Hierarchically Porous Covalent Organic Frameworks: Synthesis Methods and Applications

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with high porosity have garnered considerable interest for various applications owing to their robust and customizable structure. However, conventional COFs are hindered by their narrow pore size, which poses limitations for applications such as heterogeneous catalysis and guest delivery that typically involve large molecules. The development of hierarchically porous COF (HP-COF), featuring a multi-scale aperture distribution, offers a promising solution by significantly enhancing the diffusion capacity and mass transfer for larger molecules. This review focuses on the recent advances in the synthesis strategies of HP-COF materials, including topological structure design, in-situ templating, monolithic COF synthesis, defect engineering, and crystalline self-transformation. The specific operational principles and affecting factors in the synthesis process are summarized and discussed, along with the applications of HP-COFs in heterogeneous catalysis, toxic component treatment, optoelectronics, and the biomedical field. Overall, this review builds a bridge to understand HP-COFs and provides guidance for further development of them on synthesis strategies and applications.

Bayesian hypernetwork collaborates with time-difference evolutional network for temporal knowledge prediction

A Temporal Knowledge Graph (TKG) is a sequence of Knowledge Graphs (KGs) attached with time information, in which each KG contains the facts that co-occur at the same timestamp. Temporal knowledge prediction (TKP) aims to predict future events given observed historical KGs in TKGs, which is essential for many applications to provide intelligent analysis services. However, most existing TKP methods focus on entity and relation prediction tasks but ignore the importance of time prediction tasks. Furthermore, there is uncertainty in time prediction, and it is difficult for prediction models to model it completely. In this work, we propose a collaboration framework with Bayesian Hypernetwork and Time-Difference Evolutional Network (BH-TDEN) to address these problems. First, we begin with the time prediction task, and we present a Bayesian hypernetwork to model the uncertainty of events time. For the input of Bayesian hypernetwork, we design a novel time-difference evolutional network to obtain the entities and relations embedding. Specifically, we propose an auto-regressive time gate parameterized by the time difference of adjacent KGs in entity and relation encoder to learn the time-sensitive TKG embedding, which not only learns the relationship between the given time information and TKG embedding but also provides more expressive TKG embedding for Bayesian hypernetwork to accurately predict the time of future events. Furthermore, we also present a novel relation updating mechanism that employs the neighbor relations of the subject corresponding to the current relation to learn more adaptive relation embedding. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method obtains considerable time prediction and link prediction performance on four TKG benchmark datasets.

Covalent Organic Framework Ionomer Steering the CO2 Electroreduction Pathway on Cu at Industrial-Grade Current Density

CO2 electroreduction holds great promise for addressing global energy and sustainability challenges. Copper (Cu) shows great potential for effective conversion of CO2 toward specific value-added and/or high-energy-density products. However, its limitation lies in relatively low product selectivity. Herein, we present that the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) pathway on commercially available Cu can be rationally steered by modulating the microenvironment in the vicinity of the Cu surface with two-dimensional sulfonated covalent organic framework nanosheet (COF-NS)-based ionomers. Specifically, the selectivity toward methane (CH4) can be enhanced to more than 60% with the total current density up to 500 mA cm-2 in flow cells in both acidic (pH = 2) and alkaline (pH = 14) electrolytes. The COF-NS, characterized by abundant apertures, can promote the accumulation of CO2 and K+ near the catalyst surface, alter the adsorption energy and surface coverage of *CO, facilitate the dissociation of H2O, and finally modulate the reaction pathway for the CO2RR. Our approach demonstrates the rational modulation of reaction interfaces for the CO2RR utilizing porous open framework ionomers, showcasing their potential practical applications.

Gradient Channel Segmentation in Covalent Organic Framework Membranes with Highly Oriented Nanochannels

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) offer an exceptional platform for constructing membrane nanochannels with tunable pore sizes and tailored functionalities, making them promising candidates for separation, catalysis, and sensing applications. However, the synthesis of COF membranes with highly oriented nanochannels remains challenging, and there is a lack of systematic studies on the influence of postsynthetic modification reactions on functionality distribution along the nanochannels. Herein, we introduced a "prenucleation and slow growth" approach to synthesize a COF membrane featuring highly oriented mesoporous channels and a high Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of 2230 m2 g-1. Functional moieties were anchored to the pore walls via "click" reactions and coordinated with Cu ions to serve as segmentation functions. This led to a remarkable H2/CO2 separation performance that surpassed the Robeson upper bound. Moreover, we found that the functionalities distributed along the nanochannels could be influenced by functionality flexibility and postsynthetic reaction rate. This strategy paved the way for the accurate design and construction of COF-based artificial solid-state nanochannels with high orientation and precisely controlled channel environments.

