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Background Liver cancer is the sixth most commonly diagnosed cancer and the fourth most common cause of cancer death. The purpose of this work is to find new diagnostic biomarkers or prognostic biomarkers and explore the biological functions related to the prognosis of liver cancer. Methods GSE25097 datasets were firstly obtained and compared with TCGA LICA datasets and an analysis of the overlapping differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was conducted. Cytoscape was used to screen out the Hub Genes among the DEGs. ROC curve analysis was used to screen the Hub Genes to determine the genes that could be used as diagnostic biomarkers. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards model screened genes associated with prognosis biomarkers, and further Gene Set Enrichment Analysis was performed on the prognosis genes to explore the mechanism affecting the survival and prognosis of liver cancer patients. Results 790 DEGs and 2162 DEGs were obtained respectively from the GSE25097 and TCGA LIHC data sets, and 102 Common DEGs were identified by overlapping the two DEGs. Further screening identified 22 Hub Genes from 102 Common DEGs. ROC and survival curves were used to analyze these 22 Hub Genes and it was found that there were 16 genes with a value of AUC > 90%. Among these, the expression levels of ESR1,SPP1 and FOSB genes were closely related to the survival time of liver cancer patients. Three common pathways of ESR1, FOBS and SPP1 genes were identified along with seven common pathways of ESR1 and SPP1 genes and four common pathways of ESR1 and FOSB genes. Conclusions SPP1, AURKA, NUSAP1, TOP2A, UBE2C, AFP, GMNN, PTTG1, RRM2, SPARCL1, CXCL12, FOS, DCN, SOCS3, FOSB and PCK1 can be used as diagnostic biomarkers for liver cancer, among which FOBS and SPP1 genes can also be used as prognostic biomarkers. Activation of the cell cycle-related pathway, pancreas beta cells pathway, and the estrogen signaling pathway, while on the other hand inhibition of the hallmark heme metabolism pathway, hallmark coagulation pathway, and the fat metabolism pathway may promote prognosis in liver cancer patients.

Recently, localized surface plasmon resonance of noble metal nanoparticles has been widely used to broaden the photoresponse of wide-band-gap semiconductors. In this work, Au nanoparticles with different sputtering time were prepared via ion sputtering and thermal treatment on ZnO thin films prepared by magnetron sputtering. The influence of the Au nanoparticle sputtering time on the absorbance of the Au/ZnO nanocomposite was investigated. The results show that Au/ZnO nanocomposites have enhanced UV absorption and broad absorption bands around 580–600 nm compared with ZnO without Au nanoparticles, which are attributed to the band-to-band excitation of ZnO and localized surface plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles. Under the illumination of UV light, electrons are excited from the valence band to conduction band of ZnO, while hot electrons are transferred from Au nanoparticles with smaller particle size to ZnO, resulting in the generation of photocurrent. Under the illumination of visible light, only hot electrons are transferred from Au nanoparticles with larger particle size to ZnO, leading to the generation of photocurrent. Then the influence of sputtering time on the dark current and IXenon lamp/IDark of the photodetectors was investigated. The results show that Au nanoparticles are able to decrease the dark current of photodetectors and influence the photoresponse under visible light illumination.

The highly ordered film assembled by regularly 1D nanostructures has potential prospects in electronic, photoelectronic and other fields because of its excellent light‐trapping effect and electronic transport property. However, the controlled growth of highly ordered film remains a great challenge. Herein, large‐area and highly ordered Bi2S3 film is synthesized on fluorophlogopite mica substrate by chemical vapor deposition method. The Bi2S3 film features hollowed‐out crosslinked network structure, assembled by 1D nanobelts that regularly distribute in three orientations, which agrees well with the first principles calculations. Based on the as‐grown Bi2S3 film, the broadband photodetector with a response range from 365 to 940 nm is fabricated, exhibiting a maximum responsivity up to 98.51 mA W–1, specific detectivity of 2.03 × 1010 Jones and fast response time of 35.19 ms. The stable instantaneous on/off behavior for 500 cycles and reliable photoresponse characteristics of the Bi2S3 photodetector after storage in air for 6 months confirm its excellent long‐term stability and air stability. Significantly, as sensing pixel and signal receiving terminal, the device successfully achieves high‐resolution imaging of characters of “H”, “I” and “T”, and secure transmission of confidential information. This work shows a great potential of the large‐area and highly ordered Bi2S3 film toward the development of future multiple functional photoelectronic applications. A large‐area and highly ordered Bi2S3 film is successfully prepared, which features a hollowed‐out crosslinked network structure. The Bi2S3 film is composed of regularly aligned 1D nanobelts along three orientations, agreeing well with the first principles calculations. And the broadband photodetector based on the as‐prepared Bi2S3 film exhibits the high responsivity, fast response, excellent stability, splendent imaging, and communication capability.

