Increasing evidence indicates that brown adipose tissue (BAT) transplantation enhances whole-body energy metabolism in a mouse model of diet-induced obesity. However, it remains unclear whether BAT also has such beneficial effects on genetically obese mice. To address this issue, we transplanted BAT from C57/BL6 mice into the dorsal subcutaneous region of age- and sex-matched leptin deficient Ob/Ob mice. Interestingly, BAT transplantation led to a significant reduction of body weight gain with increased oxygen consumption and decreased total body fat mass, resulting in improvement of insulin resistance and liver steatosis. In addition, BAT transplantation increased the level of circulating adiponectin, whereas it reduced the levels of circulating free T3 and T4, which regulate thyroid hormone sensitivity in peripheral tissues. BAT transplantation also increased β3-adrenergic receptor and fatty acid oxidation related gene expression in subcutaneous and epididymal (EP) white adipose tissue. Accordingly, BAT transplantation increased whole-body thermogenesis. Taken together our results demonstrate that BAT transplantation may reduce obesity and its related diseases by activating endogenous BAT.

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Much progress has been made during the last few decades in the treatment of malignancies. Many types of cancer cells comprising the tumor mass carry molecular markers that are not expressed or are expressed at much lower levels in normal cells. These findings provide new leads to drug design and development of therapeutic strategies involving monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) or related antibody drugs to treat malignancies. This article reviews recent advances in this targeting approach with a focus on the evolution and current use of prospective antibody drugs as effective ways to treat cancer. Additionally, the development of prospective antibody-drug conjugates will also be briefly described.

Series of lanthanide metal−organic frameworks (Ln-MOFs) have been solvothermally synthesized using an anthracene-derived dicarboxylate ligand. The synthesized Ln-MOFs (Ce, Tb, Dy) show characteristics of broad-band visible-light absorption and efficient photoinduced charge generation. For the first time, Ln-MOFs have been employed as visible-light photocatalysts for rhodamine B (RhB) degradation in the presence of oxidant of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ). Results show that these Ln-MOFs are highly efficient for visible-light-driven RhB degradation in aqueous solution. The degradation reactions show notable reaction rate constants. It is interesting to observe that the premixing between Ln-MOFs and H 2 O 2 is vital to improve photocatalytic performance, indicating the advantage of porous MOF catalysts. This study not only presents rare examples of visible-light-driven MOF photocatalysts constructed from lanthanide ions, but also reveals that the H 2 O 2 -involved advanced oxidation process is feasible for enhancing photocatalytic performance of aqueous dye degradation.

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