ERBB4, one of four ErbB receptor tyrosine kinase family members, plays an important role in the etiology and progression of lung cancer. In this study, we found that the ERBB4 protein levels were ...consistently up-regulated in lung cancer tissues, whereas the mRNA levels varied randomly, suggesting that a post-transcriptional mechanism was involved in regulating ERBB4 expression. Because microRNAs are powerful post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, we used bioinformatic analyses to search for microRNAs that can potentially target ERBB4. We identified specific targeting sites for miR-193a-3p in the 3′-UTR of ERBB4. We further identified an inverse correlation between miR-193a-3p levels and ERBB4 protein levels, but not mRNA levels, in lung cancer tissue samples. By overexpressing or knocking down miR-193a-3p in lung cancer cells, we experimentally confirmed that miR-193a-3p directly recognizes the 3′-UTR of the ERBB4 transcript and regulates ERBB4 expression. Furthermore, the biological consequences of the targeting of ERBB4 by miR-193a-3p were examined in vitro via cell proliferation, invasion, and apoptosis assays and in vivo using a mouse xenograft tumor model. We demonstrated that the repression of ERBB4 by miR-193a-3p suppressed proliferation and invasion and promoted apoptosis in lung cancer cells and that miR-193a-3p exerted an anti-tumor effect by negatively regulating ERBB4 in xenograft mice. Taken together, our findings provide the first clues regarding the role of miR-193a-3p as a tumor suppressor in lung cancer through the inhibition of ERBB4 translation.ERBB4 plays an important role in the etiology and progression of lung cancer.
miR-193a-3p suppressed proliferation and invasion and promoted apoptosis in lung cancer cells and xenograft mice by negatively regulating ERBB4.
miR-193a-3p exerted an anti-tumor effect by negatively regulating ERBB4 in lung cancer.
This study may open new avenues for future lung cancer therapies.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a chronic endocrine and metabolic disease. Gut microbiota is closely related to many chronic diseases. In this study, we conducted a cross-sectional study and ...recruited 30 obese (OG) and 30 non-obese (NG) women with PCOS, 30 healthy women (NC) and 11 healthy but obese women (OC) as controls to investigate the characteristic gut microbiota and its metabolic functions in obese and non-obese patients with PCOS. The blood and non-menstrual faecal samples of all the participants were collected and analysed. As a result, the Hirsutism score, LH/FSH and serum T level in NG and OG both increased significantly compared with their controls (P < 0.05). High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that the abundance and diversity of the gut microbiota changed in patients with PCOS. The linear discriminant analysis (LDA) indicated that Lactococcus was the characteristic gut microbiota in NG, while Coprococcus_2 in OG. Correlation heatmap analysis revealed that the sex hormones and insulin levels in human serum were closely related to the changes in the gut microbiota of NG and OG. Functional prediction analysis demonstrated that the citrate cycle pathway enriched both in NG and OG, and other 12 gut bacterial metabolic pathways enriched in NG. This study highlighted significant differences in the gut microbiota and predictive functions of obese and non-obese women with PCOS, thereby providing insights into the role and function of the gut microbiota that may contribute to the occurrence and development of PCOS in obese and non-obese women.
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) contribute increasing amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs), due to rapid development and increasingly stringent wastewater discharge limits in China. In this study, ...GHG emissions from 38 WWTPs in Beijing were estimated using the pollutants parameter normalizing method (PPNM) and the effects of various factors were analyzed. The result showed that, the total GHG emissions of Beijing WWTPs in 2017 were 1 045 661.5 t CO2-eq (tons of CO2-equivalent), the direct and indirect emissions were 186 366.0 and 859 295.5 t CO2-eq, respectively. The average emission intensity was 0.603 kg CO2-eq/m3. Direct and indirect GHG emissions were influenced by various factors, such as treatment process, influent parameters and treatment scale. The anaerobic-anoxic-oxic (AAO) process demonstrated low emission intensities (0.092 kg CO2/m3), while biofilm processes (MBBR) obtained relatively high emission intensities (0.277 kg CO2/m3). Direct GHG emission has a positive correlation with the amount of pollutant removed and low influent pollutant concentrations (chemical oxygen demand COD<300 mg/L and total nitrogen TN <20 mg/L) can lead to high indirect GHG emission intensities. The low power utilization efficiency of small-scale WWTPs (<1 × 107 t/a; 6.60 kWh/kg COD; 30.54 kWh/kg TN) contributed to additional GHG emissions. Compared with the GHG emissions in Shanghai in 2016, higher influent pollutant concentrations and stricter discharge limits contributed to higher GHG emission intensity in Beijing for both direct (0.108 kg CO2/m3) and indirect (0.496 kg CO2/m3) emissions. The comparison results between cities indicated that the PPNM method achieved a more accurate account of GHG emissions, and the analysis results provided support for carbon emission reduction.
