Effect of the filament discharge current on the microstructure and performance of plasma-enhanced magnetron sputtered TiN coatings

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Titanium nitride (TiN) coatings were synthesized by plasma-enhanced magnetron sputtering (PEMS) on 316L austenitic stainless steel and YG8 cemented carbide substrates. The plasma enhancement process involved the use of hot filaments as additional sources of electrons for the magnetron discharge. The structural, morphology, crystallinity, thickness, abrasion resistance and adhesion of the TiN coatings, as well as the nanohardness and Young's modulus were investigated at different filament discharge currents. The results showed that with increasing discharge current, the deposition rate of the coating decreased, the structural morphology of the TiN coatings became finer and denser and the columnar grain size decreased. The critical load for failure in scratch adhesion tests of the coatings on stainless steel and YG8 substrates were over 22 N and 141 N, respectively. The nanohardness and Young's modulus both improved significantly from 8 GPa and 200 GPa to 38 GPa and 500 GPa, respectively, after the discharge current increased from 6 A up to 12 A. The adhesion and the abrasion resistance of the coating on cemented carbide increased, and those on stainless steel decreased, with increasing filament discharge current. It was found that matching the Young's modulus of the coating to that of the substrate was important to improve the adhesion and abrasion resistance of the coating. The results demonstrate that TiN coatings can be prepared by PEMS at appropriate filament discharge currents, resulting in coatings with uniform thickness, dense structure and high hardness, abrasion resistance and adhesion

Cold Air Plasma Inhibiting Tumor-Like Biological Behavior of Rheumatoid Arthritis Fibroblast-Like Synovial Cells via G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest

Le-Ying Ni,1– 3,* Cheng-Biao Ding,1,2,4,* Ji-Min Deng,5 Zheng-Wei Wu,4,6,7 Yun Zhou1,2 1Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 2Research Center for Translational Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230601, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Maanshan People’s Hospital, Maanshan, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 4School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 5Anhui institute for Food and Drug Control, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 6CAS Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 7Institute of Advanced Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Zheng-Wei Wu, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86-551-63606045, Email [email protected] Yun Zhou, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230601, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-0551-65997010, Email [email protected]: Rheumatoid arthritis fibroblast-like synovial cells (RA-FLS) have become the core effector cells for the progression of rheumatoid arthritis due to their “tumor-like cell” characteristics, such as being able to break free from growth restrictions caused by contact inhibition, promoting angiogenesis, invading surrounding tissues, and leading to uncontrolled synovial growth. In recent years, cold air plasma (CAP) has been widely recognized for its clear anticancer effect. Inspired by this, this study investigated the inhibitory effect of CAP on the tumor-like biological behavior of RA-FLS through in vitro experiments.Methods: Treatment of RA-FLS with CAP at different time doses (0s, 30s, 60s, 120s). 5-ethynyl-2’-deoxyuridine (EdU) proliferation assay was used to determine the cell viability. Analysis of cell migration and invasion was performed by wound-healing assay, transwell assay and immunofluorescent staining for f-actin, respectively. Flow cytometry technique was used for analysis of cell cycle and determination of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Hoechst staining was used for analysis of cell apoptosis. Protein expression was analyzed by Western blot analysis.Results: Molecular and cellular level mechanisms have revealed that CAP blocks RA-FLS in the G2/M phase by increasing intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to increased apoptosis and significantly reduced migration and invasion ability of RA-FLS.Conclusion: Overall, CAP has significant anti proliferative, migratory, and invasive effects on RA-FLS. This study reveals a new targeted treatment strategy for RA.Keywords: cold air plasma, rheumatoid arthritis fibroblast-like synovial cells, proliferation, apoptosis, migratio

Alisertib, an Aurora kinase A inhibitor, induces apoptosis and autophagy but inhibits epithelial to mesenchymal transition in human epithelial ovarian cancer cells.

