Radiation Effects of Normal B-Lymphoblastoid Cells after Exposing Them to Low-Dose-Rate Irradiation from Tritium β-rays.

The effects of tritium at low doses and low dose rates have received increasing attention due to recent developments in fusion energy and the associated risks of tritium releases into the environment. Mitochondria have been identified as a potential candidate for studying the effects of low-dose/low-dose-rate radiation, with extensive experimental results obtained using X-ray irradiation. In this study, irradiation experiments were conducted on normal B-lymphoblastoid cells using HTO at varying doses.

Multislip-enabled morphing of all-inorganic perovskites.

All-inorganic lead halide perovskites (CsPbX, X = Cl, Br or I) are becoming increasingly important for energy conversion and optoelectronics because of their outstanding performance and enhanced environmental stability. Morphing perovskites into specific shapes and geometries without damaging their intrinsic functional properties is attractive for designing devices and manufacturing. However, inorganic semiconductors are often intrinsically brittle at room temperature, except for some recently reported layered or van der Waals semiconductors.

The distinct initiation sites and processing activities of TTLL4 and TTLL7 in glutamylation of brain tubulin.

Mammalian brain tubulins undergo a reversible posttranslational modification-polyglutamylation-which attaches a secondary polyglutamate chain to the primary sequence of proteins. Loss of its erasers can disrupt polyglutamylation homeostasis and cause neurodegeneration. Tubulin tyrosine ligase like 4 (TTLL4) and TTLL7 were known to modify tubulins, both with preference for the β-isoform, but differently contribute to neurodegeneration.

Evaporation Caused Invaginations of Acoustically Levitated Colloidal Droplets.

Controlled buckling of colloidal droplets via acoustic levitation plays an important role in pharmaceutical, coating, and material self-assembly. In this study, the evaporation process of PTFE colloidal droplets with two particle concentrations (60 wt% and 20 wt%) was investigated under acoustic levitation. We report the occurrence of surface invagination caused by evaporation.

Dynamics of Rising Bubbles and Their Impact with Viscoelastic Fluid Interfaces.

Bubble dynamics plays a significant role in a wide range of industrial fields, such as food, pharmacy and chemical engineering. The physicochemical properties of complex fluids can greatly affect the speed with which bubbles rise, and the lifetime of bubbles, which in turn can affect the efficiency of food and drug manufacturing and also sewage purification. Therefore, it is of great scientific and practical significance to study the influence mechanism of nanoparticles and surfactants on bubble rising and impact in a complex fluid interface.

Preparation and characterization of paclitaxel palmitate albumin nanoparticles with high loading efficacy: an in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor study in mouse models.

Background: Combination of the prodrug technique with an albumin nano drug-loaded system is a novel promising approach for cancer treatment. However, the long-lasting and far-reaching challenge for the treatment of cancers lies in how to construct the albumin nanometer drug delivery system with lead compounds and their derivatives.

Methods: In this study, we reported the preparation of injectable albumin nanoparticles (NPs) with a high and quantitative drug loading system based on the Nab technology of paclitaxel palmitate (PTX-PA).

Systematic Comparison and Comprehensive Evaluation of 80 Amino Acid Descriptors in Peptide QSAR Modeling.

The peptide quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR), also known as the quantitative sequence-activity model (QSAM), has attracted much attention in the bio- and chemoinformatics communities and is a well developed computational peptidology strategy to statistically correlate the sequence/structure and activity/property relationships of functional peptides. Amino acid descriptors (AADs) are one of the most widely used methods to characterize peptide structures by decomposing the peptide into its residue building blocks and sequentially parametrizing each building block with a vector of amino acid principal properties. Considering that various AADs have been proposed over the past decades and new AADs are still emerging today, we herein query the following: is it necessary to develop so many AADs and do we need to continuously develop more new AADs? In this study, we exhaustively collect 80 published AADs and comprehensively evaluate their modeling performance (including fitting ability, internal stability, and predictive power) on 8 QSAR-oriented peptide sample sets (QPSs) by employing 2 sophisticated machine learning methods (MLMs), totally building and systematically comparing 1280 (80 AADs × 8 QPSs × 2 MLMs) peptide QSAR models.

