The complement components C8α, C8β and C9 have important roles in the innate immune system against invading microorganisms. Partial cDNA sequences of the Pf_C8α, Pf_C8β and Pf_C9 genes (Pf: ...abbreviation of Pelteobagrus fulvidraco) were cloned from yellow catfish. The Pf_C8α, Pf_C8β and Pf_C9 genes showed the greatest amino acid similarity to C8α (54%) and C8β (62%) of zebrafish and to C9 (52%) of grass carp, respectively. Ontogenetic expression analyses using real-time quantitative PCR suggested that the three genes may play crucial roles during embryonic and early larval development. The mRNA expressions of the three genes were all at the highest levels in liver tissue, and at lower or much lower levels in 16 other tissues, demonstrating that the liver is the primary site for the protein synthesis of Pf_C8α, Pf_C8β and Pf_C9. Injection of Aeromonas hydrophila led to up-regulation of the three genes in the spleen, head kidney, kidney, liver and blood tissues, indicating that the three genes may contribute to the host's defense against invading pathogenic microbes. An increased understanding of the functions of the Pf_C8α, Pf_C8β and Pf_C9 genes in the innate immunity of yellow catfish will help enhance production of this valuable freshwater species.
The blunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala) is an important freshwater aquaculture fish throughout China. Because of widespread introductions of this species to many regions, the genetic ...diversity of wild and natural populations is now threatened. In the present study, SRAP (sequence-related amplified polymorphism) markers were used to assess genetic diversity of blunt snout bream. Three natural populations (Liangzi Lake, Poyang Lake and Yuni Lake, one cultured population (Nanxian) and one genetic strain ('Pujiang No. 1') of blunt snout bream were screened with 88 SRAP primer combinations, of which 13 primer pairs produced stable and reproducible amplification patterns. In total, 172 bands were produced, of which 132 bands were polymorphic. Nei's gene diversity (h) and Shannon's information index (I) values provided evidence of differences in genetic diversity among the five populations (Poyang Lake>Liangzi Lake>Nanxian>'Pujiang No. 1'>Yuni Lake). Based on cluster analysis conducted on genetic distance values, the five blunt snout bream populations were divided into three groups, Poyang Lake and Liangzi Lake (natural populations), Nanxian and 'Pujiang No. 1' (cultured population and genetically selected strain), and Yuni Lake (natural population). Significant genetic differentiation was found among the five populations using analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), with more genetic divergence existing among populations (55.49%), than within populations (44.51%). This molecular marker technique is a simple and efficient method to quantify genetic diversity within and among fish populations, and is employed here to help manage and conserve germplasm variability of blunt snout bream and to support the ongoing selective breeding programme for this fish.
Dealloyed PtAg/C nanostructures, prepared by selective electrochemical etching of Ag in 0.5
M H
2SO
4 from a series of alloyed Pt
m
Ag/C samples with atomic Pt/Ag ratio
m
=
0.1, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5, ...were employed as cathode electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in 0.5
M KOH. Compared with their as-prepared counterpart alloy catalysts, the dealloyed catalysts showed higher half-wave potentials (
E
1/2) and significantly higher Pt mass-specific activity (MSA) data. The intrinsic activity (IA) of Pt increased more or less after the dealloying treatment but was strongly dependent on the composition (
m) of the alloyed sample. The Pt IA numbers were comparable for the dealloyed catalysts derived from Pt
m
Ag/C of
m
=
0.5, 1.0 and 1.5, which were nearly twice that for E-TEK Pt/C catalyst and 3 times that for the dealloyed catalyst derived from Pt
0.1Ag/C.
