Semiconductor photocatalysts are hardly employed for overall water splitting beyond 700 nm, which is due to both thermodynamic aspects and activation barriers. Metallic materials as photocatalysts ...are known to overcome this limitation through interband transitions for creating electron–hole pairs; however, the application of metallic photocatalysts for overall water splitting has never been fulfilled. Black tungsten nitride is now employed as a metallic photocatalyst for overall water splitting at wavelengths of up to 765 nm. Experimental and theoretical results together confirm that metallic properties play a substantial role in exhibiting photocatalytic activity under red‐light irradiation for tungsten nitride. This work represents the first red‐light responsive photocatalyst for overall water splitting, and may open a promising venue in searching of metallic materials as efficient photocatalysts for solar energy utilization.
Black tungsten nitride can be employed as a metallic photocatalyst for overall water splitting at wavelengths of up to 765 nm. Experimental and theoretical results together confirm that metallic properties play a substantial role in exhibiting photocatalytic activity under red‐light irradiation for tungsten nitride. CB=conduction band.
Protein–protein interactions (PPIs) describe the direct physical contact of two proteins that usually results in specific biological functions or regulatory processes. The characterization and study ...of PPIs through the investigation of their pattern and principle have remained a question in biological studies. Various experimental and computational methods have been used for PPI studies, but most of them are based on the sequence similarity with current validated PPI participators or cellular localization patterns. Most methods ignore the fact that PPIs are defined by their specific biological functions. In this study, we constructed a novel rule-based computational method using gene ontology and KEGG pathway annotation of PPI participators that correspond to the complicated biological effects of PPIs. Our newly presented computational method identified a group of biological functions that are tightly associated with PPIs and provided a new function-based tool for PPI studies in a rule manner.
•An explainable rule-based machine learning model of protein-protein interaction was built.•Each protein was represented by a binary GO and KEGG annotation vector.•We used the sum and the absolute difference of two protein vectors to represent a protein-protein pair.•The key GO and KEGG function features were identified using feature selection method.•The prediction rules of protein-protein interactions were learned using decision tree.
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a combined form of the bilinear Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation and the bilinear extended (2+1)-dimensional shallow water wave equation, which is linked with a ...novel (2+1)-dimensional nonlinear model. This model might be applied to describe the evolution of nonlinear waves in the ocean. Under the effect of a novel combination of nonlinearity and dispersion terms, two cases of lump solutions to the (2+1)-dimensional nonlinear model are derived by searching for the quadratic function solutions to the bilinear form. Moreover, the one-lump-multi-stripe solutions are constructed by the test function combining quadratic functions and multiple exponential functions. The one-lump-multi-soliton solutions are derived by the test function combining quadratic functions and multiple hyperbolic cosine functions. Dynamic behaviors of the lump solutions and mixed solutions are analyzed via numerical simulation. The result is of importance to provide efficient expressions to model nonlinear waves and explain some interaction mechanism of nonlinear waves in physics.
The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a crucial prognosis predictor following several major operations. However, the association between NLR and the outcome after hip fracture surgery is ...unclear. In this meta-analysis, we investigated the correlation between NLR and postoperative mortality in geriatric patients following hip surgery.
PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library, and Google Scholar were searched for studies up to June 2021 reporting the correlation between NLR and postoperative mortality in elderly patients undergoing surgery for hip fracture. Data from studies reporting the mean of NLR and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled. Both long-term (≥ 1 year) and short-term (≤ 30 days) mortality rates were included for analysis.
Eight retrospective studies comprising a total of 1563 patients were included. Both preoperative and postoperative NLRs (mean difference MD: 2.75, 95% CI: 0.23-5.27; P = 0.03 and MD: 2.36, 95% CI: 0.51-4.21; P = 0.01, respectively) were significantly higher in the long-term mortality group than in the long-term survival group. However, no significant differences in NLR were noted between the short-term mortality and survival groups (MD: - 1.02, 95% CI: - 3.98 to 1.93; P = 0.5).
Higher preoperative and postoperative NLRs were correlated with a higher risk of long-term mortality following surgery for hip fracture in the geriatric population, suggesting the prognostic value of NLR for long-term survival. Further studies with well-controlled confounders are warranted to clarify the predictive value of NLR in clinical practice in geriatric patients with hip fracture.
Transition‐metal‐catalyzed copolymerization of ethylene with carbon monoxide affords polyketones materials with excellent mechanical strength, photodegradability, surface and barrier properties. ...Unlike the widely used and rather expensive Pd catalysts, Ni‐catalyzed carbonylative polymerization is very difficult since the strong binding affinity of CO to Ni deactivates the highly electrophilic metal center easily. In this study, various cationic P,O‐coordinated Ni complexes were synthesized using the electronic modulation strategy, and the catalyst with strong electron‐donating substituents exhibits an excellent productivity of 104 g polymer (g Ni)−1, which represents a rare discovery that a Ni complex could operate with such exceptional efficiency in comparison with Pd catalysts. Notably, those Ni catalysts were also efficient for terpolymerization of ethylene, propylene with CO for producing commercial polyketone materials with low melting temperatures and easy processibility.
The installation of substituents with strong electron‐donating capacity on diphosphazane monoxide ligands provides a highly efficient cationic Ni catalyst. It exhibits a remarkable productivity of 31 150 g PK (g Ni)−1 for alternating copolymerization of ethylene with CO. The use of non‐noble Ni catalysts for efficient synthesis of polyketone co‐ and ter‐polymers in the industry renders this methodology extremely appealing.
