Lactobacillus acidophilus KBL409 protects against kidney injury via improving mitochondrial function with chronic kidney disease.

Purpose: Recent advances have led to greater recognition of the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathogenesis of chronic kidney disease (CKD). There has been evidence that CKD is also associated with dysbiosis. Here, we aimed to evaluate whether probiotic supplements can have protective effects against kidney injury via improving mitochondrial function.

So Shiho Tang Reduces Inflammation in Lipopolysaccharide-Induced RAW 264.7 Macrophages and Dextran Sodium Sulfate-Induced Colitis Mice.

So Shiho Tang (SSHT) is a traditional herbal medicine commonly used in Asian countries. This study evaluated the anti-inflammatory effect of SSHT and the associated mechanism using lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages and murine dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced ulcerative colitis models.

Improvement of Thermodynamic Phase Stability and High-Rate Capability of Li Layered Oxides.

The use of elemental doping in lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) cathode material at high cutoff voltage is a widely adopted technique in the field of rechargeable batteries to mitigate multiple unfavorable phase transitions. However, there is still a lack of fundamental understanding regarding the rationality of each doping element implemented in this method, specifically considering the various thermodynamic stability and phase transitions. Herein, we investigated the effect of Ti doping on an O2 phase LCO (LCTO) cathode material that exhibited enhanced rate performance.

A model study for the classification of high-risk groups for cardiac arrest in general ward patients using simulation techniques.

Currently, many hospitals use vital signs-based criteria such as modified early warning score (MEWS) and national early warning score (NEWS) to classify high-risk patients for cardiac arrest, but there are limitations in selecting high-risk patients with a possibility of cardiac arrest. The purpose of this study is to develop a cardiac arrest classification model to identify patients at high risk of cardiac arrest based on the patient family and past history, and blood test results after hospitalization, rather than vital signs. This study used electronic medical record (EMR) data from A university hospital, and patients in the high-risk group for cardiac arrest were defined as those who underwent cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after cardiac arrest.

A Survey of Practice Patterns for Clinical Nodal Staging Prior to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer.

Background: The importance of clinical staging in breast cancer has increased owing to the wide use of neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NST). This study aimed to investigate the current practice patterns regarding clinical nodal staging in breast cancer in real-world settings.

Materials And Methods: A web-based survey was administered to board-certified oncologists in Korea, including breast surgical, medical, and radiation oncologists, from January to April 2022.

Functionally Masked Antibody to Uncouple Immune-Related Toxicities in Checkpoint Blockade Cancer Therapy.

Of the existing immunotherapy drugs in oncology, monoclonal antibodies targeting the immune checkpoint axis are preferred because of the durable responses observed in selected patients. However, the associated immune-related adverse events (irAEs), causing uncommon fatal events, often require specialized management and medication discontinuation. The study aim was to investigate our hypothesis that masking checkpoint antibodies with tumor microenvironment (TME)-responsive polymer chains can mitigate irAEs and selectively target tumors by limiting systemic exposure to patients.

Curvature-sensing peptide inhibits tumour-derived exosomes for enhanced cancer immunotherapy.

Tumour-derived exosomes (T-EXOs) impede immune checkpoint blockade therapies, motivating pharmacological efforts to inhibit them. Inspired by how antiviral curvature-sensing peptides disrupt membrane-enveloped virus particles in the exosome size range, we devised a broadly useful strategy that repurposes an engineered antiviral peptide to disrupt membrane-enveloped T-EXOs for synergistic cancer immunotherapy. The membrane-targeting peptide inhibits T-EXOs from various cancer types and exhibits pH-enhanced membrane disruption relevant to the tumour microenvironment.

Self-immolative polymer-based immunogenic cell death inducer for regulation of redox homeostasis.

Doxorubicin (DOX), widely used as an anticancer drug, is considered an immunogenic cell death (ICD) inducer that enhances cancer immunotherapy. However, its extended application as an ICD inducer has been limited owing to poor antigenicity and inefficient adjuvanticity. To enhance the immunogenicity of DOX, we prepare a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive self-immolative polymer (R-SIP) that can efficiently destroy redox homeostasis via self-immolation-mediated glutathione depletion in cancer cells.