Oridonin is one of the most important antitumor active ingredients of Rabdosia rubescens. Recently published studies from our laboratory have demonstrated that oridonin was able to arrest human gastric cancer SGC-7901 cells at G2/M phase. However, little is known about inducing apoptosis in gastric cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of oridonin on antineoplastic capability of SGC-7901 cells and the detailed molecular mechanism of oridonin-mediated intrinsic pathway of apoptosis. Cell proliferation was assessed by MTT assay while apoptosis induced by oridonin was determined by Hoechst 33342 staining assay and Annexin V/PI double staining assay. Early apoptotic rate was stained by Annexin V/PI and detected by flow cytometry. Apoptosis pathway was analyzed by western blot analysis of Bcl-2, Bax, cytochrome c and caspase-3 expression. The results showed that oridonin was able to inhibit the SGC-7901 cell proliferation, the 50% growth inhibition (IC50) was 22.74 μM. Oridonin could induce cell apoptosis of SGC-7901 cells and the early apoptotic rates induced by 0, 20, 40, 80 μmol/l oridonin were 1.53±0.67, 3.33±0.29, 84.80±0.82 and 96.43±0.51%, respectively. Western blot analysis revealed that oridonin downregulated Bcl-2 protein (the anti-apoptotic factor) and upregulated Bax protein (pro-apoptotic factor), eventually leading to a reduction in the ratio of Bcl-2/Bax proteins. Furthermore, oridonin induced the release of cytochrome c from the mitochondria to the cytosol and the activation of caspase-3. Taken together, the current study suggested that oridonin induced apoptosis in SGC-7901 cells via the mitochondrial signal pathway, which may represent one of the major mechanisms of oridonin-mediated apoptosis in SGC-7901 cells.

Statistics provided by GLOBOCAN list gastric cancer as the sixth most common, with a mortality ranking of third highest for the year 2020. In China, a herb called Rabdosia rubescens (Hemsl.) H.Hara, has been used by local residents for the treatment of digestive tract cancer for hundreds of years. Oridonin, the main ingredient of the herb, has a curative effect for gastric cancer, but the mechanism has not been previously clarified. This study mainly aimed to investigate the role of TNF‐alpha/Androgen receptor/TGF‐beta signalling pathway axis in mediating the proliferation inhibition of oridonin on gastric cancer SGC‐7901 cells. MTT assay, cell morphology observation assay and fluorescence assay were adopted to study the efficacy of oridonin on cell proliferation. The network pharmacology was used to predict the pathway axis regulated by oridonin. Western blot assay was adopted to verify the TNF‐α/Androgen receptor/TGF‐β signalling pathway axis regulation on gastric cancer by oridonin. The results showed Oridonin could inhibit the proliferation of gastric cancer cells, change cell morphology and cause cell nuclear fragmentation. A total of 11signaling pathways were annotated by the network pharmacology, among them, Tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF‐α) signalling pathway, androgen receptor (AR) signalling pathway and transforming growth factor (TGF‐β) signalling pathway account for the largest proportion. Oridonin can regulate the protein expression of the three signalling pathways, which is consistent with the results predicted by network pharmacology. These findings indicated that oridonin can inhibit the proliferation of gastric cancer SGC‐7901 cells by regulating the TNF‐α /AR /TGF‐β signalling pathway axis.

Recently, different kinds of energy band structures have been utilized to improve the photoelectric properties of zinc oxide (ZnO). In this work, ZnO nanorods were prepared by the hydrothermal method and then decorated with silver sulfide (Ag2S)/zinc sulfide (ZnS) via two-step successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction method. The photoelectric properties of nanocomposites are investigated. The results show that ZnO decorated with Ag2S/ZnS can improve the photocurrent of photodetectors from 0.34 to 0.56 A at bias of 9 V. With the immersion time increasing from 15 to 60 minutes, the photocurrent of photodetectors increases by 0.22 A. The holes in the valence band of ZnO can be transferred to the valence band of ZnS and Ag2S, which promotes the separation and suppresses the recombination of hole-electron pairs generated in ZnO. Moreover, electrons excited by ultraviolet (UV) light in Ag2S can also be injected into the conduction band of ZnO, which causes the photocurrent to increase more than the ZnO photodetector.

