Iodine-125 seed implantation in the treatment of malignant tumors

Malignant tumors are major causes of morbidity and mortality in China.Despite advances in surgical,radiological,chemotherapeutic,molecular targeting,and immunotherapeutic treatments,patients with malignant tumors still have poor prognoses.Low-dose-rate brachytherapy,specifically 125I seed implantation,is beneficial because of its high local delivery dose and minimal damage to surrounding tissues.Consequently,it has gained increasing acceptance as a treatment modality for various malignant tumors.In this study,we explored the fundamental principles,clinical applications,and new technologies associated with 125I radioactive seed implantation.

VqMAPK3/VqMAPK6, VqWRKY33, and VqNSTS3 constitute a regulatory node in enhancing resistance to powdery mildew in grapevine

Grapevine powdery mildew is caused by Erysiphe necator,which seriously harms grape production in the world.Stilbene synthase makes phytoalexins that contribute to the resistance of grapevine against powdery mildew.A novel VqNSTS3 was identified and cloned from Chinese wild Vitis quinquangularis accession Danfeng-2.The novel VqNSTS3 was transferred into susceptible‘Thompson Seedless’by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation.The transgenic plants showed resistance to the disease and activated other resistance-related genes.VqNSTS3 expression in grapevine is regulated by VqWRKY33,and which binds to TTGACC in the VqNSTS3 promoter.Furthermore,VqWRKY33 was phosphorylated by VqMAPK3/VqMAPK6 and thus led to enhanced signal transduction and increased VqNSTS3 expression.ProVqNSTS3::VqNSTS3-GFP of transgenic VqNSTS3 in Arabidopsis thaliana was observed to move to and wrap the pathogen’s haustoria and block invasion by Golovinomyces cichoracearum.These results demonstrate that stilbene accumulation of novel VqNSTS3 of the Chinese wild Vitis quinquangularis accession Danfeng-2 prevented pathogen invasion and enhanced resistance to powdery mildew.Therefore,VqNSTS3 can be used in generating powdery mildew-resistant grapevines.

Superconductivity at 44.4 K achieved by intercalating EMIM^(+) into FeSe

Superconductivity with transition temperature Tc above 40 K was observed in protonated FeSe(Hy-FeSe)previously with the ionic liquid EMIM-BF4 used in the electrochemical process.However,the real superconducting phase is not clear until now.And detailed structural,magnetization,and electrical transport measurements are lacking.By using similar protonating technique on FeSe single crystals,we obtain superconducting samples with Tc above 40 K.We show that the obtained superconducting phase is not Hy-FeSe but actually an organic-ion(C6H11N+2 referred to as EMIM^(+))-intercalated phase(EMIM)xFeSe.By using x-ray diffraction technique,two sets of index peaks corresponding to different c-axis lattice constants are detected in the obtained samples,which belong to the newly formed phase of intercalated(EMIM)xFeSe and the residual FeSe,respectively.The superconductivity of(EMIM)xFeSe with Tc of 44.4 K is confirmed by resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements.Temperature dependence of resistivity with different applied magnetic fields reveals that the upper critical field Hc2 is quite high,while the irreversibility field Hirr is suppressed quickly with increasing temperature till about 20 K.This indicates that the resultant compound has a high anisotropy with a large spacing between the FeSe layers.

Research on sea surface temperature retrieval by the one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer, 1D-SAMR

Due to the low spatial resolution of sea surface temperature(T_S)retrieval by real aperture microwave radiometers,in this study,an iterative retrieval method that minimizes the differences between brightness temperature(T_B)measured and modeled was used to retrieve sea surface temperature with a one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer,temporarily named 1 D-SAMR.Regarding the configuration of the radiometer,an angular resolution of 0.43°was reached by theoretical calculation.Experiments on sea surface temperature retrieval were carried out with ideal parameters;the results show that the main factors affecting the retrieval accuracy of sea surface temperature are the accuracy of radiometer calibration and the precision of auxiliary geophysical parameters.In the case of no auxiliary parameter errors,the greatest error in retrieved sea surface temperature is obtained at low T_S scene(i.e.,0.7106 K for the incidence angle of 35°under the radiometer calibration accuracy of0.5 K).While errors on auxiliary parameters are assumed to follow a Gaussian distribution,the greatest error on retrieved sea surface temperature was 1.3305 K at an incidence angle of 65°in poorly known sea surface wind speed(W)(the error on W of 1.0 m/s)over high W scene,for the radiometer calibration accuracy of 0.5 K.

