PLEK2: a potential biomarker for metastasis and prognostic evaluation in uveal melanoma.

Background: Uveal melanoma (UVM) is an aggressive tumor known for its high metastatic rate, making it necessary to delineate potential molecules that may promote the development of UVM. PLEK2 has been found to promote the progression and metastasis of some tumors, but its role in UVM has not yet been reported. Through this study, we hope to explore the effect of PLEK2 on the prognosis of UVM patients and to discover the potential functional role and intrinsic mechanism of PLEK2.

Global research trends and hotspots of oxidative stress in diabetic retinopathy (2000-2024).

Introduction: Oxidative stress has been identified as a major contributor to the pathogenesis of DR, and many diagnostic and therapeutic strategies have been developed to target oxidative stress. Our aim was to understand the contribution of the country of origin of the publication, the institution, the authors, and the collaborative relationship between them.

Methods: We performed a bibliometric analysis to summarize and explore the research hotspots and trends of oxidative stress in the DR.

Integrating network pharmacology, molecular docking and experimental verification to reveal the mechanism of artesunate in inhibiting choroidal melanoma.

Background: Artesunate (ART), a natural compound derived from , has shown promising clinical potentials in the treatment of various tumors, but the exact mechanism is unclear. Choroidal melanoma (CM) is a major malignant ocular tumor in adults, known for its significant malignancy and poor prognosis, with limited efficacy in current treatments. This study explored the anti-CM effects and mechanisms of ART using a combination of network pharmacology, molecular docking and experimental validation.

Artesunate inhibits vasculogenic mimicry in choroidal melanoma through HIF-1 α/ VEGF/PDGF pathway.

Choroidal melanoma (CM), a highly metastatic eye tumor, exhibits vasculogenic mimicry (VM) facilitated by hypoxia-induced angiogenesis. This study explored the inhibitory impact of the anti-malarial drug Artesunate (ART) on CM VM through modulation of the HIF-1α/VEGF/PDGF pathway. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) confirmed VM in CM with elevated VEGF and PDGF expression.

Artesunate attenuates the tumorigenesis of choroidal melanoma via inhibiting EFNA3 through Stat3/Akt signaling pathway.

Purpose: Choroidal melanoma (CM), a kind of malignant tumor, is the main type of Uveal melanoma and one half of CM patients develop metastases. As a member of Eph/ephrin pathway that plays vital role in tumors, EphrinA3 (EFNA3) has been proved to promote tumorigenesis in many tumors. But the effect of EFNA3 in CM has not been studied yet.

Soliton and dispersive wave generation with third-order dispersion and temporal boundary.

We investigate the pulse evolution and energy conservation condition at the temporal boundary under third-order dispersion. When the fundamental soliton crosses the temporal boundary and forms two reflected pulses and one transmitted pulse, the power of the transmitted pulse first increases and then decreases as the incident spectrum shifts toward the blue side. If the transmitted spectrum lies in the anomalous group-velocity dispersion region, second-order soliton is formed and dispersive wave is radiated.

Intravitreal injection of conbercept for diabetic macular edema complicated with diabetic nephropathy.

Aim: To observe the therapeutic effect of conbercept on diabetic macular edema (DME) complicated with diabetic nephropathy (DN).

Methods: In this retrospective study, 54 patients (54 eyes) that diagnosed as DME from January 2017 to October 2021 were collected. The patients were divided into two groups: DME patients with DN (25 eyes), and DME patients without DN (29 eyes).

Nanocollision mediated electrochemical sensing of host-guest chemistry at a nanoelectrode surface.

Electrochemical (EC) measurements of dynamic nanoparticle collisions on a support electrode provide a powerful approach to study the electrical properties of interfacial molecules self-assembled on the electrode surface. By introducing a special cage-shaped macrocyclic molecule, cucurbit[7]uril (CB7), onto a gold nanoelectrode surface, we show that the dynamic interactions between CB7 and the colliding nanoparticles can be real-time monitored the appearance of distinct EC current switching signals. When a guest molecule is included in the CB7 cavity, the changed host-guest chemistry can be probed the amplitude change of the EC current signals.

