Recent Progress and Advances in Stimuli-Responsive Polymers for Cancer Therapy

The conventional chemotherapeutic agents, used for cancer chemotherapy, have major limitations including non-specificity, ubiquitous biodistribution, low concentration in tumor tissue, and systemic toxicity. In recent years, owing to their unique features, polymeric nanoparticles have been widely used for the target-specific delivery of drugs in the body. Although polymeric nanoparticles have addressed a number of important issues, the bioavailability of drugs at the disease site, and especially upon cellular internalization, remains a challenge. A polymer nanocarrier system with a stimuli-responsive property (e.g., pH, temperature, or redox potential), for example, would be amenable to address the intracellular delivery barriers by taking advantage of pH, temperature, or redox potentials. With a greater understanding of the difference between normal and pathological tissues, there is a highly promising role of stimuli-responsive nanocarriers for drug delivery in the future. In this review, we highlighted the recent advances in different types of stimuli-responsive polymers for drug delivery

Smeared BTZ Black Hole from Space Noncommutativity

We study a novel phenomena of smearing of black hole horizons from the effect of space noncommutativity. We present an explicit example in $AdS_3$ space, using the Chern-Simons formulation of gravity. This produces a smeared BTZ black hole which goes beyond the classical spacetime unexpectedly and there is {\it no} reality problem in our approach with the gauge group $U(1,1) \times U(1,1)$. The horizons are smeared, due to a splitting of the Killing horizon and the apparent horizon, and there is a metric signature change to Euclidean in the smeared region. The inner boundary of the smeared region acts as a trapped surface for timelike particles but the outer as a classical barrier for ingoing particles. The lightlike signals can escape from or reach the smeared region in a {\it finite} time, which indicates that {\it the black hole is not so dark, even classically.} In addition, it is remarked that the Hawking temperature can {\it not} be defined by the regularity in the Euclidean geometry except in the non-rotating case, and the origin can be smeared by a {\it new} (apparent) horizon.Comment: Added notes about boundary conditions, NC curvature, and torsion; Accepted in JHE

Natural Circulation in the Upper Plenum of a Scaled Model of a Very High Temperature Reactor in the Event of Loss-of-Coolant Accident

The very high temperature reactor (VHTR) is one of the most promising next generation reactors which will be commercialized in 2030. A loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) is a major accident scenario in which the primary coolant loop is broken, resulting in a loss of forced circulation of helium into the reactor vessel. With the onset of natural circulation, coolant flow reverses and is driven by buoyancy forces. The goal of the research is to simulate this accident condition on a 1/16th scaled model and visualize the flow behavior in the upper plenum of the VHTR. The facility was designed and constructed from a set of scaling parameters and outfitted with various instrumentation to characterize the depressurized conduction cooldown (DCC) event. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is a nonintrusive optical laser technique used to obtain an instantaneous velocity field and was successfully applied to this system. Throughout the preliminary tests, the number of frames to be averaged to reach a statistically steady state was obtained from 1,000 images. The performance of the PIV method is validated with a flowmeter and analytic flowrate equation. The uncertainty of PIV system was also quantified. Single jet tests are performed to provide a basic understanding of the simplest turbulent buoyant jet mixing in the upper plenum. By the Morton length scale, it was observed that the buoyant jet behaves like a plume and self-similarity is obtained for the axial velocity profiles. Q criterion is applied to identify the eddy structures of the turbulent jet mixing as a way to characterize the mechanism of vortex-pair mixing on the dome surface. Subsequent triple jet experiments are performed and compared with the results from single jet tests. Velocity distributions along the concave wall show that higher wall shear stress is obtained in single jet tests. The experiment results will provide the benchmark data for the PIV validation

Templated native silk smectic gels

One aspect of the present invention relates to a method of preparing a fibrous protein smectic hydrogel by way of a solvent templating process, comprising the steps of pouring an aqueous fibrous protein solution into a container comprising a solvent that is not miscible with water; sealing the container and allowing it to age at about room temperature; and collecting the resulting fibrous protein smectic hydrogel and allowing it to dry. Another aspect of the present invention relates to a method of obtaining predominantly one enantiomer from a racemic mixture, comprising the steps of pouring an aqueous fibrous protein solution into a container comprising a solvent that is not miscible with water; sealing the container and allowing it to age at about room temperature; allowing the enantiomers of racemic mixture to diffuse selectively into the smectic hydrogel in solution; removing the smectic hydrogel from the solution; rinsing predominantly one enantiomer from the surface of the smectic hydrogel; and extracting predominantly one enantiomer from the interior of the smectic hydrogel. The present invention also relates to a smectic hydrogel prepared according to an aforementioned method