2D Covalent Organic Framework for Water Harvesting with Fast Kinetics and Low Regeneration Temperature

Atmospheric water harvesting represents a promising technique to address water stress. Advanced adsorbents have been rationally designed to achieve high water uptake, yet their water sorption kinetics and regeneration temperature greatly limit water production efficiency. Herein, we demonstrated that 2D covalent organic frameworks (COFs), featuring hydrophobic skeleton, proper hydrophilic site density, and 1D open channels significantly lowered the water diffusion and desorption energy barrier. DHTA-Pa COF showed a high water uptake of 0.48 g/g at 30 % R.H. with a remarkable adsorption rate of 0.72 L/Kg/h (298 K) and a desorption rate of 2.58 L/Kg/h (333 K). Moreover, more than 90 % adsorbed water could be released within 20 min at 313 K. This kinetic performance surpassed the reported porous materials and boosted the efficiency for multiple water extraction cycles. It may shed light on the material design strategy to achieve high daily water production with low-energy input.

Adaptive pseudo-Siamese policy network for temporal knowledge prediction

Temporal knowledge prediction is a crucial task for early event warning, which has gained increasing attention recently. It aims to predict future facts based on relevant historical facts using temporal knowledge graphs. There are two main difficulties associated with the prediction task: from the perspective of historical facts, modeling the evolutionary patterns of facts to accurately predict the query and from the query perspective, handling the two cases where the query contains seen and unseen entities in a unified framework. Driven by these two problems, we propose a novel adaptive pseudo-Siamese policy network for temporal knowledge prediction based on reinforcement learning. Specifically, we design the policy network in our model as a pseudo-Siamese network consisting of two sub-policy networks. In the sub-policy network I, the agent searches for the answer to the query along the entity-relation paths to capture static evolutionary patterns. In sub-policy network II, the agent searches for the answer to the query along relation-time paths to deal with unseen entities. Moreover, we develop a temporal relation encoder to capture the temporal evolutionary patterns. Finally, we design a gating mechanism to adaptively integrate the results of the two sub-policy networks to help the agent focus on the destination answer. To assess the performance of our model, we conduct link prediction on four benchmark datasets, and extensive experimental results demonstrate that our method achieves considerable performance compared with existing methods.

Covalent organic framework-based porous ionomers for high-performance fuel cells

Lowering platinum (Pt) loadings without sacrificing power density and durability in fuel cells is highly desired yet challenging because of the high mass transport resistance near the catalyst surfaces. We tailored the three-phase microenvironment by optimizing the ionomer by incorporating ionic covalent organic framework (COF) nanosheets into Nafion. The mesoporous apertures of 2.8 to 4.1 nanometers and appendant sulfonate groups enabled the proton transfer and promoted oxygen permeation. The mass activity of Pt and the peak power density of the fuel cell with Pt/Vulcan (0.07 mg of Pt per square centimeter in the cathode) both reached 1.6 times those values without the COF. This strategy was applied to catalyst layers with various Pt loadings and different commercial catalysts.

Hydrophilicity gradient in covalent organic frameworks for membrane distillation

Desalination can help to alleviate the fresh-water crisis facing the world. Thermally driven membrane distillation is a promising way to purify water from a variety of saline and polluted sources by utilizing low-grade heat. However, membrane distillation membranes suffer from limited permeance and wetting owing to the lack of precise structural control. Here, we report a strategy to fabricate membrane distillation membranes composed of vertically aligned channels with a hydrophilicity gradient by engineering defects in covalent organic framework films by the removal of imine bonds. Such functional variation in individual channels enables a selective water transport pathway and a precise liquid-vapour phase change interface. In addition to having anti-fouling and anti-wetting capability, the covalent organic framework membrane on a supporting layer shows a flux of 600 l m^-2 h^-1 with 85 °C feed at 16 kPa absolute pressure, which is nearly triple that of the state-of-the-art membrane distillation membrane for desalination. Our results may promote the development of gradient membranes for molecular sieving.

