Abstract
Ferroaxial materials that exhibit spontaneous ordering of a rotational structural distortion with an axial vector symmetry have gained growing interest, motivated by recent extensive studies ...on ferroic materials. As in conventional ferroics (e.g., ferroelectrics and ferromagnetics), domain states will be present in the ferroaxial materials. However, the observation of ferroaxial domains is non-trivial due to the nature of the order parameter, which is invariant under both time-reversal and space-inversion operations. Here we propose that NiTiO
3
is an order-disorder type ferroaxial material, and spatially resolve its ferroaxial domains by using linear electrogyration effect: optical rotation in proportion to an applied electric field. To detect small signals of electrogyration (order of 10
−5
deg V
−1
), we adopt a recently developed difference image-sensing technique. Furthermore, the ferroaxial domains are confirmed on nano-scale spatial resolution with a combined use of scanning transmission electron microscopy and convergent-beam electron diffraction. Our success of the domain visualization will promote the study of ferroaxial materials as a new ferroic state of matter.
Eribulin mesilate (eribulin), a non-taxane microtubule dynamics inhibitor, has shown trends towards greater overall survival (OS) compared with progression-free survival in late-stage metastatic ...breast cancer patients in the clinic. This finding suggests that eribulin may have additional, previously unrecognised antitumour mechanisms beyond its established antimitotic activity. To investigate this possibility, eribulin's effects on the balance between epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) in human breast cancer cells were investigated.
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells, which are oestrogen receptor (ER-)/progesterone receptor (PR-)/human epithelial growth receptor 2 (HER2-) and have a mesenchymal phenotype, were treated with eribulin for 7 days, followed by measurement of EMT-related gene and protein expression changes in the surviving cells by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and immunoblot, respectively. In addition, proliferation, migration, and invasion assays were also conducted in eribulin-treated cells. To investigate the effects of eribulin on TGF-β/Smad signalling, the phosphorylation status of Smad proteins was analysed. In vivo, the EMT/MET status of TNBC xenografts in mice treated with eribulin was examined by qPCR, immunoblot, and immunohistochemical analysis. Finally, an experimental lung metastasis model was utilised to gauge the metastatic activity of eribulin-treated TNBC in the in vivo setting.
Treatment of TNBC cells with eribulin in vitro led to morphological changes consistent with transition from a mesenchymal to an epithelial phenotype. Expression analyses of EMT markers showed that eribulin treatment led to decreased expression of several mesenchymal marker genes, together with increased expression of several epithelial markers. In the TGF-β induced EMT model, eribulin treatment reversed EMT, coincident with inhibition of Smad2 and Smad3 phosphorylation. Consistent with these changes, TNBC cells treated with eribulin for 7 days showed decreased capacity for in vitro migration and invasiveness. In in vivo xenograft models, eribulin treatment reversed EMT and induced MET as assessed by qPCR, immunoblot, and immunohistochemical analyses of epithelial and mesenchymal marker proteins. Finally, surviving TNBC cells pretreated in vitro with eribulin for 7 days led to decreased numbers of lung metastasis when assessed in an in vivo experimental metastasis model.
Eribulin exerted significant effects on EMT/MET-related pathway components in human breast cancer cells in vitro and in vivo, consistent with a phenotypic switch from mesenchymal to epithelial states, and corresponding to observed decreases in migration and invasiveness in vitro as well as experimental metastasis in vivo. These preclinical findings may provide a plausible scientific basis for clinical observations of prolonged OS by suppression of further spread of metastasis in breast cancer patients treated with eribulin.
Periclase (MgO) is the second most abundant mineral after bridgmanite in the Earth's lower mantle, and its melting behaviour under pressure is important to constrain rheological properties and ...melting behaviours of the lower mantle materials. Significant discrepancies exist between the melting temperatures of MgO determined by laser-heated diamond anvil cell (LHDAC) and those based on dynamic compressions and theoretical predictions. Here we show the melting temperatures in earlier LHDAC experiments are underestimated due to misjudgment of melting, based on micro-texture observations of the quenched samples. The high melting temperatures of MgO suggest that the subducted cold slabs should have higher viscosities than previously thought, suggesting that the inter-connecting textural feature of MgO would not play important roles for the slab stagnation in the lower mantle. The present results also predict that the ultra-deep magmas produced in the lower mantle are peridotitic, which are stabilized near the core-mantle boundary.
