Extracellular Vesicles Secreted by Hypoxic AC10 Cardiomyocytes Modulate Fibroblast Cell Motility

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small membrane vesicles secreted by most cell types with important roles in cell-to-cell communication. To assess their relevance in the context of heart ischemia, EVs isolated from the AC10 ventricular cardiomyocyte cell line (CM-EVs), exposed to normoxia (Nx) or hypoxia (Hx), were incubated with fibroblasts (Fb) and endothelial cells (EC). CM-EVs were studied using electron microscopy, nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), western blotting and proteomic analysis. Results showed that EVs had a strong preference to be internalized by EC over fibroblasts, suggesting an active exosome-based communication mechanism between CM and EC in the heart. In Matrigel tube-formation assays, Hx CM-EVs were inferior to Nx CM-EVs in angiogenesis. By contrast, in a wound-healing assay, wound closure was faster in fibroblasts treated with Hx CM-EVs than with Nx CM-EVs, supporting a pro-fibrotic effect of Hx CM-EVs. Overall, these observations were consistent with the different protein cargoes detected by proteomic analysis under Nx and Hx conditions and the biological pathways identified. The paracrine crosstalk between CM-EVs, Fb, and EC in different physiological conditions could account for the contribution of CM-EVs to cardiac remodeling after an ischemic insult

放射線治療後22年目に血尿をみた甲状腺癌の腎転移例

他臓器の悪性腫療が腎臓に転移する例は，剖検では比較的多いが，生存中に転移が発見され臨床的に問題となることは稀れである。ことに甲状腺癌の腎転移は，1968年高安らによる報告1例のみである。最近われわれは52歳の女子で22年前に治療を受けた甲状腺乳頭状癌が左腎に弧立性に転移を来し，左腎摘除術を施行した症例を経験したので報告する。尚，本症は左腎摘除術後約1.5年目に腫瘍死したが， 24年間の全経過中, 局所リンパ節，骨，左腎，肝，筋，脳への転移が認められた。A unilateral and solitary metastatic renal tumor from the papillary adenocarcinoma of the thyroid which was initially diagnosed 22 years ago was detected in a 52-year-old Japanese woman. In this case, the primary thyroid cancer had metastasized to the regional lymph nodes and to the bone. On the extremely slow course of the disease, the tumor remained active and developed metastases to the left kidney, to the liver and to the muscle. To our knowledge, this is the second case which was clinically evaluated. Tile literature was briefly reviewed

Organic solar cells based on bowl-shape smallmolecules

Light absorption ability and morphology of the active components are two of the key factors that determine the energy conversion efficiency in organic solar cells (OSCs). Determining the relative importance of each of these aspects is decisive for the construction of more efficient OSCs. Here we introduce two π-extended derivatives of tetrathiafulvalene as electron donors for solution-processed small-molecule bulk-heterojunction solar cells. Both of them exhibit similar bowl-shape geometry, excellent electron-donor characteristics and moderately high association constants with fullerenes in solution (on the order of 104 M-1 for truxTTF and 103 M-1 for truxTTFCO in several solvents at room temperature). The substitution of one dithiole ring in truxTTF-CO for a ketone results in an intramolecular push-pull effect, which enhances its light-haversting properties, with the onset of absorbance reaching 650 nm. The introduction of a third dithiole ring, results in a more pronounced concave shape in truxTTF, allowing a better self-assembly with fullerenes which in turn leads to a better control of the morphology. However, the lightabsorption ability of truxTTF is limited to ca. 500 nm. We prepared bulk-heterojunction solar cells using phenyl-C60-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM) and PC71BM as electron-acceptors and bowl-shape truxTTF and truxTTF-CO as electron-donors. The devices prepared utilizing truxTTF performed significantly better (PCE up to 1.77% with PC71BM and 0.92% with PC61BM) than truxTTF-CO counterpart (PCE up to 1.19% with PC71BM and 0.56% with PC61BM)

Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

A dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a low-cost device for converting solar energy and possesses a large-area, flexible, colorful and lightweight devices. It is based on a semiconductor (TiO2) deposited on a layer of conductive ITO glass. The dye is placed over this semiconductor film, in contact with an electrolyte in order to close the circuit . The crucial requirements for dye-sensitized solar cells are: (a) wide absorption spectrum; (b) the right anchor to the TiO2, for instance -COOH; (c) match the energy of the LUMO level of the photosensitizer with the Fermi level of the semiconductor and (d) the photosensitizer should be photostable, electrochemically and thermally. Based in these requirements, we chose the porphyrins as electron donors in the dye, because of their superior light-harvesting ability in the visible región, connected to the anchor group by a platinum complex