Construction of Interlayer Conjugated Links in 2D Covalent Organic Frameworks via Topological Polymerization

Two-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (2D COFs) are well-defined polymeric sheets that usually stack in an eclipsed mode via van der Waals forces. Extensive efforts have been made to manipulate interlayer interactions, yet there still lack a way to construct conjugated connections between adjacent layers, which is important for (opto)electronic-related applications. Herein, we report an interlayer topological polymerization strategy to transform the well-organized diacetylene columnar arrays in three different 2D COFs (TAPFY-COF, TAPB-COF, and TAPP-COF) into conjugated enyne chains upon heating in the solid state. The resultant COFs (COF-P) with retained high crystallinity possess broadened absorption bands and narrowed band gaps. The newly formed conjugated chains provide extra charge carrier pathways through direct π-electron delocalization. As a proof-of-concept, after topological polymerization, the conductivity of the TAPFY-COF film achieves 2.8 × 10^-4 S/cm without doping, and the photothermal, photoacoustic, and oxygen reduction catalytic performance of TAPP-COF is significantly improved.

Genomic scan revealed KIT gene underlying white/gray plumage color in Chinese domestic geese

Goose is an important type of domesticated poultry. The wild geese that are regarded as the ancestors of modern domestic geese present gray plumage. Domesticated, geese have both white and gray feathers. To elucidate the genetic mechanisms underlying the formation of white and gray plumage in geese, we resequenced the whole genome of 18 geese from six populations including white and gray goose breeds. The average sequencing depth per individual was 9.81× and the average genome coverage was 96.8%. A total of 346 genes were detected in the top 1% of F_ST scores of gray- and white-feathered geese, and a significant F_ST site was located in the intron region within the KIT gene, the 18 bp deletion in KIT having the strongest potential association with white feathers. It has been reported that a number of genes are associated with plumage colors in birds. However, no studies have identified the relationship between KIT and plumage color in birds at present, although the white coat can be attributed to mutations in KIT in some mammals. Our study showed that that KIT is a plausible candidate gene for white/gray plumage color in Chinese domestic geese.

Synthesis and Structure-Property Relationships of Polyimide Covalent Organic Frameworks for Carbon Dioxide Capture and (Aqueous) Sodium-Ion Batteries

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are an emerging material family having several potential applications. Their porous framework and redox-active centers enable gas/ion adsorption, allowing them to function as safe, cheap, and tunable electrode materials in next-generation batteries, as well as CO2 adsorption materials for carbon-capture applications. Herein, we develop four polyimide COFs by combining aromatic triamines with aromatic dianhydrides and provide detailed structural and electrochemical characterization. Through density functional theory (DFT) calculations and powder X-ray diffraction, we achieve a detailed structural characterization, where DFT calculations reveal that the imide bonds prefer to form at an angle with one another, breaking the 2D symmetry, which shrinks the pore width and elongates the pore walls. The eclipsed perpendicular stacking is preferable, while sliding of the COF sheets is energetically accessible in a relatively flat energy landscape with a few metastable regions. We investigate the potential use of these COFs in CO2 adsorption and electrochemical applications. The adsorption and electrochemical properties are related to the structural and chemical characteristics of each COF, giving new insights for advanced material designs. For CO2 adsorption specifically, the two best performing COFs originated from the same triamine building block, which-in combination with force-field calculations-revealed unexpected structure-property relationships. Specific geometries provide a useful framework for Na-ion intercalation with retainable capacities and stable cycle life at a relatively high working potential (>1.5 V vs Na/Na+). Although this capacity is low compared to conventional inorganic Li-ion materials, we show as a proof of principle that these COFs are especially promising for sustainable, safe, and stable Na-aqueous batteries due to the combination of their working potentials and their insoluble nature in water.

Polytorsional-amide/carboxylates-directed Cd(ii) coordination polymers exhibiting multi-functional sensing behaviors

By rational assembly of polytorsional-amide [N,N′-bis(4-methylenepyridin-4-yl)-1,4-naphthalene dicarboxamide (L)] and polytorsional-carboxylates [H₂ADI = adipic acid, H₂PIM = pimelic acid, H₂SUB = suberic acid], three new Cd-based coordination polymers (CPs) C₃₀H₃₀CdN₄O₇ (1), C₃₁H₃₂CdN₄O₇ (2) and C_31.03H_30.55CdCl_0.24N₄O_5.52 (3) were successfully synthesized. CPs 1–2 and 3 are 2D networks and a 3D framework, which all display 3,5-connected topologies with different structural details. The effects of carboxylates with different carbon chains on the structure of the complexes were studied. Fluorescence experiments show that CPs 1–3 have good multi-functional sensing ability for metal cations (Fe³⁺), anions (MnO₄⁻, CrO₄²⁻, Cr₂O₇²⁻) and organochlorine pesticides (2,6-dichloro-4-nitroamine) with good anti-interference and recyclable characteristics. The possible sensing mechanism is also investigated in detail.

