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Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the deadliest cancers. Dissecting the tumor cell proteome from that of the non-tumor cells in the PDAC tumor bulk is critical for tumorigenesis studies, biomarker discovery, and development of therapeutics. However, investigating the tumor cell proteome has proven evasive due to the tumor's extremely complex cellular composition. To circumvent this technical barrier, we have combined bioorthogonal noncanonical amino acid tagging (BONCAT) and data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry (DIA-MS) in an orthotopic PDAC model to specifically identify the tumor cell proteome in vivo. Utilizing the tumor cell-specific expression of a mutant tRNA synthetase transgene, this approach provides tumor cells with the exclusive ability to incorporate an azide-bearing methionine analogue into newly synthesized proteins. The azide-tagged tumor cell proteome is subsequently enriched and purified via a bioorthogonal reaction and then identified and quantified using DIA-MS. Applying this workflow to the orthotopic PDAC model, we have identified thousands of proteins expressed by the tumor cells. Furthermore, by comparing the tumor cell and tumor bulk proteomes, we showed that the approach can distinctly differentiate proteins produced by tumor cells from those of non-tumor cells within the tumor microenvironment. Our study, for the first time, reveals the tumor cell proteome of PDAC under physiological conditions, providing broad applications for tumorigenesis, therapeutics, and biomarker studies in various human cancers.Astaxanthin has great potential commercial value in the feed, cosmetics, and nutraceutical industries due to its strong antioxidant capacity. In this study, the Escherichia coli strain CAR026 with completely balanced metabolic flow was selected as the starting strain for the production of astaxanthin. The expression of β-carotene ketolase (CrtW) and β-carotene hydroxylase (CrtZ), which catalyze the conversion of β-carotene to astaxanthin, was coordinated, and a bottleneck was eliminated by increasing the copy number of crtY in CAR026. The resulting strain Ast007 produced 21.36 mg/L and 4.6 mg/g DCW of astaxanthin in shake flasks. In addition, the molecular chaperone genes groES-groEL were regulated to further improve the astaxanthin yield. The best strain Gro-46 produced 26 mg/L astaxanthin with a yield of 6.17 mg/g DCW in shake flasks and 1.18 g/L astaxanthin after 60 h of fermentation under fed-batch conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest astaxanthin obtained using engineered E. coli to date.Density functional theory was employed in order to elucidate the mechanism and factors that lead to the observed regioselectivity in the dialkylbiarylphosphine (Phos)/Pd-catalyzed C-C cleavage/cross-coupling of an N-fused bicyclo α-hydroxy-β-lactam, 1. We have identified that (a) a complex [(1)(Cs2CO3)]-PdL(PhBr) forms prior to a "base-mediated oxidative addition"; (b) Cs-carbonate (rather than a halide) deprotonates the alcohol substrate in the lowest energy pathway en route to Pd-alcoholate formation; (c) reactions using Phos ligands bearing OCF3 and OCF2H substituents on the "B"-ring are predicted to be selective toward proximal ring opening of 1; (d) steric repulsion between the bottom "B"-ring of the Phos ligand and the piperidine moiety of 1 controls the regioselectivity of the C-C cleavage followed by cross-coupling; and (e) the α- vs β-selective functionalization of the piperidine moiety in 1 is influenced by the bulkiness of the R2-substituent of the coupling partner. These studies will aid in the design of selective functionalizations of the piperidine moiety in 1.Neutron diffraction studies on magnetic solids composed of axially elongated CoO4X2 (X = Cl, Br, S, Se) octahedra show that the ordered magnetic moments of their high-spin Co2+ (d7, S = 3/2) ions are greater than 3 μB, i.e., the spin moment expected for S = 3/2 ions, and increase almost linearly from 3.22 to 4.45 μB as the bond-length ratio rCo-X/rCo-O increases from 1.347 to 1.659 where rCo-X and rCo-O are the Co-X and Co-O bond lengths, respectively. These observations imply that the orbital moments of the Co2+ ions increase linearly from 0.22 to 1.45 μB with increasing the rCo-X/rCo-O ratio from 1.347 to 1.659. We probed this implication by examining the condition for unquenched orbital moment and also by evaluating the magnetic moments of the Co2+ ions based on DFT+U+SOC calculations for those systems of the CoO4X2 octahedra. Our work shows that the orbital moments of the Co2+ ions are essentially quenched and, hence, that the observations of the neutron diffraction studies are not explained by the current theory of magnetic moments. This discrepancy between experiment and theory urges one to check the foundations of the current theory of magnetic moments as well as the current method of neutron diffraction refinements for ordered magnetic structures.The inability to distinguish aggressive from indolent prostate cancer is a longstanding clinical problem. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) tests and digital rectal exams cannot differentiate these forms. Because only ∼10% of diagnosed prostate cancer cases are aggressive, existing practice often results in overtreatment including unnecessary surgeries that degrade patients' quality of life. Here, we describe a fast microfluidic immunoarray optimized to determine 8-proteins simultaneously in 5 μL of blood serum for prostate cancer diagnostics. Using polymeric horseradish peroxidase (poly-HRP, 400 HRPs) labels to provide large signal amplification and limits of detection in the sub-fg mL-1 range, a protocol was devised for the optimization of the fast, accurate assays of 100-fold diluted serum samples. Analysis of 130 prostate cancer patient serum samples revealed that some members of the protein panel can distinguish aggressive from indolent cancers. ML349 research buy Logistic regression was used to identify a subset of the panel, combining biomarker proteins ETS-related gene protein (ERG), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), pigment epithelial-derived factor (PEDF), and serum monocyte differentiation antigen (CD-14) to predict whether a given patient should be referred for biopsy, which gave a much better predictive accuracy than PSA alone. This represents the first prostate cancer blood test that can predict which patients will have a high biopsy Gleason score, a standard pathology score used to grade tumors.