A light-promoted Ni-catalyzed cyanation of aryl halides employing 1,4-dicyanobenzene as a cyanating agent is reported. A broad array of aryl bromides, chlorides, and druglike molecules could be converted into their corresponding nitriles (65 examples). Mechanistic studies suggest that upon irradiation, the oxidative addition product Ni(II)(dtbbpy)(p-C 6 H 4 CN)(CN) undergoes homolytic cleavage of the Ni−aryl bond to generate an aryl radical and a Ni(I)−CN species, the latter of which initiates subsequent cyanation reactions.

Background Due to their inherent role in cell function, long non‐coding ribonucleic acids (lncRNAs) mediate changes in the microenvironment, and thereby participate in the development of cellular senescence. Aims This study aimed to identify cellular senescence‐related lncRNAs that could predict the prognosis of liver cancer. Methods and Results Gene expression and clinical data were downloaded from the UCSC Xena platform, ICGC, and TCGA databases. Cox regression and LASSO regression were used to establish a cellular senescence‐related lncRNA model. ROC curves and Kaplan–Meier survival curves were then constructed to predict patient prognosis. Cox regression analysis and clinical characteristics were used to evaluate the capability of the model. Tumor mutational burden and tumor‐infiltrating immune cell analyses were subsequently performed in the risk subgroups and the samples in the entire cohort were reclustered. Finally, potential small molecule immune‐targeted drugs were identified based on the model. The cellular senescence‐related prognostic model that was constructed based on AGAP11 and FAM182B. Along with the results of Cox regression and Lasso regression, the risk score was found to be an independent factor for predicting overall survival in cohorts. In the subgroup analysis, the prognosis of the low‐risk group in each cohort was significantly higher than that of the high‐risk group; the area under temporal ROC curves and clinical ROC curves were all greater than 0.65, respectively. C‐index shows that the risk scores are greater than 0.6, showing the stability of the model. The high‐risk group demonstrated lower tumor microenvironment and higher tumor mutational burden scores, further verifying the reliability of the model grouping results. Analysis of tumor‐infiltrating immune cells indicated that CD8+ and γδ T cells were more abundant among patients in the low‐risk group; cluster reorganization indicated that the two groups had different prognoses and proportions of immune cells. The p value of potential drugs predicted based on the expression of model lncRNAs were all less than .05, demonstrating the potential of model lncRNAs as therapeutic targets to some extent. Conclusion A prognostic model based on cellular senescence‐associated lncRNAs was established and this may be used as a potential biomarker for the prognosis assessment of liver cancer patients.

Our previous study demonstrated that paeoveitol D, a benzofuran compound isolated from Paeonia veitchii, displayed activity on MT1 and MT2 receptors with agonistic ratios of 57.5% and 51.6 % at...

Our previous study demonstrated that guaiane-type sesquiterpenoid ludartin showed potent antihepatoma activity against two human hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines, HepG2 and Huh7, with IC 50 values of 32.7 and 34.3 μM, respectively. In this study, 34 ludartin derivatives were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their cytotoxic activities against HepG2 and Huh7 cell lines using an MTT assay in vitro. As a result, 17 compounds increased the activity against HepG2 cells, and 20 compounds enhanced the activity against Huh7 cells; 14 derivatives 2, 4-7, 9, 11, 17, 24, 28-30 and 32-33 were superior to ludartin on both HepG2 and Huh7 cells. In particular, dimeric derivative 33 as the most active compound showed 20-fold and 17-fold enhancement of cytotoxicity against HepG2 and Huh7 cells compared to that of ludartin. These results suggested that compound 33 could serve as a promising lead compound against liver cancer. Graphical abstract