Three (3,5)-connected Cd(ii) coordination polymers induced by polytorsional-amide/carboxylates exhibiting controllable multifunctional fluorescent sensing activities.

A Hydrolytically Stable Vanadium(IV) Metal-Organic Framework with Photocatalytic Bacteriostatic Activity for Autonomous Indoor Humidity Control

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with long-term stability and reversible high water uptake properties can be ideal candidates for water harvesting and indoor humidity control. Now, a mesoporous and highly stable MOF, BIT-66 is presented that has indoor humidity control capability and a photocatalytic bacteriostatic effect. BIT-66 (V₃ (O)₃ (H₂ O)(BTB)₂ ), possesses prominent moisture tunability in the range of 45-60 % RH and a water uptake and working capacity of 71 and 55 wt %, respectively, showing good recyclability and excellent performance in water adsorption-desorption cycles. Importantly, this MOF demonstrates a unique photocatalytic bacteriostatic behavior under visible light, which can effectively ameliorate the bacteria and/or mold breeding problem in water adsorbing materials.

Higher thyroid-stimulating hormone levels in the first trimester are associated with gestational diabetes in a Chinese population

AIM

To evaluate the relationship between maternal thyroid-stimulating hormone levels during the first trimester and gestational diabetes risk.

METHODS

In Tianjin, China, 7258 women underwent a thyroid-stimulating hormone screening test within 12 gestational weeks and then had a glucose challenge test at 24-28 weeks of gestational age. The women with a glucose challenge test ≥7.8 mmol/l underwent a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test. Gestational diabetes was diagnosed following International Association of Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Group criteria. Restricted cubic spline analysis was performed to explore full-range risk associations of thyroid-stimulating hormone levels with gestational diabetes. Logistic regression was performed to obtain odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals.

RESULTS

In all, 594 women (8.2%) had gestational diabetes. Among women with thyroid-stimulating hormone ≤3.2 mIU/l, a positive association between thyroid-stimulating hormone levels and gestational diabetes risk was found (adjusted OR: 1.13, 95% CI: 1.00-1.27). There was no relationship between thyroid-stimulating hormone levels and gestational diabetes risk in univariable and multivariable analyses among women with thyroid-stimulating hormone >3.2 mIU/l. In subgroup analyses, among women with thyroid-stimulating hormone ≤3.2 mIU/l and BMI ≥25 kg/m² , the adjusted odds ratio for thyroid-stimulating hormone levels with gestational diabetes was enhanced to 1.25 (95% CI: 1.02-1.53).

CONCLUSIONS

In pregnant Chinese women, thyroid-stimulating hormone levels even within normal range in the first trimester were positively related to gestational diabetes risk, especially for pre-pregnancy overweight/obese women.

Electropolymerization of Molecular-Sieving Polythiophene Membranes for H2 Separation

Membrane technologies that do not rely on heat for industrial gas separation would lower global energy cost. While polymeric, inorganic, and mixed-matrix separation membranes have been rapidly developed, the bottleneck is balancing the processability, selectivity, and permeability. Reported here is a softness adjustment of rigid networks (SARs) strategy to produce flexible, stand-alone, and molecular-sieving membranes by electropolymerization. Here, 14 membranes were rationally designed and synthesized and their gas separation ability and mechanical performance were studied. The separation performance of the membranes for H₂ /CO₂ , H₂ /N₂ , and H₂ /CH₄ can exceed the Robeson upper bound, among which, H₂ /CO₂ separation selectivity reaches 50 with 626 Barrer of H₂ permeability. The long-term and chemical stability tests demonstrate their potential for industrial applications. This simple, scalable, and cost-effective strategy holds promise for the design other polymers for key energy-intensive separations.