Paper-based microfluidic fuel cells emerge as a promising clean energy sources for small-scale electronic devices, while their broad-based applications require a comprehensive understanding of their ...structure-performance relationships. Here in this work, we made attempt to identify the key structural parameters that impact the overall performance of paper-based microfluidic fuel cells. The influences of fuel crossover, cell resistance, limitations from both anode and cathode, and in particular microfluidic paper channel properties have been systemically investigated and optimized towards the best practices. Among various structural parameters, we unravel for the first time that the overall performance of these paper-based microfluidic fuel cells is largely dependent on the textural properties of microfluidic paper channels. By correlating the fuel cell performance with the unambiguously determined flow rate of electrolyte within different paper channels, we found that a greater flow rate which was achieved by using paper with larger mean pore diameter, could result in higher peak power density and open circuit voltage. This performance enhancement would benefit from minimized reactant depletion near electrode surfaces and suppressed fuel crossover. Technically, an open circuit voltage of 0.86 V and a maximum power density of 7.10 mW/cm2 can be achieved on a single cell (fuel: 4 M KCOOH; oxidant: air; electrolyte: 1 M KOH; catalyst: 0.2 mg/cm2 Pd/C on 0.15 cm2 graphite foil), and the maximum power output can be sustained for at least 1 h. The fuel cell power can also be easily increased proportionally when connecting two or more cells in series, which makes theses paper-based microfluidic fuel cells capable to power various electronic devices with different power requirements.
We propose a long short-term memory (LSTM) network based encoder-decoder (E-D) model for wind power prediction (WPP). The LSTM-based E-D model is constructed as an auto-encoder for mapping the wind ...power (WP) time-series into a fixed-length representation, state of the trained E-D LSTM. Then, the representation concatenated with weather forecasting information is used as a new input to another multiple LSTM network to make WPP. Real data collected from a wind farm with capacity of 50 MW of Shan Xi province were used to verify the conclusions. Results illustrate that the proposed method improves the model generalization ability and lowers misspecification risk by utilizing the WP time relationship through auto-encoding (AE) process. Combining extracted representation with weather forecasting information further improves the prediction accuracy.
In article number 2010977, Bastian J. M. Etzold and Gui‐Rong Zhang review the emerging applications of solid catalysts with an ionic liquid layer for electrocatalysts in key energy storage/conversion ...processes. Alongside case studies, the history, latest progress, and mechanistic underpinnings of the roles of ionic liquids are critically discussed and key challenges and future opportunities outlined.
Blood has an important role in the healthcare system, particularly in blood transfusions and immunotherapy. However, the occurrence of outbreaks of infectious diseases worldwide and seasonal ...fluctuations, blood shortages are becoming a major challenge. Moreover, the narrow specificity of immune cells hinders the widespread application of immune cell therapy. To address this issue, researchers are actively developing strategies for differentiating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into blood cells
. The establishment of iPSCs from terminally differentiated cells such as fibroblasts and blood cells is a straightforward process. However, there is need for further refinement of the protocols for differentiating iPSCs into immune cells and red blood cells to ensure their clinical applicability. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the strategies and challenges facing the generation of iPSC-derived immune cells and red blood cells.
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•ZDC-derived carbons with varying particle sizes were synthesized.•Smaller ZDC particles are intrinsically more active toward ORR.•ORR activity of ZDCs shows an exponential dependence ...on the site density of Co-Nx.•Smaller ZDC particles offer greater abundance and accessibility of active sites.•Surface and bulk compositions of ZDC particles are different.
ZIF-derived carbons (ZDCs) represent a novel category of non-precious metal catalysts (NPMCs) for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Nevertheless, establishing the correlation between their structure and performance is challenging due to their diverse structural properties and ill-defined active site moieties. Here we investigate the effect of ZIF-67 derived carbon’s particle size and corresponding distribution of assorted nitrogen functionalities on the ORR. Our findings reveal a substantial increase in ORR activity with decreasing ZDC particle size, while the exact influence of nitrogen functionalities remains uncertain. Most importantly, the present work unveils a correlation between the ORR activity and the site density (SD) of Co-Nx within the ZDC materials, which can be attributed to the concurrently increasing SD and accessibility of Co-Nx on the ZDC particles with small sizes. The present work provides novel insights into the optimization of ZDCs as high-performance NPMCs for ORR in alkaline electrolytes.
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