Determination of circulating tumor cells by surface-enhanced Raman scattering based on molecularly imprinted polymers doped with silver nanoparticles.

The rapid and simple detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can help with early diagnosis of tumor diseases and assist clinical judgment of tumor disease development status and prognosis. An important alteration in cancer progression is a significant increase in sialic acid (SA) levels, making sialic acid one of an interesting biomarker for cancer type diversity. Here, novel SERS nano-biosensors were fabricated employing molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) particles loaded with Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) to form high affinity toward sialic acid on CTCs.

Skin-like Heterogeneous and Self-Healing Conductive Hydrogel toward Ultrasensitive Marine Sensing.

Flexible wearable electronic devices based on hydrophobic, conductive hydrogels have attracted widespread attention in the field of underwater sensing. However, traditional homogeneous hydrogels tend to compromise their conductivity and sensing performance when achieving hydrophobicity, and the high complexity of marine environments further reduces their sensing performance and service life. Here, we develop a seawater-resistant conductive hydrogel with ultrahigh sensitivity and self-healing ability by the introduction of a skin-like heterogeneous structure, consisting of a hydrophobic outer layer that protects against seawater and a conductive internal layer that senses.

Compact and broadband polarization splitter-rotator on thin-film lithium niobate minimized with the fast quasi-adiabatic algorithm.

Polarization splitter-rotators (PSRs) are crucial for on-chip polarization-division multiplexing (PDM) systems. Here, we design and experimentally demonstrate a compact and broadband PSR based on adiabatic mode evolution on a thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform. A novel, to the best of our knowledge, quasi-adiabatic algorithm is proposed to minimize the device size.

Disturbance-Triggered Instant Crystallization Activating Bioinspired Emissive Gels.

Many marine organisms feature sensitive sensory-perceptual systems to sense the surrounding environment and respond to disturbance with intense bioluminescence. However, it remains a great challenge to develop artificial materials that can sense external disturbance and simultaneously activate intense luminescence, although such materials are attractive for visual sensing and intelligent displays. Herein, we present a new class of bioinspired smart gels constructed by integrating hydrophilic polymeric networks, metastable supersaturated salt and fluorophores containing heterogenic atoms.

Cortical Beta Power Reflects the Influence of Pavlovian Cues on Human Decision-Making.

Reward-predictive cues can affect decision-making by enhancing instrumental responses toward the same (specific transfer) or similar (general transfer) rewards. The main theories on cue-guided decision-making consider specific transfer as driven by the activation of previously learned instrumental actions induced by cues sharing the sensory-specific properties of the reward they are associated with. However, to date, such theoretical assumption has never been directly investigated at the neural level.

The therapeutic potential of recombinant ANGPTL4 in Parkinson's disease: Evidence from in vivo and in vitro studies.

Background: The established body of knowledge attests to the pivotal influence of ANGPTL4 on lipid metabolism and vascular biology. Nevertheless, its potential implication in neurodegenerative disease remains to be fully characterized.

Methods: The present investigation delves into the involvement of ANGPTL4 in the pathological progression of PD, both in vitro and in vivo.

The inhibition effect of psoralen on prostate cancer PC3 cells via down-regulation of long non-coding RNA ENST00000510619.

Background: New medications are needed to improve outcomes of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Psoralen has been reported to have anti-cancer properties for various tumors, but there are limited reports about psoralen treatment in prostate cancer (PCa). This study aimed to investigate the effect of psoralen on PC3 cells and to investigate potential underlying mechanisms of action.

Preclinical characterization of [F]D-LW223: an improved metabolically stable PET tracer for imaging the translocator protein 18 kDa (TSPO) in neuroinflammatory rodent models and non-human primates.

Positron emission tomography (PET) targeting translocator protein 18 kDa (TSPO) can be used for the noninvasive detection of neuroinflammation. Improved in vivo stability of a TSPO tracer is beneficial for minimizing the potential confounding effects of radiometabolites. Deuteration represents an important strategy for improving the pharmacokinetics and stability of existing drug molecules in the plasma.

Microbiome-gut-brain axis contributes to patients and Bama miniature pigs with acute large ischemic stroke.

Acute large hemispheric infarction (ALHI) is an overwhelming emergency with a great challenge of gastrointestinal dysfunction clinically. Here, we initially proposed delayed bowel movements as the clinical phenotype of strike to gut-brain axis (GBA) in ALHI patients by epidemiological analysis of 499 acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients. H NMR-based metabolomics revealed that AIS markedly altered plasma global metabolic profiling of patients compared with healthy controls.

Design and Synthesis of Aryl Amide Derivatives Containing Thiazole as Type III Secretion System Inhibitors against .

To identify potent inhibitors of the type III secretion system (T3SS) in the foodborne pathogen , we synthesized 35 thiazole-containing aryl amides by merging salicylic acid with various heterocycles through active splicing. Screening for promoter activity led to the discovery of a highly effective T3SS inhibitor from these 35 compounds. Through subsequent experiments, it was confirmed that compound specifically targeted the T3SS of .

Jellyfish-Inspired Visual and Sensory Bubbling Robots with Automatic 3D Morphable Films for Underwater Environmental Interactions.

Coelenterates, such as Atolla jellyfish, are capable of integrating color, communication, and motion in a sophisticated manner, thereby enabling them to function as intelligent biological systems that can adapt to the challenges of the underwater environment. Extensive efforts have been dedicated to exploiting underwater visual, sensory, actuating, or combined systems. However, current biomimetic soft systems are still limited by the lack of comprehensive, integrated functional skins that can automatically deform, dynamically sense, and further send color signals when diving into underwater conditions.