R-Phycoerythrin (R-PE), one of the chemical constituents of red algae, could produce singlet oxygen upon excitation with the appropriate radiation and possibly be used in photodynamic therapy (PDT) for cancer. Documents reported that R-PE could inhibit cell proliferation in HepG2 and A549 cells, which was significative for cancer therapy. This is due to the fact that R-PE could kill cancer cells directly as well as by PDT. However, little is known about the cytotoxicity of R-PE to the SGC-7901 cell. In this study, it has been found that R-PE could inhibit SGC-7901 proliferation and induce cell apoptosis, which was achieved by arresting the SGC-7901 cell at S phase. CyclinA, CDK2 and CDC25A are proteins associated with the S phase, and it was found that R-PE could increase the expression of cyclin A protein and decrease the expression of CDK2 and CDC25A proteins. Thus, it was concluded that R-PE reduced the CDK2 protein activated through decreasing the CDC25A factor, which reduced the formation of Cyclin-CDK complex. The reduction of Cyclin-CDK complex made the SGC-7901 cells arrest at the S phase. Therefore, R-PE induced apoptosis by arresting the SGC-7901 cell at S phase was successful, which was achieved by the expression of the CDC25A protein, which reduced the CDK2 protein actived and the formation of Cyclin-CDK complex.

Cellular neural network (CNN) has been acted as a high-speed parallel analog signal processor gradually. However, recently, since the decrease in the size of transistor is going to approach the utmost, the transistor-based integrated circuit technology hits a bottleneck. As a result, the advantage of very large scale integration implementation of CNN becomes hard to really present, and further development of this era faces severe challenges unavoidably. In this study, two types of memristor-based cellular neural networks have been proposed. One type uses a memristor to replace the linear resistor in a conventional CNN cell circuit. And the other places a resonant tunneling diode (RTD) in this position and uses memristive synaptic connections to structure a hybrid memristor RTD CNN model. The excellent performances of the proposed CNNs are verified by conventional means of, for instance, stability analysis and efficient applications in image processing. Since both the memristor and the resonant tunneling diode are nanoscale, the size of the network circuits can be greatly reduced, and the integration density of the system will be significantly improved.

Photocatalytic water splitting into hydrogen is regarded as one of the key solutions to the deterioration of the global environment and energy. Due to the significantly reduced grain boundaries, ZnO nanorods facilitate a fast electron transfer through their smooth tunnels and are well suited as a photocatalyst. However, the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance of pristine ZnO nanorods is still low due to the high recombination rate of photogenerated electron-hole pairs and the less light absorption. Here, a novel structure about black ZnO nanorods (NRs)/TiO2-X mesoporous spheres (MSs) heterojunction has been prepared and the photocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance has been explored. The photocatalytic activity test results showed that ZnO NRs/TiO2-X MSs exhibited higher catalytic activity than ZnO NRs for hydrogen production. Compared to the pure ZnO NRs photoanode, the photocurrent of ZnO NRs/TiO2-X MSs heterojunction photoanode could reach 0.41 mA/cm2 in view of the expanding spectral response region and effective inhibition of e−/h+ recombination at the same condition. Using a relatively integrated experimental investigation and mechanism analysis, we scrutinized that after being treated with NaBH4, TiO2 MSs introduce oxygen vacancies expanding the photocatalytic activity of pure TiO2, and improving conductivity and charge transport capabilities through coating on ZnO NRs. More importantly, the results provide a promising approach in the NRs/MSs composite structure serving as photoanodes for photocatalytic hydrogen production.

The ZnO nanorod arrays (NRs) have been fabricated on p -type boron-doped diamond (BDD) substrate by hydrothermal method. It was demonstrated that the density and diameter of the ZnO NRs can be effectively controlled by adjusting the reactant concentration. Photocatalytic activity of the fabricated ZnO NRs/ p -BDD heterojunction was investigated for the degradation of methyl orange dye and the results indicated that diameter and density of ZnO NRs play a very important role in photocatalytic degradation. Furthermore, the ZnO NRs/ p -BDD heterostructure photocatalysts are easily recycled and reused.