The high-efficiency development and utilization of bamboo resources can greatly alleviate the current shortage of wood and promote the neutralization of CO2. However, the wide application of bamboo-derived products is largely limited by their unideal surface properties with adhesive as well as poor gluability. Herein, a facile strategy using the surfactant-induced reconfiguration of urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins was proposed to enhance the interface with bamboo and significantly improve its gluability. Specifically, through the coupling of a variety of surfactants, the viscosity and surface tension of the UF resins were properly regulated. Therefore, the resultant surfactant reconfigured UF resin showed much-improved wettability and spreading performance to the surface of both bamboo green and bamboo yellow. Specifically, the contact angle (CA) values of the bamboo green and bamboo yellow decreased from 79.6° to 30.5° and from 57.5° to 28.2°, respectively, with the corresponding resin spreading area increasing from 0.2 mm2 to 7.6 mm2 and from 0.1 mm2 to 5.6 mm2. Moreover, our reconfigured UF resin can reduce the amount of glue spread applied to bond the laminated commercial bamboo veneer products to 60 g m-2, while the products prepared by the initial UF resin are unable to meet the requirements of the test standard, suggesting that this facile method is an effective way to decrease the application of petroleum-based resins and production costs. More broadly, this surfactant reconfigured strategy can also be performed to regulate the wettability between UF resin and other materials (such as polypropylene board and tinplate), expanding the application fields of UF resin.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a hematological malignancy characterized by a rapid increase in the number of immature myeloid cells in bone marrow. Despite recent advances in the treatment, AML remains an incurable disease. Matrine, a major component extracted from Sophora flavescens Ait, has been demonstrated to exert anticancer effects on various cancer cell lines. However, the effects of matrine on AML remain largely unknown. Here we investigated its anticancer effects and underlying mechanisms on human AML cells in vitro and in vivo. The results showed that matrine inhibited cell viability and induced cell apoptosis in AML cell lines as well as primary AML cells from patients with AML in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Matrine induced apoptosis by collapsing the mitochondrial membrane potential, inducing cytochrome c release from mitochondria, reducing the ratio of Bcl-2/Bax, increasing activation of caspase-3, and decreasing the levels of p-Akt and p-ERK1/2. The apoptotic effects of matrine on AML cells were partially blocked by a caspase-3 inhibitor Z-DEVD-FMK and a PI3K/Akt activator IGF-1, respectively. Matrine potently inhibited in vivo tumor growth following subcutaneous inoculation of HL-60 cells in SCID mice. These findings indicate that matrine can inhibit cell proliferation and induce apoptosis of AML cells and may be a novel effective candidate as chemotherapeutic agent against AML.

Body phosphorus metabolism exhibits a circadian rhythm over the 24-h daily cycle. The egg laying behavior makes laying hens a very special model for investigating phosphorus circadian rhythms. There is lack of information about the impact of adjusting phosphate feeding regimen according to daily rhythm on the phosphorus homeostasis and bone remodeling of laying hens.

Breast cancer, one of the most prevalent neoplasms in the world, continues attracting worldwide attention. Macrophage, as the most abundant non-malignant cell in tumor, plays critical roles in both immune surveillance and tumorigenesis and has become a cell target of immunotherapy. Among all macrophages, tumor-associated macrophage (TAM) is regarded as the main force to promote tumorigenesis. To get an overall view of its impact on breast cancer, we employed a simplified and indirect coculturing cell model followed by RNA-sequencing to detect cancer cell's transcriptomic response induced by TAM and a prognostic gene signature was constructed based on it. Evidence from both cell models and clinical samples strengthened TAM's full-dimensional impact on breast cancer, involved in almost all known signal pathways dysregulated during tumorigenesis from transcription, translation and molecule transport to immune-related pathways. Consequently, the gene signature developed from these genes was tested to be powerful in prognostic prediction and associated with various clinical and biological features of breast cancer. Our study presented a more complete view of TAM's impact on breast cancer, which strengthened its role as an important therapy target. A 45-gene signature from the TAM-regulated genes was developed and shown potential in clinical application.

Obesity is a chronic metabolic disease in which patients are overweight due to the excessive accumulation of fat in the body. As a subtype of acupuncture, catgut embedding at acupoints has increased in clinical application for obesity. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupoint catgut embedding therapy for simple obesity.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common endocrinopathy in women of reproductive age. Recently, moxibustion, as a complementary and alternative therapy, has been commonly used in assisted reproduction and improvement of metabolic abnormalities in patients with PCOS. Currently, intervention efficacy of the use of moxibustion in PCOS treatment still remains controversial due to lack of high-quality evidence. Consequently, this study protocol was designed to objectively review and evaluate the effectiveness and safety of moxibustion treatment for PCOS.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) offer promising prospects for stimulating cartilage regeneration. The different formation mechanisms suggest that exosomes and ectosomes possess different biological functions. However, little attention has been paid to the differential effects of EV subsets on cartilage regeneration.

Among the CaCO3 polymorphs, aragonite demonstrates a better performance as a filler material in the paper and plastic industries. Despite being ideal from the environmental protection perspective, the production of aragonite particles via CO2 mineralization of rocks is hindered by the difficulty in achieving high production efficiencies and purities, which, however, can be mitigated by exploiting the potential ability of chelating agents on metal ions extraction and carbonation controlling. Herein, chelating agent N,N-dicarboxymethyl glutamic acid (GLDA) was used to enhance the extraction of Ca from calcium silicate and facilitate the production of aragonite particles during the subsequent Ca carbonation. CO2 mineralization was promoted in the presence of 0.01-0.1 M GLDA at ≤ 80 °C, with the maximal CaCO3 production efficiency reached 308 g/kg of calcium silicate in 60 min using 0.03 M GLDA, which is 15.5 times higher than that without GLDA. In addition, GLDA showed excellent effects on promoting aragonite precipitation, e.g., the content of aragonite was only 5.1% in the absence of GLDA at 50 °C, whereas highly pure (> 90%, increased by a factor of 18) and morphologically uniform aragonite was obtained using ≥ 0.05 M GLDA under identical conditions. Aragonite particle morphologies could also be controlled by varying the GLDA concentration and carbonation temperature. This study proposed a carbon-negative aragonite production method, demonstrated the possibility of enhanced and controlled aragonite particle production during the CO2 mineralization of calcium silicates in the presence of chelating agents.