Sea surface temperature retrieval based on simulated microwave polarimetric measurements of a one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer

Compared with traditional real aperture microwave radiometers,one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometers have higher spatial resolution.In this paper,we proposed to retrieve sea surface temperature using a one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer that operates at frequencies of 6.9 GHz,10.65 GHz,18.7 GHz and 23.8 GHz at multiple incidence angles.We used the ERA5 reanalysis data provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and a radiation transmission forward model to calculate the model brightness temperature.The brightness temperature measured by the spaceborne one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer was simulated by adding Gaussian noise to the model brightness temperature.Then,a backpropagation(BP)neural network algorithm,a random forest(RF)algorithm and two multiple linear regression algorithms(RE1 and RE2)were developed to retrieve sea surface temperature from the measured brightness temperature within the incidence angle range of 0°-65°.The results show that the retrieval errors of the four algorithms increase with the increasing Gaussian noise.The BP achieves the lowest retrieval errors at all incidence angles.The retrieval error of the RE1 and RE2 decrease first and then increase with the incidence angle and the retrieval error of the RF is contrary to that of RE1 and RE2.

Factors to Give Full Play to the Positive Backwash Effect in the Language Testing

＂Backwash＂ has usually been described in terms of the effect of testing on language teaching and learning. ＂Backwash can be harmful or beneficial＂, as Arthur Hughes states. （Hughes： 1989） This paper set out to see how far this term can be applied to the ways in which both the students and teachers can benefit from language testing.

Recent progress in quantum photonic chips for quantum communication and internet

Recent years have witnessed significant progress in quantum communication and quantum internet with the emerging quantum photonic chips,whose characteristics of scalability,stability,and low cost,flourish and open up new possibilities in miniaturized footprints.Here,we provide an overview of the advances in quantum photonic chips for quantum communication,beginning with a summary of the prevalent photonic integrated fabrication platforms and key components for integrated quantum communication systems.We then discuss a range of quantum communication applications,such as quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation.Finally,the review culminates with a perspective on challenges towards high-performance chip-based quantum communication,as well as a glimpse into future opportunities for integrated quantum networks.

Identification and optimization of peptide inhibitors to block VISTA/PSGL-1 interaction for cancer immunotherapy

Developing new therapeutic agents for cancer immunotherapy is highly demanding due to the low response ratio of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade in cancer patients.Here,we discovered that the novel immune checkpoint VISTA is highly expressed on a variety of tumor-infiltrating immune cells,especially myeloid derived suppressor cells(MDSCs)and CD8^(+)T cells.Then,peptide C1 with binding affinity to VISTA was developed by phage displayed bio-panning technique,and its mutant peptide VS3 was obtained by molecular docking based mutation.Peptide VS3 could bind VISTA with high affinity and block its interaction with ligand PSGL-1 under acidic condition,and elicit anti-tumor activity in vivo.The peptide DVS3-Pal was further designed by D-amino acid substitution and fatty acid modification,which exhibited strong proteolytic stability and significant anti-tumor activity through enhancing CD8^(+)T cell function and decreasing MDSCs infiltration.This is the first study to develop peptides to block VISTA/PSGL-1 interaction,which could act as promising candidates for cancer immunotherapy.

Engineering the electronic structure on MXenes via multidimensional component interlayer insertion for enhanced electromagnetic shielding

MXene-based functional electromagnetic interference(EMI)shielding films are highly desirable for mod-ern integrated electronic and telecommunication systems in aerospace,military,artificial intelligence,and smart and wearable electronics field.In this work,3D freestanding Ti_(3)C_(2)T_(x)/CNTs/Ni film assembled by 1D multi-walled carbon nanotubes(MWCNTs)/Ni and 2D Ti_(3)C_(2)T_(x)MXene sheets was synthesized by a facile vacuum filtration process.By electrostatic incorporation,hexagonal nickel plates embed on the CNTs and then the CNTs/Ni insert into the Ti_(3)C_(2)T_(x)layers to form magnetized Ti_(3)C_(2)T_(x)-based functional film with a compact and laminated structure.Due to the outstanding electron migration capacity in the highly conductive Ti_(3)C_(2)T_(x)sheet and multiple internal reflections from porous and segregated structures,the op-timized Ti_(3)C_(2)T_(x)/CNTs/Ni composite films show excellent EMI shielding effectiveness of 67.4 dB with elec-trical conductivity of 744 S cm^(-1).Surprisingly,a magnetization compensation strategy is built to boost the EMI shielding effectiveness with decreased conductivity.Meanwhile,the visual magnetic coupling phenomenon and charge distribution in the heterogeneous interfaces could be observed in the recon-structed electron holography images.Those encouraging results shed light on novel magnetized MXene-based functional films for high-performance EMI shielding.

