Cancer-Associated Mutations of the Adenosine A2A Receptor Have Diverse Influences on Ligand Binding and Receptor Functions

The adenosine A_2A receptor (A_2AAR) is a class A G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR). It is an immune checkpoint in the tumor micro-environment and has become an emerging target for cancer treatment. In this study, we aimed to explore the effects of cancer-patient-derived A_2AAR mutations on ligand binding and receptor functions. The wild-type A_2AAR and 15 mutants identified by Genomic Data Commons (GDC) in human cancers were expressed in HEK293T cells. Firstly, we found that the binding affinity for agonist NECA was decreased in six mutants but increased for the V275A mutant. Mutations A165V and A265V decreased the binding affinity for antagonist ZM241385. Secondly, we found that the potency of NECA (EC₅₀) in an impedance-based cell-morphology assay was mostly correlated with the binding affinity for the different mutants. Moreover, S132L and H278N were found to shift the A_2AAR towards the inactive state. Importantly, we found that ZM241385 could not inhibit the activation of V275A and P285L stimulated by NECA. Taken together, the cancer-associated mutations of A_2AAR modulated ligand binding and receptor functions. This study provides fundamental insights into the structure–activity relationship of the A_2AAR and provides insights for A_2AAR-related personalized treatment in cancer.     

Deep Multilabel Multilingual Document Learning for Cross-Lingual Document Retrieval

Cross-lingual document retrieval, which aims to take a query in one language to retrieve relevant documents in another, has attracted strong research interest in the last decades. Most studies on this task start with cross-lingual comparisons at the word level and then represent documents via word embeddings, which leads to insufficient structure information. In this work, the cross-lingual comparison at the document level is achieved through the cross-lingual semantic space. Our method, MDL (deep multilabel multilingual document learning), leverages a six-layer fully connected network to project cross-lingual documents into a shared semantic space. The semantic distances can be calculated when the cross-lingual documents are transformed into embeddings in semantic space. The supervision signals are automatically extracted from the data and then used to construct the semantic space via a linear classifier. The ambiguity of manual labels could be avoided and the multilabel supervision signals can be acquired instead of a single label. The representation of the semantic space is enriched by multilabel supervision signals, which improves the discriminative ability of the embeddings. The MDL is easy to extend to other fields since it does not depend on specific data. Furthermore, MDL is more efficient than the models training all languages jointly, since each language is trained individually. Experiments on Wikipedia data showed that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art cross-lingual document retrieval methods.     

Structural and Functional Analysis of the Pyridoxal Phosphate Homeostasis Protein YggS from Fusobacterium nucleatum

Pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP) is the active form of vitamin B6, but it is highly reactive and poisonous in its free form. YggS is a PLP-binding protein found in bacteria and humans that mediates PLP homeostasis by delivering PLP to target enzymes or by performing a protective function. Several biochemical and structural studies of YggS have been reported, but the mechanism by which YggS recognizes PLP has not been fully elucidated. Here, we report a functional and structural analysis of YggS from Fusobacterium nucleatum (FnYggS). The PLP molecule could bind to native FnYggS, but no PLP binding was observed for selenomethionine (SeMet)-derivatized FnYggS. The crystal structure of FnYggS showed a type III TIM barrel fold, exhibiting structural homology with several other PLP-dependent enzymes. Although FnYggS exhibited low (<35%) amino acid sequence similarity with previously studied YggS proteins, its overall structure and PLP-binding site were highly conserved. In the PLP-binding site of FnYggS, the sulfate ion was coordinated by the conserved residues Ser201, Gly218, and Thr219, which were positioned to provide the binding moiety for the phosphate group of PLP. The mutagenesis study showed that the conserved Ser201 residue in FnYggS was the key residue for PLP binding. These results will expand the knowledge of the molecular properties and function of the YggS family.     

