A novel three-dimensional graphene surface-mounted nickel-based metal organic framework (3D Gr/Ni-MOF) electrocatalyst was fabricated via freeze-drying technique and ultrasonic assisted method. The ...morphology, elemental composition, crystal structure, functional group structure, specific surface area and pore size of the composite were analyzed by SEM, EDS, XRD, FTIR, and BET. A series of conditional experiments from the aspects of organic ligand screening, ultrasonic time, molar ratio of metal salt to ligand, and porous graphene loading were carried out to optimize 3D Gr/Ni-MOF composite. Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) catalytic performance, OER process kinetics, stability and the deeper causes of enhanced OER performances of 3D Gr/Ni-MOF were also investigated via a group of electrochemical methods. The experiment results showed that 3D Gr/Ni-MOF composite prepared with 2,5-pyridinedicarboxylic acid as ligand, 1:1 M ratio of nickel acetate to ligand, 10 mg of 3D Gr loading and 8 h of ultrasonic process exhibited the most excellent OER activity. Its overpotential of 370 mV was much smaller than rGO/Ni-MOF, Ni-MOF and 3D Gr prepared under the same conditions, and as non-precious metal catalyst, it has the traits of low cost, easy preparation, high activity and durable stability.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Most of the contamination source localization methods for water distribution systems (WDSs) assume the availability of accurate water quality models and multi‐parameter online sensors, which are ...often out of reach of many water utilities. To address this, a novel manual grab‐sampling method (MGSM) is developed to effectively and efficiently locate continuous contamination sources in a WDS using a dynamic and cyclical sampling strategy. The grab samples are collected at a pre‐specified number of hydrants by the corresponding teams followed by laboratory tests. The MGSM optimizes the sampling plan at each cycle by making the probability of contamination source(s) in each sub‐network as equal as possible, where sub‐networks are determined by the selected hydrants and current flow pipe directions. The CS's size is reduced at each cycle by exploiting sample testing results obtained in the previous cycle until there are no further hydrants to sample from. Two real‐world WDSs are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MGSM. The results obtained show that the MGSM can significantly reduce the spatial range of the CS (to about 5% of the entire WDS) for a range of scenarios including multiple contamination sources and pipe flow direction changes. We found that an optimal number of sampling teams exists for a given WDS, representing a balanced trade‐off between detection efficiency and sampling/testing budgets. Due to its relative simplicity, the proposed MGSM can be used in engineering practice straightaway and it represents a viable alternative to the methods associated with water quality models and sensors.
Key Points
A new manual grab‐sampling method is proposed to localize continuous water distribution system (WDS) contamination sources
The new method employs a dynamic and cyclical sampling strategy based on WDS hydrants
Proposed method is effective and efficient to localize contamination sources for many scenarios
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Lignocellulose is an abundant waste resource and has been considered as a promising material for production of biofuels or other valuable bio-products. Currently, one of the major bottlenecks in the ...economic utilization of lignocellulosic materials is the cost-efficiency of converting lignocellulose into soluble sugars for fermentation. One way to address this problem is to seek superior lignocellulose degradation enzymes or further improve current production yields of lignocellulases. In the present study, the lignocellulose degradation capacity of a thermophilic fungus
Chaetomium thermophilum
was firstly evaluated and compared to that of the biotechnological workhorse
Trichoderma reesei.
