Notes

Using full-dose contrast-enhanced CT with regard to extrahepatic staging utilizing Gallium-68-DOTATATE PET/CT in patients with neuroendocrine cancers.
Pain sensitization, in the form of knee tenderness and anatomically spread hyperalgesia, is notably common in patients with knee osteoarthritis and is often refractory to conventional interventions. Tapentadol, as an opioid receptor agonist and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, has been proposed as a potentially effective symptomatic treatment for pain-sensitized osteoarthritis patients. We empirically tested whether tapentadol could attenuate brain response to painful stimulation on the tender knee using functional MRI.

Pressure painful stimulation was applied to the articular interline and the tibial surface, a commonly sensitized site surrounding the joint. Thirty patients completed the crossover trial designed to compare prolonged release tapentadol and placebo effects administered over 14 days.

We found no effects in the direction of the prediction. Instead, patients administered with tapentadol showed stronger activation in response to pressure on the tender site in the right prefrontal cortex and explore how osteoarthritis patients may benefit from powerful analgesic drugs without the associated risks of prolonged use. EudraCT-[2016-005082-31].
Immune cells are important components of the immune system and are crucial for disease initiation, progression, prognosis, and survival. Although several computational methods have been designed for predicting the abundance of immune cells, very few tools are applicable to mouse. Given that mouse is the most widely used animal model in biomedical research, there is an urgent need to develop a precise algorithm for predicting mouse immune cells.

We developed a tool named ImmuCellAI-mouse (Immune Cell Abundance Identifier for mouse), for estimating the abundance of 36 immune cell (sub)types from gene expression data in a hierarchical strategy of three layers. Reference expression profile and robust marker gene sets of immune cell types were curated. The abundance of cells in three layers was predicted separately by calculating the ssGSEA enrichment score of the expression deviation profile per cell type. Benchmark results showed high accuracy of ImmuCellAI-mouse in predicting most immune cell types, with correlation coefficients between predicted value and real cell proportion of most cell types being larger than 0.8. We applied ImmuCellAI-mouse to a mouse breast tumor dataset and revealed the dynamic change of immune cell infiltration during treatment, which is consistent with the findings of the original study but with more details. We also constructed an online server for ImmuCellAI-mouse, on which users can upload expression matrices for analysis. ImmuCellAI-mouse will be a useful tool for studying the immune microenvironment, cancer immunology, and immunotherapy in mouse models, providing an indispensable supplement for human disease studies.

Software is available at http//bioinfo.life.hust.edu.cn/ImmuCellAI-mouse/.

