Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies with high prevalence and low 5-year survival. CRC is a heterogeneous disease with a complex, genetic and biochemical background. It is now generally accepted that a few important intracellular signaling pathways, including Wnt/β-catenin signaling, Ras signaling, and p53 signaling are frequently dysregulated in CRC. Patients with mutant p53 gene are often resistant to current therapies, conferring poor prognosis. Tumor suppressor p53 protein is a transcription factor inducing cell cycle arrest, senescence, and apoptosis under cellular stress. Emerging evidence from laboratories and clinical trials shows that some small molecule inhibitors exert anti-cancer effect via reactivation and restoration of p53 function. In this review, we summarize the p53 function and characterize its mutations in CRC. The involvement of p53 mutations in pathogenesis of CRC and their clinical impacts will be highlighted. Moreover, we also describe the current achievements of using p53 modulators to reactivate this pathway in CRC, which may have great potential as novel anti-cancer therapy.

The development of efficient systems for selective aerobic oxidation of hydrocarbons and alcohols to produce more functional compounds (aldehydes, ketones, acids or esters) with atmospheric air or molecular oxygen is a grand challenge for the chemical industry. Here we report the synthesis of palladium nanoparticles supported on novel nanoporous nitrogendoped carbon, and their impressive performance in the controlled oxidation of hydrocarbons and alcohols with air. In terms of catalytic activity, these catalysts afford much higher turnover frequencies (up to 863 turnovers per hour for hydrocarbon oxidation and up to B210,000 turnovers per hour for alcohol oxidation) than most reported palladium catalysts under the same reaction conditions. This work provides great potential for the application of ambient air and recyclable palladium catalysts in fine-chemical production with high activity.

Pulmonary fibrosis is a consequence of chronic lung injury and is associated with a high mortality. Despite the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis remaining as an enigma, immune responses play a critical role in the deregulation of wound healing process after lung injury, which leads to fibrosis. Accumulating evidence argues the rationales for current treatments of pulmonary fibrosis using immunosuppressive agents such as corticosteroids. In this study, we report that bleomycin (BLM), a well-known fibrogenic agent functioning as a TLR2 agonist, induced the maturation of dendritic cells and release of cytokines. The BLM activation of TLR2 mediated a time-dependent alteration of immune responses in the lung. These responses resulted in an increase in the tissue-infiltrating proinflammatory cells and cytokines in the early period initially following BLM exposure and an increase in the tissue-infiltrating suppressive immune cells and factors during the later period following BLM exposure. TLR2 deficiency, however, reduced pulmonary inflammation, injury, and subsequently attenuated pulmonary fibrosis. Targeting TLR2 by a TLR2-neutralizing Ab not only markedly decreased animal death but also protected animals from the development of pulmonary fibrosis and reversed the established pulmonary fibrosis through regulating BLM-induced immunosuppressive microenvironments. Our studies suggest that TLR2 is a promising target for the development of therapeutic agents against pulmonary fibrosis and that eliminating immunosuppressive cells and factors via immunostimulants is a novel strategy for fibro-proliferative diseases. Moreover, combining BLM with an anti-TLR2 Ab or TLR2 antagonist for cancer therapy will improve the BLM therapeutic profile by enhancing anti-cancer efficacy and reducing systemic inflammation and pulmonary fibrosis.

NHPC can serve as an advanced catalyst support, which is attributed to its convenient mass transfer channel and nitrogen functionalization.

The geometries of azobenzene compounds are optimized with B3LYP/6-311G* method, and analyzed with nature bond orbital, then their visible absorption maxima are calculated with TD-DFT method and ZINDO/S method respectively. The results agree well with the observed values. It was found that for the calculation of visible absorption using ZINDO/S method could rapidly yield better results by adjusting OWF(pi-pi) (the relationship between pi-pi overlap weighting factor) value than by the TD-DFT method. The method of regression showing the linear relationship between OWF(pi-pi) and BL(N-N) (nitrogen-nitrogen bond lengths) as OWF(pi-pi)=-8.1537+6.5638BL(N-N), can be explained in terms of quantum theory, and also be used for prediction of visible absorption maxima of other azobenzne dyes in the same series. This study on molecules' orbital geometry indicates that their visible absorption maxima correspond to the electron transition from HOMO (the highest occupied molecular orbital) to LUMO (the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital).

Decoupling the electronic and geometric effects has been a long cherished goal for heterogeneous catalysis due to their tangled relationship. Here, a novel orthogonal decomposition method is firstly proposed to settle this issue in p-chloronitrobenzene hydrogenation reaction on size- and shape-controlled Pt nanoparticles (NPs) carried on various supports. Results suggest Fermi levels of catalysts can be modulated by supports with varied work function (Wf). And the selectivity on Pt NPs of similar size and shape is linearly related with the Wf of support. Optimized Fermi levels of the catalysts with large Wf weaken the ability of Pt NPs to fill valence electrons into the antibonding orbital of C–Cl bond, finally suppressing the hydrodehalogenation side reaction. Foremost, the geometric effect is firstly spun off through orthogonal relation based on series of linear relationships over various sizes of Pt NPs reflecting the electronic effect. Moreover, separable nested double coordinate system is established to quantitatively evaluate the two effects.

Existing phenol production mostly by cumene processes is a three-step route with unwanted acetone as by-product. Here, we report the FeCl 3 and mesoporous carbon nitride hybrid (FeCl 3 /mpg-C 3 N 4 ) as an active and selective photocatalyst to activate H 2 O 2 for the oxidation of benzene to phenol under visiblelight illumination. By fine-optimizing FeCl 3 loading amount in catalyst and reaction conditions, the onestep process achieved a 38% benzene conversion with 97% selectivity for phenol. The excellent catalytic performance of FeCl 3 /mpg-C 3 N 4 should be attributed to the fast reduction of Fe 3+ to Fe 2+ by photoirradiated electrons from mpg-C 3 N 4 . To further understand the reaction route, several electron spin resonance (ESR) tests were carried out, confirming mpg-C 3 N 4 promoted redox cycle of Fe 2+ /Fe 3+ in the FeCl 3 /mpg-C 3 N 4 system. Based on these results, a catalytic mechanism for the oxidation of benzene by FeCl 3 /mpg-C 3 N 4 hybrids was provided. This environmental-friendly and efficient method is expected to open up a new avenue for one-step phenol preparation.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks as the third leading cause of cancer mortality in both of men and women worldwide due to its metastatic properties and resistance to current treatment. Recent studies have shown that tumor-derived exosomes play emerging roles in the development of cancer. Exosomes are nano-sized extracellular vesicles (EVs) that contain lipids, proteins, DNAs, and RNA species (mRNA, miRNA, long non-coding RNA). These exosomal cargos can be transferred locally and systemically, after taken by recipient cells, so exosomes represent a new form of intercellular communication. There is increasing evidence demonstrating that exosomes control a wide range of pathways bolstering tumor development, metastasis and drug resistance. This review provides an in-depth and timely summary of the role of exosomes in CRC. We first describe the common features and biogenesis of exosomes. We then highlight important findings that support the emerging roles of exosomes in CRC cell growth, invasion and metastasis, as well as resistance to treatment. Finally, we discuss the clinical application of exosomes as diagnostic biomarkers, in vivo drug delivery system and the potential of novel exosome-based immunotherapy for CRC.