Adzuki Bean MY59 Extract Reduces Insulin Resistance and Hepatic Steatosis in High-Fat-Fed Mice via the Downregulation of Lipocalin-2.

Adzuki bean is well known as a potential functional food that improves metabolic complications from obesity and diabetes. Lipocalin-2 (LCN2) has been implicated to have an important role in obesity and diabetes. However, the protective roles of adzuki bean MY59 extract (ABE) on insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis are not fully understood.

Topological beaming of light.

Nanophotonic light emitters are key components in numerous application areas because of their compactness and versatility. Here, we propose a topological beam emitter structure that takes advantage of submicrometer footprint size, small divergence angle, high efficiency, and adaptable beam shaping capability. The proposed structure consists of a topological junction of two guided-mode resonance gratings inducing a leaky Jackiw-Rebbi state resonance.

Geometric-phase intraocular lenses with multifocality.

We demonstrate a new type of multifocal and extended depth of focus (EDOF) intraocular lenses (IOLs) embedding μm-thin geometric phase (GP) lens layers. As an emerging approach for lens phase design, the GP modulated IOLs outperform conventional diffractive IOLs in multifocality while completely avoiding the clinically undesirable demand for additional surface patterns to standard monofocal IOL designs. The number of foci and light splitting ratio of the GP IOLs are adjusted by changing the number of stacked GP layers and the thickness of each layer.

Inverse-cavity structure for low-threshold miniature lasers.

Creating micro and nano lasers, high threshold gain is an inherent problem that have critically restricted their great technological potentials. Here, we propose an inverse-cavity laser structure where its threshold gain in the shortest-cavity regime is order-of-magnitude lower than the conventional cavity configurations. In the proposed structure, a resonant feedback mechanism efficiently transfers external optical gain to the cavity mode at a higher rate for a shorter cavity, hence resulting in the threshold gain reducing with decreasing cavity length in stark contrast to the conventional cavity structures.

PD-L1 siRNA-hyaluronic acid conjugate for dual-targeted cancer immunotherapy.

"Foreignization" of tumor cells via delivery of a non-self foreign antigen (Ag) into tumors is an appealing strategy to initiate anti-tumor immunity that can facilitate tumor rejection by pre-existing foreign-Ag-reactive T cells. However, the immune-suppressive factors in the tumor microenvironment (TME) limit the durable and potent immune response of these cells against tumor antigens, stressing the need for improved tumor-foreignization strategies. Here, we demonstrate that blockade of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) on both tumor cells and dendritic cells (DCs) can markedly potentiate the induction of tumor-reactive T cells, thereby strengthening the anti-tumor immunity ignited by tumor-foreignization.

In situ multiscale probing of the synthesis of a Ni-rich layered oxide cathode reveals reaction heterogeneity driven by competing kinetic pathways.

Nickel-rich layered oxides are envisaged as key near-future cathode materials for high-energy lithium-ion batteries. However, their practical application has been hindered by their inferior cycle stability, which originates from chemo-mechanical failures. Here we probe the solid-state synthesis of LiNiCoMnO in real time to better understand the structural and/or morphological changes during phase evolution.

Chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer-based immunostimulatory nanoparticles for sonoimmunotherapy.

Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) has recently emerged as a promising alternative to photodynamic therapy because of its applicability in treating deeply located tumors accessible by ultrasound (US). However, the therapeutic potential of conventional sonosensitizers is limited by the low quantum yield of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and poor immune responses eliciting canonical apoptosis of cancer cells. Herein, we report chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET)-based immunostimulatory nanoparticles (iCRET NPs) for sonoimmunotherapy, which not only amplify the ROS quantum yield of sonosensitizers but also generate carbon dioxide (CO) bubbles to induce immunogenic cell death in the tumor microenvironment (TME).