Context contribution to the intermolecular recognition of human ACE2-derived peptides by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein: implications for improving the peptide affinity but not altering the peptide specificity by optimizing indirect readout.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an etiological agent of the current rapidly growing outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which is straining health systems around the world. Disrupting the intermolecular association of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (S protein) with its cell surface receptor human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) has been recognized as a promising therapeutic strategy against COVID-19. The association is a typical peptide-mediated interaction, where the hACE adopts an α1-helix, which can form a two-helix bundle with the α2-helix, to pack against a flat pocket on the S protein surface.

Study on the cellular internalization mechanisms and anti-bone metastasis prostate cancer efficiency of the peptide T7-modified polypeptide nanoparticles.

Bone-metastasis prostate cancer (BMPCa)-targeting gene therapy is gaining increasing concern in recent years. The peptide T7-modified polypeptide nanoparticles for delivery DNA (CRD-PEG-T7/pPMEPA1) was prepared as our previous study. However, the feasibility of CRD-PEG-T7/pPMEPA1 for BMPCa treatment, the mechanisms underlying cellular uptake, anti-BMPCa effect, and administration safety requires further research.

Why the first self-binding peptide of human -Src kinase does not contain class II motif but can bind to its cognate Src homology 3 domain in class II mode?

Src homology 3 (SH3) domains are small protein modules involved in the regulation of important cellular pathways such as proliferation and migration, which canonically prefer to recognize and interact with proline-rich peptide ligands with class I or class II motif. Previously, we identified two self-binding peptides (SBPs) in human -Src tyrosine kinase, of which the first SBP (fSBP) segment (SKQTGAK) fulfills intramolecular interaction with the kinase SH3 domain to regulate the kinase function. The segment (and its equivalents in other -Src family members) does not contain canonical class II motif (PxxQxL versus PxxPx+), but can bind to SH3 domain in a routine class II mode.

Superhydrophobic and superaerophilic hierarchical Pt@MIL-101/PVDF composite for hydrogen water isotope exchange reactions.

A hierarchical porous composite of Pt@MIL-101/ployvinylidene fluoride (Pt@MIL-101/PVDF) was successfully prepared through a solution-processed method. This composite possesses advanced superhydrophobic and superaerophilic performance which makes it a promising catalyst facilitating liquid phase catalytic exchange techniques (LPCE) in hydrogen-water isotope exchange process. Its superhydrophobic property results in the repellence of water drops from flooding the catalytic surface with a relatively large contact angle in the exchange reaction, and its superaerophilic surface broke hydrogen bubbles into thin film so as to reach higher catalytic reactive efficiency.

Microfluidic Cell Trapping for Single-Cell Analysis.

The single-cell capture microfluidic chip has many advantages, including low cost, high throughput, easy manufacturing, integration, non-toxicity and good stability. Because of these characteristics, the cell capture microfluidic chip is increasingly becoming an important carrier on the study of life science and pharmaceutical analysis. Important promises of single-cell analysis are the paring, fusion, disruption and analysis of intracellular components for capturing a single cell.

Self-Powered Intelligent Water Meter for Electrostatic Scale Preventing, Rust Protection, and Flow Sensor in a Solar Heater System.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been investigated for mechanical energy harvesting because of their high-energy conversion efficiency, low cost, ease of manufacturing, and so on. This paper deals with designing a kind of water-fluid-driven rotating TENG (WR-TENG) inspired by the structure of a water meter. The designed WR-TENG is effectively integrated into a self-powered electrostatic scale-preventing and rust protection system.

A spring-assisted hybrid triboelectric-electromagnetic nanogenerator for harvesting low-frequency vibration energy and creating a self-powered security system.

With the rapid development of portable electronics, exploring sustainable power sources is becoming more and more urgent. Utilizing a nanogenerator to harvest ambient mechanical energy could be an effective approach to solve this challenge. In this work, a novel spring-assisted hybrid nanogenerator (HG) consisting of a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and an electromagnetic generator (EMG) was developed for harvesting low-frequency vibration energy.

[Risk factors for different types of hypospadias].

Objective: To explore the risk factors for different types of hypospadias.

