•The scale composition after oxidation in the atmosphere containing 2.0 % SO2 + 5.0 % O2 mainly depends on temperature but not on the Cr content.•The FeS formation temperature was 915 ℃, while its ...melting temperature was 925 ℃. Two mechanisms of the FeS formation wrer proposed.•The lamellar FeS + Fe-S-O compounds were the products of eutectic transformation of molten FeS during the cooling process.
In this study, we examined the microstructure and composition of the scales formed after exposures from 825 °C through to 950 °C for 60 min in the atmosphere containing 2.0 % SO2 + 5.0 % O2 gas. The scale composition after oxidation mainly depends on temperature but not on the Cr content. The FeS formation temperature was 915 ℃, while its melting temperature was 925 ℃. Two mechanisms of the FeS formation are proposed. The eutectic transformation of molten FeS occurred during the subsequent cooling process, resulting in lamellar FeS + Fe-S-O compounds. The study indicated that Cr exhibits oxidation but not sulfidation resistance.
Lysine specific demethylase 5B gene (KDM5B, also known as JARID1B or PLU-1), encoding an enzyme of the lysine-specific histone demethylase family, has been reported to regulate androgen receptor ...transcriptional activity and male reproduction. To fully study the expression characteristics and genetic effects of pig KDM5B gene, the objective of this study was to investigate the mRNA expression profiles of KDM5B among different tissues and testicular cells (spermatogonia stem cells, SSCs; sertoli cells, SCs; leydig cells, LCs), as well as to explore the insertion/deletion (indel) variations of this gene. Expression analysis results revealed that the KDM5B gene was highly expressed in testis than other tissues in 7-day-old piglet (P < 0.01). In particular, this gene was highest expressed in testis of adult boar (P < 0.01). Furthermore, the KDM5B mRNA expression level in SSCs was significantly higher than those in LCs and SCs (P < 0.01). Besides, a 35-bp indel was first verified in the intron 11 of pig KDM5B gene, and the animals with insertion/insertion genotype exhibited superior testicular weight and testicular short perimeter than those with other genotypes (P < 0.05) in 40-day-old Landrace pigs. Together, these findings suggest that KDM5B plays a crucial role in male fertility and the 35-bp indel can be used for marker-assisted selection of boar.
•The KDM5B gene was highly expressed in testis of male piglets and adult pigs (P < 0.01).•The pig KDM5B gene was highly expressed in spermatogonia stem cells (P < 0.01).•The 35-bp indel was firstly verified to associate with pig testicular morphology traits (P < 0.05).
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The applications of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) in rare or common diseases treatment have garnered great attention in recent years. Nevertheless, challenges associated with ...stability and bioavailability still persist, hampering the efficiency of ASOs. This work presents an ASO prodrug with parallel G-quadruplex assembly and lysosome escape capabilities for oncotherapy. Our findings revealed that the end-assembled quadruplex structure effectively shielded the ASO from enzymatic degradation. Meanwhile, the conjugation of maleimide within the quadruplex enhanced cellular uptake, potentially offering an alternative cell entry mechanism that circumvents lysosome involvement. Notably, an optimized molecule, Mal2-G4-ASO, exhibited remarkable therapeutic effects both in vitro and in vivo. This work presents a promising avenue for enhancing the activity of nucleic acid drugs in oncotherapy and potentially other disease contexts.
Summary Genetic studies over the past 15 years have revolutionized our understanding towards the etiology of Parkinson's disease (PD). These studies have discovered many disease-linked genetic loci ...(PARK 1 to 18), which are now being interrogated for cellular pathways contributing to PD. Various pathogenic pathways were proposed but validation of each pathway awaits rigorous experimental testing. Here we review recent progress in understanding the influence of disease risk genes on cellular functions, specifically, autophagy pathways. Autophagy is a cell self-eating, lysosomal degradation system that plays an important role in cell homeostasis and survival. Neurons are post-mitotic cells and particularly vulnerable to the impairment of autophagic degradation due to their inability to redistribute damaged proteins and organelles to daughter cells. Emerging evidence has implicated dysfunctional autophagy in a growing number of neurodegenerative diseases including PD. We will also discuss the prospect of intervening autophagy pathways as a potential strategy to treat PD.
Polysaccharides based on carboxymethyl β-cyclodextrin (β-CD-COOH) and chitosan (CS) were synthesized by amidation reaction between -COOH on β-CD-COOH and -NH2 on CS to develop the electrochemical ...sensors. The sensor was constructed by combining the advantages of the polysaccharide CS-β-CD and the guest molecule and the 3D N, S co-doped graphene (NSG). CS-β-CD was used as chiral selector can provide a large number of chiral sites and NSG served as base material can improve electrochemical signal. The enantioselectivity of the chiral platform for tryptophan (Trp) enantiomers was studied by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). NSG/CS-β-CD modified GCE showed higher electrochemical signal for L-Trp than D-Trp. When forming diastereoisomeric enantiomer-selector complexes between Trp isomers and NSG/CS-β-CD, there showed different steric hindrances, which made it easier for L-Trp to penetrate the modified electrode film to reach the electrode surface, thus producing a larger peak current. UV-vis further proved that CS-β-CD has higher binding energy to D-Trp. In addition, the proposed electrochemical sensor can be used to detect actual samples. Therefore, the proposed electrochemical chiral interface can be used as a promising chiral sensing platform for enantiomer recognition of chiral compounds.