Developing Longer-Lived Single Molecule Junctions with a Functional Flexible Electrode.

Creating single-molecule junctions with a long-lived lifetime at room temperature is an open challenge. Finding simple and efficient approaches to increase the durability of single-molecule junction is also of practical value in molecular electronics. Here it is shown that a flexible gold-coated nanopipette electrode can be utilized in scanning tunneling microscope (STM) break-junction measurements to efficiently enhance the stability of molecular junctions by comparing with the measurements using conventional solid gold probes.

Revealing the electronic structure of organic emitting semiconductors at the single-molecule level.

Revealing the electronic structure of organic emitting molecules is instructive for tuning the electron-hole balance, one of the key factors in regulating the organic light emitting diode (OLED) performance. Herein, we introduced single molecule conductance measurement (SMCM) technology to probe the conductance of three-model emitting molecules on the Au surface, finding that their hole transporting ability across the metal-molecule interface can be suppressed after electron-withdrawing arms are connected to the center component. This observation would benefit the electron-hole balance of the film in large scale OLED devices whose holes are excessively relative to electrons.

Observing dynamic molecular changes at single-molecule level in a cucurbituril based plasmonic molecular junction.

In recent years, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has emerged as a prominent tool for probing molecular interaction and reaction with single-molecule sensitivity. Here we use SERS to investigate the dynamic changes of the cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) based plasmonic molecular junctions in solution, which are spontaneously formed by the adsorption of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) at the CB[7] modified gold nanoelectrode (GNE) surface. The typical fingerprint Raman peaks of CB[7] are very weak in the SERS spectra.

Nanopipettes: a potential tool for DNA detection.

As the information in DNA is of practical value for clinical diagnosis, it is important to develop efficient and rapid methods for DNA detection. In the past decades, nanopores have been extensively explored for DNA detection due to their low cost and high efficiency. As a sub-group of the solid-state nanopore, nanopipettes exhibit great potential for DNA detection which is ascribed to their stability, ease of fabrication and good compatibility with other technologies, compared with biological and traditional solid-state nanopores.

Single-molecule conductance investigation of BDT derivatives: an additional pattern found to induce through-space channels beyond π-π stacking.

The through-space conductance of individual molecules is supposed to improve the macroscopic carrier movement, but the most widely acclaimed through-space conductance channel just existed in sufficiently close π-π stacked benzene rings. As a breakthrough to this primary cognition, additional conducting channels were confirmed to exist in non-strict face-to-face aligned thiophenes or phenyl-thiophene in BDT derivatives for the first time.

Synergistic Effect of Surface Plasmonic particles and Surface Passivation layer on ZnO Nanorods Array for Improved Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting.

One-dimensional zinc oxide nanorods array exhibit excellent electron mobility and thus hold great potential as photoanode for photoelelctrochemical water splitting. However, the poor absorption of visible light and the prominent surface recombination hider the performance improvement. In this work, Au nanoparticles and aluminium oxide were deposited onto the surface of ZnO nanorods to improve the PEC performance.

Improved Photoresponse Performance of Self-Powered ZnO/Spiro-MeOTAD Heterojunction Ultraviolet Photodetector by Piezo-Phototronic Effect.

Strain-induced piezoelectric potential (piezopotential) within wurtzite-structured ZnO can engineer the energy-band structure at a contact or a junction and, thus, enhance the performance of corresponding optoelectronic devices by effectively tuning the charge carriers' separation and transport. Here, we report the fabrication of a flexible self-powered ZnO/Spiro-MeOTAD hybrid heterojunction ultraviolet photodetector (UV PD). The obtained device has a fast and stable response to the UV light illumination at zero bias.

Self-Powered Photoelectrochemical Biosensor Based on CdS/RGO/ZnO Nanowire Array Heterostructure.

A CdS/reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/ZnO nanowire array (NWAs) heterostructure is designed, which exhibits enhanced photoelectrochemical (PEC) activity compared to pure ZnO, RGO/ZnO, and CdS/ZnO. The enhancement can be attributed to the synergistic effect of the high electron mobility of ordered 1D ZnO NWAs, extended visible-light absorption of CdS nanocrystals, and the formed type II band alignment between them. Moreover, the incorporation of RGO further promotes the charge carrier separation and transfer process due to its excellent charge collection and shuttling characteristics.