Carbon-based single-atom catalysts in advanced oxidation reactions for water remediation:From materials to reaction pathways

Single-atom catalysts(SACs)have been widely recognized as state-of-the-art catalysts in environment remediation because of their exceptional performance,100%metal atomic utilization,almost no secondary pollution,and robust structures.Most recently,the activation of persulfate with carbon-based SACs in advanced oxidation processes(AOPs)raises tremendous interest in the degradation of emerging contaminants in wastewater,owning to its efficient and versatile reactive oxidant species(ROS)generation.However,the comprehensive and critical review unraveling the underlying relationship between structures of carbon-based SACs and the corresponding generated ROS is still rare.Herein,we systematically summarize the fundamental understandings and intrinsic mechanisms between single metal atom active sites and produced ROS during AOPs.The types of emerging contaminants are firstly elaborated,presenting the prior pollutants that need to be degraded.Then,the preparation and characterization methods of carbon-based SACs are overviewed.The underlying material structure–ROS type relationship in persulfate-based AOPs is discussed in depth to expound the catalytic mechanisms.Finally,we briefly conclude the current development of carbon-based SACs in AOPs and propose the prospects for rational design and synthesis of carbon-based SACs with on-demand catalytic performances in AOPs in future research.

Advances in lithium niobate photonics:development status and perspectives

Lithium niobate(LN)has experienced significant developments during past decades due to its versatile properties,especially its large electro-optic(EO)coefficient.For example,bulk LN-based modulators with high speeds and a superior linearity are widely used in typical fiber-optic communication systems.However,with everincreasing demands for signal transmission capacity,the high power and large size of bulk LN-based devices pose great challenges,especially when one of its counterparts,integrated silicon photonics,has experienced dramatic developments in recent decades.Not long ago,high-quality thin-film LN on insulator(LNOI)became commercially available,which has paved the way for integrated LN photonics and opened a hot research area of LN photonics devices.LNOI allows a large refractive index contrast,thus light can be confined within a more compact structure.Together with other properties of LN,such as nonlinear/acousto-optic/pyroelectric effects,various kinds of high-performance integrated LN devices can be demonstrated.A comprehensive summary of advances in LN photonics is provided.As LN photonics has experienced several decades of development,our review includes some of the typical bulk LN devices as well as recently developed thin film LN devices.In this way,readers may be inspired by a complete picture of the evolution of this technology.We first introduce the basic material properties of LN and several key processing technologies for fabricating photonics devices.After that,various kinds of functional devices based on different effects are summarized.Finally,we give a short summary and perspective of LN photonics.We hope this review can give readers more insight into recent advances in LN photonics and contribute to the further development of LN related research.

A direct H2O2 production based on hollow porous carbon sphere-sulfur nanocrystal composites by confinement effect as oxygen reduction electrocatalysts

Carbon-sulfur composites have draw n in creasing interest in various fields including electrocatalysis because of their unique structures.However,carb on-sulfur composite with tiny sulfur nano crystals has still received little attention.Herein,hollow porous carb on sphere-sulfur composite(HPCS-S)which possesses excellent electrochemical performance towards H2O2 has been prepared for the first time via a simple silica template method.The 2-5 nm sulfur nan ocrystals being restricted in the cha nnel of the hollow porous carb on spheres are un der a strong compressive stress,which was further con firmed by high-resoluti on tran smissi on electr on microscopy(HRTEM)and GPA.The HPCS-S nano crystals show better con ductivity tha n amorphous sulfur clusters because of the reducti on of the steric hindrance which efficie ntly promotes the electron transportation.Consequently,the higher activity and selectivity towards the 2e^oxygen reduction reaction(ORR)to H2O2 in alkaline solution was obtained.The H2O2 selectivity rises from 20%to over 70%after the sulfur addition and the H2O2 production rate achieves 183.99 mmol-gcataiyst-1 with the Faradaic efficiency of 70%.Furthermore,performance enhancement mechanism was also investigated using the den sity functional theory(DFT)calculatio ns.After the in troduci ng of sulfur nano crystals,the appeara nee of S-S bond greatly decreases the overpotential compared with S-doping,which results in significant enhancement of the electrocatalytic property.Consequently,the HPCS-S can be an efficient H2O2 production electrocatalyst in alkaline solution.

