Metallic glasses (MGs), which are also known as amorphous metals, are formed by quenching the melts at a super high cooling rate (e. g. 106 K/s) to avoid crystallization. Compared with ordinary ...metals, there is no long‐range translational order and crystalline defects in MGs. Benefitting from this unique structural characteristic, MGs show many superior mechanical, physical and chemical properties and thus have been attracting intensive attentions in applications as structural materials. The investigations on the functional properties of MGs are still at the early stage, but immense potential in electrochemically functional applications has been demonstrated in recent years. In this Minireview, we aim to present an overview of the functional properties of this class of novel metallic glassy catalysts and some achievements obtained so far. We mainly focus on the applications of MGs in various electrochemical applications, like hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction as well as fuel cells. The strategies for optimizing the performance of these amorphous catalysts are discussed as well, including high‐throughput screening and nano‐engineering. In the absence of crystalline ordering, the atomic‐scale structural mechanism of MGs in electrocatalysis may be unique and will be explored. Finally, we also give perspectives on how to design novel and superior electrocatalysts for future electrocatalysis applications.
Metal or Glass? Metallic glasses are novel alloy materials with disordered atomic arrays. Due to the unique amorphous structure, they have attractive mechanical, physical and chemical properties which are promising for various functional applications. Recently, more and more researches demonstrated the superior activity and durability of metallic glassy catalysts in electrocatalysis. These innovative outcomes indicate the possibility of implementing metallic glasses as functional materials for various electrocatalytic applications, such as hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction and fuel cells.
Exosomes are a subset of extracellular vesicles that carry specific combinations of proteins, nucleic acids, metabolites, and lipids. Mounting evidence suggests that exosomes participate in ...intercellular communication and act as important molecular vehicles in the regulation of numerous physiological and pathological processes, including cancer development. Exosomes are released by various cell types under both normal and pathological conditions, and they can be found in multiple bodily fluids. Moreover, exosomes carrying a wide variety of important macromolecules provide a window into altered cellular or tissue states. Their presence in biological fluids renders them an attractive, minimally invasive approach for liquid biopsies with potential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, prediction, and surveillance. Due to their biocompatibility and low immunogenicity and cytotoxicity, exosomes have potential clinical applications in the development of innovative therapeutic approaches. Here, we summarize recent advances in various technologies for exosome isolation for cancer research. We outline the functions of exosomes in regulating tumor metastasis, drug resistance, and immune modulation in the context of cancer development. Finally, we discuss prospects and challenges for the clinical development of exosome-based liquid biopsies and therapeutics.
Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) is a novel phlebovirus in the Bunyaviridae family, causing SFTS with high mortality rate. Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks has been ...demonstrated as a competent vector of SFTSV by experimental transmission study and field study. However, there has been query whether other tick species that infest human beings in the SFTS endemic regions are capable of transmitting the pathogen. Here by performing experimental transmission study, we compared the capable of transmitting SFTSV among Ixodes sinensis, Ixodes persulcatus and Dermacentor silvarum ticks. The transovarial transmission was seen in the I. sinensis ticks with a rate of 40%, but neither in I. persulcatus nor in D. silvarum ticks. I. sinensis ticks also have the ability to transmit SFTSV horizontally to uninfected mice at 7 days after feeding, but not for I. persalcatus or D. silvarum ticks. In the transstadial transmission of I. persulcatus and D. silvarum ticks, I. persulcatus ticks were tested negative from larvae to adults. But the D. silvarum ticks were tested positive from larvae to nymphs, with the positive rate of 100% (10/10) for engorged larval ticks and 81.25% (13/16) for molted nymphs. However, the mice bitten by SFTSV-infected D. silvarum nymphs were negative for SFTSV detection. Therefore, there is not enough evidence to prove the transstadial transmission of SFTSV in I. persalcatus and D. silvarum ticks.
•An effective HPLC-ESI-MS/MS method for aldehyde determination was established.•Most aldehydes species time- and temperature-dependently formed and accumulated.•Frying process caused lipid exchange ...and aldehyde migration between clam and oil.•The polyphenol in AOB retarded the formation of aldehydes.
This study aimed at investigating the formation and accumulation of 16 reactive aldehydes in clam (Ruditapes philippinarum) during oil frying in both the tissue and the oil using an HPLC-ESI-MS/MS methodology. After processing, the accumulation of acrolein, crotonaldehyde, pentanal, trans-2-hexenal, hexanal, trans, trans-2,4-heptadienal, heptanal, nonanal, trans, trans-2,4-decadienal and 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal was most noticeable in both fried clam and frying oil. Most of the aldehyde species showed a time- and temperature-dependent manner of formation and accumulation during frying due to continuous oxidative degradation under conditions employed. However, several species of aldehyde such as acrolein and trans-2-pentenal slightly decreased at higher temperatures and/or longer frying times, which may be due to the imbalance toward disappearance of aldehydes resulting from their evaporation under the extreme conditions. Presence of natural polyphenols in bamboo leaves significantly prevented the formation of aldehydes in both fried clam and frying oil due to their antioxidant activity (P < 0.05).
