Highly Hydrophobic Thermally Stable Liquid Crystalline Cellulosic Nanomaterials

Highly hydrophobic cellulosic nanomaterials were prepared via iodine-catalyzed butyrate esterification of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC). The structure and properties of butyrated cellulose nanocrystals (Bu-CNC) were investigated via advanced spectroscopic, morphological, optical, thermal, contact angle, and coating analyses. Bu-CNC retained cellulose crystallinity, was hydrophobic with a static contact angle of 81.54° and displayed 18.5% enhancement in its thermal stability. Moreover, Bu-CNC possessed a solid multilamellar cellulose II structure and showed liquid crystalline behavior over a wide range of temperatures. Bu-CNC formed transparent flexible films upon drying and was easily dispersible in ethanol and acetone. As a thermally stable hydrophobic liquid crystalline biobased material, Bu-CNC presents a new class of nanomaterial, which potentially suits various industrial and medical applications

Highly Modified Cellulose Nanocrystals and Formation of Epoxy-Nanocrystalline Cellulose (CNC) Nanocomposites

This work presents an environmentally friendly, iodine-catalyzed chemical modification method to generate highly hydrophobic, optically active nanocrystalline cellulose (CNC). The high degree of ester substitution (DS = 2.18), hydrophobicity, crystalline behavior, and optical activity of the generated acetylated CNC (Ac-CNC) were quantified by TEM, FTIR, solid ¹³C NMR, contact angle, XRD, and POM analyses. Ac-CNC possesses substantial enhancement in thermal stability (16.8%) and forms thin films with an interlayer distance of 50–150 nm, presenting cavities suitable for entrapping nano- and microparticles. Generated Ac-CNC proved to be an effective reinforcing agent in hydrophobic polymer matrices for fabricating high performance nanocomposites. When integrated at a very low weight percentage (0.5%) in an epoxy matrix, Ac-CNC provided for a 73% increase in tensile strength and a 98% increase in modulus, demonstrating its remarkable reinforcing potential and effective stress transfer behavior. The method of modification and the unique properties of the modified CNC (hydrophobicity, crystallinity, reinforcing ability, and optical activity) render them a novel bionanomaterial for a range of multipurpose applications

Highly Modified Cellulose Nanocrystals and Formation of Epoxy-Nanocrystalline Cellulose (CNC) Nanocomposites

This work presents an environmentally friendly, iodine-catalyzed chemical modification method to generate highly hydrophobic, optically active nanocrystalline cellulose (CNC). The high degree of ester substitution (DS = 2.18), hydrophobicity, crystalline behavior, and optical activity of the generated acetylated CNC (Ac-CNC) were quantified by TEM, FTIR, solid ¹³C NMR, contact angle, XRD, and POM analyses. Ac-CNC possesses substantial enhancement in thermal stability (16.8%) and forms thin films with an interlayer distance of 50–150 nm, presenting cavities suitable for entrapping nano- and microparticles. Generated Ac-CNC proved to be an effective reinforcing agent in hydrophobic polymer matrices for fabricating high performance nanocomposites. When integrated at a very low weight percentage (0.5%) in an epoxy matrix, Ac-CNC provided for a 73% increase in tensile strength and a 98% increase in modulus, demonstrating its remarkable reinforcing potential and effective stress transfer behavior. The method of modification and the unique properties of the modified CNC (hydrophobicity, crystallinity, reinforcing ability, and optical activity) render them a novel bionanomaterial for a range of multipurpose applications

Table S3 from Long Noncoding RNA MALAT1 Promotes Hepatocellular Carcinoma Development by SRSF1 Upregulation and mTOR Activation

Table S3. IPA enriched pathways based on RNA-seq analysis</p

Table S1 from Long Noncoding RNA MALAT1 Promotes Hepatocellular Carcinoma Development by SRSF1 Upregulation and mTOR Activation

Table S1: List of primers oligos and siRNAs</p

Figures S1-S8 from Long Noncoding RNA MALAT1 Promotes Hepatocellular Carcinoma Development by SRSF1 Upregulation and mTOR Activation

Figure S1: Knockdown of MALAT1 inhibits proliferation of liver progenitor and HCC cells. Figure S2: Effect of MALAT1 expression on splicing of endogenous SRSF1 targets. Figure S3. Differential gene expression based on RNA-seq data. Figure S4. Enriched pathways and networks activated by overexpression of MALAT1 based on RNA-seq analysis. Figure S5 Enriched pathways activated by MALAT1 overexpression based on RNA-seq analysis. Figure S6. Validation of MALAT1 up- and down-regulated genes identified by RNA-seq analysis. Figure S7. Knockdown of MALAT1 down-regulates c-Myc protein levels. Figure S8. Knockdown of SRSF1 inhibits oncogenesis downstream to MALAT1 and only partially inhibits transformation by oncogenic Ras.</p

Table S2 from Long Noncoding RNA MALAT1 Promotes Hepatocellular Carcinoma Development by SRSF1 Upregulation and mTOR Activation

Table S2. Full list of Up- and Down regulated genes in the RNA seq analysis</p

Supplementary Materials and Methods and Supplementary Figure Legends from Long Noncoding RNA MALAT1 Promotes Hepatocellular Carcinoma Development by SRSF1 Upregulation and mTOR Activation

Supplementary information text: Methods and figure legends</p

Supplementary Data from Multiple Roles of IL6 in Hepatic Injury, Steatosis, and Senescence Aggregate to Suppress Tumorigenesis

Supplemental Figures and Tables</p

TAL1-short but not TAL1-long leads to hematopoietic stem cell exhaustion.

(A) Schematic illustration of the mixed bone marrow chimera experiments. Equal numbers of bone marrow cells from 5FU-treated CD45.1 wild-type mice were transduced with retroviruses expressing either TAL1-short-GFP or with TAL1-long-dtTomato. A mixture of 1:1 ratio of the transduced bone marrow cells was then transplanted into lethally irradiated CD45.2 wild-type recipient mice. Blood samples were taken at different time points to monitor the progression of the bone marrow cell reconstitution using flow cytometry analysis. All mice were killed 14 weeks after BMT, and the spleen and bone marrow were harvested and analyzed. (B) Representative dot plots of Thy1.2 vs. CD19 staining in untransduced (left), dtTomato+ (middle), or GFP+ (right) splenocytes from the recipient mice (C) Bar graph summarizing results shown in (B). (D) Representative flow cytometry histograms of CD11b staining gated on GFP−/dtTomato− (untransduced, left panel), dtTomato+ (Tal1-long, middle panel), or GFP+ (Tal1-short, right panel) splenocytes. (E) Bar graph summarizing results shown in (D). (F) Representative dot plots of Tal1-short GFP vs. Tal1-long dtTomato staining in the blood of the recipient mice at different time points over the course of 13 weeks. (G) Bar graph summarizing results in (F). Each mouse is presented with a different shade. In (C), two-tailed paired t test, *n = 6). Underyling data can be found in S1 Data.</p