Abstract The electrophysiological interface is essential for understanding electrical activities within biological organisms and human‐machine interaction. However, traditional preformed ...bioelectrodes show insufficient interface contact with hairy and irregular skin, causing signal attenuation and distortion. Here, an on‐skin‐formed silk protein bioelectrode is reported with a conformable and robust interface, achieving a high signal‐to‐noise ratio for electromyographic signals, showing up to a 38.9% increase compared to traditional ones. The fluid‐gel transition of silk protein is induced by a gelling agent composed of ethanol and sodium alginate, leading to a conformable and seamless interface with hairy and irregular human skin, thus resulting in a high signal‐to‐noise ratio. The developed bioelectrode can record electrophysiological signals stably, even underwater. Additionally, human‐machine interaction using electromyographic signals is designed to precisely control the model car's motion trajectory. This work presents an effective method for developing a seamless and conformable electrophysiological interface in bioelectronics.
Hydrogels can respond to changes in humidity or temperature, while elastomers can resist structural collapse due to dehydration or external force application. A hybrid bilayer of hydrogel-elastomers ...while retaining the merits of both the hydrogels and elastomers has emerged as a promising stimuli-responsive micro-actuator. However, the preparation of a hydrogel-elastomer micro-actuator requires multiple steps, mainly due to the differences in the surface properties of these two materials. Among them, the steps to surface-treat the elastomer and functionalize the material of each layer involve intricate processes and excessive consumption of resources. In this work, we introduce a co-doping method to optimize the preparation of a stimuli-responsive hydrogel-elastomer micro-actuator. The surface treatment and functionalization processes are combined into one step by directly doping the polymerization initiator and functional nanomaterials into the hybrid bilayer. The thermo-responsive hydrogel is combined with a photothermal elastomer to fabricate a soft micro-actuator that can bend and unbend in response to changes in humidity and light. Based on this actuator, a set of biomimetic soft micro-robots were developed, demonstrating a series of motions, such as grabbing, crawling, and jumping. This strategy of stimuli-responsive micro-actuator preparation can benefit the hydrogel-elastomer hybrid micro-robot designs for applications ranging from self-locomotive robots in environmental monitoring to drug delivery in biomedical engineering.
We introduce a co-doping-based fabrication of stimuli-responsive hydrogel-elastomer actuators. Based on this actuator, a series of bio-inspired soft micro-robots are developed, demonstrating biomimetic motions, such as grabbing, crawling and jumping.
A proof-of-concept gas sensor based on a miniaturized and integrated fiber-optic photoacoustic detection module was introduced and demonstrated for the purpose of developing a custom tuning-fork ...(TF)-enhanced photoacoustic gas sensor. Instead of piezoelectric quartz tuning fork (QTF) in conventional quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS), a low-cost custom aluminum alloy TF fabricated by mechanical processing was employed as a photoacoustic transducer and the vibration of TF was measured by fiber-optic Fabry-Pérot (FP) interferometer (FPI). The mechanical processing-based TF design scheme greatly increases the flexibility of the TF design with respect to the complex and expensive manufacture process of custom QTFs, and thus it can be better exploited to detect gases with slow vibrational-translational (V-T) relaxation rates and combine with light sources with poor beam quality. The resonance frequency and the quality factor of the designed custom TF at atmospheric pressure were experimentally determined to be 7.3 kHz and 4733, respectively. Dual-prong differential measurement method was proposed to double the photoacoustic signal and suppress the external same-direction noise. After detailed optimizing and investigating for the operating parameters by measuring H2O, the feasibility of the developed sensor for gas detection was demonstrated with a H2O minimum detection limit (MDL) of 1.2 ppm, corresponding to a normalized noise equivalent absorption (NNEA) coefficient of 3.8 × 10−8 cm−1 W/Hz1/2, which are better than the QTF-based photoacoustic sensors. The proposed gas sensing approach combined the advantages of QEPAS and fiber-optic sensing, which can greatly expand the application domains of PAS-based gas sensors.
Thanks to the 2D braiding manufacturing method, the hybrid braided composite composed of the biaxial and unidirectional layers is available in a mass-production manner. For enhancing the ...crashworthiness of braided composite tubes, the damage characteristics and energy absorption capacity of braided composite with biaxial/unidirectional hybridization structures under axial compression were studied in this work. The axial compression tests were conducted on pure biaxial and unidirectional braided tubes (BBB and UUU), and hybrid tubes with different surface and inner layers (BUB and UBU). Micro-CT was utilized to analyze the crack characteristic and propagation inside the tubes. It was found that the easily progressed intra-laminar cracks in unidirectional layers promoted splitting damage feature, leading to enhanced energy absorption capacities in hybrid tubes than pure biaxial braided tube, in which local buckling damage feature was observed attributed to interlaced yarns induced constrained intra-laminar crack propagation and tendency to delamination. In particular, the UBU tube dissipated 20.4% more crushing energy and exhibited 13.0% higher energy absorption per unit area than the BBB tube.
