advances in SSD error characterization, mitigation, and data recovery techniques for reliability and lifetime improvement. We provide rigorous experimental data from state-of-the-art MLC and TLC NAND flash devices on various types of flash memory errors, to motivate the need for such techniques. Based on the understanding developed by the experimental characterization, we describe several mitigation and recovery techniques, including 1) cell-to-cell interference mitigation; 2) optimal multi-level cell sensing; 3) error correction using state-of-the-art algorithms and methods; and 4) data recovery when error correction fails. We quantify the reliability improvement provided by each of these techniques. Looking forward, we briefly discuss how flash memory and these techniques could evolve into the future.
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•Lignin (47.1%) and xylan (44.6%) were removed at severity factor LogR0 = 3.67.•Linear relations with saccharification relation were fitted.•The cellulase digestibility of ...Betaine:LA-treated SCB was 73.8%.•Comprehensive understanding of Betaine:LA pretreated SCB was explored.
Green solvents, especially deep eutectic solvents (DESs), are widely applied to pretreat biomass for enhancing its enzymatic hydrolysis. In this work, lactic acid was selected as the hydrogen-bond-donor to prepare Betaine-base DES (Betaine:LA), The DES was utilized to pretreat sugarcane bagasse (SCB) at 160 ℃ for 80 min (severity factor LogR0 = 3.67). The influences of Betaine:LA treatment on the chemical composition, crystal and microstructure structure of cellulose, and cellulase digestion were investigated. The results showed that the lignin (47.1%) and xylan (44.6%) were removed, the cellulase digestibility of Betaine:LA-treated SCB was 4.2 times that of the raw material. This improved efficiency was attributed to the enhanced accessibility of cellulose, the weakened surface area of lignin, the declined hydrophobicity, and the decreased crystallinity of cellulose. Several compelling linear correlations were fitted between enzymatic hydrolysis and these alterations of physicochemical features, comprehensively understanding enzymatic saccharification of Betaine:LA-pretreated SCB.
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•Bulrush (BR) was effectively treated at 100 ℃ for 1 h (severity factor LogRo = 1.8).•NaOH-ChCl:Gly could remove lignin (80.1%) and xylan (66.8%) in BR.•The accessibility was greatly ...increased to 0.6 g/g BR via NaOH-ChCl:Gly treatment.•Treated BR had low hydrophobicity (1.56 L/g) and lignin surface area (417 m2/g).•The enzymatic digestibility of cellulose reached 87.9% after NaOH-ChCl:Gly treatment.
Glycerol (Gly) was selected as hydrogen-bond-donor for preparing ChCl-based DES (ChCl:Gly), and the mixture of ChCl:Gly (20 wt%) and NaOH (4 wt%) was utilized for combination pretreatment of bulrush at 100 °C for 60 min (severity factor LogRo = 1.78). The effects of DES pretreatment on the chemical composition, microstructure, crystal structure, and cellulase hydrolysis were explored. NaOH-ChCl:Gly could remove lignin (80.1%) and xylan (66.8%), and the enzymatic digestibility of cellulose reached 87.9%. The accessibility of bulrush was apparently increased to 645.2 mg/g after NaOH-ChCl:Gly pretreatment. The hydrophobicity and lignin surface area were reduced to 1.56 L/g and 417 m2/g, respectively. The crystallinity of cellulose was increased from 20.8% to 55.6%, and great changes in surface morphology were observed, which explained the improvement of enzymatic hydrolysis efficiency. Overall, DES combined with alkali treatment could effectively promote the removal of lignin and xylan in bulrush, thus the relative saccharification activity was greatly affected.
Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a major impediment to the success of cancer chemotherapy. The intracellular accumulation of drug and the intracellular release of drug molecules from the carrier could ...be the most important barriers for nanoscale carriers in overcoming MDR. We demonstrated that the redox-responsive micellar nanodrug carrier assembled from the single disulfide bond-bridged block polymer of poly(ε-caprolactone) and poly(ethyl ethylene phosphate) (PCL-SS-PEEP) achieved more drug accumulation and retention in MDR cancer cells. Such drug carrier rapidly released the incorporated doxorubicin (DOX) in response to the intracellular reductive environment. It therefore significantly enhanced the cytotoxicity of DOX to MDR cancer cells. It was demonstrated that nanoparticular drug carrier with either poly(ethylene glycol) or poly(ethyl ethylene phosphate) (PEEP) shell increased the influx but decreased the efflux of DOX by the multidrug resistant MCF-7/ADR breast cancer cells, in comparison with the direct incubation of MCF-7/ADR cells with DOX, which led to high cellular retention of DOX. Nevertheless, nanoparticles bearing PEEP shell exhibited higher affinity to the cancer cells. The shell detachment of the PCL-SS-PEEP nanoparticles caused by the reduction of intracellular glutathione significantly accelerated the drug release in MCF-7/ADR cells, demonstrated by the flow cytometric analyses, which was beneficial to the entry of DOX into the nuclei of MCF-7/ADR cells. It therefore enhanced the efficiency in overcoming MDR of cancer cells, which renders the redox-responsive nanoparticles promising in cancer therapy.
Since the outbreak in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has become a global pandemic. We analyzed and compared the clinical, laboratory, and radiological ...characteristics between survivors and non-survivors and identify risk factors for mortality.
Clinical and laboratory variables, radiological features, treatment approach, and complications were retrospectively collected in two centers of Hubei province, China. Cox regression analysis was conducted to identify the risk factors for mortality.
A total of 432 patients were enrolled, and the median patient age was 54 years. The overall mortality rate was 5.09% (22/432). As compared with the survivor group (n = 410), those in the non-survivor group (n = 22) were older, and they had a higher frequency of comorbidities and were more prone to suffer from dyspnea. Several abnormal laboratory variables indicated that acute cardiac injury, hepatic damage, and acute renal insufficiency were detected in the non-survivor group. Non-surviving patients also had a high computed tomography (CT) score and higher rate of consolidation. The most common complication causing death was acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (18/22, 81.8%). Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that hemoglobin (Hb) <90 g/L (hazard ratio, 10.776; 95% confidence interval, 3.075-37.766; p<0.0001), creatine kinase (CK-MB) >8 U/L (9.155; 2.424-34.584; p = 0.001), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) >245 U/L (5.963; 2.029-17.529; p = 0.001), procalcitonin (PCT) >0.5 ng/ml (7.080; 1.671-29.992; p = 0.008), and CT score >10 (39.503; 12.430-125.539; p<0.0001) were independent risk factors for the mortality of COVID-19.
Low Hb, high LDH, PCT, and CT score on admission were the predictors for mortality and could assist clinicians in early identification of poor prognosis among COVID-19 patients.
A bio‐inspired design of using metal–organic framework (MOF) microcrystals with well‐defined multi‐shelled hollow structures was used as a matrix to host multiple guests including molecules and ...nanoparticles at separated locations to form a hierarchical material, mimicking biological structures. The interactions such as energy transfer (ET) between different guests are regulated by precisely fixing them in the MOF shells or encapsulating them in the cavities between the MOF shells. The proof‐of‐concept design is demonstrated by hosting chromophore molecules including rhodamine 6G (R6G) and 7‐amino‐4‐(trifluoromethyl)coumarin (C‐151), as well as metal nanoparticles (Pd NPs) into the multi‐shelled hollow zeolitic imidazolate framework‐8 (ZIF‐8). We could selectively establish or diminish the guest‐to‐framework and guest‐to‐guest ET. This work provides a platform to construct complex multifunctional materials, especially those need precise separation control of multi‐components.
The right home for ET: Metal–organic framework (MOF) microcrystals with a multi‐shelled hollow structure serve as an ideal matrix to precisely host multiple guest molecules (see picture; R6G and C‐151 dyes) and nanoparticles at separated locations. The energy transfer (ET) of guest‐to‐frame and guest‐to‐guest could be switched by controlling their locations.
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