Fast Ion Transport Pathway Provided by Polyethylene Glycol Confined in Covalent Organic Frameworks

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with well-tailored channels are able to accommodate ions and offer their conduction pathway. However, due to strong Coulombic interaction and the lack of transport medium, directly including lithium salts into the channels of COFs results in limited ion transport capability. Herein, we propose a strategy of incorporating low-molecular-weight polyethylene glycol (PEG) into COFs with anionic, neutral, or cationic skeletons to accelerate Li⁺ conduction. The PEG confined in the well-aligned channels retains high flexibility and Li⁺ solvating ability. The ion conductivity of PEG included in a cationic COF can reach 1.78 × 10^-3 S cm^-1 at 120 °C. The simplicity of this strategy as well as the diversity of crystalline porous materials holds great promise to design high-performance all-solid-state ion conductors.

Insulin resistance in Alzheimer's disease (AD) mouse intestinal macrophages is mediated by activation of JNK

OBJECTIVE

Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been considered as a metabolic disorder disease, which closely related to insulin signaling impairment. Therefore, identifying the potential mechanism of insulin resistance is important for AD treatment.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

An APP/PS1 double transgenic AD mouse model was introduced to study insulin resistance in gut. The expressions of AD markers and key elements of insulin signaling were detected in ileum and intestinal macrophages of AD mice by immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, mouse intestinal macrophage cell line RAW264.7 was treated by Aβ25-35 or Aβ25-35 + insulin to explore the mechanism of insulin resistance in vitro. The expression of IR-β and the activation of cell signaling related proteins (Insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS1), protein kinase B (AKT) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK)) in Aβ25-35-stimulated macrophages were performed via Western blotting.

RESULTS

The expressions of IRS1, Aβ and Tuj in AD mice ileum were significantly different from WT mice (p<0.05). Also, there were significant discrepancies in the expressions of β2AR and eNOS in intestinal macrophages of two groups (p<0.05). After exposure to Aβ25-35, cell proliferation rate (p<0.01) of macrophage and the levels of TNF-α (p<0.01) and Il-6 (p<0.01) was significant elevated and treatment with insulin could reverse these changes (p<0.05). The amount of IR-β and the p-AKT/AKT ratio significantly decreased in Aβ25-35-treated macrophages (p<0.01), while the ratios of p-IRS1/IRS1 and p-JNK/JNK significantly enlarged (p<0.01). Furthermore, all the changes caused by Aβ25-35 treatment were attenuated by insulin addition.

CONCLUSIONS

Activation of JNK pathway played an important role in insulin resistance of AD mice, suggesting that inhibition of JNK pathway might be a new strategy toward resolving insulin resistance related diseases, such as AD.

[Effect of inserted angle on the stability of loaded microscrews]

Objective: To evaluate the effect of different insertion angles on the osseointegration of loaded microscrews in beagle jaws. Methods: Forty-eight microscrews were inserted at four different angles (30°, 50°, 70° and 90°) into the interradicular zones between the mandibular first molar and third premolar in twelve beagles and the microscrews had been loaded with a force of 2 N immediately for 8 weeks. After microscrew-bone specimens fixed, the maximum output value (F_max) of pull-out test was recorded and the histomorphological changes of hard tissue were observed. The bone-implant contact (BIC%) was quantitatively analyzed and the osseointegration of microscrew-bone interface was comprehensively evaluated. Results: Both F_max and BIC% values of microscrews were influenced by the insertion angles. The maximum value of F_max was (385±23) N in the group with 50° angle, and the minimum value was (198±16) N in the group with 30° angle(P <0.05). The maximum value of BIC% was (59.1±6.0)% in the group with 70° angle, and the minimum value was (30.2±3.2)% in the group with 30° angle (P <0.05). Histomorphology observation revealed that in peri-screws region, the various degree of bone remodeling was found in different angle samples. Conclusions: The insertion angles (50°and 70°) were favorable to the stability of the microscrew.

Metformin treatment of antipsychotic-induced dyslipidemia: an analysis of two randomized, placebo-controlled trials

