4,9,12,15-Tetra­oxa-3,5,8,10,14,16-hexa­aza­tetra­cyclo­[11.3.0.02,6.07,11]hexa­deca-1(16),2,5,7,10,13-hexaen-3-ium-3-olate monohydrate

The organic mol­ecule in the title monohydrate, C6N6O5·H2O, presents an almost planar configuration, the greatest deviation from the least-squares plane through the atoms being 0.061 (1) Å for the O atom within the seven-membered ring. Each water H atom is bifurcated, one forming two O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds and the other forming O—H⋯N,O hydrogen bonds. The result of the hydrogen bonding is the formation of supra­molecular layers with a zigzag topology that stack along [001]

In vitro anti-tumor activity in SGC-7901 human gastric cancer cells treated with dandelion extract

Purpose: To investigate the mechanisms of cytotoxicity of a dandelion extract against human gastric cancer cell line SGC-7901 cells.Methods: The 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2-H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, flow cytometry, and transwell assays were used to investigate the effects of a dandelion extract on cell proliferation, levels of apoptosis, and cell migration, respectively. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assessed the effects of a dandelion extract on the expression levels of genes regulating proliferation and apoptosis.Results: Dandelion extract exerted strong cytotoxic effects on the cancer cells. After exposure, apoptotic cells increased and cell migration was reduced. RT-qPCR assay revealed that dandelion extract significantly increased anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic gene expression, including phosphate and tensin homology deleted on chromosome ten (Pten) and Bcl-2 Associated X protein (Bax) mRNA in the gastric cancer cells. The results also indicate that there was decreased pro-proliferative and antiapoptotic gene expression (i.e., extracellular signal-regulated kinase (Erk), Survivin, and B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl2) mRNA).Conclusion: The results suggest that dandelion extract is a potent gastric cancer cell proliferation, survival, and migration inhibitor with potential pharmaceutical applications for the prevention of gastric cancer.Keywords: dandelion extract, gastric cancer, cytotoxic effect, migration inhibitio

Cross-Domain Policy Adaptation via Value-Guided Data Filtering

Generalizing policies across different domains with dynamics mismatch poses a significant challenge in reinforcement learning. For example, a robot learns the policy in a simulator, but when it is deployed in the real world, the dynamics of the environment may be different. Given the source and target domain with dynamics mismatch, we consider the online dynamics adaptation problem, in which case the agent can access sufficient source domain data while online interactions with the target domain are limited. Existing research has attempted to solve the problem from the dynamics discrepancy perspective. In this work, we reveal the limitations of these methods and explore the problem from the value difference perspective via a novel insight on the value consistency across domains. Specifically, we present the Value-Guided Data Filtering (VGDF) algorithm, which selectively shares transitions from the source domain based on the proximity of paired value targets across the two domains. Empirical results on various environments with kinematic and morphology shifts demonstrate that our method achieves superior performance compared to prior approaches.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figure

Biologically inspired deadbeat control of robotic leg prostheses

Recent advances in robotics technology provide great support for robotic leg prostheses to realize full biomechanical functionalities of the contralateral leg. In order to reproduce the biomechanical behaviors of the contralateral leg, this article addresses biologically inspired deadbeat control of robotic leg prostheses under different terrain conditions including level ground, stairs ascent, and descent. The proposed control method is based on the ground reactive force of the contralateral leg during walking. The trajectories of center-of-mass are encoded by the corresponding polynomial splines. Then, the control of the robotic leg prosthesis is designed by replicating the motion of the user's contralateral leg. Compared to most existing results, our approach does not require any preknowledge of the exact physical parameters. Finally, experiments are conducted to show that the prosthesis can help the user walk smoothly under various terrain conditions

Chromatin State-Based Analysis of Epigenetic H3K4me3 Marks of Arabidopsis in Response to Dark Stress

Light is essential to plant growth and development. Extended darkness causes dramatic gene expression changes, leading to leaf senescence, hypocotyl growth, petiole elongation, reduced leaf area, and early flowering, etc. However, the underlying mechanism of response to darkness at epigenetic levels remains largely unknown. In this study, we conducted ChIP-seq to generate global epigenomic profiles of H3K4me3 under 3-day extended darkness and normal light conditions in Arabidopsis. We applied chromatin state analysis together with self-organization mapping (SOM) to study the combination of epigenetic regulation under dark stress. The SOM map clusters the segments on the genome according to multiple diverse epigenomic datasets, which breaks the limit of dispersed distribution of epigenetic marks on the genome. Through SOM analysis, we also found that the signals of H3K4me3 were mainly increased after darkness. Analysis of H3K4me3-changed genes together with differentially expressed genes indicated that the genes showing dark-increased H3K4me3 were most involved in senescence and autophagy, and cross-talk existed between dark-induced and natural senescence. In summary, we studied the regulation of the epigenetic H3K4me3 marks of Arabidopsis in response to dark stress using chromatin state and SOM analyses. Our study revealed the regulatory mechanisms of the epigenome in response to dark stress, and SOM analysis based on chromatin states used in our study will also be helpful for other studies on dynamic changes of multiple epigenetic marks