Recruitment of dendritic cells using 'find-me' signaling microparticles for personalized cancer immunotherapy.

Therapeutic cancer vaccines have attracted attention because of their potential to prime cytotoxic T cells, which are highly antigen (Ag)-specific, allowing personalized cancer immunotherapy. However, because of their low immunogenicity, cancer vaccines have been used in only a few types of cancers in clinics, primarily because of the poor Ag presentation of dendritic cells (DCs). To address these limitations of cancer vaccines, we show that 'find-me' signaling polymeric microparticles (F-PMs) bearing tumor lysate as an Ag can efficiently recruit DCs and facilitate antigen presentation.

Synthetic Topological Nodal Phase in Bilayer Resonant Gratings.

The notion of synthetic dimensions in artificial photonic systems has received considerable attention as it provides novel methods for exploring hypothetical topological phenomena as well as potential device applications. Here, we present nanophotonic manifestation of a two-dimensional topological nodal phase in bilayer resonant grating structures. Using the mathematical analogy between a topological semimetal and vertically asymmetric photonic lattices, we show that the interlayer shift simulates an extra momentum dimension for creating a two-dimensional topological nodal phase.

Reconstruction of large bone defect using autogenous fibular strut and iliac bone graft for revision total elbow arthroplasty.

The stability and longevity of the prosthesis after revision total elbow arthroplasty (TEA) are greatly influenced by the reconstruction of bone defects around the distal humerus and proximal ulna. This study evaluated the clinical and radiological results of reconstruction of a large bone defect using an autogenous fibular strut and iliac bone graft in revision TEA.This retrospective study reviewed 10 patients who underwent revision TEA with autogenous fibular strut and iliac corticocancellous bone graft between March 2007 and May 2016.

Development of a novel multifocal lens using a polarization directed flat lens: possible candidate for a multifocal intraocular lens.

Background: A polarization-directed flat (PDF) lens acts as a converging lens with a focal length (f) > 0 and a diverging lens with f < 0, depending on the polarization state of the incidental light. To produce a multifocal lens with two focal lengths, a PDF and a converging lens having shorter focal length were combined. In this study, we tested a bifocal PDF to determine its potential as a new multifocal intraocular lens (IOL).

Sulfisoxazole Elicits Robust Antitumour Immune Response Along with Immune Checkpoint Therapy by Inhibiting Exosomal PD-L1.

Despite their potent antitumor activity, clinical application of immune checkpoint inhibitors has been significantly limited by their poor response rates (<30%) in cancer patients, primarily due to immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments. As a representative immune escape mechanism, cancer-derived exosomes have recently been demonstrated to exhaust CD8 cytotoxic T cells. Here, it is reported that sulfisoxazole, a sulfonamide antibacterial, significantly decreases the exosomal PD-L1 level in blood when orally administered to the tumor-bearing mice.

Optical bench simulation for intraocular lenses using field-tracing technology.

Purpose: To evaluate the image quality of intraocular lenses (IOLs) using field-tracing optical simulation and then compare it with the image quality using conventional ray-tracing simulation.

Methods: We simulated aspheric IOLs with a decenter, tilt, and no misalignment using an aspheric corneal eye model with a positive spherical aberration. The retinal image, Strehl ratio, and modulation transfer function (MTF) were compared between the ray-tracing and field-tracing optical simulation and confirmed by the results reported in an in vitro experiment using the same eye model.

Structural and Chemical Compatibilities of Li Ni Co Mn O Cathode Material with Garnet-Type Solid Electrolyte for All-Solid-State Batteries.

All-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) based on ceramic materials are considered a key technology for automobiles and energy storage systems owing to their high safety and stability. However, contact issues between the electrode and solid-electrolyte materials and undesired chemical reaction occurring at interfaces have hindered their development. Herein, the chemical compatibility and structural stability of composite mixtures of the layered cathode materials Li Ni Co Mn O (NCM523) with the garnet-type solid electrolyte Li Ga La Zr O (LLZO-Ga) during high-temperature co-sintering under various gas flowing conditions are investigated.