Fermi's golden rule, a remarkable concept for the transition probability involving continuous states, is applicable to the interfacial electron‐transporting efficiency via correlation with the ...surface density of states (SDOS). Yet, this concept has not been reported to tailor single‐molecule junctions where gold is an overwhelmingly popular electrode material due to its superior amenability in regenerating molecular junctions. At the Fermi level, however, the SDOS of gold is small due to its fully filled d‐shell. To increase the electron‐transport efficiency, herein, gold electrodes are modified by a monolayer of platinum or palladium that bears partially filled d‐shells and exhibits significant SDOS at the Fermi energy. An increase by 2–30 fold is found for single‐molecule conductance of α,ω‐hexanes bridged via common headgroups. The improved junction conductance is attributed to the electrode self‐energy which involves a stronger coupling with the molecule and a larger SDOS participated by d‐electrons at the electrode‐molecule interfaces.
The conductance of molecular junctions bridged in Pt‐ or Pd‐adlayer modified Au electrodes was investigated. The conductance on bimetallic electrodes was found 2–30 fold higher than that on Au electrodes. This was attributed to the increase in the local density of states by partially‐filled d shells of the adlayer.
Introduction
Prostate cancer has significant mortality and metastasis rate in the male. Unfortunately, effective treatment for patients with advanced prostate cancer is still lacking. Verbascoside, a ...phenylethanoid glycoside, displays various pharmacological properties, such as the anti‐cancer activities. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of purified verbascoside on human prostate cancer and the associated molecular mechanisms.
Materials and Methods
The human prostate cancer cell lines, Du‐145 and PC‐3, were treated with various concentrations of verbascoside (0.1, 1, 10 μM) for 24 h followed by the examination of cell viability using MTT and trypan blue exclusion assays. Cell migration and invasion capacities were assessed by wound healing assay and transwell system. Western blot and immunofluorescence staining were used to detect the expression of epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT)‐associated factors, components of transforming growth factor (TGF‐β)/Smad signaling, and high‐mobility group box (HMGB)/receptor for advanced glycation end‐products (RAGE) axis.
Results
Verbascoside treatment significantly inhibited cell proliferation, migration, and invasion abilities of Du‐145 and PC‐3 cells. We showed that verbascoside decreased the expression of EMT promotors, Snail and Slug, and increased the expression of E‐cadherin. Moreover, the expression level of alpha‐smooth muscle actin was downregulated by verbascoside as well. Besides, we found that the TGF‐β pathway was suppressed, which was demonstrated by the diminished expression of type I and II TGF‐β receptors and phosphorylated Smad2/3 along with the upregulated Smad7. Our data suggested that this downregulation of TGF‐β signaling was mediated by repression of HMGB 1 (HMGB1)/RAGE axis.
Conclusion
Verbascoside mitigated the cell proliferation and aggressiveness of prostate cancer via downregulation of TGF‐β‐associated EMT progression through HMGB1/RAGE suppression. Collectively, our findings revealed that verbascoside may be a beneficial dietary supplement for prostate cancer patients.
Multimodal nanostructures can help solve many problems in the biomedical field including sensitive molecular imaging, highly specific therapy, and early cancer detection. However, the synthesis of ...densely packed, multicomponent nanostructures with multimodal functionality represents a significant challenge. Here, a new type of hybrid magneto‐plasmonic nanoparticles is developed using an oil‐in‐water microemulsion method. The nanostructures are synthetized by self‐assembly of primary 6 nm iron oxide core‐gold shell particles resulting into densely packed spherical nanoclusters. The dense packing of primary particles does not change their superparamagnetic behavior; however, the close proximity of the constituent particles in the nanocluster leads to strong near‐infrared (NIR) plasmon resonances. The synthesis is optimized to eliminate nanocluster cytotoxicity. Immunotargeted nanoclusters are also developed using directional conjugation chemistry through the Fc antibody moiety, leaving the Fab antigen recognizing region available for targeting. Cancer cells labeled with immunotargeted nanoclusters produce a strong photoacoustic signal in the NIR that is optimum for tissue imaging. Furthermore, the labeled cells can be efficiently captured using an external magnetic field. The biocompatible magneto‐plasmonic nanoparticles can make a significant impact in development of point‐of‐care assays for detection of circulating tumor cells, as well as in cell therapy with magnetic cell guidance and imaging monitoring.
A new generation of hybrid magneto‐plasmonic nanoparticles is developed by utilizing an oil‐in‐water microemulsion method. The nanoparticles combine a high density of magnetic and plasmonic functionalities together with biocompatibility and molecular targeting capability that provide a promising tool for sensitive and selective cancer detection and other biomedical applications.
We have proposed a structural design for a single photon avalanche diode with a low breakdown voltage. This diode is fabricated using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) 0.18 μm HV CMOS ...technology, and it can maintain a high operating excess voltage in an n-on-p design without requiring any additional customized well layers. The n-on-p type device is particularly advantageous for a 3D-stacked backside illuminated structure and offers excellent photon detection capabilities at longer wavelengths. By incorporating a high doping concentration PDD well layer, we can significantly increase the excess bias, resulting in enhanced photon detection probability in the near-infrared wavelength range, all while maintaining a lower voltage due to a reduction in breakdown voltage. This design also leads to power consumption savings. As a result, our designed device is well-suited for consumer applications such as 3D image rendering and LiDAR technology.