Treatment of Surgical Brain Injury by Immune Tolerance Induced by Peripheral Intravenous Injection of Biotargeting Nanoparticles Loaded With Brain Antigens

Once excessive, neurological disorders associated with inflammatory conditions will inevitably cause secondary inflammatory damage to brain tissue. Immunosuppressive therapy can reduce the inflammatory state, but resulting infections can expose the patient to greater risk. Using specific immune tolerance organs or tissues from the body, brain antigen immune tolerance treatment can create a minimal immune response to the brain antigens that does not excessively affect the body's immunity. However, commonly used immune tolerance treatment approaches, such as those involving the nasal, gastrointestinal mucosa, thymus or liver portal vein injections, affect the clinical conversion of the therapy due to uncertain drug absorption, or inconvenient routes of administration. If hepatic portal intravenous injections of brain antigens could be replaced by normal peripheral venous infusion, the convenience of immune tolerance treatment could certainly be greatly increased. We attempted to encapsulate brain antigens with minimally immunogenic nanomaterials, to control the sizes of nanoparticles within the range of liver Kupffer cell phagocytosis and to coat the antigens with a coating material that had an affinity for liver cells. We injected these liver drug-loaded nanomaterials via peripheral intravenous injection. With the use of microparticles with liver characteristics, the brain antigens were transported into the liver out of the detection of immune armies in the blood. This approach has been demonstrated in rat models of surgical brain injury. It has been proven that the immune tolerance of brain antigens can be accomplished by peripheral intravenous infusion to achieve the effect of treating brain trauma after operations, which simplifies the clinical operation and could elicit substantial improvements in the future

Prognostic value of inflammatory nutritional scores in locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy: a multicenter study in China

ObjectiveThis study investigates the prognostic significance of inflammatory nutritional scores in patients with locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (LA-ESCC) undergoing neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy.MethodsA total of 190 LA-ESCC patients were recruited from three medical centers across China. Pre-treatment laboratory tests were utilized to calculate inflammatory nutritional scores. LASSO regression and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to pinpoint predictors of pathological response. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were employed to assess disease-free survival (DFS) prognostic factors.ResultsThe cohort comprised 154 males (81.05%) and 36 females (18.95%), with a median age of 61.4 years. Pathological complete response (pCR) was achieved in 17.38% of patients, while 44.78% attained major pathological response (MPR). LASSO and multivariate logistic regression analyses identified that hemoglobin, albumin, lymphocyte, and platelet (HALP) (P=0.02) as an independent predictors of MPR in LA-ESCC patients receiving neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy. Kaplan-Meier and log-rank tests indicated that patients with low HALP, MPR, ypT1-2, ypN0 and, ypTNM I stages had prolonged DFS (P < 0.05). Furthermore, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses underscored HALP (P = 0.019) and ypT (P = 0.029) as independent predictive factors for DFS in ESCC.ConclusionOur study suggests that LA-ESCC patients with lower pre-treatment HALP scores exhibit improved pathological response and reduced recurrence rate. As a comprehensive index of inflammatory nutritional status, pre-treatment HALP may be a reliable prognostic marker in ESCC patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy

Robust Fine Registration of Multisensor Remote Sensing Images Based on Enhanced Subpixel Phase Correlation

Automatic fine registration of multisensor images plays an essential role in many remote sensing applications. However, it is always a challenging task due to significant radiometric and textural differences. In this paper, an enhanced subpixel phase correlation method is proposed, which embeds phase congruency-based structural representation, L1-norm-based rank-one matrix approximation with adaptive masking, and stable robust model fitting into the conventional calculation framework in the frequency domain. The aim is to improve the accuracy and robustness of subpixel translation estimation in practical cases. In addition, template matching using the enhanced subpixel phase correlation is integrated to realize reliable fine registration, which is able to extract a sufficient number of well-distributed and high-accuracy tie points and reduce the local misalignment for coarsely coregistered multisensor remote sensing images. Experiments undertaken with images from different satellites and sensors were carried out in two parts: tie point matching and fine registration. The results of qualitative analysis and quantitative comparison with the state-of-the-art area-based and feature-based matching methods demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed method for multisensor matching and registration.TU Berlin, Open-Access-Mittel – 202