Sargassum fusiforme Polysaccharide-Based Hydrogel Microspheres Enhance Crystal Violet Dye Adsorption Properties

In this study, a polysaccharide-based hydrogel microsphere (SFP/SA) was prepared using S. fusiforme polysaccharide (SFP) and sodium alginate (SA). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) demonstrated that SFP was effectively loaded onto the hydrogel microsphere. Texture profile analysis (TPA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed that, with the increase of SFP concentration, the hardness of SFP/SA decreased, while the springiness and cohesiveness of SFP/SA increased, and the thermal stability of SFP/SA improved. The equilibrium adsorption capacity of SFP/SA increased from 8.20 mg/g (without SFP) to 67.95 mg/g (SFP accounted 80%) without swelling, and from 35.05 mg/g (without SFP) to 81.98 mg/g (SFP accounted 80%) after 24 h swelling. The adsorption of crystal violet (CV) dye by SFP/SA followed pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order kinetics (both with R² > 0.99). The diffusion of intraparticle in CV dye was not the only influencing factor. Moreover, the adsorption of CV dye for SFP/SA (SFP accounted 60%) fit the Langmuir and Temkin isotherm models. SFP/SA exhibited good regenerative adsorption capacity. Its adsorption rate remained at > 97% at the 10th consecutive cycle while SFP accounted for 80%. The results showed that the addition of Sargassum fusiforme polysaccharide could increase the springiness, cohesiveness and thermal stability of the hydrogel microsphere, as well as improve the adsorption capacity of crystal violet dye.     

Oxygen-supplied mesoporous carbon nanoparticles for enhanced photothermal/photodynamic synergetic therapy against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections

Pandemic and epidemic spread of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections would result in a huge number of fatalities globally. To combat antibiotic-resistant pathogens, new antimicrobial strategies should be explored and developed to confront bacteria without acquiring or increasing drug-resistance. Here, oxygen saturated perfluorohexane (PFH)-loaded mesoporous carbon nanoparticles (CIL@ICG/PFH@O₂) with photothermal therapy (PTT) and enhanced photodynamic therapy (PDT) utility are developed for antibacterial applications. Ionic liquid groups are grafted onto the surface of mesoporous carbon nanoparticles, followed by anion-exchange with the anionic photosensitizer indocyanine green (ICG) and loading oxygen saturated PFH to prepare CIL@ICG/PFH@O₂. These CIL@ICG/PFH@O₂ nanoparticles exhibit effective PTT and enhanced PDT properties simultaneously upon 808 nm light irradiation. In vitro assays demonstrate that CIL@ICG/PFH@O₂ shows a synergistic antibacterial action against antibiotic-resistant pathogens (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and kanamycin-resistant Escherichia coli). Moreover, CIL@ICG/PFH@O₂ could effectively kill drug-resistant bacteria in vivo to relieve inflammation and eliminate methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus-wound infection under NIR irradiation, and the released oxygen can increase collagen deposition, epithelial tissue formation and blood vessel formation to promote wound healing while enhancing the PDT effect. This study proposes a platform with enhanced PTT/PDT effects for effective, controlled, and precise treatment of topical drug-resistant bacterial infections.

We report oxygen saturated perfluorohexane (PFH)-loaded mesoporous carbon nanoparticles (CIL@ICG/PFH@O₂) with photothermal therapy (PTT) and enhanced photodynamic therapy (PDT) utility for antibacterial applications.     

稀土机配合物电致发光研究进展

稀土配合物发射带窄,发射光谱具有类原予光谱性质,色纯度高(半宽峰<10 nm),非常适合于全彩色显示.另外,稀土配合物发光效率高,理论上内量子效率可达100%.因此,稀土配合物是全色平板显示器件中理想的发光材料之一,研究稀土配合物电致发光性质具有重要的实际意义和理论意义.以稀土镧系离子配合物作为发光中心的电致发光器件的研究主要集中于发光效率比较高的Eu3+,Tb3+以及近红外的Nd3+,Yb3+和Er3+离子.分类综述了近年稀土配合物电致发光研究的成果及其进展.总结了不同类型的铕配合物、铽配合物的电致发光特性,证明配体对于稀土离子的敏化作用非常重要;总结了近红外的镱、钕、铒配合物在光放大、激光技术、生物医学等方面的潜在应用价值.     

