The KEGG analysis resulted in mapping transcripts with 138 different pathways reported in plants. The differential expression of drought-responsive transcription factors depicts the possible signaling cascades involved in drought tolerance. The present study provides greater insight into the fundamental transcriptome reprogramming of desert plants under drought.Through-metal transfer of energy and data using piezoelectric transduce can avoid the potential leakage problem caused by physical penetrations and wired feed-through. The through-metal transfer efficiency of energy or data is determined by the relative pressure on the receiving PZT (piezoelectric transducer). Hence, in this paper, we first propose the Spatial Equivalent Plane Acoustic Pressure (SEPAP), which is defined as the integration of the acoustic pressure over the receiving area, to model the pressure on the receiving PZT. Then we analyze the features of SEPAP and the factors impacting it by utilizing COMSOL. Furthermore, we propose a low-cost and small-size prototype for simultaneous transfer of energy and bidirectional communication through metal by using two pairs of PZTs working on different resonant frequencies. Extensive experiment has been done on evaluating the match between SEPAP transfer efficiency and the power transfer efficiency and analyzing the achievable data rate for bi-directional communication. Test through a 20 mm aluminum alloy plate shows that power transmission with efficiency 20.3% and data communication rate up to 38.4 Kbps can be achieved simultaneously.Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) inhibitors’ activity in advanced osteosarcoma is significant but short-lived. To prevent or at least delay drug resistance, we explored a vertical inhibition by combining drugs acting at different levels of the RTK pathways (pazopanib + trametinib). We studied pazopanib + trametinib antitumor activity both in vitro and in vivo (MNNG-HOS and KHOS xenografts in NOD/SCID mice) investigating the molecular mechanisms and potential escapes. The involvement of MAPK-PI3K pathways was validated by Nanostring technology, western blot and by silencing/overexpression experiments. Pazopanib targets were expressed on seven osteosarcoma cell lines and their pathways were activated. Pazopanib + trametinib exhibited synergistic antitumor activity by inducing apoptosis and inhibiting ERK1/2 and Akt. In vivo antitumor activity was shown in osteosarcoma-bearing mice. The drug combination significantly down-modulated RTK Ephrin Type-A Receptor 2 (EphA2) and Interleukin-7 Receptor (IL-7R), whereas induced mitogen-activated protein-kinase kinase (MAPKK) MEK6. EphA2 silencing significantly reduced osteosarcoma cell proliferation and migration, while impeding MEK6 up-regulation in the treated cells significantly increased the antitumor effect of the studied drugs. Moreover, the up-regulation of MEK6 reduced combination activity. Pazopanib + trametinib demonstrated synergistic antitumor effects in osteosarcoma models through ERK and Akt inhibition and EphA2 and IL-7R down-modulation. MEK6 up-regulation might evoke escaping mechanism.Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have gained attraction not only in the field of regenerative medicine but also in the field of autoimmune disease therapies or organ transplantation due to their immunoregulatory and/or immunosuppressive features. Dendritic cells (DCs) play a crucial role in initiating and regulating immune reactions by promoting antigen-specific T cell activation. In this study, we investigated the effect of human jaw periosteal progenitor cells (JPCs) seeded in beta-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) scaffolds on monocyte-derived DC differentiation. Significantly lower numbers of differentiated DCs were observed in the presence of normal (Co) and osteogenically induced (Ob) JPCs-seeded β-TCP constructs. Gene expression analysis revealed significantly lower interleukin-12 subunit p35 (IL-12p35) and interleukin-12 receptor beta 2 (IL-12Rβ2) and pro-inflammatory cytokine interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) levels in DCs under Ob conditions, while interleukin-8 (IL-8) gene levels were significantly increased. Furthermore, in the presence of JPCs-seeded β-TCP constructs, interleukin-10 (IL-10) gene expression was significantly induced in DCs, particularly under Ob conditions. Analysis of DC protein levels shows that granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) was significantly upregulated in coculture groups. Our results indicate that undifferentiated and osteogenically induced JPCs-seeded β-TCP constructs have an overall inhibitory effect on monocyte-derived DC maturation.Changes in the plasma metabolic profile were characterised in newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients upon commencement of conventional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (cDMARD) therapy. Plasma samples collected in an early RA randomised strategy study (NCT00920478) that compared clinical (DAS) disease activity assessment with musculoskeletal ultrasound assessment (MSUS) to drive treatment decisions were subjected to untargeted metabolomic analysis. Metabolic profiles were collected at pre- and three months post-commencement of nonbiologic cDMARD. Metabolites that changed in association with changes in the DAS44 score were identified at the three-month timepoint. A total of nine metabolites exhibited a clear correlation with a reduction in DAS44 score following cDMARD commencement, particularly itaconate, its derived anhydride and a derivative of itaconate CoA. Increasing itaconate correlated with improved DAS44 score and decreasing levels of C-reactive protein (CRP). cDMARD treatment effects invoke consistent changes in plasma detectable metabolites, that in turn implicate clinical disease activity with macrophages. Such changes inform RA pathogenesis and reveal for the first time a link between itaconate production and resolution of inflammatory disease in humans. Quantitative metabolic biomarker-based