Among previously uninfected healthcare workers in Taiwan, mRNA COVID-19 booster vaccine was associated with lower odds of COVID-19 after primary recombinant vaccine. Symptom-triggered testing ...revealed that tetravalent influenza vaccine was associated with higher odds of SARS-CoV-2 infection. COVID-19 vaccination continues to be most effective against SARS-CoV-2.
A record high PCE of up to 3.2% demonstrates that the efficiency of hybrid solar cells (HSCs) can be boosted by utilizing a unique mono‐aniline end group of PSBTBT‐NH2 as a strong anchor to attach to ...CdTe nanocrystal surfaces and by simultaneously exploiting benzene–1,3‐dithiol solvent–vapor annealing to improve the charge separation at the donor/acceptor interface, which leads to efficient charge transportation in the HSCs.
Automated facial expression recognition can greatly improve the human-machine interface. The machine can provide better and more personalized services when it knows the human's emotion. This kind of ...improvement is an important progress in this artificial intelligence era. Many deep learning approaches have been applied in recent years due to their outstanding recognition accuracy after training with large amounts of data. The performance is limited, however, by the specific environmental conditions and variations in different persons involved. Hence, this paper addresses the issue of how to customize the generic model without label information from the testing samples. Weighted Center Regression Adaptive Feature Mapping (W-CR-AFM) is mainly proposed to transform the feature distribution of testing samples into that of trained samples. By means of minimizing the error between each feature of testing sample and the center of the most relevant category, W-CR-AFM can bring the features of testing samples around the decision boundary to the centers of expression categories; therefore, their predicted labels can be corrected. When the model which is tuned by W-CR-AFM is tested on extended Cohn-Kanade (CK+), Radboud Faces database, and Amsterdam dynamic facial expression set, our approach can improve the recognition accuracy by about 3.01%, 0.49%, and 5.33%, respectively. Compared to the competing deep learning architectures with the same training data, our approach shows the better performance.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are promising tools for the treatment of diseases such as infarcted myocardia and strokes because of their ability to promote endogenous angiogenesis and neurogenesis ...via a variety of secreted factors. MSCs found in the Wharton's jelly of the human umbilical cord are easily obtained and are capable of transplantation without rejection. We isolated MSCs from Wharton's jelly and bone marrow (WJ-MSCs and BM-MSCs, respectively) and compared their secretomes. It was found that WJ-MSCs expressed more genes, especially secreted factors, involved in angiogenesis and neurogenesis. Functional validation showed that WJ-MSCs induced better neural differentiation and neural cell migration via a paracrine mechanism. Moreover, WJ-MSCs afforded better neuroprotection efficacy because they preferentially enhanced neuronal growth and reduced cell apoptotic death of primary cortical cells in an oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) culture model that mimics the acute ischemic stroke situation in humans. In terms of angiogenesis, WJ-MSCs induced better microvasculature formation and cell migration on co-cultured endothelial cells. Our results suggest that WJ-MSC, because of a unique secretome, is a better MSC source to promote in vivo neurorestoration and endothelium repair. This study provides a basis for the development of cell-based therapy and carrying out of follow-up mechanistic studies related to MSC biology.
Neural decoding is useful to explore the timing and source location in which the brain encodes information. Higher classification accuracy means that an analysis is more likely to succeed in ...extracting useful information from noises. In this paper, we present the application of a nonlinear, nonstationary signal decomposition technique—the empirical mode decomposition (EMD), on MEG data. We discuss the fundamental concepts and importance of nonlinear methods when it comes to analyzing brainwave signals and demonstrate the procedure on a set of open-source MEG facial recognition task dataset. The improved clarity of data allowed further decoding analysis to capture distinguishing features between conditions that were formerly over-looked in the existing literature, while raising interesting questions concerning hemispheric dominance to the encoding process of facial and identity information.
Sarcopenia increases disability, hospital stays, readmissions, and mortality in older adults. Antioxidative nutrients and fatty acids consumption may help maintain muscle mass by reducing oxidative ...stress. This study aims to assess the association between antioxidant and fatty acid intake and low muscle mass in community-dwelling older people. This retrospective analysis used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2004. Participants ≥ 60 years with information on muscle mass measured by Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) were included. Appendicular skeletal muscle mass was assessed. Associations between antioxidants and fatty acids intake, and low muscle mass were evaluated using logistic regressions. 3648 (1748 men and 1900 women) were included. The prevalence of low muscle mass was 41% and 26% among men and women ≥ 75 years, and 45.2% and 28.4% among obese men and women. In obese males, a natural-log-unit increase of vitamin A (aOR = 0.806, 95% CI: 0.652-0.996), vitamin C (aOR = 0.878, 95% CI: 0.779-0.990), selenium intake (aOR = 0.716, 95% CI: 0.517-0.993), and higher saturated fatty acids (aOR = 0.956, 95% CI: 0.915-0.998) and monounsaturated fatty acids (aOR = 0.959, 95% CI: 0.925-0.994) intake were associated with decreased odds for low muscle mass. Among obese females, a natural-log-unit increase of vitamin E (P = .036), vitamin B12 (P = .014), total folate (P = .015), zinc (P = .005), and selenium intake (P = .018) were associated with increased odds of low muscle mass, whereas higher saturated fatty acids (P < .001), monounsaturated fatty acids (P = .001), and polyunsaturated fatty acids intake (P = .006) were associated with decreased odds for low muscle mass. Antioxidants (vitamin A, C, E, B6, B12, total folate, zinc, magnesium, selenium) intake does not consistently relate to low muscle mass across age and sex. Higher intake of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids are independently associated with reduced likelihood of low muscle mass in both obese older men and women.
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