Comparison Between the Effects of 2-Selenium Bridged β-Cyclodextrin and Ebselen on Treating SHRsp Stroke

A glutathione peroxidase（GPX） mimic, 2-selenium bridged β-cyclodextrin（2-SeCD）, was synthesized. In order to examine its role and mechanism in treating stroke we chose stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats（SHRsp） as animal model. 56 SHRsps of 8-week olds were randomly divided into several groups： test groups （low, moderate, high dose of 2-SeCD） and control groups（positive and negative）. After onset of the stroke, the rats in test groups were orally administrated with different amounts of 2-SeCD, the positive control group with ebselen, and the negative control group with drinking water. The treatment lasted two weeks, followed by observation of the rats for 10 days, meanwhile blood pressure, biochemical parameters of plasma, and the contents of nitric oxide（NO） and malondialdehyde（MDA） in plasma and brain were determined. The results show that there were significant differences in contents of NO and MDA in plasma and brain between the test groups（high, moderate dose of 2-SeCD） and negative control group. The NO contents of the test groups were obviously higher than that of the negative control group （P〈0.01）. The MDA contents of the test groups（high, moderate dose of 2-SeCD） were obviously lower than that of the negative control group（P〈0.01）. The mechanism of 2-SeCD in treating stroke was discussed, which maybe related to the increase of NO and the decrease of MDA in plasma and brain tissue, but the exact mechanism should be further studied. Moreover, the tendencies of changes in systolic blood pressure, contents of NO and MDA, and other physiological parameters for the test groups were shown to be much better than the corresponding parameters for the positive group（the group with ebselen）（P〈0.05）, indicating that the treatment effect of 2-SeCD is better than that of ebselen.     

Catalytic Oxidation of NO over La_(0.8)Sr_(0.2)MnO_3 Perovskite

Catalytic oxidation of NO by O2 over La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 was tested in a tubular reactor.The reaction temperature ranged from 373 to 473 K,space time from 0.090 to 0.720 s,inlet NO concentration from 300 to 2000μL/L, and O2 volume fraction from 3%to 9%.The steady-state conversion of NO was increased significantly with increasing reaction temperature and the space time,slightly with increasing the O2 concentration but decreased with increasing the inlet NO concentration at a lower temperature.Under the conditions of 0.720 s space time,500μL/L NO concentration, 5%O2 volume fraction and 473 K,NO conversion reached 90%.A kinetic model including a network of 12 elementary reactions with the desorption of NO2 as the rate-limiting step is established and fits the experimental data well.The activation energy of NO2 desorption from the catalyst surface is determined to be 101 kJ/mol.     

基于红外隐身及多波段兼容隐身材料

随着探测系统的快速发展和探测精度的提高,隐身技术的需求日益迫切.由于传统的红外隐身材料面临着多途径目标探测的严峻挑战,因此开发既能满足红外隐身要求又能满足雷达隐身、可见光隐身、激光隐身要求的新型兼容隐身材料具有重要意义.红外隐身材料主要针对目标的红外辐射特征进行材料、结构设计,降低目标在背景中热红外辐射信号的突出性以及...     

Numerical Study on an RBF-FD Tangent Plane Based Method for Convection–Diffusion Equations on Anisotropic Evolving Surfaces

In this paper, we present a fully Lagrangian method based on the radial basis function (RBF) finite difference (FD) method for solving convection–diffusion partial differential equations (PDEs) on evolving surfaces. Surface differential operators are discretized by the tangent plane approach using Gaussian RBFs augmented with two-dimensional (2D) polynomials. The main advantage of our method is the simplicity of calculating differentiation weights. Additionally, we couple the method with anisotropic RBFs (ARBFs) to obtain more accurate numerical solutions for the anisotropic growth of surfaces. In the ARBF interpolation, the Euclidean distance is replaced with a suitable metric that matches the anisotropic surface geometry. Therefore, it will lead to a good result on the aspects of stability and accuracy of the RBF-FD method for this type of problem. The performance of this method is shown for various convection–diffusion equations on evolving surfaces, which include the anisotropic growth of surfaces and growth coupled with the solutions of PDEs.