High on-off ratio improvement of ZnO-based forming-free memristor by surface hydrogen annealing.

In this work, a high-performance, forming-free memristor based on Au/ZnO nanorods/AZO (Al-doped ZnO conductive glass) sandwich structure has been developed by rapid hydrogen annealing treatment. The Ron/Roff rate is dramatically increased from ∼10 to ∼10(4) after the surface treatment. Such an enhanced performance is attributed to the introduced oxygen vacancies layer at the top of ZnO nanorods.

Electronic structure engineering of Cu2O film/ZnO nanorods array all-oxide p-n heterostructure for enhanced photoelectrochemical property and self-powered biosensing application.

We have engineered the electronic structure at the interface between Cu2O and ZnO nanorods (NRs) array, through adjusting the carrier concentration of Cu2O. The electrodeposition of Cu2O at pH 11 acquired the highest carrier concentration, resulting in the largest interfacial electric field between Cu2O and ZnO, which finally led to the highest separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers. The optimized Cu2O/ZnO NRs array p-n heterostructures exhibited enhanced PEC performance, such as elevated photocurrent and photoconversion efficiency, as well as excellent sensing performance for the sensitive detection of glutathione (GSH) in PBS buffer even at applied bias of 0 V which made the device self-powered.

CuNiO nanoparticles assembled on graphene as an effective platform for enzyme-free glucose sensing.

We utilized CuNiO nanoparticles modified graphene sheets (CuNiO-graphene) to the application of enzymeless glucose sensing. The hydrothermal synthesized CuNiO nanoparticles were successfully assembled on graphene sheets. Distinct from general method, the high quality pristine graphene was produced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and bubbling transferred on the electrode.

Three-dimensional ordered ZnO/Cu2O nanoheterojunctions for efficient metal-oxide solar cells.

Interface modulation for broad-band light trapping and efficient carrier collection has always been the research focus in solar cells, which provides the most effective way to achieve performance enhancement. In this work, solution-processed 3D ordered ZnO/Cu2O nanoheterojunctions, consisting of patterned n-ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) and p-Cu2O films, are elaborately designed and fabricated for the first time. By taking advantage of nanoheterojunctions with square patterned ZnO NRAs, solar cells demonstrate the maximum current density and efficiency of 9.

A tunable ZnO/electrolyte heterojunction for a self-powered photodetector.

A self-powered photodetector was fabricated by taking advantage of the band bending at the ZnO/electrolyte interface. And a 48% performance enhancement was achieved with the introduction of 0.15% compressive strain due to the generation of piezopolarization charges.

Enhanced photoelectrochemical property of ZnO nanorods array synthesized on reduced graphene oxide for self-powered biosensing application.

We have realized the direct synthesis of ZnO nanorods (ZnO NRs) array on reduced graphene layer (rGO), and demonstrated the enhanced photoelectrochemical (PEC) property of the rGO/ZnO based photoanode under UV irradiation compared with the pristine ZnO NRs array. The introduction of the rGO layer resulted in a favorable energy band structure for electron migration, which finally led to the efficient photoinduced charge separation. Such nanostructure was subsequently employed for self-powered PEC biosensing of glutathione in the condition of 0 V bias, with a linear range from 10 to 200 µM, a detection limit of 2.

Design of efficient dye-sensitized solar cells with patterned ZnO-ZnS core-shell nanowire array photoanodes.

The fabrication of photoanodes with a high light-harvesting ability, direct electron pathway and low exciton recombination is a key challenge in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) today. In this paper, large-scale patterned ZnO-ZnS core-shell nanowire arrays (NWAs) are designed and fabricated as such photoanodes for the fist time. By using the NWA photoanodes with a hexagonal symmetry and FTO-Pt cathodes with an Al reflecting layer, the resulting DSSCs demonstrate a maxiumum efficiency of 2.