High expression levels of fascin-1 protein in human gliomas and its clinical relevance

The fascin-1 protein is a cytoskeleton-like protein, which can prompt structural changes in cell membranes and affect the integrity of intercellular relations to promote invasion and metastasis of tumor cells. In this study, we researched the expression of fascin-1 in glioma

Kinetically and thermodynamically controlled one-pot growth of gold nanoshells with NIR-II absorption for multimodal imaging-guided photothermal therapy

Abstract Since the successful clinical trial of AuroShell for photothermal therapy, there is currently intense interest in developing gold-based core-shell structures with near-infrared (NIR) absorption ranging from NIR-I (650–900 nm) to NIR-II (900–1700 nm). Here, we propose a seed-mediated successive growth approach to produce gold nanoshells on the surface of the nanoscale metal–organic framework (NMOF) of UiO-66-NH2 (UiO = the University of Oslo) in one pot. The key to this strategy is to modulate the proportion of the formaldehyde (reductant) and its regulator / oxidative product of formic acid to harness the particle nucleation and growth rate within the same system. The gold nanoshells propagate through a well-oriented and controllable diffusion growth pattern (points → facets → octahedron), which has not been identified. Most strikingly, the gold nanoshells prepared hereby exhibit an exceedingly broad and strong absorption in NIR-II with a peak beyond 1300 nm and outstanding photothermal conversion efficiency of 74.0%. Owing to such superior performance, these gold nanoshells show promising outcomes in photoacoustic (PA), computed tomography (CT), and photothermal imaging-guided photothermal therapy (PTT) for breast cancer, as demonstrated both in vitro and in vivo

Towards a scientific rationale for traditional properties of Chinese medicinal plants: “natures” and “flavors”

Objective According to theory of Chinese medicine property, the ecological environment shapes properties (natures and flavors) of Chinese materia medica (CMM) and there are close relationships between certain natures and flavors. However, to date these observations have not been validated scientifically in the context of the whole flora of a region. The present study aims to address this gap. Methods We collected geographical distributions of 3637 vascular plant species native to the Xinjiang region of northwest China, of which around 812 are medicinal plants. The CMM property characters of these medicinal plants were also collected. All medicinal plants were then analyzed in the occurrence of their natures (cold, cool, neutral, warm, and hot) and flavors (sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and pungent). Possible correlations between these properties and environmental factors, notably climate, as well as correlations with plant species richness of the wider native flora of Xinjiang were then investigated using permutation test and regression. Results Cold species (38.5%) were more numerous than warm (21.0%) and neutral (22.3%), while bitter species (43.3%) were more numerous than pungent (25.6%), sweet (22.4%) and sour (6.7%) ones. Species with bitter flavor were most commonly also cold (48.6%) in nature, sour flavor usually coincided with cold (44.2%) or cool nature (26.0%), whereas pungent or sweet species tended to be warm (34.4%, 28.4%) or neutral (27.8%, 28.4%). The percentages of species of cold/cool nature, bitter flavor were higher in mountainous regions, and the percentages of warm/neutral and pungent/sweet/sour were higher in basins. The percentages of species of cold/cool, bitter were positively correlated with actual evapotranspiration (AET), and also plant species richness but had a bell-shaped relationship with potential evapotranspiration (PET), whereas the inverse situation was shown for warm/neutral and pungent/sweet/sour species. Conclusion Analysis of the data in Xinjiang region of China supports the qualitative observations concerning natures and flavors in traditional theory of Chinese medicine property. Specifically, (i) certain natures and flavors co-occur more frequently than if randomly distributed; (ii) correlations between proportions of natures and flavors and climatic variables suggest a role for the environment in shaping the properties of CMM

Determination of the number of ψ(3686)\psi(3686) events at BESIII

The numbers of ψ(3686) events accumulated by the BESIII detector for the data taken during 2009 and 2012 are determined to be and , respectively, by counting inclusive hadronic events, where the uncertainties are systematic and the statistical uncertainties are negligible. The number of events for the sample taken in 2009 is consistent with that of the previous measurement. The total number of ψ(3686) events for the two data taking periods is