Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species produced by cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) are considered to be the most important species for biomedical applications, including cancer treatment. However, it is not known which species exert the greatest biological effects, and the nature of their interactions with tumor cells remains ill-defined. These questions were addressed in the present study by exposing human mesenchymal stromal and LP-1 cells to reactive oxygen and nitrogen species produced by CAP and evaluating cell viability. Superoxide anion (O2 −) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were the two major species present in plasma, but their respective concentrations were not sufficient to cause cell death when used in isolation; however, in the presence of iron, both species enhanced the cell death-inducing effects of plasma. We propose that iron containing proteins in cells catalyze O2 − and H2O2 into the highly reactive OH radical that can induce cell death. The results demonstrate how reactive species are transferred to liquid and converted into the OH radical to mediate cytotoxicity and provide mechanistic insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying tumor cell death by plasma treatment.

Water-soluble polymers are known to be used in chemically enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes, but their applications are limited in high-temperature and high-salinity oil reservoirs because of their inherent poor salt tolerance and weak thermal stability. Hydrophobic association of partially hydrolyzed polyacryamide (HAHPAM) complexed with silica nanoparticles to prepare nano-hybrids is reported in this work. The rheological and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) properties of such hybrids were studied in comparison with HAHPAM under simulated high-temperature and high-salinity oil reservoir conditions (T: 85 °C; total dissolved solids: 32,868 mg873 mg•L −1 ). It was found that the apparent viscosity and elastic modulus of HAHPAM solutions increased with addition of silica nanoparticles, and HAHPAM/silica hybrids exhibit better shear resistance and long-term thermal stability than HAHPAM in synthetic brine. Moreover, core flooding tests show that HAHPAM/silica hybrid has a higher oil recovery factor than HAHPAM solution.

You're nickel'd pal! The first successful coupling reaction with the direct application of naphtholates as electrophiles (see scheme, X=halide) improves both the step economy and atom economy of cross‐coupling reactions whilst decreasing the cost of preparing complex scaffolds from readily available phenol derivatives.

A type of polyurethane with carboxylic acid, exhibits a thermo-induced triple-shape memory effect and a pH sensitive dual-shape memory effect.

Highlights d Myeloid-specific overexpression of YAP promotes the development of atherosclerosis d IL-1b induces macrophage YAP nuclear localization and protein stability d Macrophage YAP regulates chemokine production and monocyte/macrophage recruitment d Macrophage YAP is upregulated in patients and mouse atherosclerotic lesions

A novel thermoviscosifying water-soluble polymer was synthesized by direct free radical copolymerization of acrylamide with a newly-prepared macromonomer, and its aqueous solution viscosity behavior at different temperatures was preliminarily examined in both pure water and KCl brine in comparison with its homopolyacrylamide counterpart. Thermoviscosifying ability of the copolymer was clearly evidenced in both aqueous media, and the thermoassociative temperature of the copolymer decreased upon increasing KCl content in polymer solution. Under the same conditions, homopolyacrylamide shows only thermothinning behavior and viscosity loss in both pure water and KCl solution.

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This study reports the potential of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) as a versatile tool for delivering oligonucleotides into mammalian cells. Compared to lipofection and electroporation methods, plasma transfection showed a better uptake efficiency and less cell death in the transfection of oligonucleotides. We demonstrated that the level of extracellular aqueous reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by gas plasma is correlated with the uptake efficiency and that this is achieved through an increase of intracellular ROS levels and the resulting increase in cell membrane permeability. This finding was supported by the use of ROS scavengers, which reduced CAP-based uptake efficiency. In addition, we found that cold atmospheric plasma could transfer oligonucleotides such as siRNA and miRNA into cells even in 3D cultures, thus suggesting the potential for unique applications of CAP beyond those provided by standard transfection techniques. Together, our results suggest that cold plasma might provide an efficient technique for the delivery of siRNA and miRNA in 2D and 3D culture models.