Nowadays, Li‐ion batteries have achieved great success and are widely used in various fields. However, the scarcity and uneven distribution of lithium resources together with the increasing cost may hamper the sustainable development of Li‐ion batteries in the future. Hence, many researchers have turned to potassium ion batteries due to their abundant raw materials, low price, and high energy density. Although great progress has been made in recent years, there are still existing many challenges, especially the severe side reaction between electrolyte and K metal, which leads to an unstable solid–liquid interface and low coulombic efficiency. Hence, an excellent electrolyte may be the key to development of K‐ion batteries in the future. Unfortunately, no systematic research has been conducted to study the electrolyte and its role on the performance yet. In order to compensate for this limitation, in this paper, the status and progress of electrolytes for K‐ion batteries are reviewed, the issues and challenges existing in the development of electrolyte are clarified, and the future development is prospected.

Lysosome-associated protein transmembrane-4 beta (LAPTM4B) is a novel oncogene, which has been indicated to be dramatically overexpressed in various malignant tumors. The aims of this study were to detect LAPTM4B protein expression in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and then analyze the relationships of LAPTM4B protein with clinicopathologic factors, tumor angiogenesis and prognosis with SPSS statistical software. Immunohistochemistry was used to examine the expression of LAPTM4B and CD34 proteins in NSCLC tissues, and its results showed that LAPTM4B protein expression in NSCLC tissues was significantly higher than that in normal lung tissues (P < 0.001). Of the186 NSCLC cases, 129 (69.35 %) had strong expression of LAPTM4B protein, which was associated with histopathologic differentiation (P = 0.017), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.001) and TNM stage (P = 0.046), as well as the microvessel density (MVD) (P = 0.019). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that patients with strong LAPM4B protein expression and high MVD might have poor overall survival (OS; P = 0.001, P = 0.002, respectively) and disease-free survival (DFS; P = 0.002, P = 0.038, respectively). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that LAPTM4B protein was an independent prognostic marker for OS and DFS of NSCLC patients (P = 0.037, P = 0.046, respectively). These findings illustrated that LAPTM4B protein was closely associated with NSCLC progression, angiogenesis and poor prognosis, suggesting that LAPTM4B protein could be applied not only in predicting patient's outcome, but also in antiangiogenic therapy as a possible novel target molecule.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality all over the world. In recent years, pulmonary adenocarcinoma has surpassed squamous cell carcinoma in frequency and is the predominant form of lung cancer in many countries. Epidemiological investigations have shown an inverse relationship between garlic (Allium sativum) consumption and death rate from many cancers. Diallyl trisulfide (DATS) is one of the garlic-derived compounds (also known as: organosulfer compounds, OSC). DATS can induce apoptosis and inhibit the growth of many cancer cell lines. Our study demonstrated that the apoptotic incidents induced by DATS were a mitochondria-dependent caspase cascade through a significant decrease of the anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 that resulted in up-regulation of the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 and the activity of caspase-3, -8, and -9. Eventually, DATS induced the apoptosis and inhibited the proliferation in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. Furthermore, by establishing an animal model of female BALB/c nude mice with A549 xenografts, we found that oral gavage of DATS significantly retarded growth of A549 xenografts in nude mice without causing weight loss or any other side effects compared with the control group. All the evidence both in vitro and in vivo suggested that DATS could be an ideal anti-cancer drug.

Studies have shown that genetic activation of TFIIB-related factor 2 (BRF2) represents a unique mechanism of tumorigenesis through the increase in Pol III-mediated transcription. Several studies have shown that BRF2 is overexpressed in several types of cancer and suggest the oncogenic role of BRF2. This study aimed to examine the expression of TFIIB-related factor 2 (BRF2) in patients with esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) and explore the relationship of BRF2 expression with clinicopathologic factors, tumor angiogenesis and prognosis. We found that increased BRF2 protein expression was prevalent in esophageal squamous cell cancer and was significantly associated with deeper tumor invasion (P = 0.039) and microvessel density (P = 0.007). Additionally, expression of BRF2 was found to be an independent prognostic factor in ESCC patients. Furthermore, a significant correlation between high BRF2 expression and shorter overall survival time was found in different subgroups of ESCC patients stratified by the clinical stage, T classification and lymph node metastasis. High expression of BRF2 protein is closely associated with tumor progression and angiogenesis and poor survival of ESCC. BRF2 is a promising biomarker to identify individuals with poor prognostic potential and concludes the possibility of its use as a prognostic marker in patients with ESCC.

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