Dyslipidemia is one of the most common adverse effects in schizophrenia patients treated with antipsychotics. However, there are no established effective treatments. In this study, data were pooled from two randomized, placebo-controlled trials, which were originally designed to examine the efficacy of metformin in treating antipsychotic-induced weight gain and other metabolic abnormalities. In total, 201 schizophrenia patients with dyslipidemia after being treated with an antipsychotic were assigned to take 1000 mg day^-1 metformin (n=103) or placebo (n=98) for 24 weeks, with evaluation at baseline, week 12 and week 24. The primary outcome was the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels. After metformin treatment, the mean difference in the LDL-C value between metformin treatment and placebo was from 0.16 mmol l^-1 at baseline to -0.86 mmol l^-1 at the end of week 24, decreased by 1.02 mmol l^-1 (P<0.0001); and 25.3% of patients in the metformin group had LDL-C ≥3.37 mmol l^-1, which is significantly <64.8% in the placebo group (P<0.001) at week 24. Compared with the placebo, metformin treatment also have a significant effect on reducing weight, body mass index, insulin, insulin resistance index, total cholesterol and triglyceride, and increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The treatment effects on weight and insulin resistance appeared at week 12 and further improved at week 24, but the effects on improving dyslipidemia only significantly occurred at the end of week 24. We found that metformin treatment was effective in improving antipsychotic-induced dyslipidemia and insulin resistance, and the effects improving antipsychotic-induced insulin resistance appeared earlier than the reducing dyslipidemia.

Microwave-assisted extraction and purification of chlorogenic acid from by-products of Eucommia Ulmoides Oliver and its potential anti-tumor activity

An efficient method for the rapid extraction, separation and purification of chlorogenic acid (CGA) from by-products of Eucommia Ulmoides Oliver (E. ulmoides) by microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) coupled with high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) was developed. The optimal MAE parameters were evaluated by response surface methodology (RSM), and they were extraction time of 12 min, microwave power of 420 W, ethanol concentration of 75 %, solvent/sample ratio of 30:1 (mL/g), yield of CGA reached 3.59 %. The crude extract was separated and purified directly by HSCCC using ethyl acetate-butyl alcohol-water (3:1:4, v/v) as the two-phase solvent system. The 14.5 mg of CGA with the purity of 98.7 % was obtained in one-step separation from 400 mg of crude extract. The chemical structure of CGA was verified with IR, ESI-MS analysis. Meanwhile, the purified CGA extract was evaluated by MTT assay and results indicate that CGA extract exhibited potential anti-tumor activity for AGS gastric cancer cell.

Serotonin regulates osteoblast proliferation and function in vitro

The monoamine serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT), a well-known neurotransmitter, also has important functions outside the central nervous system. The objective of this study was to investigate the role of 5-HT in the proliferation, differentiation, and function of osteoblasts in vitro. We treated rat primary calvarial osteoblasts with various concentrations of 5-HT (1 nM to 10 µM) and assessed the rate of osteoblast proliferation, expression levels of osteoblast-specific proteins and genes, and the ability to form mineralized nodules. Next, we detected which 5-HT receptor subtypes were expressed in rat osteoblasts at different stages of osteoblast differentiation. We found that 5-HT could inhibit osteoblast proliferation, differentiation, and mineralization at low concentrations, but this inhibitory effect was mitigated at relatively high concentrations. Six of the 5-HT receptor subtypes (5-HT_1A, 5-HT_1B, 5-HT_1D, 5-HT_2A, 5-HT_2B, and 5-HT_2C) were found to exist in rat osteoblasts. Of these, 5-HT_2A and 5-HT_1B receptors had the highest expression levels, at both early and late stages of differentiation. Our results indicated that 5-HT can regulate osteoblast proliferation and function in vitro.

A functional polymorphism in the CYR61 (IGFBP10) gene is associated with prostate cancer risk

BACKGROUND

CYR61 (cysteine-rich protein 61, also named IGFBP10) is a secreted signaling molecule that promotes angiogenesis and tumor growth. The goal of this study is to determine whether a functional polymorphism in the promoter region of the CYR61 gene (rs3753793) is associated with prostate cancer (PCa) risk and gene expression in Chinese patients.

METHODS

A total of 665 patients diagnosed with PCa and 703 cancer-free controls were genotyped in this hospital-based case-control study, and 26 PCa tissue samples were evaluated for mRNA expression of CYR61 by real-time quantitative reverse-transcription PCR.

RESULTS

Men carrying the G allele of rs3753793 (TG+GG) had significantly lower risk of PCa when compared with the TT genotype (odds ratio (OR) = 0.76, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.61-0.95). The association was generally more pronounced among subgroups of PCa patients with advanced stage (OR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.53-0.94), Gleason score >7 (OR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.46-0.86) and PSA>20 ng ml(-1) (OR = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.53-0.88). Prostate tumors derived from cases with the GT/GG genotypes had significantly lower levels of CYR61 mRNA when compared with cases with the TT genotypes (P = 0.02).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicate that the genetic variation of rs3753793 in the CYR61 promoter may contribute to genetic predisposition to PCa and intra-tumor expression gene expression.