BPTF promotes tumor growth and predicts poor prognosis in lung adenocarcinomas.

BPTF, a subunit of NURF, is well known to be involved in the development of eukaryotic cell, but little is known about its roles in cancers, especially in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Here we showed that BPTF was specifically overexpressed in NSCLC cell lines and lung adenocarcinoma tissues. Knockdown of BPTF by siRNA significantly inhibited cell proliferation, induced cell apoptosis and arrested cell cycle progress from G1 to S phase. We also found that BPTF knockdown downregulated the expression of the phosphorylated Erk1/2, PI3K and Akt proteins and induced the cleavage of caspase-8, caspase-7 and PARP proteins, thereby inhibiting the MAPK and PI3K/AKT signaling and activating apoptotic pathway. BPTF knockdown by siRNA also upregulated the cell cycle inhibitors such as p21 and p18 but inhibited the expression of cyclin D, phospho-Rb and phospho-cdc2 in lung cancer cells. Moreover, BPTF knockdown by its specific shRNA inhibited lung cancer growth in vivo in the xenografts of A549 cells accompanied by the suppression of VEGF, p-Erk and p-Akt expression. Immunohistochemical assay for tumor tissue microarrays of lung tumor tissues showed that BPTF overexpression predicted a poor prognosis in the patients with lung adenocarcinomas. Therefore, our data indicate that BPTF plays an essential role in cell growth and survival by targeting multiply signaling pathways in human lung cancers

Effect of Tetrahydroquinoline Dyes Structure on the Performance of Organic Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Eleven novel donor acceptor π-conjugated (D-π-A) org. dyes were engineered and synthesized as sensitizers for the application in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The electron-donating moieties are substituted tetrahydroquinoline, and the electron-withdrawing parts are cyanoacrylic acid group or cyanovinylphosphonic acid group. Different lengths of thiophene-contg. conjugation moieties (thienyl, thienylvinyl, and dithieno[3,2-b;2',3'-d]thienyl) are introduced to the mols. and serve as electron spacers. Detailed study on the relation between the dye structure, photophys. and photoelectrochem. properties, and performance of DSSCs is described here. The bathochromic shift and increase of the molar absorptivity of the absorption spectrum are achieved by introduction of larger conjugation moiety. Even small structural changes of dyes result in significant changes in redox energies and adsorption manner of the dyes on TiO2 surface, affecting dramatically the performance of DSSCs based on these dyes. The higher performances are obtained by DSSCs based on the rigid dye mols., C2 series dyes (Figure 1), although these dyes have lower light absorption abilities relative to other dyes. A max. solar-to-elec. energy conversion efficiency (η) of 4.53% is achieved under simulated AM 1.5 irradn. (100 mW/cm2) with a DSSC based on C2-2 dye (Voc = 597 mV, Jsc = 12.00 mA/cm2, ff = 0.63). D. functional theory (DFT) calcns. were performed on the dyes, and electron distribution from the whole mols. to the anchoring moieties occurred during the HOMO-LUMO excitation. The cyanoacrylic acid groups or cyanovinylphosphonic acid group are essentially coplanar with respect to the thiophene units, reflecting the strong conjugation across the thiophene-anchoring groups

Pollution status of microplastics in the freshwater environment of China: a mini review

In the last few years, the pollution of microplastics in freshwater environments such as rivers, lakes, and reservoirs has aroused widespread concerns. In this review, rich and appropriate data on microplastics, in the freshwater ecosystem of China, was collected. Following this microplastics in surface waters, sediments, and biota, of the freshwater system, were thoroughly analyzed. The results show that microplastics are widespread in the freshwater environment of China. At the same time, the abundance of microplastics is positively correlated with both intensive human activities and urbanization. The risk index of microplastics is relatively high in the water of Yellow River (654 items/L), Yangtze River (9.20 × 105 items/km2), and Pearl River regions (7571 items/m3). The prevalent shapes of microplastics, in water and sediments, are fragments and fibers. Moreover, the particle size of microplastics is mainly less than 2 mm. In fact, PP and PE are found to be the main polymer types in the freshwater environment of China. Bivalves and freshwater fish are the main research objects of microplastics pollution in China. In parallel to that, the abundance of microplastics, in each aquatic organism, varied from a few to a dozen. Additionally, the characteristics of microplastics in organisms are mainly fibers smaller than 1 mm. Fundamentally, the key two sources of microplastics, in the freshwater environment of China, are wastewater discharge and surface runoff. It is noteworthy that microplastics, in a freshwater environment, does not only cause environmental pollution but harms aquatic organisms, too. Finally, microplastics can reach the human body, through the food chain, causing potential health issues

