Stoichiometric polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) of the strong polyelectrolytes poly(styrenesulfonate) (PSS) and poly(diallyldimethylammonium) (PDADMA) were dissociated and dissolved in aqueous KBr. ...Water was added to dilute the salt, allowing polyelectrolytes to reassociate. After appropriate equilibration, these mixtures yielded compositions spanning complexes (solid) to coacervates (elastic liquid) to dissolved solutions with increasing KBr. These compositions were defined by a ternary polymer/water/salt phase diagram. For coacervates, transient microphase separation could be induced by a small departure from equilibration temperature. A boundary between complex and coacervate states was defined by the crossover point between loss and storage modulus. Salt ions within the complex/coacervate were identified as either ion paired with polyelectrolytes (“doping”) or unassociated. The fraction of ion pair cross-links between polyelectrolytes as a function of KBr concentration was used to account for viscosity using a model of “sticky” reptation.
This paper proposes a class of randomized Kaczmarz algorithms for obtaining isolated solutions of large-scale well-posed or overdetermined nonlinear systems of equations. This type of algorithm ...improves the classic Newton method. Each iteration only needs to calculate one row of the Jacobian instead of the entire matrix, which greatly reduces the amount of calculation and storage. Therefore, these algorithms are called matrix-free algorithms. According to the different probability selection patterns of choosing a row of the Jacobian matrix, the nonlinear Kaczmarz (NK) algorithm, the nonlinear randomized Kaczmarz (NRK) algorithm and the nonlinear uniformly randomized Kaczmarz (NURK) algorithm are proposed. In addition, the NURK algorithm is similar to the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm in nonlinear optimization problems. The only difference is the choice of step size. In the case of noise-free data, theoretical analysis and the results of numerical based on the classical tangential cone conditions show that the algorithms proposed in this paper are superior to the SGD algorithm in terms of iterations and calculation time.
Platinum-based chemotherapy is the standard first-line treatment for advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). In this phase 3 study (ClinicalTrial.gov: NCT03829969), 514 patients with ...treatment-naïve advanced ESCC were randomized (1:1) to receive toripalimab or placebo in combination with paclitaxel plus cisplatin (TP) every 3 weeks for up to 6 cycles, followed by toripalimab or placebo maintenance. At the prespecified final analysis of progression-free survival (PFS), a significant improvement in PFS is observed for the toripalimab arm over the placebo arm (hazard ratio HR = 0.58; 95% CI, 0.46–0.74; p < 0.0001). The prespecified interim analysis of overall survival (OS) also reveals a significant OS improvement for patients treated with toripalimab plus TP over placebo plus TP (HR = 0.58; 95% CI, 0.43–0.78; p = 0.0004). The incidences of grade ≥3 treatment-emergent adverse events are similar between the two arms. Toripalimab plus TP significantly improves PFS and OS in patients with treatment-naïve, advanced ESCC, with a manageable safety profile.
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•First-line toripalimab plus chemotherapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma•Toripalimab plus chemotherapy improves progression-free survival and overall survival•Toripalimab plus chemotherapy is efficacious irrespective of PD-L1 expression•Toripalimab plus chemotherapy shows a manageable safety profile
Wang et al. demonstrate the efficacy and safety of toripalimab plus paclitaxel/cisplatin as the first-line treatment for patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. As compared with paclitaxel/cisplatin alone, toripalimab plus paclitaxel/cisplatin extends progression-free survival and overall survival of the patients irrespective of PD-L1 expression.
The synthesis of regioregular head‐to‐tail poly(3‐hexylthiophene)s capped with aryl groups (Ar‐HT‐P3HTs) has been accomplished by palladium‐catalyzed polycondensation of 2‐bromo‐3‐hexylthiophene (1) ...via direct arylation. A variety of aryl groups are installed at the initiated end in 86%–98% selectivity using aryl bromides and iodides as capping agents. The polymerization proceeds via a two‐stage process. Before monomer 1 is consumed, the competitive formation of end‐capped and non‐capped HT‐P3HTs is operative, where the molecular weight increases linearly with monomer conversion. After 1 is consumed, the resulting polymers are coupled with each other to afford highly end‐capped HT‐P3HTs.
Highly regioregular head‐to‐tail poly(3‐hexylthiophene)s capped with aryl groups (Ar‐HT‐P3HTs) are synthesized by palladium‐catalyzed polycondensation of 2‐bromo‐3‐hexylthiophene (1) via direct arylation. A variety of p‐functionalized aryl groups are installed at the initiated end in 86%–98% selectivity, simply using aryl bromides or iodides as capping agents.
Recurrent chromosomal aberrations have led to the discovery of oncogenes or tumour suppressors involved in carcinogenesis. Here we characterized an oncogenic long intergenic non-coding RNA in the ...frequent DNA-gain regions in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), LINC01138 (long intergenic non-coding RNA located on 1q21.2). The LINC01138 locus is frequently amplified in HCC; the LINC01138 transcript is stabilized by insulin like growth factor-2 mRNA-binding proteins 1/3 (IGF2BP1/IGF2BP3) and is associated with the malignant features and poor outcomes of HCC patients. LINC01138 acts as an oncogenic driver that promotes cell proliferation, tumorigenicity, tumour invasion and metastasis by physically interacting with arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) and enhancing its protein stability by blocking ubiquitin/proteasome-dependent degradation in HCC. The discovery of LINC01138, a promising prognostic indicator, provides insight into the molecular pathogenesis of HCC, and the LINC01138/PRMT5 axis is an ideal therapeutic target for HCC treatment.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major cause of death worldwide. Sensitive, non-invasive diagnostic screen methods are urgently needed to improve its survival rates. Stable circulating microRNA offers ...unique opportunities for the early diagnosis of several diseases, including cancers. Our aim has been to find new plasma miRNAs that can be used as biomarkers for the detection of CRC.
