Acetylation and deacetylation are counteracting, post-translational modifications that affect a large number of histone and nonhistone proteins. The significance of histone acetylation in the modification of chromatin structure and dynamics, and thereby gene transcription regulation, has been well recognized. A steadily growing number of nonhistone proteins have been identified as acetylation targets and reversible lysine acetylation in these proteins plays an important role(s) in the regulation of mRNA stability, protein localization and degradation, and protein–protein and protein–DNA interactions. The recruitment of histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACs) to the transcriptional machinery is a key element in the dynamic regulation of genes controlling cellular proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. Many nonhistone proteins targeted by acetylation are the products of oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes and are directly involved in tumorigenesis, tumor progression and metastasis. Aberrant activity of HDACs has been documented in several types of cancers and HDAC inhibitors (HDACi) have been employed for therapeutic purposes. Here we review the published literature in this field and provide updated information on the regulation and function of nonhistone protein acetylation. While concentrating on the molecular mechanism and pathways involved in the addition and removal of the acetyl moiety, therapeutic modalities of HDACi are also discussed.

We summarize the recent advances in the electrospinning fabrication of hybrid polymer nanofibers decorated with functionalized nanoscale building blocks (NBBs) to obtain biosensors with better performances.

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Materials with non-Kramers doublet ground states naturally manifest the two-channel Kondo effect, as the valence fluctuations are from a non-Kramers doublet ground state to an excited Kramers doublet. Here, the development of a heavy Fermi liquid requires a channel symmetry breaking spinorial hybridization that breaks both single and double time-reversal symmetry, and is known as hastatic order. Motivated by cubic Pr-based materials with Γ3 non-Kramers ground state doublets, this paper provides a survey of cubic hastatic order using the simple two-channel Kondo-Heisenberg model. Hastatic order necessarily breaks time-reversal symmetry, but the spatial arrangement of the hybridization spinor can be either uniform (ferrohastatic) or break additional lattice symmetries (antiferrohastatic). The experimental signatures of both orders are presented in detail, and include tiny conduction electron magnetic moments. Interestingly, there can be several distinct antiferrohastatic orders with the same moment pattern that break different lattice symmetries, revealing a potential experimental route to detect the spinorial nature of the hybridization. We employ an SU(N) fermionic mean-field treatment on square and simple cubic lattices, and examine how the nature and stability of hastatic order varies as we vary the Heisenberg coupling, conduction electron density, band degeneracies, and apply both channel and spin symmetry breaking fields. We find that both ferrohastatic and several types of antiferrohastatic orders are stabilized in different regions of the mean-field phase diagram, and evolve differently in strain and magnetic fields.

Fluorescent nanogel is an innovative biomedical material with hydroscopicity, degradability, and responsiveness.

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Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the leading cause of death among gynecologic malignancies. Despite great efforts to improve early detection and optimize chemotherapeutic regimens, the 5-year survival rate is only 30% for patients presenting with late-stage ovarian cancer. The high mortality of this disease is due to late diagnosis in over 70% of ovarian cancer cases. A class of small noncoding RNAs, or microRNAs, was found to regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Some, but not all, of the data indicated that the miR-200 family was dysregulated in a variety of malignancies. In this study, we demonstrated that miR-200a and E-cadherin were significantly upregulated in EOC compared to benign epithelial ovarian cysts and normal ovarian tissues. However, further stratification of the subject indicated that the expression levels of miR-200a were significantly downregulated in late-stage (FIGO III+V) and grade 3 groups compared with early stage (FIGO I+II) and grade 1 to 2 groups. Similarly, relatively low levels of miR-200a were observed in the lymph compared to the node-negative group. E-cadherin expression was found to be absent in normal ovarian tissue and was frequently expressed in benign epithelial ovarian cysts, with absence or low levels observed in late-stage ovarian cancers. There was a significantly positive correlation between miR-200a and E-cadherin in EOC. The biphasic expression pattern suggested that miR-200a levels may serve as novel biomarkers for the early detection of EOC, and miR-200a and E-cadherin are candidate targets for the development of new treatment modalities against ovarian cancer.