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•Greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment were estimated for Beijing.•Indirect greenhouse gas emission (859 295.5 tCO2-eq) was 4.6 times of direct emission (186 366.0 tCO2-eq).•AAO and MBBR are processes with lowest and highest emission intensities.•Strict discharge limits lead to high greenhouse gas emissions.
•This work realizes the chemical recycling of waste PET.•A green process for methanolysis of waste PET using poly(ionic liquid)s was developed.•The catalyst has high catalytic efficiency, low ...reaction temperature, short reaction time and high product yield.•The catalyst is stable and simple to recovery.
The methanolysis of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was investigated using poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) synthesized with 1-vinyl-3-ethylimidazole acetates (VEImAc) and acrylic acid metal salts, and the activities of the PILs were screened. The effects of reaction temperature, reaction time, methanol amount, catalyst amount and PET sources on the methanolysis of PET were investigated using the optimized catalyst PIL-Zn2+. Under the optimal conditions the conversion of PET was 100% and the yield of dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) was 89.1%. In addition, the catalyst has very good applicability for methanolysis of different PET raw materials. More importantly, the PIL-Zn2+ catalyst could be recycled by simple filtration after the reaction, and could be reused six times without significant decrease in PET conversion and DMT yield. The catalysts were analyzed by TGA, FT-IR, XRD and ICP before and after recycling, the results showed no change in the structure of the catalyst, reflecting the good stability of the catalyst. The reaction kinetics of PIL-Zn2+ was first-order with an activation energy of 107.6 kJ/mol. This work mainly provides a way to design efficient, stable and recyclable catalysts for PET methanolysis.
Layered MoS2@graphene functionalized with nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (MoS2@N-GQDs-GR) was obtained by one-pot hydrothermal method, as an enhanced electrochemical hydrogen evolution ...catalyst.
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A novel three-dimensional (3D) layered MoS2@graphene functionalized with nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (MoS2@N-GQDs-GR) composites as an enhanced electrochemical hydrogen evolution catalyst. The few layered MoS2 nanoflowers supported on N-GQDs-GR surface were elaborately fabricated by one-pot hydrothermal method, which MoS2 and N-GQDs-GR exist in a bonding manner of Mo-N. In addition, due to the layered MoS2 sheet edge exposes more hydrogen evolution active sites and N-GQDs-GR have high conductivity, the composites exhibit prominent electrocatalytic activity with a low overpotential 99 mV, a small Tafel slope 49.3 mV/dec. Therefore, that the current work will develop HER catalysts may replace Pt.
The energy accuracy of laser beams is an essential property of the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facility. However, the energy gain is difficult to control precisely by traditional Frantz-Nodvik ...equations due to the dramatically-increasing complexity of the huge optical system. A novel method based on ensemble deep neural networks is proposed to predict the laser output energy of the main amplifier. The artificial neural network counts in 39 more related factors that the physical model neglected, and an ensemble method is exploited to obtain robust and stable predictions. The sensitivity of each factor is analyzed by saliency after training to find out the factors which should be controlled strictly. The identification of factor sensitivities reduces relatively unimportant factors, simplifying the neural network model with little effect on the prediction results. The predictive accuracy is benchmarked against the measured energy and the proposed method obtains a relative deviation of 1.59% in prediction, which has a 2.5 times improvement in accuracy over the conventional method.
Scheme 1. Preparation process of PtNi/ERPGO nanocatalyst and its use for MOR.
