SPRR3 Contributes to Aggressiveness of Pancreatic Cancer Cells via NF-κB Signaling Pathway

Pancreatic cancer remains a deadly solid tumor with worst survival, and a better understanding of the mechanisms of carcinogenesis of pancreatic cancer is critical to promote the survival of patients with pancreatic cancer. qPCR and western blot assay were used to determine the expression of SPRR3 in pancreatic cancer. Anchorage-independent growth ability, BrdU labeling, Transwell assay, and in vivo experiment were used to examine the functions of SPRR3 in aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer. Luciferase reporter assay, nucleoplasmic-separation technique, qPCR, and western blot assay were used to investigate the mechanism of SPRR3 regulating aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer. Our results showed that SPRR3 was significantly increased in pancreatic cancer, which resulted in poor survival for patients with pancreatic cancer. Further analysis showed that overexpression of SPRR3 contributed to anchorage-independent growth ability, growth rate, and invasion ability of pancreatic cancer cells. While, knockdown of SPRR3 showed the reverse results. Mechanistically, overexpression of SPRR3 can promote the transcription of NF-κB pathway, nuclear accumulation of p65, and mRNA levels of NF-κB pathway downstream genes. But, knockdown of SPRR3 induced the reverse results. The above findings clarified the important roles of SPRR3 in the progression of pancreatic cancer through NF-κB pathway. And targeting SPRR3 might be an effective strategy to therapy pancreatic cancer

Pervaporation membrane reactors (PVMRs) for esterification

The core part of this work deals with the review of the most promising studies about pervaporation membrane reactors (PVMRs) for esterification. After presenting the Fischer esterification reaction, the conventional reaction separation technologies are described. The most relevant pervaporative technologies defined in the last 25 years are then shown considering catalyst used, configurations, membranes materials, performances, and overall conversions obtained. Moreover the sustainability and the flexibility of the PVMR is remarked. As for the membranes, polyvinyl alcohol membranes showed to be the most assessed membranes, being cheap and very flexible, whereas zeolite-type membranes gave high water selectivity and permeance, leading to a high yield of the ester produced (these membranes mainly suffer from low reproducibility). In this chapter, some focus is also given to multilayered membranes, bifunctional multilayered membranes (which are completed with a catalytic layer that increases the reagents conversion and, together with the water permeation driving force, water flux), and biocatalytic (enzyme catalyst) reactors. Finally, a concise overview of ester-selective PVMR configuration research activities is also provide