Publications by authors named "MengLin Zhu"

Article Synopsis
  • - The study introduces a technique called four-dimensional (4D) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) to analyze nanoscale ordering in disordered organic semiconducting polymers, which is critical for understanding their properties.
  • - By utilizing advanced nanodiffraction patterns and reconstruction methods, researchers were able to visualize the ordered domains in materials like P3HT and IDTBT, allowing for detailed measurement of molecular stacking and orientation.
  • - The results revealed a clear correlation between the type and size of molecular ordering in the samples, with various analyses providing insights into the molecular structures and changes that occur when fullerenes are added to P3HT.
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Introduction: Cisplatin-based chemotherapy is one of the fundamental therapeutic modalities for gastric cancer (GC). Chemoresistance to cisplatin is a great clinical challenge, and its underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are involved in the pathophysiology of multiple human malignancies.

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Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most common forms of arthritis. Extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) has been identified as a viable alternative therapeutic approach in light of the present protracted clinical course of pharmacological treatment, and changes in levels of marker proteins in the blood samples of RA patients can be utilized to assess treatment outcomes.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted involving forty patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were assigned randomly to two groups.

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Article Synopsis
  • Chemotherapy can lead to premature ovarian insufficiency (CIPOI) in women, causing loss of fertility and no effective treatments currently exist.
  • Fecal microbiota transplantation studies in mice show that an unhealthy gut microbiome contributes to ovarian problems in CIPOI, particularly due to a decrease in certain beneficial bacteria (Limosilactobacillus reuteri) and its byproducts.
  • Supplementing with L. reuteri or its compound β-resorcylic acid (β-RA) helps protect ovarian health, maintains hormone balance, and prevents apoptosis of key ovarian cells, suggesting new avenues for preserving fertility during cancer treatment.
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Background: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been implicated in the development and progression of gastric cancer (GC). However, it remains unclear whether dysregulated circRNA affects immune escape and the efficacy of immunotherapy in GC. Our aim is to investigate the molecular mechanism of circRNA affecting GC immunotherapy and identify effective molecular therapeutic targets.

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Two new family members of mixed alkali-earth metal phosphate and aluminophosphate CaMg(PO) and CsAl(PO) were prepared from a phosphate system using a high-temperature solution method. The structural analysis results show that two compounds crystallize in the monoclinic space group 2/ and 2/ and feature a three-dimensional (3D) network. The 3D structure of CaMg(PO) consists of [CaO], [MgO] octahedra and [PO] rings, in which the [MgO] and [PO] rings link to form a 3D structure and Ca cations are filled within the structure.

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Ionogel-based sensors have gained widespread attention in recent years due to their excellent flexibility, biocompatibility, and multifunctionality. However, the adaptation of ionogel-based sensors in extreme environments (such as humid, acidic, alkaline, and salt environments) has rarely been studied. Here, thermoplastic polyurethane/carbon nanotubes-ionic liquids (TPU/CNTs-ILs) ionogels with a complementary sandpaper morphology on the surface were prepared by a solution-casting method with a simple sandpaper as the template, and the hydrophobic flexible TPU/CNTs-ILs ionogel-based sensor was obtained by modification using nanoparticles modified with cetyltrimethoxysilane.

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Thin-film materials with large electromechanical responses are fundamental enablers of next-generation micro-/nano-electromechanical applications. Conventional electromechanical materials (for example, ferroelectrics and relaxors), however, exhibit severely degraded responses when scaled down to submicrometre-thick films due to substrate constraints (clamping). This limitation is overcome, and substantial electromechanical responses in antiferroelectric thin films are achieved through an unconventional coupling of the field-induced antiferroelectric-to-ferroelectric phase transition and the substrate constraints.

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Background: Cuproptosis, as a unique modality of regulated cell death, requires the involvement of ubiquitin-binding enzyme UBE2D2. However, the prognostic and immunotherapeutic values of UBE2D2 in pan-cancer remain largely unknown.

Methods: Using UCSC Xena, TIMER, Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), and Human Protein Atlas (HPA) databases, we aimed to explore the differential expression pattern of UBE2D2 across multiple cancer types and to evaluate its association with patient prognosis, clinical features, and genetic variations.

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Hydrogen sulfide for wound healing has drawn a lot of attention recently. In this research, the S-propargyl-cysteine (SPRC), an endogenous HS donor, was loaded on carbomer hydrogel, and a copper sheet rat burn model was developed. Pathological changes in rat skin tissue were examined using hematoxylin-eosin (HE) and Masson staining.