A novel cyclic peptide targeting LAG-3 for cancer immunotherapy by activating antigenspecific CD8^+ T cell responses

PD-1 and CTLA-4 antibodies offer great hope for cancer immunotherapy.However,many patients are incapable of responding to PD-1 and CTLA-4 blockade and show low response rates due to insufficient immune activation.The combination of checkpoint blockers has been proposed to increase the response rates.Besides,antibody drugs have disadvantages such as inclined to cause immune-related adverse events and infiltration problems.In this study,we developed a cyclic peptide C25 by using Ph.D.-C7C phage display technology targeting LAG-3.As a result,C25 showed a relative high affinity with human LAG-3 protein and could effectively interfere the binding between LAG-3 and HLA-DR(MHC-II).Additionally,C25 could significantly stimulate CD8^+T cell activation in human PBMCs.The results also demonstrated that C25 could inhibit tumor growth of CT26,B16 and B 16-OVA bearing mice,and the infiltration of CD8^+T cells was significantly increased while FOXP3^+Tregs significantly decreased in the tumor site.Furthermore,the secretion of IFN-γby CD8^+T cells in spleen,draining lymph nodes and especially in the tumors was promoted.Simultaneously,we exploited T cells depletion models to study the anti-tumor mechanisms for C25 peptide,and the results combined with MTT assay confirmed that C25 exerted anti-tumor effects via CD8+T cells but not direct killing.In conclusion,cyclic peptide C25 provides a rationale for targeting the immune checkpoint,by blockade of LAG-3/HLA-DR interaction in order to enhance anti-tumor immunity,and C25 may provide an alternative for cancer immunotherapy besides antibody drugs.

Tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase 2 controls M2 macrophages polarization to promote esophageal squamous cell carcinoma progression via AKT/GSK3β/IL-8 signaling pathway

Tryptophan 2,3-dioxygnease 2(TDO2) is specific for metabolizing tryptophan to kynurenine(KYN),which plays a critical role in mediating immune escape of cancer.Although accumulating evidence demonstrates that TDO2 overexpression is implicated in the development and progression of multiple cancers,its tumor-promoting role in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma(ESCC) remains unclear.Here,we observed that TDO2 was overexpressed in ESCC tis sues and correlated significantly with lymph node metastasis,advanced clinical stage,and unfavorable prognosis.Functional experiments showed that TDO2 promoted tumor cell proliferation,migration,and colony formation,which could be prevented by inhibition of TDO2 and aryl hydrocarb on receptor(AHR).Further experimentation demonstrated that TDO2 could promote the tumor growth of KYSE150 tumor-bearing model,tumor burden of C57 BL/6 mice with ESCC induced by 4-NQO,enhance the expression of phosphorylated AKT,with subsequent pho sphorylation of GSK3β,and polarization of M2 macrophages by upregulating interleukin-8(IL-8) to accelerate tumor progression in the tumor microenvironment(TME).Collectively,our results discovered that TDO2 could upregulate IL-8 through AKT/GSK3β to direct the polarization of M2 macrophages in ESCC,and suggested that TDO2 could represent as an attractive therapeutic target and prognostic marker to ESCC.

Self-transforming ultrathin α-Co(OH)2 nanosheet arrays from metal-organic framework modified graphene oxide with sandwichlike structure for efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution

Developing efficient and low-cost electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction(OER)with high electrochemical activity and durability for diverse renewable and sustainable energy technologies remains challenging.Herein,an ultrasonic-assisted and coordination modulation strategy is developed to construct sandwich-like metal-organic framework(MOF)derived hydroxide nanosheet(NS)arrays/graphene oxide(GO)composite via one-step self-transformation route.Inducing from unsteady state,the dodecahedral ZIF-67 with Co^2+in tetrahedral coordination auto-converts into defect-rich ultrathin layered hydroxides with the interlayered ion NO3-.The self-transforming a-Co(OH)2/GO nanosheet arrays from ZIF-67(Co(OH)2-GNS)change the coordination mode of Co^2+and bring about the exposure of more metal active sites,thereby enhancing the spatial utilization ratio within the framework.As monometal-based electrocatalyst,the optimized Co(OH)2-GNS exhibits remarkable OER catalytic performance evidenced by a low overpotential of 259 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA·cm-2 in alkaline medium,even exceeding commercial RuO2.During the oxygen evolution process,electron migration can be accelerated by the interfacial/in-plane charge polarization and local electric field,corroborated by the off-axis electron holography.Density functional theory(DFT)calculations further studied the collaboration between ultrathin Co(OH)2 NS and GO,which leads to lower energy barriers of intermediate products and greatly promotes electrocatalytic property.

