Near-Infrared (NIR) Luminescent Homoleptic Lanthanide Salen Complexes Ln(4)(Salen)(4) (Ln = Nd, Yb Or Er)

The series of homoleptic tetranuclear [Ln(4)(L)(2)(HL)(2)(NO3)(2)(OH)(2)]center dot 2(NO3) (Ln = Nd, 1; Ln = Yb, 2; Ln = Er, 3; Ln = Gd, 4) have been self-assembled from the reaction of the Salen-type Schiff-base ligand H2L with Ln(NO3)(3)center dot 6H(2)O (Ln = Nd, Yb, Er or Gd), respectively (H2L: N, N'-bis(salicylidene) cyclohexane-1,2-diamine). The result of their photophysical properties shows that the strong and characteristic NIR luminescence for complexes 1 and 2 with emissive lifetimes in microsecond ranges are observed and the sensitization arises from the excited state (both (LC)-L-1 and (LC)-L-3) of the Salen-type Schiff-base ligand with the flexible linker.National Natural Science Foundation 21173165, 20871098Ministry of Education of China NCET-10-0936Higher Education of China 20116101110003State Key Laboratory of Structure Chemistry 20100014Education Committee Foundation of Shaanxi Province 11JK0588Hong Kong Research Grants Council, P. R. of China HKBU 202407, FRG/06-07/II-16)Hong Kong Research Grants Council, Robert A. Welch Foundation F-816Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ARP 003658-0010-2006Petroleum Research Fund 47014-AC5Chemistr

Synthesis, Biological Evaluation of Fluorescent 23-Hydroxybetulinic Acid Probes, and Their Cellular Localization Studies

© 2018 American Chemical Society. 23-Hydroxybetulinic acid (23-HBA) is a complex lupane triterpenoid, which has attracted increasing attention as an anticancer agent. However, its detailed mechanism of anticancer action remains elusive so far. To reveal its anticancer mode of action, a series of fluorescent 23-HBA derivatives conjugated with coumarin dyes were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their antiproliferative activities. Subcellular localization and uptake profile studies of representative fluorescent 23-HBA probe 26c were performed in B16F10 cells, and the results suggested that probe 26c was rapidly taken up into B10F10 cells in a dose-dependent manner and mitochondrion was the main site of its accumulation. Further mode of action studies implied that the mitochondrial pathway was involved in 23-HBA-mediated apoptosis. Together, our results provided new clues for revealing the molecular mechanism of natural product 23-HBA for its further development into an antitumor agent

Management of Hepatic Encephalopathy by Traditional Chinese Medicine

In spite of the impressive progress in the investigation of hepatic encephalopathy (HE), the complex mechanisms underlying the onset and deterioration of HE are still not fully understood. Currently, none of the existing theories provide conclusive explanations on the symptoms that link liver dysfunction to nervous system disorders and clinical manifestations. This paper summarized the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches used for HE in modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine and provided future perspective in HE therapies from the viewpoint of holistic and personalized Chinese medicine

Facilitation-Induced Transparency and Single-Photon Switch with Dual-Channel Rydberg Interactions

We investigate facilitation-induced transparency (FIT) enabled by strong and long-range Rydberg atom interactions between two spatially separated optical channels. In this setting, the resonant two-photon excitation of Rydberg states in a target channel is conditioned by a single Rydberg excitation in a control channel. Through the contactless coupling enabled by the Rydberg interaction, the optical transparency of the target channel can be actively manipulated by steering the optical detuning in the control channel. By adopting a dressed-state picture, we identify two different interference pathways, in which one corresponds to Rydberg blockade and an emergent one results from facilitation. We show that the FIT is originated from the Rydberg interaction and the quantum interference effect between the two pathways, which is different from conventional electromagnetically induced transparency realized by single-body laser-atom coupling. We find that the FIT in such a dual-channel setting is rather robust, insensitive to changes of systemic parameters, and can be generalized to multichannel settings. Moreover, we demonstrate that such a FIT permits the realization of controllable single-photon switches, which also paves a route to detect Rydberg facilitation by using optical absorption spectra. Our study contributes to current efforts in probing correlated many-body dynamics and developing single-photon quantum devices based on Rydberg atom ensembles

Simultaneous evaluation of treatment efficacy and toxicity for bispecific T-cell engager therapeutics in a humanized mouse model.

Immuno-oncology (IO)-based therapies such as checkpoint inhibitors, bi-specific antibodies, and CAR-T-cell therapies have shown significant success in the treat- ment of several cancer indications. However, these therapies can result in the de- velopment of severe adverse events, including cytokine release syndrome (CRS). Currently, there is a paucity of in vivo models that can evaluate dose-response relationships for both tumor control and CRS-related safety issues. We tested an in vivo PBMC humanized mouse model to assess both treatment efficacy against specific tumors and the concurrent cytokine release profiles for individual human donors after treatment with a CD19xCD3 bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE). Using this model, we evaluated tumor burden, T-cell activation, and cytokine release in response to bispecific T-cell-engaging antibody in humanized mice generated with different PBMC donors. The results show that PBMC engrafted NOD-scid Il2rgnull mice lacking expression of mouse MHC class I and II (NSG-MHC-DKO mice) and implanted with a tumor xenograft predict both efficacy for tumor control by CD19xCD3 BiTE and stimulated cytokine release. Moreover, our find- ings indicate that this PBMC-engrafted model captures variability among donors for tumor control and cytokine release following treatment. Tumor control and cytokine release were reproducible for the same PBMC donor in separate experi- ments. The PBMC humanized mouse model described here is a sensitive and re- producible platform that identifies specific patient/cancer/therapy combinations for treatment efficacy and development of complications

knowledge-theoretic approach to formal verification of web services protocols

IEEE Beijing Section; Beijing University of Technology and IEEE China Council; Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications; Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; China Institute of ElectricsTraditional formal methods for analyzing security protocols have gained great success to find attacks or prove their absence in the standard Dolev-Yao model. However, they cannot be applied directly to verify Web services protocols because of their inherent different message syntax. In this paper, we apply our justification-oriented and automatic formal approach again to verify directly security properties for a more complex Web services protocol, based on a fault-preserving mapping tool called SuD (SOAP under Dolev-Yao) and the well developed epistemic logic (logic of knowledge) as the underlying specification language. The effectiveness of the approach can be further confirmed by the experimental results. © 2010 IEEE