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Structural domains and domain walls, inherent in single crystalline perovskite oxides, can significantly influence the properties of the material and therefore must be considered as a vital part of the design of the epitaxial oxide thin films. We employ 4D-STEM combined with machine learning (ML) to comprehensively characterize domain structures at both high spatial resolution and over a significant spatial extent. Using orthorhombic LaFeO as a model system, we explore the application of unsupervised and supervised ML in domain mapping, which demonstrates robustness against experiment uncertainties.

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Primary liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The role of the 'Other' subfamily of HECT E3 ligases (E3s) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unknown. The expression of the 'Other' HECT E3s was performed using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data, and the authors found that the 'Other' HECT E3s were differentially expressed in HCC.

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Article Synopsis
  • Hypoxia in tumors contributes to their progression and resistance to immune responses, making it a target for innovative cancer therapies like TH-302, which is designed to be activated in low-oxygen conditions.
  • Researchers created TH-302 nanoparticles (TH-302 NPs) to specifically attack hypoxic tumor areas and conducted various tests to analyze their size, safety, and effects on gastric cancer cells, both in lab settings and in live subjects.
  • Results showed that TH-302 NPs not only inhibited cancer cell growth and promoted cell death in low-oxygen environments but also improved immune responses when used with anti-PD-1 therapy, ultimately enhancing overall treatment effectiveness.
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Article Synopsis
  • - Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a gas that has important health benefits, including reducing inflammation, managing oxidative stress, and widening blood vessels, which helps regulate bodily functions.
  • - Functional therapy aims to address the root causes of diseases instead of just alleviating symptoms, and recent studies suggest H2S might influence gene expression through epigenetic changes.
  • - Research indicates that H2S may modify DNA methylation and affect proteins involved in gene regulation, which could make it a valuable candidate for treating conditions linked to epigenetic alterations, despite challenges in its clinical application.
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Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that can lead to joint damage and even permanent disability, seriously affecting patients' quality of life. At present, the complete cure for RA is not achievable, only to relieve the symptoms to reduce the pain of patients. Factors such as environment, genes, and sex can induce RA.

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Layer transfer techniques have been extensively explored for semiconductor device fabrication as a path to reduce costs and to form heterogeneously integrated devices. These techniques entail isolating epitaxial layers from an expensive donor wafer to form freestanding membranes. However, current layer transfer processes are still low-throughput and too expensive to be commercially suitable.

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Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an incurable systemic autoimmune disease. Disease progression leads to joint deformity and associated loss of function, which significantly impacts the quality of life for sufferers and adds to losses in the labor force. In the past few decades, RA has attracted increased attention from researchers, the abnormal signaling pathways in RA are a very important research field in the diagnosis and treatment of RA, which provides important evidence for understanding this complex disease and developing novel RA-linked intervention targets.

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Heterogeneous integration of single-crystal materials offers great opportunities for advanced device platforms and functional systems. Although substantial efforts have been made to co-integrate active device layers by heteroepitaxy, the mismatch in lattice polarity and lattice constants has been limiting the quality of the grown materials. Layer transfer methods as an alternative approach, on the other hand, suffer from the limited availability of transferrable materials and transfer-process-related obstacles.

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Spin-orbit torque (SOT)-driven deterministic control of the magnetic state of a ferromagnet with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is key to next-generation spintronic applications including non-volatile, ultrafast and energy-efficient data-storage devices. However, field-free deterministic switching of perpendicular magnetization remains a challenge because it requires an out-of-plane antidamping torque, which is not allowed in conventional spin-source materials such as heavy metals and topological insulators due to the system's symmetry. The exploitation of low-crystal symmetries in emergent quantum materials offers a unique approach to achieve SOTs with unconventional forms.

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Histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) acts as a regulator of the nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) signaling pathway by deacetylating the non-histone protein myeloid differentiation primary response 88 (MyD88) at lysine residues, which is an adapter protein for the Toll-like receptor (TLR) and interleukin (IL)-1β receptor. Over-activated immune responses, induced by infiltrated immune cells, excessively trigger the NF-κB signaling pathway in other effector cells and contribute to the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It has also been reported that HDAC6 can promote the activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway.

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The red-crowned crane () is a critically endangered species. Three-dimensional-printed prosthetic beaks made of titanium alloy and polyether ether ketone (PEEK) were used to repair the beak of a red-crowned crane that had a complete fracture of the anterior maxillary bone and rhinotheca. The physical properties and stability of the prostheses and changes in the crane's behaviors after application of either beak were evaluated.

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Vascular senescence plays a vital role in cardiovascular diseases and it is closely related to cellular senescence. At the molecular level, aging begins with a single cell, and it is characterized by telomere shortening, mitochondrial dysfunction, stem cell exhaustion, epigenetic changes, and so on. Epigenetics is an independent discipline that modifies DNA activity without altering the DNA sequence.

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