Hierarchical coupling effect in hollow Ni/NiFe2O4-CNTs microsphere via spray-drying for enhanced oxygen evolution electrocatalysis

Design and fabrication of cost-effective transition metal and their oxides-based nanocomposites are of paramount significance for metal-air batteries and water-splitting.However,the traditional optimized designs for nanostructure are complicated,low-efficient and underperform for wide-scale applications.Herein,a novel hierarchical framework of hollow Ni/NiFe2O4-CNTs compositemicrosphere forcibly-assembled by zero-dimensional(OD)Ni/NiFo204 nanoparticle(<16 nm)and one-dimensional(1D)self-supporting CNTs was fabricated successfully.Benefitted from the unique nanostructure,such monohybrids can achieve remarkable oxygen evolution reaction(OER)performance in alkaline media with a low overpotential and superior durability,which exceeds most of the commercial catalysts based on IrO/RuO2 or other non-noble metal nanomaterials.The enhanced OER performance of Ni/NiFe2OA-CNTs composite is mainly ascribed to the increased catalytic activity and the optimized conductivity induced by the effects of strong hierarchical coupling and charge transfers between CNTs and Ni/NiFe204 nanoparticles.These effects are greatly boosted by the polarized heterojunction interfaces confirmed by electron holography.The density functional theory(DFT)calculation indicates the epitaxial Ni further enriches the intrinsic electrons contents of NiFe204 and thus accelerates absorption/desorption kinetics of OER intermediates.This work hereby paves a facile route to construct the hollow composite microsphere with excellent OER electrocatalytic activity based on non-noble metal oxide/CNTs.

Anomalous phonon softening in the topological insulator Sn-doped Bi1.1Sb0.9Te2S

Investigations into the phonon behavior provide important information on interactions between different excitations in quantum materials.We perform a detailed study of the phonon behavior in the topological insulator Sn-doped Bi1.1Sb0.9Te2S using infrared spectroscopy.We observe two IR-active phonon modes at about 64 and 165 cm^1,which are labeled withαandβ,respectively.While the evolution of theβmode with temperature can be well described by the expected anharmonic decay process,theαmode shifts to lower frequencies with decreasing temperature.Such an anomalous softening of theαmode may arise from the charged-phonon effect due to the coupling between this mode and the topological surface states in Sn-doped Bi1.1Sb0.9Te2S.

An electrochemical biosensor based on DNA“nano-bridge”for amplified detection of exosomal microRNAs

Exosomal miRNAs,as potential biomarkers in liquid biopsy for cancer early diagnosis,have aroused widespread concern.Herein,an electrochemical biosensor based on DNA“nano-bridge”was designed and applied to detect exosomal microRNA-21(miR-21)derived from breast cancer cells.In brief,the target miR-21 can specifically open the hairpin probe 1(HP1)labeled on the gold electrode(GE)surface through strand displacement reaction.Thus the exposed loop region of HP1 can act as an initiator sequence to activate the hybridization chain reaction(HCR)between two kinetically trapped hairpin probes:HP2 immobilized on the GE surface and biotin labeled HP3 in solution.Cascade HCR leads to the formation of DNA“nano-bridge”tethered to the GE surface with a great deal of“piers”.Upon addition of avidin-modified horseradish peroxidase(HRP),numerous HRP were bound to the formed“nano-bridge”through biotin-avidin interaction to arouse tremendous current signal.In theory,only a single miR-21 is able to trigger the continuous HCR between HP2 and HP3 until all of the HP2 are exhausted.Therefore the proposed biosensor achieved ultrahigh sensitivity toward miR-21 with the detection limit down to 168 amol/L,as well as little cross-hybridization even at the single-base-mismatched level.Successful attempts were also made in the detection of exosomal miR-21 obtained from the MCF-7 of breast cancer cell line.To our knowledge,this is the first attempt to built horizontal DNA nano-structure on the electrode surface for exosomal miRNAs detection.In a word,the high sensitivity,selectivity,low cost make the proposed method hold great potential application for early point-of-care(POC)diagnostics of cancer.