Mitochondrial dynamics plays an important role in tumour progression. However, how these dynamics integrate tumour metabolism in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) metastasis is still unclear.
The ...mitochondrial fusion protein mitofusin-1 (MFN1) expression and its prognostic value are detected in HCC. The effects and underlying mechanisms of MFN1 on HCC metastasis and metabolic reprogramming are analysed both in vitro and in vivo.
Mitochondrial dynamics, represented by constant fission and fusion, are found to be associated with HCC metastasis. High metastatic HCC displays excessive mitochondrial fission. Among genes involved in mitochondrial dynamics, MFN1 is identified as a leading downregulated candidate that is closely associated with HCC metastasis and poor prognosis. While promoting mitochondrial fusion, MFN1 inhibits cell proliferation, invasion and migration capacity both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, disruption of mitochondrial dynamics by depletion of MFN1 triggers the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of HCC. Moreover, MFN1 modulates HCC metastasis by metabolic shift from aerobic glycolysis to oxidative phosphorylation. Treatment with glycolytic inhibitor 2-Deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) significantly suppresses the effects induced by depletion of MFN1.
Our results reveal a critical involvement of mitochondrial dynamics in HCC metastasis via modulating glucose metabolic reprogramming. MFN1 may serve as a novel potential therapeutic target for HCC.
A photoinduced SET process enables the direct B−H bond activation of NHC–boranes. In contrast to common hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) strategies, this photoinduced reaction simply takes advantage of ...the beneficial redox potentials of NHC–boranes, thus obviating the need for extra radical initiators. The resulting NHC–boryl radical was used for the borylation of a wide range of α‐trifluoromethylalkenes and alkenes with diverse electronic and structural features, providing facile access to highly functionalized borylated molecules. Labeling and photoquenching experiments provide insight into the mechanism of this photoinduced SET pathway.
A photoinduced SET process enables the direct B−H bond activation of NHC–boranes. The resulting NHC–boryl radical was used for the borylation of a wide range of α‐trifluoromethylalkenes and alkenes with diverse electronic and structural features, providing facile access to highly functionalized borylated molecules.
Air pollutant concentration forecasting is an effective method of protecting public health by providing an early warning against harmful air pollutants. However, existing methods of air pollutant ...concentration prediction fail to effectively model long-term dependencies, and most neglect spatial correlations. In this paper, a novel long short-term memory neural network extended (LSTME) model that inherently considers spatiotemporal correlations is proposed for air pollutant concentration prediction. Long short-term memory (LSTM) layers were used to automatically extract inherent useful features from historical air pollutant data, and auxiliary data, including meteorological data and time stamp data, were merged into the proposed model to enhance the performance. Hourly PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 2.5 μm) concentration data collected at 12 air quality monitoring stations in Beijing City from Jan/01/2014 to May/28/2016 were used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed LSTME model. Experiments were performed using the spatiotemporal deep learning (STDL) model, the time delay neural network (TDNN) model, the autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model, the support vector regression (SVR) model, and the traditional LSTM NN model, and a comparison of the results demonstrated that the LSTME model is superior to the other statistics-based models. Additionally, the use of auxiliary data improved model performance. For the one-hour prediction tasks, the proposed model performed well and exhibited a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 11.93%. In addition, we conducted multiscale predictions over different time spans and achieved satisfactory performance, even for 13–24 h prediction tasks (MAPE = 31.47%).
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•Regional air pollutant concentration shows an obvious spatiotemporal correlation.•Our prediction model presents superior performance.•Climate data and metadata can significantly improve the prediction performance.
This paper presents a high-accuracy model of air pollutant concentration prediction based on an LSTM neural network, and spatiotemporal correlations are inherently considered.
By combining the advantages of both a metallic metamaterial and a dielectric interlayer, we demonstrate the general mechanism to construct the dispersion-free metastructure, in which the intrinsic ...dispersion of the metallic structures is perfectly cancelled out by the thickness-dependent dispersion of the dielectric spacing layer. As examples to apply this concept, a broadband quarter-wave plate and a half-wave plate are demonstrated. By selecting the structural parameters, the polarization state of light can be freely tuned across a broad frequency range, and all of the polarization states on the Poincaré sphere can be realized dispersion free.