A novel ZnIn 2 S 4 catalyst synthesized by hydrothermal method shows high and stable photocatalytic activity for water reduction under visible light illumination.In recent years photocatalytic water splitting using solar energy has received a great deal of attention because of the global energy and environmental problems. During the past decades many mixed oxide photocatalysts such as SrTiO 3 , 1 KNb 6 O 17 2 and NaTaO 3 3 have been reported to show high activity for overall water splitting. These photocatalysts, however, are effective only in the ultraviolet region due to their wide band gap. In order to improve the efficiency of utilizing the solar energy, the development of visible-light-driven photocatalysts for water splitting is indispensable. Unfortunately, the number of photocatalysts working under visible light irradiation is still limited. [4][5][6] In contrast to the metal oxide photocatalysts, many metal sulfides have the narrower band gaps that correspond to the visible light absorption. 7 The ternary sulfides with strong absorption in the visible region may be good candidates for photocatalytic water splitting to produce hydrogen. But, it is commonly believed that metal sulfides are unstable during the photocatalytic reaction. Improving the stability of metal sulfide catalyst such as CdS for water splitting is challenging. A few efforts have been made, for example, by incorporating the nanoparticles of metal sulfide into the interlayer 8 or mesoporous silica 9 to stabilize the metal sulfides. The preparation procedure is complicated and the photocatalytic efficiency is still very low. It has recently been reported that multicomponent metal sulfide 7 and oxysulfide 4 show stable photocatalytic activity for water reduction and oxidation. These results imply that the multicomponent metal sulfide could be a new class of stable photocatalyst for water reduction.Zinc indium sulfide, ZnIn 2 S 4 , is a ternary chalcogenide which belongs to the family of ternary compound AB 2 X 4 . ZnIn 2 S 4 is a potential photoconducting material 10 and has been extensively applied to the electrochemical recording and photovariable capacitor. But, there is no report on the photocatalytic water reduction over the ternary compound of AB 2 X 4 . These compounds are conventionally prepared by the chemical transport method. 11 This method usually requires high temperature and high vacuum, as well as a transporting agent such as iodine. In this communication, we report a chemically stable ZnIn 2 S 4 photocatalyst prepared by a direct hydrothermal synthesis method. UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectra shows that the absorption edge of ZnIn 2 S 4 is in the visible region, corresponding to the band gap of 2.3 eV. It is found that the ZnIn 2 S 4 shows high activity for photocatalytic water reduction under visible light (l > 420 nm) irradiation. More interestingly, the H 2 evolution rate gradually increases with prolonged photocatalytic reaction time. No deactivation is observed even after photocatalytic reaction for 150 h.The ZnS...

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Androgen receptor (AR) is emerging as a novel prognostic biomarker in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. As accumulating evidence has shown that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) regulate important cancer hallmarks, we hypothesised that AR-regulated lncRNAs might play roles in TNBC progression. Here, we performed experiments with or without DHT treatment in three TNBC cell lines, and we identified an AR negatively induced lncRNA (ARNILA), which correlated with poor progression-free survival (PFS) in TNBC patients and promoted epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), invasion and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. Subsequently, we demonstrated that ARNILA functioned as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) for miR-204 to facilitate expression of its target gene Sox4, which is known to induce EMT and contribute to breast cancer progression, thereby promoting EMT, invasion and metastasis of TNBC. Our findings not only provide new insights into the mechanisms of lncRNA in regulating AR but also suggest ARNILA as an alternative therapeutic target to suppress metastasis of TNBC patients.

Y 2 Ta 2 O 5 N 2 is presented as a novel photocatalyst with high activity for water splitting under visible-light irradiation in the presence of appropriate sacrificial reagents; the activity for reduction to H 2 is increased by the incorporation of Pt or Ru as a co-catalyst, with a significant increase in production efficiency when both Pt and Ru are present.Photocatalytic splitting of water using solar energy is a challenging and interesting topic of research with the potential to provide clean and renewable H 2 as an energy resource. To date, many mixedmetal oxides such as K 2 La 2 Ti 3 O 10 , 1 NaTaO 3 , 2 and LnTaO 4 (Ln = La, Pr, Ce, Nd, Sm) 3 have been studied for water splitting as a means of producing both H 2 and O 2 , as such oxides have excellent stability and high activity. However, these catalysts are only active under ultraviolet (UV) light, which accounts for only a small fraction (5%) of the solar spectrum at the earth's surface. Therefore, the development of visible-light responsive photocatalysts for overall water splitting is currently attracting much attention as a potentially efficient utilization of solar energy. [4][5][6] Considerable effort has been made to extend the absorption edge of semiconductors with wide bandgaps into the visible-light region. 7,8 The incorporation of non-metal atoms (C, N, F, P and S) into metal-oxide lattices is one way to narrow the bandgap of the parent oxide because of their p states mixing with O 2p states. 9-11 A number of non-oxide photocatalysts have recently been reported to be promising candidates for overall water splitting under visiblelight irradiation. 6,12,13 Oxynitrides such as TaON and LaTiO 2 N have been shown to exhibit absorption in the visible region and stable photocatalytic activity for water reduction and oxidation using appropriate sacrificial reagents. However, the range of oxynitride photocatalysts synthesized to date remains limited. Although platinum is already generally considered to be the best metal promoter for H 2 production from water due to its low overpotential, it has been recently shown to exhibit remarkably enhanced efficiency for H 2 evolution under visible light when Ru was deposited on TaON. 14 This increased efficiency has been attributed to improved contact between the TaON and Ru. However, the simultaneous use of Pt and Ru as promoters of photocatalytic water reduction has yet to be reported.This communication reports Y 2 Ta 2 O 5 N 2 as a novel visible lightdriven photocatalyst with high activity for oxidation of water in the presence of a sacrificial electron acceptor (Ag 1 ). This catalyst also reduces water to H 2 in the presence of a sacrificial electron donor (ethanol) and Pt or Ru as a co-catalyst, with a significant enhancement of H 2 production efficiency in the presence of both Pt and Ru. The photocatalytic reaction was carried out in a closed gas circulation and evacuation system under a 300 W Xe lamp equipped with a cut-off filter (l w 420 nm). Photocatalytic water reduction and oxidation were performed us...