According to the results of miRNA profiling performed on pooling plasma samples form 10 CRC patients or 10 healthy controls, a panel of miRNAs (hsa-miR-10a, -19a, -22*, -24, -92a, 125a-5p, -141, -150, -188-3p, -192, -210, -221, -224*, -376a, -425*, -495, -572, -601, -720, -760 and hsa-let-7a, -7e) were deregulated in CRC plasma with fold changes >5. After large scale validation by qRT-PCR performed on another 191 independent individuals (90 CRC, 43 advanced adenoma and 58 healthy participants), we found that the levels of plasma miR-601 and miR-760 were significantly decreased in colorectal neoplasia (carcinomas and advanced adenomas) compared with healthy controls. ROC curve analysis showed that plasma miR-601 and miR-760 were of significant diagnostic value for advanced neoplasia. These two miRNAs together yield an AUC of 0.792 with 83.3% sensitivity and 69.1% specificity for separating CRC from normal controls, and yield an AUC of 0.683 with 72.1% sensitivity and 62.1% specificity in discriminating advanced adenomas from normal controls.
Plasma miR-601 and miR-760 can potentially serve as promising non-invasive biomarkers for the early detection of CRC.
miR-204-5p was found to be downregulated in colorectal cancer tissues in our preliminary microarray analyses. However, the function of miR-204-5p in colorectal cancer remains unknown. We therefore ...investigated the role, mechanism, and clinical significance of miR-204-5p in colorectal cancer development and progression.
We measured the expression of miR-204-5p and determined its correlation with patient prognoses. Ectopic expression in colorectal cancer cells, xenografts, and pulmonary metastasis models was used to evaluate the effects of miR-204-5p on proliferation, migration, and chemotherapy sensitivity. Luciferase assay and Western blotting were performed to validate the potential targets of miR-204-5p after the preliminary screening by a microarray analysis and computer-aided algorithms.
miR-204-5p is frequently downregulated in colorectal cancer tissues, and survival analysis showed that the downregulation of miR-204-5p in colorectal cancer was associated with poor prognoses. Ectopic miR-204-5p expression repressed colorectal cancer cell growth both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, restoring miR-204-5p expression inhibited colorectal cancer migration and invasion and promoted tumor sensitivity to chemotherapy. Mechanistic investigations revealed that RAB22A, a member of the RAS oncogene family, is a direct functional target of miR-204-5p in colorectal cancer. Furthermore, RAB22A protein levels in colorectal cancer tissues were frequently increased and negatively associated with miR-204-5p levels and survival time.
Our results demonstrate for the first time that miR-204-5p acts as a tumor suppressor in colorectal cancer through inhibiting RAB22A and reveal RAB22A to be a new oncogene and prognostic factor for colorectal cancer.
Testicular torsion is a urological emergency. However, surgical detorsion of the torsed spermatic cord can cause testicular reperfusion injury. Although remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) has ...been convincingly shown to protect organs against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, little is known regarding the effect of RIPC on testicular torsion/detorsion-induced reperfusion injury. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the effect of RIPC on testes after testicular I/R injury in a rat model in vivo. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly classified into 4 groups: sham-operated (sham), testicular I/R (TI/R), or remote liver (RIPC liver) and limb (RIPC limb) ischemic preconditioning groups. Testis I/R was induced by 3 h of right spermatic cord torsion (720° clockwise), and reperfusion was allowed for 3 hours. In the RIPC group, four cycles of 5 min of ischemia and 5 min of reperfusion were completed 30 min prior to testicular torsion. The ERK1/2 inhibitor U0126 was administered intravenously at the beginning of reperfusion (1 mg/kg). The testes were taken for the oxidative stress evaluations, histology, apoptosis, immunohistochemical and western blotting analysis. Remote liver and limb ischemic preconditioning attenuated ipsilateral and contralateral testicular damage after testicular I/R injury. For example. RIPC reduced testicular swelling and oxidative stress, lessened structural damage, and inhibited the testicular inflammatory response and apoptosis. Furthermore, RIPC treatment enhanced testicular ERK1/2 phosphorylation postI/R. Inhibition of ERK1/2 activity using U0126 eliminated the protection offered by RIPC. Our data demonstrate for the first time that RIPC protects testes against testicular I/R injury via activation of the ERK1/2 signaling pathway.
Polyelectrolyte complex microcapsules are prepared using a novel template‐ and surfactant‐free method. The microcapsules are produced spontaneously by ultrasonically spraying a solution of complex ...into a hot water reservoir, which enhances diffusion and relaxation of the polymer. The size and wall thickness of the microcapsules are precisely controlled. Encapsulation of polymers and nanoparticles by mixing them with polyelectrolyte solutions is demonstrated.
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