Natural killer cell-derived extracellular vesicle significantly enhanced adoptive T cell therapy against solid tumors via versatilely immunomodulatory coordination

Science China Chemistry - Insufficient tumor tropism, MHC class I molecules (MHC-I) defects of tumor cells, and immunosuppressive tumor micro-environment (TME) seriously imperil the efficacy of...     

Synthesis and studies of trisubstituted biphthalonitrile/Fe<Subscript>3</Subscript>O<Subscript>4</Subscript> magnetic hybrid microspheres

New trisubstituted biphthalonitrile/magnetite (TSB/Fe₃O₄) magnetic hybrid microspheres were synthesized from TSB and FeCl₃ · 6H₂O using the method of one-stage thermal temperature crystallization of solvents. The morphology and structure of magnetic hybrid microspheres were inspected using a scanning electron microscope, IR Fourier spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. It was found that the grown TSB/Fe₃O₄ magnetic hybrid microspheres represent spherical particles with an average size of ~137 nm and a small size spread. The size and size distribution of magnetic hybrid microspheres can be controlled by a small change in the ratio of TSB and Fe³⁺ ion contents in the microsphere. TSB/Fe₃O₄ hybrid microspheres exhibit a rather high saturation magnetization (58.16 emu g^–1) and new microwave electromagnetic properties, i.e., lower (in comparison with published) dielectric losses at low frequencies; magnetic losses are increased obviously due to an increase in the TSB content. Furthermore, it is detected that magnetic hybrid microspheres absorb microwaves, and strong reflection losses in a wide frequency range are established. The effective reflection loss of–31 dB is obtained in the microwave range from 2 to 16 GHz due to TSB content variations. Wide absorption properties of microwaves along with regular spherical shape and excellent magnetic properties offer wide opportunities for various applications of TSB/Fe₃O₄ magnetic hybrid microspheres as functional materials.     

Adaptive registration of diffusion tensor images on lie groups

With diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), more exquisite information on tissue microstructure is provided for medical image processing. In this paper, we present a locally adaptive topology preserving method for DTI registration on Lie groups. The method aims to obtain more plausible diffeomorphisms for spatial transformations via accurate approximation for the local tangent space on the Lie group manifold. In order to capture an exact geometric structure of the Lie group, the local linear approximation is efficiently optimized by using the adaptive selection of the local neighborhood sizes on the given set of data points. Furthermore, numerical comparative experiments are conducted on both synthetic data and real DTI data to demonstrate that the proposed method yields a higher degree of topology preservation on a dense deformation tensor field while improving the registration accuracy.     

Freeform lenses for illumination of specific shapes in (<Emphasis Type="Italic">u</Emphasis>,<Emphasis Type="Italic">v</Emphasis>) coordinate system

Lens for rectangular illumination has been designed in (u,v) coordinate system already. Because of light source in (u,v) coordinate system can be divided into two identical parts, we have found that it is possible to design lenses for illumination of specific shapes. Specific shapes include triangles, as well as quadrangles which can be divided into two equal-area parts by one of the diagonals. We partition two equal-area parts into grids separately with equivalent luminous flux as well as light source, after that we construct freeform lenses by ray mapping method. Simulation results show that lenses for illumination of specific shapes are obtained with a Lambertian point source and favorable efficiency is over 0.86.     

Progress of Jinping Underground laboratory for Nuclear Astrophysics (JUNA)

Jinping Underground laboratory for Nuclear Astrophysics(JUNA) will take the advantage of the ultra-low background of CJPL lab and high current accelerator based on an ECR source and a highly sensitive detector to directly study for the first time a number of crucial reactions occurring at their relevant stellar energies during the evolution of hydrostatic stars. In its first phase, JUNA aims at the direct measurements of~(25)Mg(p,γ)~(26)Al,~(19)F(p,α)~(16)O,~(13)C(α,n)~(16)O and ~(12)C(α,γ)~(16)O reactions. The experimental setup,which includes an accelerator system with high stability and high intensity, a detector system, and a shielding material with low background, will be established during the above research. The current progress of JUNA will be given.     

Applications of two-way satellite time and frequency transfer in the BeiDou navigation satellite system

A two-way satellite time and frequency transfer(TWSTFT) device equipped in the BeiDou navigation satellite system(BDS)can calculate clock error between satellite and ground master clock. TWSTFT is a real-time method with high accuracy because most system errors such as orbital error, station position error, and tropospheric and ionospheric delay error can be eliminated by calculating the two-way pseudorange difference. Another method, the multi-satellite precision orbit determination(MPOD)method, can be applied to estimate satellite clock errors. By comparison with MPOD clock estimations, this paper discusses the applications of the BDS TWSTFT clock observations in satellite clock measurement, satellite clock prediction, navigation system time monitor, and satellite clock performance assessment in orbit. The results show that with TWSTFT clock observations, the accuracy of satellite clock prediction is higher than MPOD. Five continuous weeks of comparisons with three international GNSS Service(IGS) analysis centers(ACs) show that the reference time difference between BeiDou time(BDT) and golbal positoning system(GPS) time(GPST) realized IGS ACs is in the tens of nanoseconds. Applying the TWSTFT clock error observations may obtain more accurate satellite clock performance evaluation in the 104 s interval because the accuracy of the MPOD clock estimation is not sufficiently high. By comparing the BDS and GPS satellite clock performance, we found that the BDS clock stability at the 103 s interval is approximately 10.12, which is similar to the GPS IIR.     

