A bare platinum disk electrode without further decoration was directly used to determine oxalic acid (OA), showing good linear ranges of 0.57–104.01 μM and 104.01–228.75 μM with a low detection limit of 0.38 μM (S/N = 3). In contrast, platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) dispersed on a glassy carbon electrode were successfully achieved by an one-step electrochemical deposition method, possessing relatively wider linear detection ranges of 1.14–342.80 μM and 342.80–548.92 μM for OA with a lower detection limit of 0.28 μM (S/N = 3). Both the proposed electrochemical sensors exhibit great reproducibility, stability and selectivity. In particular, they have been applied to the determination of OA in real spinach samples, showing excellent analytical performance.
Oncolytic viruses are able to lyse tumor cells selectively in the liver without killing normal hepatocytes, in addition to activating the immune response. Oncolytic virus therapy is expected to revolutionize the treatment of liver cancer, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), one of the most frequent and fatal malignancies. In this study, reverse genetics techniques were exploited to load NA fragments of the A/PuertoRico/8/34 virus (PR8) with GV1001 peptides derived from human telomerase reverse transcriptase. An in vitro assessment of the therapeutic effect of the recombinant oncolytic virus was followed by an in vivo study in mice with HCC. The recombinant virus was verified by sequencing of the recombinant viral gene sequence, and viral virulence was detected by hemagglutination assays and based on the 50% tissue culture infectious dose (TCID50). The morphological structure of the virus was observed by electron microscopy, and GV1001 peptide was localized by cellular immunofluorescence. The selective cytotoxicity of the recombinant oncolytic virus in vitro was demonstrated in cultured HCC cells and normal hepatocytes, as only the tumor cells were killed; the normal cells were not significantly altered. Consistent with the in vitro results, the recombinant oncolytic influenza virus significantly inhibited liver tumor growth in mice in vivo, in addition to inducing an antitumor immune response, including an increase in the number of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes and, in turn, improving survival. Our results suggest that oncolytic influenza virus carrying GV1001 is a promising immunotherapy in patients with HCC.
A new strategy has been developed for the direct chirality fixation, which is induced by electrochemical polymerization, of macrocyclic hosts pillar[5]arene. Taking advantage of electrochemical polymerization, thiophene-modified pillar[5]arene monomers (Th-P[5]A) have been regularly arranged under the action of an electric field to form chiral nanofiber-like crystalline pillar[5]arene-based polymers (poly-Th-P[5]A), showing a significant circular dichroism (CD) signal. With the active photochemical properties, poly-Th-P[5]A is first used as a photoelectrochemical (PEC) chiral sensor for the identification and determination of l- and d-ascorbic acid (l-AA, d-AA) without adding any extra photoactive probes. Importantly, the chiral recognition between poly-Th-P[5]A and l-AA also triggers a polarity conversion for the photocurrent of the polymer, and it greatly results in a broad chiral detection range for l-AA, crossing 6 orders of magnitude. This work provides a promotional strategy for building a PEC chiral recognition platform based on pillararenes.
Nanoscopic CdS particles are decorated into the microchannel with nanometre-scale diameter of titanate nanotubes (TNTs) by using nonionic thioacetamide (TAA) as a sulfide precursor (labelled as CdS(TAA)/TNTs). The characterizations by XPS, TEM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy and UV-vis absorption confirm that CdS nanoparticles with smaller size and more homogeneous dispersion are obtained by using a TAA precursor in contrast to the particles predominantly formed on the surface of TNTs by adding ionic Na(2)S as a precursor (labelled as CdS(Na(2)S)/TNTs). As is expected, the photocatalytic activities of the nanosized CdS sensitized TNTs nanocrystal materials were superior to those of simple CdS and TNTs in the oxidation of rhodamine B under visible light irradiation. Furthermore, the comparison of photocatalysis activity between CdS(TAA)/TNTs and CdS(Na(2)S)/TNTs is also discussed.
The complexity of COVID-19 and variations in control measures and containment efforts in different countries have caused difficulties in the prediction and modeling of the COVID-19 pandemic. We attempted to predict the scale of the latter half of the pandemic based on real data using the ratio between the early and latter halves from countries where the pandemic is largely over. We collected daily pandemic data from China, South Korea, and Switzerland and subtracted the ratio of pandemic days before and after the disease apex day of COVID-19. We obtained the ratio of pandemic data and created multiple regression models for the relationship between before and after the apex day. We then tested our models using data from the first wave of the disease from 14 countries in Europe and the US. We then tested the models using data from these countries from the entire pandemic up to March 30, 2021. Results indicate that the actual number of cases from these countries during the first wave mostly fall in the predicted ranges of liniar regression, excepting Spain and Russia. Similarly, the actual deaths in these countries mostly fall into the range of predicted data. Using the accumulated data up to the day of apex and total accumulated data up to March 30, 2021, the data of case numbers in these countries are falling into the range of predicted data, except for data from Brazil. The actual number of deaths in all the countries are at or below the predicted data. In conclusion, a linear regression model built with real data from countries or regions from early pandemics can predict pandemic scales of the countries where the pandemics occur late. Such a prediction with a high degree of accuracy provides valuable information for governments and the public.
In this paper, the ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) with a diameter of 50nm and a length of 250 nm were synthesized by chemical bath deposition method. Two devices with structures of ITO (indium tin oxides)/ZnO/poly-(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)/Au and ITO/ZnO@ZnS/P3HT/Au were fabricated and their performances were tested and evaluated separately. The I-V curves were measured for discussion of the threshold voltage, series resistance, reverse leakage current, and rectification ratio. Results show that the device with modified ZnO shows a decline in the threshold voltage, series resistance and reverse leakage current, but has an enhanced rectification ratio. The effect of ZnS coating on the improvement of conductive properties of the device could be attributed to the suppression of the non-radiative recombination of surface defects as shown by means of photoluminescence spectrum.
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