In-depth understanding the synergisms of Cu atomic clusters on Cu single atoms for highly effective electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction and Zn-Air battery.

In this paper, a novel, simple and mild soft template assisted strategy and further carbonization approach has been constructed to the size-tunable preparation of porous Cu-N-C/Surfactant catalysts successfully. Note that the pluronic F127 has a significant influence on the synthesis of porous Cu-N-C/F127 with the atomically dispersed Cu-N4 and adjacent Cu atomic clusters (ACs) than other surfactants owing to their particular non-ionic structure. By combining a series of experimental analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the synergistic effects between the adjacent Cu ACs and atomically dispersed Cu-N4 are favorable for manipulating the binding energy of O2 adsorption and intermediates desorption at the atomic interface of catalysts, resulting in an excellent electrocatalytic ORR performance with a faster kinetics for Cu-N-C/F127 than those of the Cu-N-C, Cu-N-C/CTAB, Cu-N-C/SDS, and comparable with the commercial Pt/C catalyst. This method not only provides a novel approach for synthesizing highly effective copper based single atom catalysts toward ORR, but also offers an in-depth understanding of the synergisms of adjacent ACs on the Cu single atoms (SAs) for highly effective electrocatalytic ORR and Zn-air Battery.

Remodeling of occluded internal carotid artery in vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the remodeling pattern of the extracranial occluded internal carotid artery (OICA) by vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging (VWI). METHODS: Thirty-nine atherosclerotic OICAs from 32 consecutive cases underwent 3-Tesla VWI to acquire pre- and post-contrast T1-weighted two-dimensional fluid-attenuated inversion recovery fast spin echo sequences. 25 symptomatic CAs exhibited ipsilateral downstream cerebral ischemia or ophthalmic artery embolism within last three months. The 14 remaining CAs were asymptomatic. Twenty-four CAs from 22 patients with atherosclerosis but no stenosis were recruited as control group. The outer wall area (OWA) was calculated based on the outer contour of the carotid artery drawn on the pre-contrast VWI. Negative remodeling was defined as a lower OWA compared to that of control group. RESULTS: Clinical characteristics including age, sex and vascular risk factors showed no significant difference between the occluded and control group. However, the OWA was lower in the occluded group than in the control group (0.63 versus 0.90 cm2, p = 0.004). For all OICAs, the OWA was larger in symptomatic cases than asymptomatic cases (0.71 versus 0.49cm2, p = 0.025). Using a cutoff value of 0.44, the sensitivity and specificity of OWA for detecting symptomatic OICA were 0.88 and 0.57, respectively. Heterogeneous signal intensity and enhancement were more often observed at the proximal than the distal segment of occlusion (p < 0.001). The inter-observer agreement regarding the evaluation of VWI characteristics was desirable (κ = 0.805 ∼ 0.847). CONCLUSIONS: Negative remodeling is prevalent in OICA, especially in asymptomatic cases.

A novel schiff base zinc coordination compound inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis of human osteosarcoma cells.

Various kinds of schiff base metal complexes have been proven to induce apoptosis of tumor cells. However, it remains largely unknown whether schiff base zinc complexes induce apoptosis in human cancer cells. Here, we synthesized a novel schiff base zinc coordination compound (SBZCC) and investigated its effects on the growth, proliferation and apoptosis of human osteosarcoma MG-63 cells. A novel SBZCC was synthesized by chemical processes and used to treat MG-63 cells. The cell viability was determined by CCK-8 assay. The cell cycle progression, mitochondrial membrane potential and apoptotic cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. The apoptosis-related proteins levels were determined by immunoblotting. Treatment of MG-63 cells with SBZCC resulted in inhibition of cell proliferation and cell cycle arrest at G1 phase. Moreover, SBZCC significantly reduced the mitochondrial membrane potential and induced apoptosis, accompanied with increased Bax/Bcl-2 and FlasL/Fas expression as well as caspase-3/8/9 cleavage. Our results demonstrated that the synthesized novel SBZCC could inhibit the proliferation and induce apoptosis of MG-63 cells via activating both the mitochondrial and cell death receptor apoptosis pathways, suggesting that SBZCC is a promising agent for the development as anticancer drugs.