Molecular Design to Improve the Performance of Donor-π Acceptor Near-IR Organic Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

A novel near-IR charge-transfer complex, as a D-π-A-type mol., has a lateral anchoring group and a flexible long carbon chain that replaces the Me group of the donor part of the mol. This carbon chain seems to prevent the formation of mol. aggregates on the semiconductor (TiO2) nanoparticles, thus blocking charge recombination at relatively high open-circuit voltages and short-circuit photocurrent densities. This sensitizer dye has a max. IPCE (incident-photon-to-current conversion efficiencies) of 93% at 660 nm and an overall solar-energy-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 5.1%

Influence of triple bonds as π-spacer units in metal-free organic dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells

Four metal-free org. sensitizers (TC101-TC104) with triple bonds in π-spacers and 5 ref. dyes (TC, TC105, TPC1, D5, and TH208) without triple bonds were applied in dye-sensitized solar cells to study the influence of triple bonds as π-spacer units on their photoelectrochem. properties and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) performance. The introduction of triple bond could red shift the dye's absorption spectrum due to the enhancement of the π-spacer. However, the spectrum red shift is much less than that of the introduction of double bond because of more electronegativity of triple bond. The incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency reveals that the electron transfer yield (Φ(ν)ET) of DSCs becomes larger with the introduction of triple bond. Electrochem. impedance spectroscopy anal. reveals that the introduction of triple bond almost does not change the electron lifetimes in TiO2 films but decreases the effective diffusion lengths

Fine-Tuning by Triple Bond of Carbazole Derivative Dyes to Obtain High Efficiency for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Copper Electrolyte

Three novel dyes consisting of a 5,8,15-tris(2-ethylhexyl)-8,15-dihydro-SH-benzo[1,2-b:3,4-b':6,5-b '']tricarbazole (BTC) electron-donating group and a 4,7-bis(4-hexylthiophen-2-yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole (BTBT) pi-bridge with an anchoring group of phenyl carboxyl acid were synthesized and applied in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs).The AJ202 did not contain any triple bonds, the AJ201's ethynyl group was inserted between the BTC and BTBT units, and the AJ206's ethynyl group was introduced between the BTBT moiety and the anchor group. The inclusion and position of the ethynyl linkage in the sensitizer molecules significantly altered the electrochemical properties of these dyes, which can fine-tune the energy levels of the dyes. The best performing devices contained AJ206 as a sensitizer and a Cu(I/II) redox couple, which resulted in a power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 10.8% under the standard AM 1.5 G illumination, which obtained PCEs higher than those from the devices that contained AJ201 (9.2%) and AJ202 (9.7%) under the same conditions. The highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital levels of the sensitizers were tuned to be well-suited for the Cu(I/II) redox potential and the Fermi level of TiO2. The innovative synthesis of a tricarbazole-based donor moiety in a sensitizer used in combination with a Cu(I/II) redox couple has resulted in relatively high PCEs

Improving energy transfer efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cell by fine tuning of dye planarity

Two push-pull metal-free sensitizers with 5,11-dihydroindolo[3,2-b]carbazole derivatives as electron-donating groups and 4-(benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazol-4-ylethynyl)benzoic acid (BTZ) as electron-withdrawing unit, denoted by SK201 and SK202, were synthesized and used for fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). SK202 contains a thienyl group between the donor and acceptor, whereas in SK201 the donor and acceptor are connected directly by a single bond. Introduction of a thienyl group improved the planarity of the dye molecule, broadened the absorption spectrum, enhanced the molar extinction coefficient, increased the dye loading on TiO2, and accelerated interface electron transfer on TiO2. This fine tuning of dye structure improved the performances of DSSCs based on SK202 sensitizers and gave a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.0% (J(SC) 16.5 mA cm(-2), V-OC 932 mV, and fill factor 71.7%), compared with that of 7.2% for SK201, under standard AM1.5G solar irradiation (100 mW cm(-2)) with a Co(II/III) complex based redox couple

Anthraquinone dyes as photosensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells

Three anthraquinone dyes with carboxylic acid as anchoring group are designed and synthesized as sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Preliminary photophys. and photoelectrochem. measurements show that these anthraquinone dyes have very low performance on DSSC applications, although they have broad and intense absorption spectra in the visible region (up to 800 nm). Transient absorption kinetics, fluorescence lifetime measurements and d. functional theory (DFT) calcns. are conducted to investigate the cause of such low DSSC performance for these dyes. The strong electron-withdrawing character of the two carbonyl groups on anthraquinone framework may lie behind the low performance by suppressing the efficient electron injection from the dye to the conduction band of TiO2