Nonaqueous redox flow battery (RFB) is a promising technology to improve the energy density of RFBs for both stationary grid energy storage and electric vehicle applications. Despite tremendous advancement made in high-capacity flow posolyte, lithium metal has been dominantly exploited as a nonflowable counter electrode in reported lithium-based RFBs to date due to the lack of efficient and high-capacity flow negolyte. Here, we report a silicon–carbon nanocomposite semi-solid negolyte, achieving a high reversible capacity (>1200 mAh g–1) and stable cycle life (>100 cycles). A facile process of incipient wetness impregnation followed by polymerization/carbonization is developed to synthesize monodispersed Si–C nanocomposite with ultrathin graphitic carbon coating. Exploiting Si–C nanocomposite as the negolyte effectively suppresses the volume change of Si particles and enhances the electrical conductivity of the negolyte. Coupling with highly concentrated LiI (5.0 M), we demonstrate the first lithium metal-free Si-based negolyte in a full all-flow cell configuration with a stable cycle life (>60 cycles), high Coulombic efficiency (>90%), and the highest full cell voltage (3.0 V) reported for Li metal-free RFBs. Our successful demonstration of lithium metal-free all-flow battery highlights the promising potential of Si-based negolyte to replace lithium metal for high-energy-density RFBs.

Recent global epidemiological studies revealed the lower ovarian cancer death from long-term use of oral contraceptives. However, the underlying mechanism of action is not clear. Here, we use the abortifacient metapristone (RU486 derivative) to test the hypothesis that the contraceptives might interrupt CXCL12/CXCR4 chemokine axis to inhibit ovarian cancer metastasis. Metapristone at concentrations (

Metastasis currently remains the predominant cause of breast carcinoma treatment failure. The effective targeting of metastasis-related-pathways in cancer holds promise for a new generation of therapeutics. In this study, we developed an novel Asp-UA conjugate, which was composed of classical “old drug” aspirin and low toxicity natural product ursolic acid for targeting breast cancer metastasis. Our results showed that Asp-UA could attenuate the adhesion, migration and invasion of breast cancer MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells in a more safe and effective manner in vitro. Molecular and cellular study demonstrated that Asp-UA significantly down-regulated the expression of cell adhesion and invasion molecules including integrin α6β1, CD44, MMP-2, MMP-9, COX-2, EGFR and ERK proteins, and up-regulated the epithelial markers “E-cadherin” and “β-catenin”, and PTEN proteins. Furthermore, Asp-UA (80 mg/kg) reduced lung metastasis in a 4T1 murine breast cancer metastasis model more efficiently, which was associated with a decrease in the expression of CD44. More importantly, we did not detect side effects with Asp-UA in mice such as weight loss and main viscera tissues toxicity. Overall, our research suggested that co-drug Asp-UA possessed potential metastasis chemoprevention abilities via influencing EMT and EGFR-mediated pathways and could be a more promising drug candidate for the prevention and/or treatment of breast cancer metastasis.

Circulation tumor cells (CTCs) in the bloodstream of early-stage cancer patients carry the important information about valuable biomarkers and biological properties of primary tumor. However, detection and capture of CTCs are challenging owing to their low concentrations. Traditional technologies have the limited detection sensitivity and the low capture efficiency. We, herein, report an effective approach to specifically bind and capture colon cancer HT29 cells by using multiple Sialyl Lewis X antibodies (aSlex)-conjugated PAMAM dendrimers. The conjugation was characterized by using atom force microscope, UV and fluorescence measurements. The capturing and regulating HT29 cells by the aSlex-coated dendrimer conjugate were analyzed by microscopy and flow cytometry. The results indicated that the conjugate showed the enhanced capture of HT29 cells in a concentration-dependent manner and the maximum capture efficiency of 77.88% was obtained within 1 h-exposure. G6-5aSlex-FITC conjugate showed capture efficiency better than FITC-G6-COOH-5aSlex conjugate. G6-5aSlex-FITC conjugate could specifically capture HT29 cells even when the target HT29 cells were diluted with the interfering cells (e.g., RBCs) to a low concentration. The capture resulted in a concentration-dependent restraint of the cell activity. In conclusion, the aSlex-coated dendrimer conjugate displayed the great potential in capturing and restraining colorectal CTCs in blood.

Specifically capturing and restraining residual circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer patients are the sine qua non for safely and effectively preventing cancer metastasis, to which the current chemotherapy has been limited due to its toxicity. Moreover, because of CTCs’ rarity and low activity, the current technology for capturing CTCs based solely on a single surface biomarker has limited capacity and is used mainly for in vitro diagnosis. Here, it is possible to sequentially conjugate two CTCs antibodies (aEpCAM and aSlex) to the functionalized dendrimers to specifically capture human hepatocellular CTCs in both artificial and clinical patient blood samples, and restrain their activities. The molecular entities of the conjugates are demonstrated by various means. The dual antibody conjugate captured CTCs threefold more than the single counterparts from the high concentrations of interfering red blood cells or leukocytes, as well as from the blood of liver cancer patients, and exhibits the superiority to their single counterparts in down‐regulating the captured CTCs. These results collectively provide the strong evidence that two antibodies can be compatibly conjugated to a nanomaterial, resulting in an enhanced specificity in restraining CTCs in blood.