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.Zeolite encapsulated metal clusters have shown high catalytic activity and superior stability due to confinement effects, the synergy between acidic and metal active sites, and strong metal-zeolite interactions. In the present work, density functional theory calculations were employed to study the stability of encapsulated Ptn (n = 1-6) clusters in the zeolitic frameworks including Silicalite-1 and H-MFI. It has been found that the metal-zeolite interaction becomes stronger with the increasing Ptn cluster size for both zeolitic frameworks. The encapsulated Ptn clusters in the vicinity of the Brønsted acid site (BAS) of H-MFI form more stable PtnHx (x = 1, 2) clusters. The presence of water molecules around the encapsulated Pt6 cluster further enhances its stability, while the oxidation states of the encapsulated Ptn cluster are largely affected by the BAS site and the surrounding water molecules. As the water concentration increases, water dissociation becomes more facile on the Pt6@Silicalite-1 cluster while an opposite trend is found over the Pt6H2@H-MFI cluster. The proton of the BAS site can be transferred to the encapsulated Pt6 cluster via a hydronium cluster H+(H2O)n, leading to the formation of the Pt6H2@H-MFI cluster.Seven homologues of an amphiphilic gemini monomer were synthesized and screened for the ability to form a bicontinuous cubic (Q) lyotropic liquid crystal phase. Four of these homologues form a Q phase with glycerol or water that can be cross-linked with retention of the nanoporous structure, with one exhibiting a well-ordered Q phase with a wider phase window than the parent monomer.Aqueous deep eutectic solvent (DES) solutions emerge as new media for biocatalysis. Doxorubicin The large number of DESs provides a space for designing solutions with desired features. One challenge for this design is to understand the fundamental relationship between the water effect on biocatalysis and the DES compositions. We investigate the solvation and structure of a lipase protein in two DESs containing a protein destabilizer (choline  urea (1  2)) and stabilizer (choline  glycerol (1  2)) and their 1  1 aqueous solution using molecular dynamics simulations. The lipase protein in the pure aqueous solution is simulated as the reference. The lipase protein remains folded in both DESs and their aqueous solutions. In both DESs, water molecules weaken the solvation shell of the lipase protein by reducing the protein-DES hydrogen bond lifetimes. However, the water molecules change the surface area and conformation of the active site on the lipase protein differently in the two DESs. Our simulations indicate that the impact on active sites plays an important role in differentiating the effect of water on biocatalysis in aqueous DESs.A series of half-sandwich Ir(III) complexes 1-6 bearing an amidato bidentate ligand were conveniently synthesized and applied to the catalytic Leuckart-Wallach reaction to produce racemic α-chiral primary amines. With 0.1 mol% of complex 1, a broad range of ketones, including aryl ketones, dialkyl ketones, cyclic ketones, α-keto acids, α-keto esters and diketones, could be transformed to their corresponding primary amines with moderate to excellent yields (40%-95%). Asymmetric transformation was also attempted with chiral Ir complexes 3-6, and 16% ee of the desired primary amine was obtained. Despite the unsatisfactory enantio-control achieved so far, the current exploration might stimulate more efforts towards the discovery of better chiral catalysts for this challenging but important transformation.The contribution of oxidative stress in several chronic and degenerative diseases suggests that antioxidant therapy can be a promising therapeutic strategy. However, in the case of many antioxidants, their biodistribution and bioactivity are restricted due to low water solubility. Curcumin is a powerful free radical scavenger that upon conjugation to gold nanoparticles results in the formation of stable gold nanoparticles that act as highly water-soluble carriers for the curcumin molecules. In the present study, the effect of curcumin-coated gold nanoparticles (Cur-GNPs) on the H2O2-treated human neuroblastoma (SK-N-SH) cell line was evaluated by using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy. Biochemical changes in cells resulting from exposure to reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant treatment on cells were investigated. Analyzing changes in PO2- bands and amide bands in the fingerprint region and also changes in the ratio of CH2(asym) to CH3(asym) bands in the lipid region revealed that post-treatment with Cur-GNPs could effectively decrease the damage on DNA caused by H2O2 treatment, whereas pre-treatment of cells with Cur-GNPs was found to be more effective at preventing lipid peroxidation than post-treatment. Further analysis of the CH2(asym) to CH3(asym) ratio provided information on not only the lipid peroxidation level in cells, but also the interaction of nanoparticles with the plasma membrane, as confirmed by lactate dehydrogenase assay.Five new, intensely green diferrocenylphenylmethylium complexes 1+-5+ with electron donating (EDG 4-MeO, 4-Me, 4-Br) or withdrawing (EWG 3,5-CF3, 4-nC6F13) substituents were synthesized and fully characterized. The substituent influence on their electrochemical and spectroscopic properties was investigated by cyclic voltammetry, UV/Vis/NIR and T-dependent EPR spectroscopy of the cationic as well as the oxidized (12+-52+) and reduced (1˙-5˙) species. The reduced forms equilibrate with their corresponding dimers (65-83%) with a clear substituent influence as expressed by their Hammett parameters in an ordering 4+ > 5+ > 3+ > 2+ > 1+. The structures of all five precursor carbinols 1-OH-5-OH and those of three of the diferrocenylphenylmethylium cations (1+, 4+-5+) were established by X-ray crystallography.Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in a deep saline aquifer is one of the most promising technologies to mitigate anthropologically emitted carbon dioxide. Accurately quantifying the mass transport of CO2 at pore-scales is crucial but challenging for successful CCS deployment. Here, we conduct high-pressure microfluidic experiments, mimicking reservoir conditions up to 9.5 MPa and 35 °C, to elucidate the microfluidic mass transfer process of CO2 at three different states (i.e., gas, liquid, and supercritical phase) into water. We measure the size change of CO2 micro-bubbles/droplets generated using a microfluidic T-junction to estimate the volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kLa), quantifying the rate change of CO2 concentration under the driving force of concentration gradient. The results show that bubbles/droplets under high-pressure conditions reach a steady state faster than low pressure. The measured volumetric mass transfer coefficient increases with the Reynolds number (based on the liquid slug) and is nearly independent of the injection pressure for both the gas and liquid phases. In addition, kLa significantly enlarges with increasing high pressure at the supercritical state. Compared with various chemical engineering applications using millimeter-sized capillaries (with typical kLa measured ranging from ≈0.005 to 0.8 s-1), the microfluidic results show a significant increase in the volumetric mass transfer of CO2 into water by two to three orders of magnitude, O (102-103), with decreasing hydrodynamic diameter (of ≈50 μm).The thermal dehydration of calcium sulfate dihydrate exhibits a complex reaction behavior, in which the reaction pathway and kinetics vary depending on water vapor pressure (p(H2O)) applied as the atmospheric condition and generated in the course of the reaction. Under high p(H2O) conditions, a crystalline hemihydrate is produced as an intermediate, which subsequently dehydrates to form anhydride. In this study, the thermal dehydration of calcium sulfate hemihydrate under different self-generated p(H2O) conditions was investigated to gain further insight into the reactions in the calcium sulfate-water vapor system. The thermal dehydration of the hemihydrate under two sets of sampling conditions, namely, in open and lidded (semi-closed) pans, was systematically investigated via thermogravimetry (TG) in different heating program modes. The experimentally resolved TG curves were analyzed using the formal kinetic calculation methods based on isoconversional and isothermal kinetic relationships. Under both the sampling conditions, the thermal dehydration reaction was significantly influenced by self-generated p(H2O), which regulated the reaction proceeding from the top surface of the sample bed to the bottom.
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