Methods: According to the 1∶1 ratio, we included hypospadias children in the case group and those without urinary abnormality as controls, all from the Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University between October 2015 to October 2016. Using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses, we investigated the risk factors for hypospadias as well as for four different types of the disease.

Knock-in human GDF5 proregion L373R mutation as a mouse model for proximal symphalangism.

Proximal symphalangism (SYM1) is an autosomal dominant disorder, mainly characterized by bony fusions of the proximal phalanges of the hands and feet. and were identified to be responsible for SYM1. We have previously reported on a p.

[Analysis of hydrogen isotopes by gas chromatography using a MnCl coated -AlO capillary packed column].

The conventional packed column gas chromatographic analysis of hydrogen isotopes has low column efficiency, broad peak and long retention time. In this work, a -AlO with MnCl coated capillary packed column was tested at cryogenic temperature. The systematic column efficiency analysis and the hydrogen isotopes analytical technique research had been carried out.

[Hydrogen isotopes analysis by gas chromatography using metal-organic framework CPL-1 packed column].

CPL-1 is a metal organic framework (MOF) with potential application as stationary phase material in gas chromatographic (GC) analysis, due to its large specific surface area, uniform pore size and good quantum sieving effect on hydrogen isotopes at low temperatures. Herein, a microporous column packed with CPL-1 was used at cryogenic temperature (77 K), and the column was 1.0 mm in inner diameter, 0.

Disrupting the intramolecular interaction between proto-oncogene c-Src SH3 domain and its self-binding peptide PPII with rationally designed peptide ligands.

Proto-oncogene non-receptor tyrosine protein kinase c-Src has been involved in the development, progression and metastasis of a variety of human cancers. This protein contains two self-binding peptide (SBP) sites separately between the SH3 domain and polyproline-II (PPII) helix and between the SH2 domain and C-terminal phosphorylatable tail (CTPT), which are potential targets of anticancer drugs to regulate the kinase activity. Here, we described an integrated protocol to systematically investigate the structural basis, energetic property and dynamics behaviour of PPII binding to SH3, and to rationally design potent peptide ligands to target the SBP site of SH3-PPII interaction.

[A Meta analysis of the efficacy of high-frequency oscillatory ventilation versus conventional mechanical ventilation for treating pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome].

Objective: To systematically assess the clinical efficacy of high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) and conventional mechanical ventilation (CMV) for treating pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Methods: Data from randomized controlled trials comparing HFOV and CMV in the treatment of pediatric ARDS published before July 2016 were collected from the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Medline, CNKI, and Wanfang Data. Literature screening, data extraction, and quality assessment were performed by two independent reviewers according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Determination of injection molding process windows for optical lenses using response surface methodology.

This study focuses on injection molding process window determination for obtaining optimal imaging optical properties, astigmatism, coma, and spherical aberration using plastic lenses. The Taguchi experimental method was first used to identify the optimized combination of parameters and significant factors affecting the imaging optical properties of the lens. Full factorial experiments were then implemented based on the significant factors to build the response surface models.

Theoretical study of energy deposition in ionization chambers for tritium measurements.

Energy deposition in ionization chambers has been theoretically studied for tritium measurements in gaseous form. A one-dimension model is introduced to establish the quantitative relationship between energy deposition rate and many factors, including carrier gas, gas pressure, wall material, chamber size, and gas temperature. Energy deposition rate has been calculated at pressure varying from 5 kPa to 500 kPa based on some approximations.

An open-walled ionization chamber appropriate to tritium monitoring for glovebox.

An open-walled ionization chamber is developed to monitor the tritium concentration in gloveboxes in tritium processing systems. Two open walls are used to replace the sealed wall in common ionization chambers, through which the tritium gas can diffuse into the chamber without the aid of pumps and pipelines. Some basic properties of the chamber are examined to evaluate its performance.

The effect of vial type and cocktail quantity on tritium measurement in LSC.

The effect of sample vial type and cocktail quantity on tritium measurement in liquid scintillation counting is studied in this paper. With both high and low level tritium samples, glass vials allow higher counting rates than plastic vials do. We also present detailed analysis of the way to obtain the optimal counting condition by dispensing different quantity of cocktail into sample vials.