B7-H1 (B7 homologue 1, PD-L1), expressed on the surface of tumor cells or antigen-presenting cells in the tumor microenvironment, can suppress antitumor immune reaction, promote tumor growth and help tumor cells to escape the immune response. To investigate the correlations between B7-H1 expression and acute leukemia patients' immunotherapeutic efficacies and prognoses, we detected the expression of B7-H1 by immunohistochemistry and Real-time quantitative PCR and monitored the immunotherapeutic efficacies and prognosis in 60 acute leukemia patients, in which 14 cases of acute monocyte leukemia (M5) patients received active immunotherapy. The levels of mRNA and protein expression of B7-H1 changed synchronously. B7-H1 was expressed in human acute leukemia cells, especially in M5. The expressions of B7-H1 were significantly higher in the relapse patients than in the de novo patients and after immunotherapy than before immunotherapy. Significant correlations existed between the expressions of B7-H1 and the M5 patients' immunological reactions and immunotherapeutic efficacies. B7-H1 negative patients had better immunotherapeutic efficacies than the positive patients who were prone to have a severe complication of pulmonary infection. Multivariate analysis indicated that B7-H1 status was an independent prognostic factor for M5 patients. In conclusion, B7-H1 is highly expressed on leukemia cells of M5 patients, can significantly affect the immunotherapeutic efficacies of M5 patients and is a novel prognostic marker for M5.

Development of emerging technologies for the harmless treatment and resource utilization of sewage is an urgent demand for both environment and energy concerns. This work presents the enhanced electrochemical hydrogen generation process from urea sewage by coupling the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under the catalysis of nanoporous nickel−iron (NP-NiFe)-based catalysts. The porous structure at the nanoscale facilitates electrocatalysis through exposure and access more active sites as well as improving the mass transfer. The optimized NP-NiFe (NP-Ni 0.7 Fe 0.3 ) displays excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity. The overpotential can be further lowered to ∼60 mV at 10 mA cm −2 in urea sewage (0.33 M urea and 1 M KOH) because of coupling with the UOR, and therefore, the full water splitting potential is much lower in urea sewage (1.55 vs 1.68 V) at 10 mA cm −2 . The relationship between the UOR and OER at different potentials during electrolysis of urea was further investigated by mass spectrometry. The spontaneous desorption of CO 2 (UOR product) from the surface of NP-NiFe indicates that NP-NiFe has more effective UOR activity. In addition, NP-NiFe has also been proven to be used in the full electrolysis of urea-containing wastewater for hydrogen production.

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