The data demonstrated that compared to
T. reesei, C. thermophilum
displayed substantially higher cellulose-utilizing efficiency with relatively lower production of cellulases, indicating that better cellulases might exist in
C. thermophilum
. Comparison of the protein secretome between
C. thermophilum
and
T. reesei
showed that the secreted protein categories were quite different in these two species. In addition, to prove that cellulases in
C. thermophilum
had better enzymatic properties, the major cellulase cellobiohydrolase I (CBH1) from
C. thermophilum
and
T. reesei
were firstly characterized, respectively. The data showed that the specific activity of
C. thermophilum
CBH1 was about 4.5-fold higher than
T. reesei
CBH1 in a wide range of temperatures and pH. To explore whether increasing CBH1 activity in
T. reesei
could contribute to improving the overall cellulose-utilizing efficiency of
T. reesei
,
T. reesei cbh1
gene was replaced with
C. thermophilum cbh1
gene by integration of
C. thermophilum cbh1
gene into
T. reesei cbh1
gene locus. The data surprisingly showed that this gene replacement not only increased the cellobiohydrolase activities by around 4.1-fold, but also resulted in stronger induction of other cellulases genes, which caused the filter paper activities, Azo-CMC activities and β-glucosidase activities increased by about 2.2, 1.9, and 2.3-fold, respectively. The study here not only provided new resources of superior cellulases genes and new strategy to improve the cellulase production in
T. reesei
, but also contribute to opening the path for fundamental research on
C. thermophilum.
Transient receptor potential (TRP) channel Yvc1 was related with hyphal growth, oxidative stress response, and pathogenicity. Calcineurin subunit Cnb1 was activated immediately in yeasts when exposed ...to severe stimulation. However, the relationship between Yvc1 and Cnb1-governed calcium ions and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response remains unrevealed. In this study, we found that the mutant
Δ/Δ was sensitive to TN, which was related with the overexpression of membrane calcium ion channels that could increase the cytosol calcium concentration. However, the growth of the
Δ/Δ
Δ/Δ mutant was recovered and its cell vitality was better than the
Δ/Δ strain. Meanwhile, the cellular calcium concentration was decreased and its fluctuation was weakened under ER stress in the
Δ/Δ
Δ/Δ strain. To verify the regulation role of Yvc1 in the calcium concentration, we found that the addition of CaCl
led to the worse viability, while the growth state was relieved under the treatment of EGTA in the
Δ/Δ strain. In conclusion, the deletion of
could reduce the cellular calcium and relieve the ER stress sensitivity of the
Δ/Δ strain. Thereby, our findings shed a novel light on the relationship between the Yvc1-governed cellular calcium concentration and ER stress response in
.
Lipid droplets (LDs) are intracellular organelles that play important roles in cellular lipid metabolism; they change their sizes and numbers in response to both intracellular and extracellular ...signals. Changes in LD size reflect lipid synthesis and degradation and affect many cellular activities, including energy supply and membrane synthesis. Here, we focused on the function of the endoplasmic reticulum-plasma membrane tethering protein Ice2 in LD dynamics in the fungal pathogen
(
). Nile red staining and size quantification showed that the LD size increased in the
Δ/Δ mutant, indicating the critical role of Ice2 in the regulation of LD dynamics. A lipid content analysis further demonstrated that the mutant had lower phosphatidylcholine levels. As revealed with GFP labeling and fluorescence microscopy, the methyltransferase Cho2, which is involved in phosphatidylcholine synthesis, had poorer localization in the plasma membrane in the mutant than in the wild-type strain. Interestingly, the addition of the phosphatidylcholine precursor choline led to the recovery of normal-sized LDs in the mutant. These results indicated that Ice2 regulates LD size by controlling intracellular phosphatidylcholine levels and that endoplasmic reticulum-plasma membrane tethering proteins play a role in lipid metabolism regulation in
. This study provides significant findings for further investigation of the lipid metabolism in fungi.
Heat-stable antifungal factor (HSAF) isolated from
has shown a broad-spectrum of antifungal activities. However, little is known about its mode of action. In this study, we used the model filamentous ...fungus
to investigate the antifungal mechanism of HSAF. We first used HSAF to treat the
strain at different time points. Spore germination, growth phenotype and differential gene expression analysis were conducted by utilizing global transcriptional profiling combined with genetic and physiological analyses. Our data showed that HSAF could significantly inhibit the germination and aerial hyphae growth of
RNA-seq analysis showed that a group of genes, associated with cell wall formation and remodeling, were highly activated. Screening of
gene deletion mutants combined with scanning electron microscopic observation revealed that three fungal cell wall integrity-related genes played an important role in the interaction between
and
In addition, Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA), accompanied by confocal microscopy observation revealed that HSAF could trigger autophagy-mediated degradation and eventually result in cell death in
. The findings of this work provided new insights into the interactions between the predatory
and its fungal prey.