Ovarian cancer is a leading killer of women, and no cure for advanced ovarian cancer is available. Alisertib (ALS), a selective Aurora kinase A (AURKA) inhibitor, has shown potent anticancer effects, and is under clinical investigation for the treatment of advanced solid tumor and hematologic malignancies. However, the role of ALS in the treatment of ovarian cancer remains unclear. This study investigated the effects of ALS on cell growth, apoptosis, autophagy, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), and the underlying mechanisms in human epithelial ovarian cancer SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells. Our docking study showed that ALS, MLN8054, and VX-680 preferentially bound to AURKA over AURKB via hydrogen bond formation, charge interaction, and π-π stacking. ALS had potent growth-inhibitory, proapoptotic, proautophagic, and EMT-inhibitory effects on SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells. ALS arrested SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells in G2/M phase and induced mitochondria-mediated apoptosis and autophagy in both SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cell lines in a concentration-dependent manner. ALS suppressed phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B (Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways but activated 5\u27-AMP-dependent kinase, as indicated by their altered phosphorylation, contributing to the proautophagic activity of ALS. Modulation of autophagy altered basal and ALS-induced apoptosis in SKOV3 and OVCAR4 cells. Further, ALS suppressed the EMT-like phenotype in both cell lines by restoring the balance between E-cadherin and N-cadherin. ALS downregulated sirtuin 1 and pre-B cell colony enhancing factor (PBEF/visfatin) expression levels and inhibited phosphorylation of AURKA in both cell lines. These findings indicate that ALS blocks the cell cycle by G2/M phase arrest and promotes cellular apoptosis and autophagy, but inhibits EMT via phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt/mTOR-mediated and sirtuin 1-mediated pathways in human epithelial ovarian cancer cells. Further studies are warranted to validate the efficacy and safety of ALS in the treatment of ovarian cancer

Studies on the interactions between potassium oxalato-oxodiperoxovanadate and histidine by NMR and MS

Multi-nuclear NMR and ESI-MS have been applied to study the interactions between oxalato-oxodiperoxovanadate and histidine in neutral solution. Coordination between the complex and histidine was monitored by V-51 NMR. A pair of new isomers produced via vanadium atom binding separately to N1 and N3 of the imidazole ring of histidine was characterized by several spectroscopic methods. Experimental results show that the structure activity relationship of peroxovanadium complexes bearing organic ligands may be related to the specific recognition between peroxovanadium and histidine residue of tyrosine phosphatase

Analysis of Risk Factors for Intraoperative Bleeding in the Surgical Treatment of Cesarean Scar Pregnancy and Development of Predictive Models

Xiao-Li Wan,1 Xu Wang,1 Zhi-Ping Feng,1 Xiao-Ling Zhou,1 Zhen-Wen Han,1 Jia-Mei Wu,1 Hong-Mei Xu,1 Ting Hu2 1Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, People’s Hospital of Leshan, Leshan, Sichuan, 614000, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Gynaecological Oncology, Sichuan Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Sichuan Cancer Hospital & Institute, Sichuan Cancer Center, Affiliated Cancer Hospital of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Ting Hu, Department of Gynaecological Oncology, Sichuan Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Sichuan Cancer Hospital & Institute, Sichuan Cancer Center, Affiliated Cancer Hospital of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, 55 Section 4, Renmin South Road, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 18615786531, Email [email protected] Hong-Mei Xu, Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, People’s Hospital of Leshan, No. 238 of BaiTa Street, Shizhong District, Leshan, Sichuan, 614000, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 18981392030, Email [email protected]: The objective of this study was to investigate the risk factors associated with cesarean scar pregnancy (CSP) and to develop a model for predicting intraoperative bleeding risk.Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 208 patients with CSP who were admitted to the People’s Hospital of Leshan between January 2018 and December 2022. Based on whether intraoperative bleeding was ≥ 200 mL, we categorized them into two groups for comparative analysis: the excessive bleeding group (n = 27) and the control group (n = 181). Identifying relevant factors, we constructed a prediction model and created a nomogram.Results: We observed that there were significant differences between the two groups in several parameters. These included the time of menstrual cessation (P = 0.002), maximum diameter of the gestational sac (P < 0.001), thickness of the myometrium at the uterine scar (P = 0.001), pre-treatment blood HCG levels (P = 0.016), and the grade of blood flow signals (P < 0.001). We consolidated the above data and constructed a clinical prediction model. The model exhibited favorable results in terms of predictive efficacy, discriminative ability (C-index = 0.894, specificity = 0.834, sensitivity = 0.852), calibration precision (mean absolute error = 0.018), and clinical decision-making utility, indicating its effectiveness.Conclusion: The clinical prediction model related to the risk of hemorrhage that we developed in this experiment can assist in the development of appropriate interventions and effectively improve patient prognosis.Keywords: cesarean section, prediction modeling, risk factors, uterine scar pregnanc