14 research outputs found

    Mapping Molecular Association Networks of Nervous System Diseases via Large-Scale Analysis of Published Research

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    <div><p>Network medicine has been applied successfully to elicit the structure of large-scale molecular interaction networks. Its main proponents have claimed that this approach to integrative medical investigation should make it possible to identify functional modules of interacting molecular biological units as well as interactions themselves. This paper takes a significant step in this direction. Based on a large-scale analysis of the nervous system molecular medicine literature, this study analyzes and visualizes the complex structure of associations between diseases on the one hand and all types of molecular substances on the other. From this analysis it then identifies functional co-association groups consisting of several types of molecular substances, each consisting of substances that exhibit a pattern of frequent co-association with similar diseases. These groups in turn exhibit interlinking in a complex pattern, suggesting that such complex interactions between functional molecular modules may play a role in disease etiology. We find that the patterns exhibited by the networks of disease – molecular substance associations studied here correspond well to a number of recently published research results, and that the groups of molecular substances identified by statistical analysis of these networks do appear to be interesting groups of molecular substances that are interconnected in identifiable and interpretable ways. Our results not only demonstrate that networks are a convenient framework to analyze and visualize large-scale, complex relationships among molecular networks and diseases, but may also provide a conceptual basis for bridging gaps in experimental and theoretical knowledge.</p></div

    Major molecular substances, associated diseases and their interrelationships.

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    <p>Circular nodes denote molecular substances, square nodes denote diseases. Several high density “node groups” are present in the integrated network. Nodes in the network periphery indicate that they with loose connected to other nodes in the network. The color of a square node indicates the number of circular nodes that this square node links to sufficiently.</p

    Factor labels, sizes, and highest loadings–analysis of 93 major associated molecular substances.

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    <p>Factor labels, sizes, and highest loadings–analysis of 93 major associated molecular substances.</p

    Clusters of major molecular substances genetically associated with nervous system diseases.

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    <p>Circular nodes represent clusters of substances frequently associated to similar diseases, and square nodes denote molecular substances. The size of a circular node corresponds to the sum of substances in the cluster.</p

    Interrelationships between some recently discovered substances and major molecular substances.

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    <p>Recent substances are displayed as circular nodes, major molecular substances as square nodes. Nodes in the centre indicate “general” functions. The distance between two nodes indicate the strength of their biological association.</p

    Synthesis of Monofluorinated 7‑Hydroxycoumarin-3-Carboxamides as Cell-Permeable Fluorescent Molecular Probes

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    To facilitate studies of engagement of protein targets by small molecules in living cells, we synthesized fluorinated derivatives of the fluorophore 7-hydroxycoumarin-3-carboxylic acid (7OHCCA). Compared to the related difluorinated coumarin Pacific Blue (PB), amide derivatives of 6-fluoro-7-hydroxycoumarin-3-carboxylic acid (6FC) exhibited substantially brighter fluorescence. When linked to the anticancer drug paclitaxel (Taxol) via gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the acidity of the phenol of these coumarins profoundly affected cellular efflux and binding to microtubules in living cells. In contrast to the known fluorescent taxoid PB-GABA-Taxol, the less acidic 6FC-GABA-Taxol was more cell-permeable due to a lower susceptibility to active efflux. In living cells, this facilitated the imaging of microtubules by confocal microscopy and enabled quantification of binding to microtubules by flow cytometry without added efflux inhibitors. The photophysical, chemical, and biological properties of 6FC derivatives make these compounds particularly attractive for the construction of fluorescent molecular probes suitable for quantitative analysis of intracellular small molecule–protein interactions

    Preferential orientation of diamond formation on TaC: Diamond(111)//TaC(111)

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    Experimental results showed that for the diamond film prepared by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) using Ta filament, TaC existed between diamond and the silicon substrate, and diamond grew directly on TaC, while the inherent mechanism was not clear. Here, a special coherent interface Diamond(111)//TaC(111) is observed using high resolution transmission electron microscopy, and then we explore the effects of the TaC with different lattice planes on the diamond formation by first-principle calculations. The results show that C tends to adsorb on the TaC(111) C-terminated surface. The strong covalent bond between C from diamond and Ta from TaC is formed in the Diamond(111)//TaC(111) interface, while only C–C covalent bonds are formed at the Graphite(002)/TaC(111). This makes diamond thermodynamically more stable than graphite on the TaC surfaces. Our investigations provide critical information to understand the complex diamond formation mechanism, especially with the presence of TaC.</p

    Eliminating the Scattering of Thin Film Structures

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    Rendering invisibility in the wide application scenarios has seen a surge in interest in recent years. Though various approaches have been proposed to realize concealments under different conditions, achieving polarization-independent invisibility for large objects remains a big challenge. Here, we propose to attain invisibility of a large dielectric slab with polarization constraints being totally lifted. This is accomplished by employing an antiscattering coating made of anisotropic metamaterials. We show that by tailoring the electric resonance of a triangular mushroom structure, antiphase electric dipole moment can be induced, resulting in an antipolarization response of the whole metamaterial coatings. By putting the proposed coatings on both sides of a large dielectric slab, a neutralization effect of the total polarization is observed, leading to the peculiar phenomenon of full-polarization invisibility. Our results are validated through full-wave simulations and experimental measurements. Remarkably, the intrinsic null-polarization property of the coating-slab-coating structure guarantees the invisibility feature of a large-scale bulk made by simply stacking the sandwiched composites, which facilitates the application of invisibility in practical scenarios such as the invisibility cloaks and the reflectionless antenna radomes

    Morphology-dependent antibacterial properties of diamond coatings

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    Microorganisms promoted corrosion has caused significant loss to marine engineering and the antibacterial coatings have served as a solution that has gained attention. In this study, the chemical vapour deposition technique has been employed to grow three different types of diamond coatings, namely, ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD), nanocrystalline diamond (NCD), and microcrystalline diamond (MCD) coatings. The evolution of associated surface morphology and the surface functional groups of the grown coatings have demonstrated antibacterial activity in seawater environments. It is found that different ratio of sp3/sp2 carbon bonds on the diamond coatings influences their surface property (hydrophobic/hydrophilic), which changes the anti-adhesion behaviour of diamond coatings against bacteria. This plays a critical role in determining the antibacterial property of the developed coatings. The results show that the diamond coatings arising from the deposition process kill the bacteria via a combination of the mechanical effects and the functional groups on the surface of UNCD, NCD, and MCD coatings, respectively. These antibacterial coatings are effective to both Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli) and Gram-positive bacteria (B. subtilis) for 1–6 h of incubation time. When the contact duration is prolonged to 6 h or over, the MCD coatings begin to reduce the bacteria colonies drastically and enhance the bacteriostatic rate for both E. coli and B. subtilis.</p
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