Peracetic acid (PAA) is a widely used disinfectant, and combined UV light with PAA (i.e., UV/PAA) can be a novel advanced oxidation process for elimination of water contaminants. This study is among the first to evaluate the photolysis of PAA under UV irradiation (254 nm) and degradation of pharmaceuticals by UV/PAA. PAA exhibited high quantum yields (Φ = 1.20 and 2.09 mol·Einstein for the neutral (PAA) and anionic (PAA) species, respectively) and also showed scavenging effects on hydroxyl radicals (k = (9.33 ± 0.3) × 10 M·s and k = (9.97 ± 2.3) × 10 M·s). The pharmaceuticals were persistent with PAA alone but degraded rapidly by UV/PAA. The contributions of direct photolysis, hydroxyl radicals, and other radicals to pharmaceutical degradation under UV/PAA were systematically evaluated. Results revealed that OH was the primary radical responsible for the degradation of carbamazepine and ibuprofen by UV/PAA, whereas CHC(═O)O and/or CHC(═O)O contributed significantly to the degradation of naproxen and 2-naphthoxyacetic acid by UV/PAA in addition to OH. The carbon-centered radicals generated from UV/PAA showed strong reactivity to oxidize certain naphthyl compounds. The new knowledge obtained in this study will facilitate further research and development of UV/PAA as a new degradation strategy for water contaminants.

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Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) has a high recurrence and mortality rate. Because of a poor understanding of the mechanism for this disease, treatment regimens have remained limited. Vimentin, one of the major cytoskeletal proteins, is associated with cellular structure. However, the function of vimentin in GBM is still undefined. In the present study, we investigated the expression level of vimentin in 179 GBM tissues using immunohistochemistry. We found that the vimentin expression level was associated with the time to progression (P=0.029). A Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with high vimentin expression had a significantly shorter overall survival (P=0.0002) and progression-free survival (P=0.0001) compared with those with low expression. Furthermore, in vitro experiments showed that withaferin-A, a chemical inhibitor of vimentin, could inhibit GBM cell migration and invasion activity when its concentrations were <0.5 μM, and higher concentrations of withaferin-A could decrease the viability of U251and U87 cells significantly. In conclusion, our results indicated that vimentin may play an important role in the progression of GBM.

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