The recent research on multiferroics has provided solid evidence that the breaking of inversion symmetry by spin order can induce ferroelectric polarization P. This type of multiferroics, called ...spin-driven ferroelectrics, often show a gigantic change in P on application of a magnetic field B. However, their polarization (<~0.1 μC cm(-2)) is much smaller than that in conventional ferroelectrics (typically several to several tens of μC cm(-2)). Here we show that the application of external pressure to a representative spin-driven ferroelectric, TbMnO3, causes a flop of P and leads to the highest P (≈ 1.0 μC cm(-2)) among spin-driven ferroelectrics ever reported. We explain this behaviour in terms of a pressure-induced magnetoelectric phase transition, based on the results of density functional simulations. In the high-pressure phase, the application of B further enhances P over 1.8 μC cm(-2). This value is nearly an order of magnitude larger than those ever reported in spin-driven ferroelectrics.
The glass state of matter represents a frozen state of an atomically disordered system with local order only. Instead of atoms, systems with glassy states of magnetic and electric dipole moments in ...solids are known as spin and dipole glasses, respectively. In these conventional glasses, slow dynamics, such as relaxation and memory phenomena, are characteristics of their magnetic/dielectric properties. Here we propose a new glassy state in solids, a 'toroidal glass', in which toroidal moments-vector-like electromagnetic multipole moments breaking both space inversion and time reversal symmetries, and producing a linear magnetoelectric coupling-are randomly oriented and frozen. We investigate the dynamics of a linear magnetoelectric effect in Ni0.4Mn0.6TiO3 and find that the magnetoelectric responses strongly depend on the magnetoelectric cooling history and show striking memory effects. These unusual magnetoelectric dynamical features can be explained in the framework of a toroidal glass in which the toroidal frozen state can be controlled magnetoelectrically.
We have examined a dynamical spin injection in a CoFeB/Pt/CoFeB trilayered structure. Although the contribution of the spin pumping was eliminated by the symmetric spin injection from the upper and ...lower CoFeB layers, a clear voltage change due to the inverse spin Hall effect has been observed. We find that the observed signal can be quantitatively explained by considering the thermal spin injection due to the heating effect during ferromagnetic resonance (FMR). This innovative demonstration indicates the significant contribution of FMR heating in the dynamical spin injection.
Abstract
In vortex-like spin arrangements, multiple spins can combine into emergent multipole moments. Such multipole moments have broken space-inversion and time-reversal symmetries, and can ...therefore exhibit linear magnetoelectric (ME) activity. Three types of such multipole moments are known: toroidal; monopole; and quadrupole moments. So far, however, the ME activity of these multipole moments has only been established experimentally for the toroidal moment. Here we propose a magnetic square cupola cluster, in which four corner-sharing square-coordinated metal-ligand fragments form a noncoplanar buckled structure, as a promising structural unit that carries an ME-active multipole moment. We substantiate this idea by observing clear magnetodielectric signals associated with an antiferroic ME-active magnetic quadrupole order in the real material Ba(TiO)Cu
4
(PO
4
)
4
. The present result serves as a useful guide for exploring and designing new ME-active materials based on vortex-like spin arrangements.
Materials that combine coupled electric and magnetic dipole order are termed 'magnetoelectric multiferroics'. In the past few years, a new class of such materials, 'induced-multiferroics', has been ...discovered, wherein non-collinear spiral magnetic order breaks inversion symmetry, thus inducing ferroelectricity. Spiral magnetic order often arises from the existence of competing magnetic interactions that reduce the ordering temperature of a more conventional collinear phase. Hence, spiral-phase-induced ferroelectricity tends to exist only at temperatures lower than approximately 40 K. Here, we propose that copper(II) oxides (containing Cu2+ ions) having large magnetic superexchange interactions can be good candidates for induced-multiferroics with high Curie temperature (T(C)). In fact, we demonstrate ferroelectricity with T(C)=230 K in cupric oxide, CuO (tenorite), which is known as a starting material for the synthesis of high-T(c) (critical temperature) superconductors. Our result provides an important contribution to the search for high-temperature magnetoelectric multiferroics.
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