Editorial: Microorganisms and their derivatives for cancer therapy

[Execerpt] Cancer remains an unsolved and challenging problem. In 1890, Dr. William Bradley Coley attempted to use a mixture of dead microbes to treat cancers (Dobosz and Dzieciatkowski, 2019; Liu et al., 2022), establishing the foundation of bacteria-mediated cancer therapy. Given the recent advances in the study of the human microbiome that revealed its crucial role in tumorigenesis, development, therapy, and prognostic evaluation, additional research efforts on cancer microbial therapies have been conducted (Kurtz et al., 2019; Feng et al., 2022), with new findings supporting the potential role of bacteriolytic therapy in cancer. Our Special Research Topic aimed at exploring the trends and recent advances on the use of microorganisms and their derivatives for cancer therapy, on new anticancer agents, new genetic engineering techniques, and synthetic or new identified bacteria, which could be used for cancer monotherapy or adjuvant therapy, as well as understanding the mechanisms underlying their anticancer effects. [...]We appreciate the editorial staff and the contributors who made the Special Research Topic possible. We acknowledge the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81971726, 32101218) and the State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes (No. KF2111).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Image Denoising via L

The L0 gradient minimization (LGM) method has been proposed for image smoothing very recently. As an improvement of the total variation (TV) model which employs the L1 norm of the gradient, the LGM model yields much better results for the piecewise constant image. However, just as the TV model, the LGM model also suffers, even more seriously, from the staircasing effect and the inefficiency in preserving the texture in image. In order to overcome these drawbacks, in this paper, we propose to introduce an effective fidelity term into the LGM model. The fidelity term is an exemplar of the moving least square method using steering kernel. Under this framework, these two methods benefit from each other and can produce better results. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme is promising as compared with the state-of-the-art methods

Adaptive Security of Concurrent Non-Malleable Zero-Knowledge

A zero-knowledge protocol allows a prover to convince a verifier the correctness of a statement without disclosing any other information to the verifier. It is a basic tool and widely used in many other cryptographic applications. However, when stand-alone zero-knowledge protocols are used in complex environments, e.g., the Internet, the basic properties may not be sufficient. This is why researchers considered security of zero-knowledge protocols under concurrent composition and man-in-the-middle attacks. Moreover, it is more likely that an adversary might break computers that run the protocol and get internal information of the parties. It is thus very necessary to take account of the security of zero-knowledge protocols when adaptive corruptions are allowed. Previous adaptively secure zero-knowledge protocols work either in a stand-alone setting, or in a concurrent setting with trusted setup assumptions. In this paper, we study adaptive security of zero-knowledge protocols under both concurrent self composition and man-in-the-middle attacks in the plain model (i.e., without any set-up assumptions). We provide a construction of adaptively secure concurrent non-malleable zero-knowledge proof/argument for every language in NP

Self doping effect and successive magnetic transitions in superconducting Sr2_2VFeAsO3_3

We have studied a quinary Fe-based superconductor Sr$_2$VFeAsO$_3$ by the measurements of x-ray diffraction, x-ray absorption, M\"{o}ssbauer spectrum, resistivity, magnetization and specific heat. This apparently undoped oxyarsenide is shown to be self doped via electron transfer from the V$^{3+}$ ions. We observed successive magnetic transitions within the VO$_2$ layers: an antiferromagnetic transition at 150 K followed by a weak ferromagnetic transition at 55 K. The spin orderings within the VO$_2$ planes are discussed based on mixed valence of V$^{3+}$ and V$^{4+}$.Comment: One Table and more references are adde

Anticancer effects of lactoferrin: underlying mechanisms and future trends in cancer therapy

Lactoferrin has been widely studied over the last 70 years, and its role in diverse biological functions is now well known and generally accepted by the scientific community. Usually, alterations of the lactoferrin gene in cells are associated with an increased incidence of cancer. Several studies suggest that exogenous treatment with lactoferrin and its derivatives can efficiently inhibit the growth of tumors and reduce susceptibility to cancer. None of these studies, however, reported a consistent outcome with regard to the mechanisms underlying the anticancer effects of lactoferrin. In this review, the association of lactoferrin with cancer is thoroughly discussed, from lactoferrin gene expression to the potential use of lactoferrin in cancer therapy. Lactoferrin cytotoxicity against several cancers is reported to occur in distinct ways under different conditions, namely by cell membrane disruption, apoptosis induction, cell cycle arrest, and cell immunoreaction. Based on these mechanisms, new strategies to improve the anticancer effects of the lactoferrin protein and/or its derivatives are proposed. The potential for lactoferrin in the field of cancer research (including as a chemotherapeutic agent in cancer therapy) is also discussed.Funding. Financial support was received from the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (Y), the Strategic Project PEst-OE/EQB/LA0023/2013, and the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (project reference RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012; project no. FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462)

Effect of Residual Deformation Energy and Critical Heating Rate on Cubic Texture and Grain Growth Behavior of Severely Deformed Aluminum Foil

To clarify the microstructure, grain size, and recrystallization behavior during different annealing processes with controlled heating rates, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of residual deformation energy after cold rolling and critical heating rate on cubic texture components, and grain growth behavior of aluminum plate, which was subjected to severe deformation. The experimental results revealed that the stored energy can be inferred from a calculation that fast annealing (FA) for 30 s was 2.2 times as large as slow annealing (SA) at 320 °C, which provided the driving force for grain growth during subsequent heating and resulted in a significant coarsening of grains in the FA process. In contrast, the intensity of cubic texture in SA was significantly higher than that in the FA process. A critical heating rate of 50 °C/min had been obtained to produce a homogeneous microstructure and strong cubic texture during the annealing processes with controlled heating rates and was verified by experiment. The relationship of Δηsur > 0.02ηb was as a criterion used to determine whether abnormal grain growth happened in aluminum foil, while the grain size exceeded the thickness of aluminum foil by examined calculation