Flexible thermoelectrics is a synergy of flexible electronics and thermoelectric energy conversion. In this work, we fabricated flexible full-inorganic thermoelectric power generation modules based on doped silver chalcogenides.

BackgroundExtracellular communication within the tumor microenvironment plays a critical role in tumor progression. Although exosomes can package into long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) to mediate extracellular communication, the role of exosomal lncRNA PTENP1 in bladder cancer (BC) remains unclear.MethodWe detected PTENP1 expression between patients with BC and healthy controls; the expression occurred in tissues and exosomes from plasma. We assessed the diagnostic accuracy by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and the area under curve (AUC). Cell phenotypes and animal experiments were performed to determine the effect of exosomal PTENP1.ResultsPTENP1 was significantly reduced in BC tissues and in exosomes from plasma of patients with BC (P < 0.05). We found that PTENP1 was mainly wrapped by exosomes. Exosomal PTENP1 could distinguish patients with BC from healthy controls (AUC = 0.743; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.645–0.840). Normal cells secreted exosomal PTENP1 and transmitted it to BC cells, thus inhibiting the biological malignant behavior of BC cells by increasing cell apoptosis and reducing the ability to invade and migrate (P < 0.05). Exosomal PTENP1 could suppress tumor growth in vivo. Furthermore, exosomal PTENP1 mediated the expression of PTEN by competitively binding to microRNA-17.ConclusionExosomal PTENP1 is a promising novel biomarker that can be used for the clinical detection of BC. Exosomes derived from normal cells transfer PTENP1 to BC cells, which reduce the progression of BC both in vitro and in vivo and suggest that exosomal PTENP1 participates in normal-cell-to-bladder-cell communication during the carcinogenesis of BC.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12943-018-0880-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Hetero‐shaped thermoelectric (TE) generators (TEGs) can power the sensors used in safety monitoring systems of undersea oil pipelines, but their development is greatly limited by the lack of materials with both good shape‐conformable ability and high TE performance. In this work, a new ductile inorganic TE material, Ag20S7Te3, with high TE performance is reported. At 300–600 K, Ag20S7Te3 crystallizes in a body‐centered cubic structure, in which S and Te atoms randomly occupy the (0, 0, 1) site. Due to the smaller generalized stacking fault energy in the (101¯)[010] slip system, Ag20S7Te3 shows better ductility than Ag2S, yielding excellent shape‐conformability. The high carrier mobility and low lattice thermal conductivity observed in Ag20S7Te3 result in a maximum dimensionless figure of merit (zT) of 0.80 at 600 K, which is comparable with the best commercial Bi2Te3‐based alloys. The prototype TEG consisting of 10 Ag20S7Te3 strips displays an open‐circuit voltage of 69.2 mV and a maximum power output of 17.1 µW under the temperature difference of 70 K. This study creates a new route toward hetero‐shaped TEG.