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•Porous graphene used as supporting material for PtNi bimetallic NPs.•PtNi/ERPGO nanocatalysts were ...prepared by one-step electrochemical reduction.•PtNi/ERPGO nanocatalysts showed excellent electro-catalytic activity toward methanol oxidation.
Various types of fuel cells as clean and portable power sources show a great attraction, especially direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) having high energy density and convenient fuel storage. In this paper, PtNi bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) supported on the electrochemically reduced porous graphene oxide (ERPGO) was fabricated by one-step electrochemical reduction of the mixture of H2PtCl6, NiSO4 and porous graphene oxide (PGO). The obtained hybrid of PtNi/ERPGO was investigated by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Furthermore, the electrocatalytic activity for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) was evaluated by electrochemical method. The experimental results have demonstrated that PtNi/ERPGO enhanced electrocatalytic activity, which might be attributed to the bifunctional mechanism and the existence of unique pore structure on the surface of graphene sheets.
Current studies focused on the effects of all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) on synovial explants from rats with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) induced by lipopolysaccharides (LPS). In our study, synovial ...membranes were extracted aseptically from the quadriceps femoris of the knee joint of rats, and then incubated in medium containing 10% neonate bovine serum for 24 h adaptive culture. We first measured variations of correlation factors in synovium at 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 h in control medium or in medium containing 20 ng/mL tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) (TNF-α-experiment). Then, we investigated the synovium exposed to three ATRA concentrations after 48 h incubation (ATRA-experiment). The effects of ATRA on synovitis were evaluated by observing the expression of inflammatory cytokines, angiogenic factors and the production of proteases in nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) pathway and apoptosis and autophagy. In TNF-α-experiment, the secretion of nitric oxide (NO), interleukin-6 (IL-6), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) increased significantly after TNF-α stimulation without pathological damage to the synovium. Hence, we successfully obtained the synovial explants model, which had longer inflammatory response time. In the ATRA-experiment, ATRA suppressed the secretion of IL-6 and NO, downregulated the NF-κB P65 and Bcl-2, increased levels of autophagy marker protein LC3, but different doses of ATRA showed inconsistent regulatory effects on VEGF and MMP-9. In short, ATRA inhibited TNF-α induced synovitis by the regulation of inflammatory cytokines and inhibiting NF-κB signal transduction and potentially promoting autophagy, apoptosis and angiogenesis, displaying its role in alleviating synovial inflammation in patients with RA.
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•Proposed a strategy for controlled alcoholysis by solubilization.•Synthesized POM catalysts with high thermal stability and limited catalytic activity.•72.1 % oligomer products were ...obtained in 10 min under optimal conditions.•Multilayer alcoholysis with solubilization effect is the key to achieve controllable.•Oligomer was directly applied to the preparation of PET-PLA successfully.
Controlled degradation of macromolecules or natural macromolecules is important for their subsequent utilization. Normally, it is easier to degrade them to monomers than to oligomers in designated molecular weight range, the controlled degradation is much difficult to achieve and has been challenge for the utilization of macromolecules. Here, we proposed a strategy for simultaneous degradation of the inner and outer layers of PET, which avoid the degradation of polymers from the outside to the inside and achieved the controlled degradation. Under high temperature and micro-pressure conditions, PET is transformed from dense to flocculent structure by the swelling effect, which satisfies the need for simultaneous degradation of the inner and outer layers. In addition, a stable “Dawson” type Polyoxometalates (POMs) α2-K8P2W17O61X(H2O)‧16H2O (X = Zn, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu) with limited number of catalytic activity center was synthesized and applied to PET alcoholysis to obtain oligomer with given molecular weight range. Under the optimal conditions, PET: EG: POM catalyst = 1.0: 4.0: 0.02 (wt%), 240 °C, 10 min, PET was completely degraded and obtained the oligomer products (Mn < 2000 g/mol) with 72.1 % yield. By investigating the mechanism of the controlled alcoholysis, the formation of flocculent PET was be the key factor in achieving controlled degradation; hydrogen bonding and coordination of POMs are the key interactions to achieve rapid alcoholysis. Finally, oligomers were applied in the preparation of PET-PLA copolymers to follow sustainable route. The incorporation of bio-based polymers demonstrates better inclusiveness to the environment and contributes to harmonious development.
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