Study on the photoelectrical performance of anodized titanium sheets.

Anodization is a widely used method to obtain multicoloured oxidized titanium sheets. However, most researchers paid great attention to the colour-related properties instead of photoelectrical properties of titanium oxide film obtained by anodization. In this work, to study their photoelectrical properties, a series of multicoloured oxidized titanium sheets were prepared by anodization method, and UV-vis absorption and photocurrents were tested. The relationship between anodization voltages/anodization durations and photocurrents of titanium sheets was studied. Results show that titanium sheets have excellent photoelectrical performance. With the increase of anodization voltage, the number of UV-vis absorption peaks increased under visible light which means increasing absorption. When anodization duration increased, absorption band edge also increased in the visible light region, which means the band gap needed to produce charge transfer transition decreased. Under simulated sunlight and applied voltage of +0.4 V, photocurrent increased with the increase of either anodization voltage or anodization duration, and can be expressed by linear equations. In addition, anodization currents were recorded during anodization. Morphology, crystal structure and photoelectrical properties of anodized titanium sheets were characterized. The anodized titanium sheets can not only be used as decorative material in jewellery and architecture fields etc. but also are supposed to be used as photoelectrical catalyst in further work.

Optimization of culture conditions for promoting heat-stable antifungal factor production level in Lysobacter enzymogenes.

Heat-stable antifungal factor (HSAF), which was first isolated from Lysobacter enzymogenes, exhibits inhibitory activities against a wide range of pathogens; however, a low level of HSAF was obtained from L. enzymogenes cultured in 0.1 × tryptic soy broth (TSB), an amount that does not satisfy HSAF application in disease control. In this study, the optimization of media components and environmental conditions were examined for improving the production of HSAF from L. enzymogenes OH11. The one factor at a time method was used to screen optimal nitrogen and carbon sources and inorganic salt. Then the orthogonal matrix method was used to determine the optimal concentration of the media components and environmental factors. The results showed that the maximum level of HSAF (23361 mAU·s) was achieved when OH11 cultured in the media of 0.7% (w/v) soybean powder, 0.5% (w/v) glucose and 0.08% CaCl2 at 200 rpm at 30°C for 60 h, which is much higher than that cultured in 0.1 × TSB. This opens up the possibility of HSAF or L. enzymogenes utilization for biological control of plant disease.

Stage-dependent changes of preoperative neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and platelet to lymphocyte ratio in colorectal cancer.

This study aims to assess the association of the preoperative neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) with tumor stage in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. A retrospective study was performed in 336 CRC patients. Preoperative whole blood counts, serum levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and clinicopathologic data were collected. The correlations between laboratory parameters and the tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) stages were analyzed. The clinicopathologic TNM stages among CRC patients were 12.8 % at stage I, 32.4 % at stage II, 44.6 % at stage III, and 10.1 % at stage IV. NLR, PLR, and CEA levels were higher in CRC patients compared to healthy controls (all P < 0.0001). Both NLR and PLR showed an early elevation as compared to CEA, with a higher area under curve (AUC) value (0.71 vs. 0.62) in predicting the presence of the tumor with stage I/II. Accordingly, significant elevations of NLR (P = 0.0018) and PLR (P < 0.0001) were firstly detected in stage I and stage II, respectively. In addition, NLR exhibited a second phase elevation in stage IV, with a significant higher level in M1 subgroup compared to M0 subgroup (P = 0.022). While PLR showed a T stage-dependent increase (P = 0.0003) and was identified as an independent factor for the T grade development (P < 0.0001). Our data indicated that both neutrophil- and platelet-mediated inflammatory reactions are predominantly involved in the different stages of CRC development. Determination of pretreatment levels of NLR and PLR might provide useful information for the early diagnosis or the therapeutic choices in CRC patients.

Serum thymidine kinase 1 correlates to clinical stages and clinical reactions and monitors the outcome of therapy of 1,247 cancer patients in routine clinical settings.

BACKGROUND: Thymidine kinase 1 in serum (STK1) has been found to be a reliable proliferation marker in clinical trials. In this study, we examined the significance of STK1 in routine clinical settings. METHODS: The concentration of STK1 was determined by a sensitive dot blot ECL assay. The STK1 value was correlated to clinical stage and reactions and used for monitoring the outcome of surgery and/or multidrug chemotherapy of 1,247 patients with five different types of carcinomas (lung, esophagus, gastric, head and neck, and thyroid) in routine clinical settings. RESULTS: The STK1 values correlated with the clinical stage in patients with lung, esophagus, thyroid, and gastric carcinomas. After treatment, STK1 declined in all tumor groups after treatments (P < 0.01). The STK1 was low (<2 pM) or decreasing during treatment in patients with clinical reactions of complete response (CR) or partial response (PR), but high (>2 pM) or increasing in patients with stable disease (SD) or progressive disease (PD), some of them showing metastasis. STK1 also reflected the differences in clinical reactions when surgery and chemotherapy were compared. CONCLUSION: We concluded that the concentration of TK1 in serum correlates to clinical stages and clinical reactions and monitors the effect of tumor therapies, not only in controlled clinical trials, but also in routine clinical settings.