Cervical cancer, the second most common type of cancer in women worldwide, is responsible for >275,100 mortalities each year and is associated with high-risk human papilloma virus (HR-HPV). HPVs have two important oncogenes, E6 and E7, which have crucial roles in malignant transformation in cervical cancer. Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) is a long non-coding RNA originally identified in non-small cell lung cancer. Previous studies have revealed that MALAT1 is expressed in numerous tissue types, and is significant in maintaining the normal function of the body. However, it also appeared to be notably upregulated in numerous carcinoma types compared with adjacent non-cancerous tissues. In the present study, it was identified that MALAT1 expression was upregulated in cervical cancer cell lines compared with normal cervical squamous cell samples. Further study into the effect of MALAT1 on cellular phenotype revealed that MALAT1 was able to promote cell migration and proliferation. Of note, it was revealed that the expression of MALAT1 was decreased with the knockdown of HPV16 E6/E7 in CaSki cells. Furthermore, the investigations in clinical samples also revealed that MALAT1 was expressed in HPV-positive cervical squamous cells, but not in HPV-negative normal cervical squamous cells. These results indicate that HPV correlates with MALAT1 deregulation in cervical cancer.

Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3), a member of the pathogen recognition receptors, is widely expressed in various cells and has been shown to activate immune signaling pathways by recognizing viral double-stranded RNA. Recently, it was reported that the activation of TLR3 induced apoptosis in some cells, but the detailed molecular mechanism is not fully understood. In this study, we found that in endothelial cells polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (poly(I-C)) induced dose-and time-dependent cell apoptosis, which was elicited by TLR3 activation, as TLR3 neutralization and down-regulation repressed the apoptosis. Poly(I-C) induced the activation of both caspases 8 and 9, indicating that TLR3 triggered the signaling of both the extrinsic and intrinsic apoptotic pathways. Poly(I-C) up-regulated tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand and its receptors, death receptors 4/5, resulting in initiating the extrinsic pathway. Furthermore, poly(I-C) down-regulated anti-apoptotic protein, B cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), and up-regulated Noxa, a key Bcl-2 homology 3-only antagonist of Bcl-2, leading to the priming of the intrinsic pathway. A p53-related protein, the transactivating p63 isoform ␣ (TAp63␣), was induced by TLR3 activation and contributed to the activation of both the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptotic pathways. Both the cells deficient in p63 gene expression by RNA interference and cells that overexpressed the N-terminally truncated p63 isoform ␣ (⌬Np63␣), a dominant-negative variant of TAp63␣, by gene transfection, survived TLR3 activation. Taken together, TAp63␣ is a crucial regulator downstream of TLR3 to induce cell death via death receptors and mitochondria.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive subtype of breast cancer that poses a clinical challenge. Thus, new therapy strategies are urgently needed. The selective WEE1 inhibitor, AZD1775, has shown strong anti-proliferative effects on a variety of tumors. Here, we first demonstrate that inhibition of ATR by selective inhibitor AZD6738 can enhance AZD1775-caused growth inhibition in TNBC. Our results show that the enhanced cell death is attributed to repressed DNA damage repair and excessive replication stress, thereby causing increased DNA damage reflected by accumulation of the DNA double-strand-break marker γH2AX. On the other hand, combined treatment with AZD6738 and AZD1775 forces mitotic entry of cells with DNA damages by activating CDK1 activity, inducing severely aberrant mitosis and mitotic catastrophe, ultimately resulting in cell death. Dual inhibition of WEE1 and ATR also inactivated RAD51-mediated homologous recombination, which sensitized TNBC cells to cisplatin and PARP inhibitor. Here, based on the preclinical results that ATR inhibition synergizes with WEE1 inhibition in TNBC, we propose that this combination therapy alone, or in parallel with chemotherapy, represents an innovative and potent targeted therapy in TNBC.

A new method for SNP analysis based on the detection of pyrophosphate (PPi) is demonstrated, which is capable of detecting small allele frequency differences between two DNA pools for genetic association studies other than SNP typing. The method is based on specific primer extension reactions coupled with PPi detection. As the specificity of the primer-directed extension is not enough for quantitative SNP analysis, artificial mismatched bases are introduced into the 3′-terminal regions of the specific primers as a way of improving the switching characteristics of the primer extension reactions. The best position in the primer for such artificial mismatched bases is the third position from the primer 3′-terminus. Contamination with endogenous PPi, which produces a large background signal level in SNP analysis, was removed using PPase to degrade the PPi during the sample preparation process. It is possible to accurately and quantitatively analyze SNPs using a set of primers that correspond to the wild-type and mutant DNA segments. The termini of these primers are at the mutation positions. Various types of SNPs were successfully analyzed. It was possible to very accurately determine SNPs with frequencies as low 0.02. It is very reproducible and the allele frequency difference can be determined. It is accurate enough to detect meaningful genetic differences among pooled DNA samples. The method is sensitive enough to detect 14 amol ssM13 DNA. The proposed method seems very promising in terms of realizing a cost-effective, large-scale human genetic testing system.