Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of RNA molecules with closed loops and high stability. CircRNAs are abundantly expressed in eukaryotic organisms and exhibit both location-and step-specificity. In recent years, circRNAs are attracting considerable research attention attributed to their possible contributions to gene regulation through a variety of actions, including sponging microRNAs, interacting with RNA-binding proteins, regulating transcription and splicing, and protein translation. Growing evidence has revealed that circRNAs play critical roles in the development and progression of diseases, especially in cancers. Without doubt, expanding our understanding of circRNAs will enrich knowledge of cancer and provide new opportunities for cancer therapy. In this review, we provide an overview of the characteristics, functions and functional mechanisms of circRNAs. In particular, we summarize current knowledge regarding the functions of circRNAs in the hallmarks, stemness, resistance of cancer, as well as the possibility of circRNAs as biomarkers in cancer.

Diradicaloids are promising materials for organic electronics and nonlinear optics due to their unique optical, electronic and magnetic properties. High performance organic field-effect transistor and photodetector based on diradicaloids have been achieved. Future potential applications in organic batteries, memory, logic gates and non-linear optics are expected.

Eph receptors and the corresponding Eph receptor-interacting (ephrin) ligands jointly constitute a critical cell signaling network that has multiple functions. The tyrosine kinase EphA2, which belongs to the family of Eph receptors, is highly produced in tumor tissues, while found at relatively low levels in most normal adult tissues, indicating its potential application in cancer treatment. After 30 years of investigation, a large amount of data regarding EphA2 functions have been compiled. Meanwhile, several compounds targeting EphA2 have been evaluated and tested in clinical studies, albeit with limited clinical success. The present review briefly describes the contribution of EphA2-ephrin A1 signaling axis to carcinogenesis. In addition, the roles of EphA2 in resistance to molecular-targeted agents were examined. In particular, we focused on EphA2's potential as a target for cancer treatment to provide insights into the application of EphA2 targeting in anticancer strategies. Overall, EphA2 represents a potential target for treating malignant tumors.

We report the use of dichlorobenzene as a carbon source to produce carbon nanotubes with thinner walls and a relatively large cavity, boosting the efficiency of metal encapsulation inside nanotubes. As an example, we show that Permalloy (FeNi) was encapsulated in nanotubes in the form of long nanowires and reached more than 30 wt % of the final product. These Permalloy nanowires are single crystalline, with a typical length of several micrometers and an aspect ratio of >100, and sheathed by several graphene layers. Such Permalloy nanowires show much-enhanced magnetization and microwave absorption properties, compared with Fe or FeNi nanowires produced by the source materials without adding Cl. The improved magnetic properties are due to a more efficient in situ encapsulation of Permalloy and a lesser number of nanotube walls coated on the surface of nanowires.

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A typical reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) agent, 2-cyanoprop-2-yl 1-dithionaphthalate (CPDN), was used as a single electron transfer-living radical polymerization (SET-LRP) initiator for methyl methacrylate (MMA) polymerization at 25°C. At 1:1 molar ratio of [CPDN] 0 /[Cu(0)] 0 , the apparent rate constants of propagation (k p app ) were 0.037, 0.049, and 0.072 h -1 for [MMA] 0 /[CPDN] 0 of 225/0.2, 225/0.5, and 225/1, respectively. The number-average molecular weight of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) increased linearly with monomer conversion, and narrow molecular weight distributions (M w /M n <1.50) were found at most cases. At high molar ratio of [CPDN] 0 to [Cu(0)] 0 , such as 1:0.1 in this work, the polymerization was also controllable, whereas it a presented markedly depressed polymerization rate and an obvious induction period. 1 H NMR spectroscope and matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry confirmed that PMMA chain was end-capped by CPDN species with high fidelity. The tacticity of PMMA from 1 H NMR calculation was about 3.15% isotactic (mm), 29.65% atactic (mr) and 67.20% syndiotactic (rr) triads, consistent with the tacticity distribution for traditional radical polymerizations. Chain extension reactions substantiated further that the obtained PMMA from CPDN mediated SET-LRP was living, and can be reactivated for chain extension reaction. This work demonstrates that a typical RAFT agent can act as a SET-LRP initiator as well as an atom transfer radical polymerization initiator. Furthermore, these results also suggested that the single electron transfer initiation-reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer control (SET-RAFT) invented by Dhamodharan may not be RAFT at all, but rather SET-LRP initiated by a RAFT reagent, or a combination of SET-LRP and RAFT. Analogously, the exact polymerization process in this work may also proceed in two manners, a fully SET-LRP process and a combination of SET-LRP/RAFT process, which is needed to clarify in the future.

The development of luminescent materials for anticounterfeiting and encryption is of great importance. Herein, we develop a multistimuli-responsive luminescent material, NaCaGeO:Pb/Er, and use it to print luminescent images. The photoluminescence and upconversion luminescence of these images show different patterns and colors under different stimuli. The photostimulated luminescence (PSL) of the printed images causes dynamic changes in appearance and is accordingly applied for dynamic multimodal anticounterfeiting on banknotes. The PSL of these luminescent images is also applied in a virtual war scenario to demonstrate that the dynamic PSL-encrypted information in the fabricated image is sufficiently safe even in extreme cases and that spies will be detected. These results can inspire us with more creative security designs based on this luminescent material.

We report on the design of ultraviolet (UV) emitting persistent (PersL) materials.