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Cancer immunotherapy is a promising approach that has recently gained its importance in treating cancer. Despite various approaches of immunotherapies being used to target cancer cells, they are either not effective against all types of cancer or for all patients. Although efforts are being made to improve the cancer immunotherapy in all possible ways, one important hindrance that lowers the immune response to kill cancer cells is the infiltration of Regulatory T (Treg) cells into the tumor cells, favoring tumor progression, on one hand, and inhibiting the activation of T cells to respond to cancer cells, on the other hand. Therefore, new anti-cancer drugs and vaccines fail to show promising results against cancer. This is due to the infiltration of Treg cells into the tumor region and suppression of anti-cancer activity. Thus, regardless of various types of immunotherapies being practiced, understanding the mechanisms of how Treg cells favor tumor progression and inhibition of anti-cancer activity is worthwhile. Therefore, the review highlights the importance of Tregs cells and how depletion of Treg cells can pave the way to an effective immunotherapy by activating the immune responses against cancer.

A piperazine oligomer (PE) has been successfully synthesized via green and facile conditions. To obtain equivalent or better antimicrobial activity and smaller cytotoxicity, a mechano-growth factor and its 24-amino acid peptide analog corresponding to the unique C-terminal E-domain (MGF-Ct24E) was introduced to the side chain of PE. Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), elemental analysis, and amino acid analyzer (AAA) measurements showed that the MGF-Ct24E-modified piperazine polymer (PEM) was successfully prepared. The antibacterial activity and cytotoxicity of PEM were further investigated. Introduction of MGF-Ct24E resulted in equivalent or improved antibacterial properties and reduced cytotoxicity compared to PE. The resulting material may replenish the current arsenal of synthetic polymeric antibacterial systems reported.

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A novel piperazine polymer (PE), which was prepared through a simple and green method, exhibited good antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus.

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Current research on the inhibition of Microcystis aeruginosa growth is primarily focused on algae-lysing bacteria, and few studies have investigated the inhibitory mechanisms by which fungi affect it at the molecular level. A comparative analysis of the effects of Phanerochaete chrysosporium on the expression of the algal cell antioxidant protease synthesis gene prx, the biological macromolecule damage and repair genes recA, grpE, and fabZ, and the photosynthesis system-related genes psaB, psbD1 and rbcL, as well as genes for algal toxin synthesis mcyB, were performed to elucidate the molecular mechanism of Phanerochaete chrysosporium against Microcystis aeruginosa cells. RT-qPCR technology was used to study the molecular mechanism of algal cell inhibition by Phanerochaete chrysosporium liquid containing metabolites of Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Phanerochaete chrysosporium supernatant and Phanerochaete chrysosporium inactivated via high temperature sterilization at the gene expression level. Compared with the control, the chlorophyll-a contents dropped, and the recA, grpE, fabZ, and prx increased, but the psaB, psbD1, rbcL and mcyB showed that they were significantly reduced, which indicated that Phanerochaete chrysosporium can not only effectively destroy algal cells, but they may also reduce the expression of the Microcystis aeruginosa toxin gene and significantly block the metabolic system underlying the growth of algal cells and the synthesis of microcystins.

Poly(lactic acid) has been extensively investigated in the biomedical field because of its good biocompatibility and biodegradability. As an important method of poly(lactic acid) synthesis, metal complex-catalyzed ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of lactide can achieve a controllable lactide polymerization through the selection of appropriate ligands and metals. In this study, a novel metal (LTi–O)2 complex was synthesized and structurally characterized. (LTi–O)2 showed a relatively high catalytic activity and controllability of Poly(D, L-lactide) (PDLLA) molecular weights (polydispersity index of 1.02–1.22) in the ROP of D,L-lactide. The kinetic equation of D,L-LA ROP catalyzed by (LTi–O)2 could be expressed as–d[M]/dt = k[M]2[(LTi–O)2]1, and the reaction activation energy was 95.67 kJ·mol−1. Physical/chemical properties and biocompatibility evaluation results showed that PDLLA obtained through the (LTi–O)2-catalyzed ROP of D,L- lactide exhibited a good degradation performance and excellent biocompatibility.