GaN-based LEDs for light communication

Rapid improvement in the efficiency of GaN-based LEDs not only speed up its applications for general illumination, but offer the possibilities for data transmission. This review is to provide an overview of current progresses of GaN-based LEDs for light communications. The modulation bandwidth of GaN-based LEDs has been first improved by optimizing the LED epilayer structures and the modulation bandwidth of 73 MHz was achieved at the driving current density of 40 A/cm² by changing the multi-quantum well structures. After that, in order to increase the current density tolerance, different parallel flip-chip micro-LED arrays were fabricated. With a high injected current density of ～7900 A/cm², a maximum modulation bandwidth of ～227 MHz was obtained with optical power greater than 30 mW. Besides the increase of carrier concentrations, the radiative recombination coefficient B was also enhanced by modifying the photon surrounding environment based on some novel nanostructures such as resonant cavity, surface plasmon, and photonic crystals. The optical 3 dB modulation bandwidth of GaN-based nanostructure LEDs with Ag nanoparticles was enhanced by 2 times compared with GaN-based nanostructure LEDs without Ag nanoparticles. Our results demonstrate that using the QW-SP coupling can effectively help to enhance the carrier spontaneous emission rate and also increase the modulation bandwidth for LEDs, especially for LEDs with high intrinsic IQE. In addition, we discuss the progress of the faster color conversion stimulated by GaN-based LEDs.     

A proposed direct measurement of cross section at Gamow window for key reaction ~(19)F( p,α)~(16)O in Asymptotic Giant Branch stars with a planned accelerator in CJPL

In 2014, the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC) approved the Jinping Underground Nuclear Astrophysics laboratory(JUNA) project, which aims at direct cross-section measurements of four key stellar nuclear reactions right down to the Gamow windows. In order to solve the observed fluorine overabundances in Asymptotic Giant Branch(AGB) stars, measuring the key ~(19)F( p,α)~(16)O reaction at effective burning energies(i.e., at Gamow window) is established as one of the scientific research sub-projects. The present paper describes this sub-project in details, including motivation, status, experimental setup, yield and background estimation, aboveground test, as well as other relevant reactions.     

Design,synthesis, insecticidal activity,and structure-activity relationship (SAR): studies of novel triazone derivatives containing a urea bridge group based on transient receptor potential (TRP) channels

Numerous compounds containing urea bridge and biurea moieties are used in a variety of fields, especially as drugs and pesticides. To search for novel, environmentally benign and ecologically safe pesticides with unique modes of action, four series of novel triazone analogues containing urea, thiourea, biurea, and thiobiurea bridge, respectively, were designed and synthesized, according to various calcium ion channel inhibitors which act on transient receptor potential protein. Their structures were characterized by \({}^{1}\mathrm{H}\) NMR, \({}^{13}\mathrm{C}\) NMR, and HRMS. The insecticidal activities of the new compounds were obtained. The bioassay results indicated that compounds containing a thiourea bridge and a thiobiurea bridge exhibited excellent insecticidal activities against bean aphid. Specifically, compounds \({\mathbf{VIb}}_{15}\), \({\mathbf{VIIb}}_{8}\), and \({\mathbf{VIIb}}_{9}\) exhibited 85, 90, and 95 % activities, respectively, at 10 mg/kg. Compounds \({\mathbf{VIb}}_{14}\) (30 %), \({\mathbf{VIIb}}_{10}\) (35 %), \({\mathbf{VIIb}}_{11}\) (30 %), and \({\mathbf{VIIb}}_{12}\) (40 %) exhibited the approximate aphicidal activity of pymetrozine (30 %) at 5 mg/kg. In addition, some target compounds exhibited insecticidal activities against lepidopteran pests. From a molecular design standpoint, the information obtained in this study could help in the further design of new derivatives with improved insecticidal activities.     

Biocompatibility selenium nanoparticles with an intrinsic oxidase-like activity

Selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) are considered to be the new selenium supplement forms with high biological activity and low toxicity; however, the molecular mechanism by which SeNPs exert the biological function is unclear. Here, we reported that biocompatibility SeNPs possessed intrinsic oxidase-like activity. Using Na₂SeO₃ as a precursor and glutathione as a reductant, biocompatibility SeNPs were synthesized by the wet chemical reduction method in the presence of bovine serum albumin (BSA). The results of structure characterization revealed that synthesized SeNPs were amorphous red elementary selenium with spherical morphology, and ranged in size from 25 to 70 nm size with a narrow distribution (41.4 ± 6.7 nm). The oxidase-like activity of the as-synthesized SeNPs was tested with 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) as a substrate. The results indicated that SeNPs could catalyze the oxidization of TMB by dissolved oxygen. These SeNPs showed an optimum catalytic activity at pH 4 and 30 °C, and the oxidase-like activity was higher as the concentration of SeNPs increased and the size of SeNPs decreased. The Michaelis constant (K _m) values and maximal reaction velocity (V _max) of the SeNPs for TMB oxidation were 0.0083 mol/L and 3.042 μmol/L min, respectively.