We describe the identification and characterization of circular intronic long noncoding RNAs in human cells, which accumulate owing to a failure in debranching. The formation of such circular ...intronic RNAs (ciRNAs) can be recapitulated using expression vectors, and their processing depends on a consensus motif containing a 7 nt GU-rich element near the 5′ splice site and an 11 nt C-rich element close to the branchpoint site. In addition, we show that ciRNAs are abundant in the nucleus and have little enrichment for microRNA target sites. Importantly, knockdown of ciRNAs led to the reduced expression of their parent genes. One abundant such RNA, ci-ankrd52, largely accumulates to its sites of transcription, associates with elongation Pol II machinery, and acts as a positive regulator of Pol II transcription. This study thus suggests a cis-regulatory role of noncoding intronic transcripts on their parent coding genes.
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•Circular intronic RNAs accumulate in human cells owing to escape from debranching•Their processing depends on RNA motifs near 5′ splice site and branchpoint•ciRNAs regulate parent gene expression by modulating elongation Pol II activity
Messenger RNA (mRNA) and long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) are two main subgroups of RNAs participating in transcription regulation. With the development of next generation sequencing, increasing lncRNAs ...are identified. Many hidden functions of lncRNAs are also revealed. However, the differences in lncRNAs and mRNAs are still unclear. For example, we need to determine whether lncRNAs have stronger tissue specificity than mRNAs and which tissues have more lncRNAs expressed. To investigate such tissue expression difference between mRNAs and lncRNAs, we encoded 9339 lncRNAs and 14,294 mRNAs with 71 expression features, including 69 maximum expression features for 69 types of cells, one feature for the maximum expression in all cells, and one expression specificity feature that was measured as Chao-Shen-corrected Shannon's entropy. With advanced feature selection methods, such as maximum relevance minimum redundancy, incremental feature selection methods, and random forest algorithm, 13 features presented the dissimilarity of lncRNAs and mRNAs. The 11 cell subtype features indicated which cell types of the lncRNAs and mRNAs had the largest expression difference. Such cell subtypes may be the potential cell models for lncRNA identification and function investigation. The expression specificity feature suggested that the cell types to express mRNAs and lncRNAs were different. The maximum expression feature suggested that the maximum expression levels of mRNAs and lncRNAs were different. In addition, the rule learning algorithm, repeated incremental pruning to produce error reduction algorithm, was also employed to produce effective classification rules for classifying lncRNAs and mRNAs, which gave competitive results compared with random forest and could give a clearer picture of different expression patterns between lncRNAs and mRNAs. Results not only revealed the heterogeneous expression pattern of lncRNA and mRNA, but also gave rise to the development of a new tool to identify the potential biological functions of such RNA subgroups.
We focus on the localized characteristics of lump and interaction solutions to two extended Jimbo–Miwa equations. Based on the Hirota bilinear method and the test function method, we construct the ...exact solutions to the extended equations including lump solutions, lump–kink solutions, and two other types of interaction solutions, by solving the under-determined nonlinear system of algebraic equations for associated parameters. Finally, analysis and graphical simulation are presented to show the dynamical characteristics of our solutions and the interaction behaviors are revealed.
Cytosine base editors (CBEs) generate C-to-T nucleotide substitutions in genomic target sites without inducing double-strand breaks. However, CBEs such as BE3 can cause genome-wide off-target changes ...via sgRNA-independent DNA deamination. By leveraging the orthogonal R-loops generated by SaCas9 nickase to mimic actively transcribed genomic loci that are more susceptible to cytidine deaminase, we set up a high-throughput assay for assessing sgRNA-independent off-target effects of CBEs in rice protoplasts. The reliability of this assay was confirmed by the whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of 10 base editors in regenerated rice plants. The R-loop assay was used to screen a series of rationally designed A3Bctd-BE3 variants for improved specificity. We obtained 2 efficient CBE variants, A3Bctd-VHM-BE3 and A3Bctd-KKR-BE3, and the WGS analysis revealed that these new CBEs eliminated sgRNA-independent DNA off-target edits in rice plants. Moreover, these 2 base editor variants were more precise at their target sites by producing fewer multiple C edits.
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•The nSaCas9-mediated R-loop assay enables specificity analysis of CBEs in plants•A3Bctd, a truncated APOBEC3B deaminase, is rationally designed to generate new CBEs•The 25 A3Bctd variants are screened with the R-loop assay•A3Bctd-VHM-BE3 and A3Bctd-KKR-BE3 exhibit high specificity and precision in plants
Jin et al. establish nSaCas9-mediated orthogonal R-loop assay, a rapid, high-throughput, and inexpensive method for assessing CBEs in plants. Using it, they assess the specificity of 25 rationally designed A3Bctd-BE3s, identifying A3Bctd-VHM-BE3 and A3Bctd-KKR-BE3 with high specificity and precision.
The gut microbiome is shaped and modified by the polymorphisms of microorganisms in the intestinal tract. Its composition shows strong individual specificity and may play a crucial role in the human ...digestive system and metabolism. Several factors can affect the composition of the gut microbiome, such as eating habits, living environment, and antibiotic usage. Thus, various races are characterized by different gut microbiome characteristics. In this present study, we studied the gut microbiomes of three different races, including individuals of Asian, European and American races. The gut microbiome and the expression levels of gut microbiome genes were analyzed in these individuals. Advanced feature selection methods (minimum redundancy maximum relevance and incremental feature selection) and four machine-learning algorithms (random forest, nearest neighbor algorithm, sequential minimal optimization, Dagging) were employed to capture key differentially expressed genes. As a result, sequential minimal optimization was found to yield the best performance using the 454 genes, which could effectively distinguish the gut microbiomes of different races. Our analyses of extracted genes support the widely accepted hypotheses that eating habits, living environments and metabolic levels in different races can influence the characteristics of the gut microbiome.
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