Saikosaponin b2 (SSb2) can be extracted from Bupleurum spp. roots (radix Bupleuri), which belongs to the umbelliferae family. The current study aimed to explore the effects of SSb2 on proliferation of breast cancer cells and to identify the mechanism by which SSb2 affects breast cancer cell migration. mrna expression levels of STaT3 and vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VaSP) were determined and increased expression was observed in 16 breast cancer tissues compared with the paracancerous tissues. MTT, wound healing, colony formation assays and western blot suggested that SSb2 inhibited McF-7 proliferation and migration. it was further identified by western blot analysis that SSb2 treatment reduced levels of phosphorylated STaT3, VaSP, matrix metallopeptidase (MMP) 2 and MMP9 in McF-7 compared with the untreated cells. in addition, it was demonstrated that inhibition of STaT3 phosphorylation decreased VaSP expression levels and induction of STaT3 phosphorylation increased VaSP levels. Furthermore, it was observed that the treatment of Kunming mice with SSb2 at 30 mg/kg/day for 30 days induced no obvious changes in the liver or kidney tissues, as determined by haematoxylin and eosin staining. in conclusion, these results indicated that SSb2 may be a potential antitumor drug for the treatment of breast cancer, which acts by suppressing proliferation and migration by downregulating the STaT3 signalling pathway and inhibiting the expression of VaSP, MMP2 and MMP9 expression.

Background and aims The early diagnosis and intervention of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) are particularly important because of the lack of effective therapies and poor prognosis. Comprehensive research on early ESCC at the single‐cell level is rare due to the need for fresh and high‐quality specimens obtained from ESD. This study aims to systematically describe the cellular atlas of human intramucosal ESCC. Methods Five paired samples of intramucosal ESCC, para‐ESCC oesophageal tissues from endoscopically resected specimens and peripheral blood mononuclear cells were adopted for scRNA‐seq analysis. Computational pipeline scMetabolism was applied to quantify the metabolic diversity of single cells. Results A total of 164 715 cells were profiled. Epithelial cells exhibited high intra‐tumoural heterogeneity and two evolutionary trajectories during ESCC tumorigenesis initiated from proliferative cells, and then through an intermediate state, to two different terminal states of normally differentiated epithelial cells or malignant cells, respectively. The abundance of CD8 + T EX s, Tregs and PD1 + CD4 + T cells suggested an exhausted and suppressive immune microenvironment. Several genes in immune cells, such as CXCL13, CXCR5 and PADI4, were identified as new biomarkers for poor prognosis. A new subcluster of malignant cells associated with metastasis and angiogenesis that appeared at an early stage compared with progressive ESCC was also identified in this study. Intercellular interaction analysis based on ligand–receptor pairs revealed the subcluster of malignant cells interacting with CAFs via the MDK–NCL pathway, which was verified by cell proliferation assay and IHC. This indicates that the interaction may be an important hallmark in the early change of tumour microenvironment and serves as a sign of CAF activation to stimulate downstream pathways for facilitating tumour invasion. Conclusion This study demonstrates the changes of cell subsets and transcriptional levels in human intramucosal ESCC, which may provide unique insights into the development of novel biomarkers and potential intervention strategies.

In this article, a novel design method is proposed based on characteristic mode theory (CMT). Based on the proposed method, a linearly polarised dual‐band wearable antenna with double‐layered substrates sandwiched by three layers of copper circle patches is designed and optimised step by step. The structure and excitation position of the antenna are obtained by progressively tailoring a classical circle patch antenna. Firstly, the characteristic mode analysis is performed on the middle‐layer planar circle patch to find the modes that can be excited in the designed frequency band. Secondly, the configuration of the middle layer is adjusted step by step based on the modal current distributions to realise the mode shift. Then, the top circle patch is changed to a metasurface to increase the number of modes and expand the mode bandwidth. Finally, the location of the excitation port is selected based on the modal electric fields to successfully obtain the desired performance of the antenna. The prototype of the proposed antenna with a radius of 2.6 cm fed by a single probe is fabricated and experimentally verified. The antenna operates in the 2.45 and 5 GHz bands, and the measured 10 dB impedance bandwidths on the two bands are 1.2% and 39.7%, respectively, which agrees well with the expectation predicted by the CMT. It should be noted that the desired antenna performance is achieved by step‐by‐step derivation using the CMT, rather than applying the theory to illustrate the working principle of antennas. The proposed design method can be broadly employed to various antenna designs.