DNA damage activates the DNA damage response and autophagy in
; however, the relationship between the DNA damage response and DNA damage-induced autophagy in
remains unclear. Mec1-Rad53 signaling is ...a critical pathway in the DNA damage response, but its role in DNA damage-induced autophagy and pathogenicity in
remains to be further explored. In this study, we compared the function of autophagy-related (Atg) proteins in DNA damage-induced autophagy and traditional macroautophagy and explored the role of Mec1-Rad53 signaling in regulating DNA damage-induced autophagy and pathogenicity. We found that core Atg proteins are required for these two types of autophagy, while the function of Atg17 is slightly different. Our results showed that Mec1-Rad53 signaling specifically regulates DNA damage-induced autophagy but has no effect on macroautophagy. The recruitment of Atg1 and Atg13 to phagophore assembly sites (PAS) was significantly inhibited in the
Δ/Δ and
Δ/Δ strains. The formation of autophagic bodies was obviously affected in the
Δ/Δ and
Δ/Δ strains. We found that DNA damage does not induce mitophagy and ER autophagy. We also identified two regulators of DNA damage-induced autophagy, Psp2 and Dcp2, which regulate DNA damage-induced autophagy by affecting the protein levels of Atg1, Atg13, Mec1, and Rad53. The deletion of Mec1 or Rad53 significantly reduces the ability of
to systematically infect mice and colonize the kidneys, and it makes
more susceptible to being killed by macrophages.
The removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) has become a hot research topic in the field of environmental engineering in recent years. In this work, a simple pyrolysis method was designed ...to prepare a high-performance biochar-loaded zero-valent copper (CuC) material for the catalytic degradation of antibiotics ENR by PMS. The results showed that 10 mg/L of ENR was completely removed within 30 min at an initial pH of 3, CuC 0.3 g/L, and PMS 2 mmol/L. Further studies confirmed that the reactive oxygen species (ROS) involved in ENR degradation are ·OH, SO4−·, 1O2, and O2−. Among them, 1O2 played a major role in degradation, whereas O2−· played a key role in the indirect generation of 1O2. On the one hand, CuC adsorbed and activated PMS to generate ·OH, SO4−· and O2−·. O2−· was unstable and reacted rapidly with H2O and ·OH to generate large amounts of 1O2. On the other hand, both the self-decomposition of PMS and direct activation of PMS by C=O on biochar also generated 1O2. Five byproducts were generated during degradation and eventually mineralized to CO2, H2O, NO3−, and F−. This study provides a facile strategy and new insights into the biochar-loaded zero-valent transition-metal-catalyzed PMS degradation of CECs.
With the advent of the era of big data, people’s lives have undergone earth-shaking changes, not only getting rid of the cumbersome traditional data collection but also collecting and sorting ...information directly from people’s footprints on social networks. This paper explores and analyzes the privacy issues in current social networks and puts forward the protection strategies of users’ privacy data based on data mining algorithms so as to truly ensure that users’ privacy in social networks will not be illegally infringed in the era of big data. The data mining algorithm proposed in this paper can protect the user’s identity from being identified and the user’s private information from being leaked. Using differential privacy protection methods in social networks can effectively protect users’ privacy information in data publishing and data mining. Therefore, it is of great significance to study data publishing, data mining methods based on differential privacy protection, and their application in social networks.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Atomic‐scale interface engineering in BaTiO3@TO2 nanofibers (TiO2 nanofibers embedded with BaTiO3 nanoparticles) leads to concurrent enhancement of electric displacement and breakdown strength in ...poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)‐based nanocomposites. An ultrahigh energy density of ≈20 J cm–3 is achieved with only 3 vol% nanofibers, which is by far the highest discharged energy density of PVDF‐based nanocomposites.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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