Efficient sum-frequency generation of a yellow laser in a thin-film lithium niobate waveguide.

Yellow lasers with high efficiency and tunability play an essential role in many applications. Here, we demonstrate the sum-frequency generation (SFG) of yellow light on a periodically poled thin-film lithium niobate (PP-TFLN) waveguide. Taking advantage of large χ nonlinearity, a high normalized conversion efficiency of 10,097% (W·cm) is obtained with pump wavelengths of 1317.

PEG-crosslinked O-carboxymethyl chitosan films with degradability and antibacterial activity for food packaging.

This study developed a kind of PEG-crosslinked O-carboxymethyl chitosan (O-CMC-PEG) with various PEG content for food packaging. The crosslinking agent of isocyanate-terminated PEG was firstly synthesized by a simple condensation reaction between PEG and excess diisocyanate, then the crosslink between O-carboxymethyl chitosan (O-CMC) and crosslinking agent occurred under mild conditions to produce O-CMC-PEG with a crosslinked structure linked by urea bonds. FT-IR and H NMR techniques were utilized to confirm the chemical structures of the crosslinking agent and O-CMC-PEGs.

Association between novel genetic variants of Notch signaling pathway genes and survival of hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: Although the Notch pathway plays an important role in formation and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), few studies have reported the associations between functional genetic variants and the survival of hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related HCC.

Methods: In the present study, we performed multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression analysis to evaluate associations between 36,101 SNPs in 264 Notch pathway-related genes and overall survival (OS) of 866 patients with HBV-related HCC.

Results: It was found that three independent SNPs (NEURL1B rs4868192, CNTN1 rs444927 and FCER2 rs1990975) were significantly associated with the HBV-related HCC OS.

The Effects of Optimal Dietary Vitamin D on Growth and Carcass Performance, Tibia Traits, Meat Quality, and Intestinal Morphology of Chinese Yellow-Feathered Broiler Chickens.

This study aimed to assess the effects of different dietary vitamin D (VD) levels on growth and carcass performance, tibia traits, meat quality, and intestinal morphology of yellow-feathered broilers. One-day-old broilers (n = 1440) were assigned into four treatment groups with six replicates per group, and each replicate contained 60 chicks. Dietary VD significantly improved the growth performance and carcass traits of broilers, and only low-dose VD supplementation decreased the abdominal fat percentage.

Discovery of Arylfluorosulfates as Novel Fungicidal Agents against Plant Pathogens.

A series of arylfluorosulfates were synthesized as fungicide candidates through a highly efficient sulfur fluoride exchange (SuFEx) reaction. A total of 32 arylfluorosulfate derivatives with simple structures have been synthesized, and most of them exhibited fungal activities against five agricultural pathogens (, , , , and ). Among the target compounds, compound exhibited great antifungal activity against (EC = 1.

A nonhuman primate model with Alzheimer's disease-like pathology induced by hippocampal overexpression of human tau.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most burdening diseases of the century with no disease-modifying treatment at this time. Nonhuman primates (NHPs) share genetic, anatomical, and physiological similarities with humans, making them ideal model animals for investigating the pathogenesis of AD and potential therapies. However, the use of NHPs in AD research has been hindered by the paucity of AD monkey models due to their long generation time, ethical considerations, and technical challenges in genetically modifying monkeys.

Functional genetic variants of the disulfidptosis-related INF2 gene predict survival of hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma.

Disulfidptosis is a novel form of programmed cell death involved in migration and invasion of cancer cells, but few studies investigated the roles of genetic variants in disulfidptosis-related genes in survival of patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We used Cox proportional hazards regression analyses, Kaplan-Meier curves and receiver operating characteristic curves to assess effects of genetic variants in 14 disulfidptosis-related genes on overall survival of 866 HBV-HCC patients. The Bayesian false discovery probability was used for multiple testing corrections.

Associations between genetic variants in sphingolipid metabolism pathway genes and hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma survival.

Background: Although the sphingolipid metabolism pathway is known to play a significant role in tumor progression, there have been few studies on how genetic variants in the sphingolipid metabolism pathway genes affect the survival of patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: We utilized available genotyping data to conduct multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model analysis, examining the associations of 12,188 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 86 sphingolipid metabolism pathway genes on the survival of 866 HBV-HCC patients, and the model was also used in additive interaction analysis. We used bioinformatics functional prediction and expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis to explore the potential functions of SNPs and to evaluate the association of SNPs with the corresponding mRNA expression, respectively.

Potentially functional genetic variants in ferroptosis-related CREB3 and GALNT14 genes predict survival of hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: Ferroptosis is a known crucial player in the development of cancers. However, the effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ferroptosis-related genes on survival in hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HBV-HCC) patients remains unknown.

Methods: We used two-stage multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analyses to estimate the associations between 48,774 SNPs in 480 ferroptosis-related genes and overall survival (OS) of 866 HBV-HCC patients.

Comparison of RLP and PCNL for large pelvis calculi with CKD.

Objectives: To compare the effect and safety of retroperitoneal laparoscopic pyelolithotomy (RLP) and percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) for large pelvis calculi with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Material And Methods: Between June 2017 and July 2021, 62 patients with CKD and large renal pelvis calculi (>4 cm) were treated with RLP. Another 62 patients receiving PCNL served as controls.