tests of clinical change in state are feasible and should be developed around the itaconate pathway.Small extracellular vesicles (EVs) are able to pass from the central nervous system (CNS) into peripheral blood and contain molecule markers of their parental origin. The aim of our study was to isolate and characterize total and neural-derived small EVs (NDEVs) and their micro RNA (miRNA) cargo in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. Small NDEVs were isolated from plasma in a population consisting of 40 AD patients and 40 healthy subjects (CTRLs) using high throughput Advanced TaqMan miRNA OpenArrays®, which enables the simultaneous determination of 754 miRNAs. MiR-23a-3p, miR-223-3p, miR-100-3p and miR-190-5p showed a significant dysregulation in small NDEVs from AD patients as compared with controls (1.16 ± 0.49 versus 7.54 ± 2.5, p = 0.026; 9.32 ± 2.27 versus 0.66 ± 0.18, p less then 0.0001; 0.069 ± 0.01 versus 0.5 ± 0.1, p less then 0.0001 and 2.9 ± 1.2 versus 1.93 ± 0.9, p less then 0.05, respectively). A further validation analysis confirmed that miR-23a-3p, miR-223-3p and miR-190a-5p levels in small NDEVs from AD patients were significantly upregulated as compared with controls (p = 0.008; p = 0.016; p = 0.003, respectively) whereas miR-100-3p levels were significantly downregulated (p = 0.008). This is the first study that carries out the comparison between total plasma small EV population and NDEVs, demonstrating the presence of a specific AD NDEV miRNA signature.The objectives of this study were to reduce the corrosion rate and increase the cytocompatibility of AZ31 Mg alloy. Two coatings were considered. One coating contained MgO (MAO/AZ31). The other coating contained Cu2+ (Cu/MAO/AZ31), and it was produced on the AZ31 Mg alloy via microarc oxidation (MAO). Coating characterization was conducted using a set of methods, including scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectrometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. Corrosion properties were investigated through an electrochemical test, and a H2 evolution measurement. The AZ31 Mg alloy with the Cu2+-containing coating showed an improved and more stable corrosion resistance compared with the MgO-containing coating and AZ31 Mg alloy specimen. Cell morphology observation and cytotoxicity test via Cell Counting Kit-8 assay showed that the Cu2+-containing coating enhanced the proliferation of L-929 cells and did not induce a toxic effect, thus resulting in excellent cytocompatibility and biological activity. In summary, adding Cu ions to MAO coating improved the corrosion resistance and cytocompatibility of the coating.Vanadium nitride (VN) shows promising electrochemical properties as an energy storage devices electrode, specifically in supercapacitors. However, the pseudocapacitive charge storage in aqueous electrolytes shows mediocre performance. Herein, we judiciously demonstrate an impressive pseudocapacitor performance by hybridizing VN nanowires with pseudocapacitive 2D-layered MoS2 nanosheets. Arising from the interfacial engineering and pseudocapacitive synergistic effect between the VN and MoS2, the areal capacitance of VN/MoS2 hybrid reaches 3187.30 mF cm-2, which is sevenfold higher than the pristine VN (447.28 mF cm-2) at a current density of 2.0 mA cm-2. In addition, an asymmetric pseudocapacitor assembled based on VN/MoS2 anode and TiN coated with MnO2 (TiN/MnO2) cathode achieves a remarkable volumetric capacitance of 4.52 F cm-3 and energy density of 2.24 mWh cm-3 at a current density of 6.0 mA cm-2. This work opens a new opportunity for the development of high-performance electrodes in unfavorable electrolytes towards designing high areal-capacitance electrode materials for supercapacitors and beyond.Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy was used to evaluate the growth of human melanoma cells (SK-MEL-2) in two-dimensional (2D) versus three-dimensional (3D) spheroid culture systems. FTIR microspectroscopy, coupled with multivariate analysis, could be used to monitor the variability of spheroid morphologies prepared from different cell densities. The characteristic shift in absorbance bands of the 2D cells were different from the spectra of cells from 3D spheroids. FTIR microspectroscopy can also be used to monitor cell death similar to fluorescence cell staining in 3D spheroids. A change in the secondary structure of protein was observed in cells from the 3D spheroid versus the 2D culture system. FTIR microspectroscopy can detect specific alterations in the biological components inside the spheroid, which cannot be detected using fluorescence cell death staining. In the cells from 3D spheroids, the respective lipid, DNA, and RNA region content represent specific markers directly proportional to the spheroid size and central area of necrotic cell death, which can be confirmed using unsupervised PCA and hierarchical cluster analysis. FTIR microspectroscopy could be used as an alternative tool for spheroid cell culture discrimination, and validation of the usual biochemical technique.A diketopiperazine has been purified from a culture filtrate of the endophytic fungus Paraphaeosphaeria sporulosa, isolated from healthy tissues of strawberry plants in a survey of microbes as sources of anti-bacterial metabolites. Its structure has been determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analyses and was found to be identical to cyclo(L-Pro-L-Phe) purified from species of other fungal genera. This secondary metabolite has been selected following bioguided-assay fractionation against two strains of Salmonella enterica, the causal agent of bovine gastroenteritis. The diketopiperazine cyclo(L-Pro-L-Phe), isolated for the first time from Paraphaeosphaeria species, showed minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 71.3 and 78.6 μg/mL against the two S. enterica strains. This finding may be significant in limiting the use of synthetic antibiotics in animal husbandry and reducing the emergence of bacterial multidrug resistance. Further in vivo experiments of P.