Templated Native Silk Smectic Gels

One aspect of the present invention relates to a method of preparing a fibrous protein smectic hydrogel by way of a solvent templating process, comprising the steps of pouring an aqueous fibrous protein solution into a container comprising a solvent that is not miscible with water; sealing the container and allowing it to age at about room temperature; and collecting the resulting fibrous protein smectic hydrogel and allowing it to dry. Another aspect of the present invention relates to a method of obtaining predominantly one enantiomer from a racemic mixture, comprising the steps of pouring an aqueous fibrous protein solution into a container comprising a solvent that is not miscible with water; sealing the container and allowing it to age at about room temperature; allowing the enantiomers of racemic mixture to diffuse selectively into the smectic hydrogel in solution; removing the smectic hydrogel from the solution; rinsing predominantly one enantiomer from the surface of the smectic hydrogel; and extracting predominantly one enantiomer from the interior of the smectic hydrogel. The present invention also relates to a smectic hydrogel prepared according to an aforementioned method

Templated Native Silk Smectic Gels

One aspect of the present invention relates to a method of preparing a fibrous protein smectic hydrogel by way of a solvent templating process, comprising the steps of pouring an aqueous fibrous protein solution into a container comprising a solvent that is not miscible with water; sealing the container and allowing it to age at about room temperature; and collecting the resulting fibrous protein smectic hydrogel and allowing it to dry. Another aspect of the present invention relates to a method of obtaining predominantly one enantiomer from a racemic mixture, comprising the steps of pouring an aqueous fibrous protein solution into a container comprising a solvent that is not miscible with water; sealing the container and allowing it to age at about room temperature; allowing the enantiomers of racemic mixture to diffuse selectively into the smectic hydrogel in solution; removing the smectic hydrogel from the solution; rinsing predominantly one enantiomer from the surface of the smectic hydrogel; and extracting predominantly one enantiomer from the interior of the smectic hydrogel. The present invention also relates to a smectic hydrogel prepared according to an aforementioned method

Neuronal messenger ribonucleoprotein transport follows an aging Lévy walk

Localization of messenger ribonucleoproteins (mRNPs) plays an essential role in the regulation of gene expression for long-term memory formation and neuronal development. Knowledge concerning the nature of neuronal mRNP transport is thus crucial for understanding how mRNPs are delivered to their target synapses. Here, we report experimental and theoretical evidence that the active transport dynamics of neuronal mRNPs, which is distinct from the previously reported motor-driven transport, follows an aging Levy walk. Such nonergodic, transient superdiffusion occurs because of two competing dynamic phases: the motor-involved ballistic run and static localization of mRNPs. Our proposed Levy walk model reproduces the experimentally extracted key dynamic characteristics of mRNPs with quantitative accuracy. Moreover, the aging status of mRNP particles in an experiment is inferred from the model. This study provides a predictive theoretical model for neuronal mRNP transport and offers insight into the active target search mechanism of mRNP particles in vivo.1111sciescopu

Improved application of the electrophoretic tissue clearing technology, CLARITY, to intact solid organs including brain, pancreas, liver, kidney, lung, and intestine

Background: Mapping of tissue structure at the cellular, circuit, and organ-wide scale is important for understanding physiological and biological functions. A bio-electrochemical technique known as CLARITY used for three-dimensional anatomical and phenotypical mapping within transparent intact tissues has been recently developed. This method provided a major advance in understanding the structure-function relationships in circuits of the nervous system and organs by using whole-body clearing. Thus, in the present study, we aimed to improve the original CLARITY procedure and developed specific CLARITY protocols for various intact organs. Results: We determined the optimal conditions for reducing bubble formation, discoloration, and depositing of black particles on the surface of tissue, which allowed production of clearer organ images. We also determined the appropriate replacement cycles of clearing solution for each type of organ, and convincingly demonstrated that 250–280 mA is the ideal range of electrical current for tissue clearing. We then acquired each type of cleared organs including brain, pancreas, liver, lung, kidney, and intestine. Additionally, we determined the images of axon fibers of hippocampal region, the Purkinje layer of cerebellum, and vessels and cellular nuclei of pancreas. Conclusions: CLARITY is an innovative biochemical technology for the structural and molecular analysis of various types of tissue. We developed improved CLARITY methods for clearing of the brain, pancreas, lung, intestine, liver, and kidney, and identified the appropriate experimental conditions for clearing of each specific tissue type. These optimized methods will be useful for the application of CLARITY to various types of organs. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12861-014-0048-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users