Survivin, a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) family, is abundantly expressed in a variety of cancer cells, including lung cancer cells, resulting in low sensitivity of these cells to various apoptotic stimuli; Cisplatin (CDDP), a commonly used chemotherapeutic agent of several cancers, has a major limitation because of its toxicity at high concentration. In the present study, we constructed a plasmid encoding Survivin shRNA to knockdown survivin with low dose DDP both in vitro and in vivo. The specificity and potency of the shRNA were validated by western blot, flow cytometric and MTT in H292 lung cancers cells. In vivo, therapy experiments were conducted on nude mice bearing H292 xenograft tumors. The Survivin shRNA expression plasmid was administered systemically in combination with low-dose CDDP on a frequent basis. Assessments of angiogenesis, cell proliferation and apoptosis were performed by using immunohistochemistry against CD31, Ki67 and TUNEL assays, respectively. The results revealed that treatment with the Survivin shRNA plus low-dose CDDP reduced volume by approximately 83.13% compared with the blank control (P < 0.01), accompanied with angiogenesis inhibition (p < 0.01), tumor cell proliferation suppression (p < 0.05) and apoptosis induction (p < 0.01). Moreover, combination treatment also significantly reduced the mean tumor volume compared with other treatment alone (p < 0.05). Taken together, our study suggested that silencing of survivin sensitized H292 lung cancer cells to chemotherapy of CDDP, suggesting potential applications of the combined approach in the treatment of lung cancer.

This study investigates the optimized condition for enhancing biogas production in the anaerobic digestion of fallen poplar leaves. Two experiments were conducted: (1) The calcium hydroxide concentration, bacteria concentration, and composting time were used as three parameters to optimize the fermentation pretreatment condition and contrasting tests were performed; and (2) a series of fermentation tests were conducted to explore the best process parameters and biogas production characteristics. The results showed that a biological and chemical combined pretreatment effectively improved the biogas productivity of poplar leaves as fermentation substrates, and the parameter that had the greatest effect during anaerobic digestion was temperature followed by the solid concentration and pH value. The optimal pretreatment condition was: alkali concentration 4.61%, bacterial concentration 0.20‰, and a composting time of 6.6 days. By considering the factors that affect the fermentation of poplar leaves and the cumulative gas production, the optimum condition for poplar leave digestion was found to be a temperature of 30°C, a pH of 7, and a 10% solid concentration. In addition, the methane yield of the optimized trial was well fitted using the modified Gompertz model. Graphical abstract

In view of the shortcomings of pure electric vehicle with a single energy source in terms of battery life and protection of power battery, supercapacitor is used as auxiliary energy source to form a dual energy source system, and effective energy management strategies are used to reduce the consumption of power batteries and to protect the power battery from the impact of high current to extend its service life. An energy management strategy based on rule control and fuzzy control is designed to optimize the energy management of the dual energy sources system. The effectiveness of the strategy is verified through the simulation of CRUISE and MATLAB/Simulink software. The simulation results show that the fuzzy control strategy has a better energy management effect. Compared with a single energy source and a rule-based strategy, the state of charge (State of charge, SOC) consumption of the power battery is reduced by 2.2% and 0.5% under the Driving conditions of passenger cars in China (CLTC-P) respectively. The peak value of output current has been reduced by 39.8% and 22.7% respectively.