Rational exploration of efficient, inexpensive, and robust electrocatalysts is critical for the efficient water splitting. Conjugated conductive metal–organic frameworks (cMOFs) with multicomponent ...layered double hydroxides (LDHs) to construct bifunctional heterostructure catalysts are considered as an efficient but complicated strategy. Here, the fabrication of a cMOF/LDH hetero‐nanotree array catalyst (CoNiRu‐NT) coupled with monodispersed ruthenium (Ru) sites via a controllable grafted‐growth strategy is reported. Rich‐amino hexaiminotriphenylene linkers coordinate with the LDH nanotrunk to form cMOF nanobranches, providing numerous anchoring sites to precisely confine and stabilize RuN4 sites. Moreover, monodispersed and reduced Ru moieties facilitate H2O adsorption and dissociation, and the heterointerface between the cMOF and the LDH further modifies the chemical and electronic structures. Optimized CoNiRu‐NT displays a significant increase in electrochemical water‐splitting properties in alkaline media, affording low overpotentials of 22 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and 255 mV at 20 mA cm−2 for the hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction, respectively. In an actual electrochemical system, CoNiRu‐NT drives an overall water splitting at a low cell voltage of 1.47 V to reach 10 mA cm−2. This performance is comparable to that of pure noble‐metal‐based materials and superior to most reported MOF‐based catalysts.
A conductive metal–organic framework (cMOF)/layered double hydroxide (LDH) hetero‐nanotree structure coupled with monodisperse Ru sites is constructed via a controllable grafted‐growth strategy. Based on a competitive coordination process, RuN sites are precisely anchored by rich‐amino organic linkers. The chemical and electronic structure of the hetero‐nanotree catalysts are well modified and lead to a superior overall water‐splitting performance in alkaline media.
Precise design of low‐cost, efficient and definite electrocatalysts is the key to sustainable renewable energy. Herein, this work develops a targeted‐anchored and subsequent spontaneous‐redox ...strategy to synthesize nickel‐iron layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheets anchored with monodispersed platinum (Pt) sites (Pt@LDH). Intermediate metal‐organic frameworks (MOF)/LDH heterostructure not only provides numerous confine points to guarantee the stability of Pt sites, but also excites the spontaneous reduction for PtII. Electronic structure, charge transfer ability and reaction kinetics of Pt@LDH can be effectively facilitated by the monodispersed Pt moieties. As a result, the optimized Pt@LDH that with the 5% ultra‐low content Pt exhibits the significant increment in electrochemical water splitting performance in alkaline media, which only afford low overpotentials of 58 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and 239 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for oxygen evolution reaction (OER), respectively. In a real device, Pt@LDH can drive an overall water‐splitting at low cell voltage of 1.49 V at 10 mA cm−2, which can be superior to most reported similar LDH‐based catalysts. Moreover, the versatility of the method is extended to other MOF precursors and noble metals for the design of ultrathin LDH supported monodispersed noble metal electrocatalysts promoting research interest in material design.
A targeted‐anchored and subsequent spontaneous‐redox strategy is developed to synthesize nickel‐iron layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheets anchored with monodispersed platinum (Pt) sites (Pt@LDH). As‐prepared Pt@LDH‐4h can drive an overall water‐splitting at low cell voltage of 1.49 V at 10 mA cm−2, which can be superior to most reported similar LDH‐based catalysts.
Background
This study aimed to explore risk factors for lupus nephritis (LN) in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and establish a Nomogram prediction model based on LASSO-logistic ...regression.
Methods
The clinical and laboratory data of SLE patients in Meishan People’s Hospital from July 2012 to December 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. All SLE patients were divided into two groups with or without LN. Risk factors were screened based on LASSO-logistic regression analysis, and a Nomogram prediction model was established. The receiver operating characteristic curve, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis were adopted to evaluate the performance of the Nomogram model.
Results
A total of 555 SLE patients were enrolled, including 303 SLE patients with LN and 252 SLE patients without LN. LASSO regression and multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that ESR, mucosal ulcer, proteinuria, and hematuria were independent risk factors for LN in SLE patients. The four clinical features were incorporated into the Nomogram prediction model. Results showed that calibration curve was basically close to the diagonal dotted line with slope 1 (ideal prediction case), which proved that the prediction ability of the model was acceptable. In addition, the decision curve analysis showed that the Nomogram prediction model could bring net clinical benefits to patients when the threshold probability was 0.12–0.54.
Conclusion
Four clinical indicators of ESR, mucosal ulcer, proteinuria, and hematuria were independent risk factors for LN in SLE patients. The predictive power of the Nomogram model based on LASSO-logistic regression was acceptable and could be used to guide clinical work.
Proteins perform vital functional and structural duties in living systems, and the in-depth investigation of protein in its native state is one of the most important challenges in the postgenomic ...era. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) can provide the intrinsic fingerprint information of samples with ultrahigh sensitivity but suffers from the reproducibility and reliability issues. In this paper, we proposed an iodide-modified Ag nanoparticles method (Ag IMNPs) for label-free detection of proteins. The silver nanoparticles provide the huge enhancement to boost the Raman signal of proteins, and the coated iodide layer offers a barrier to prevent the direct interaction between the proteins and the metal surface, helping to keep the native structures of proteins. With this method, highly reproducible and high-quality SERS signals of five typical proteins (lysozyme, avidin, bovine serum albumin, cytochrome c, and hemoglobin) have been obtained, and the SERS features of the proteins without chromophore were almost identical to the respective normal Raman spectra. This unique feature allows the qualitative identification of them by simply taking the intensity ratio of the Raman peaks of tryptophan to phenylalanine residues. We further demonstrated that the method can also be used for label-free multiplex analysis of protein mixture as well as to study the dynamic process of protein damage stimulated by hydrogen peroxide. This method proves to be very promising for further applications in proteomics and biomedical research.
Fish gelatin (FG) and κ-carrageenan (KC) were mixed to simulate the physicochemical properties of porcine gelatin (PG). The effects of the mixing ratio between FG and KC on the interaction, ...structure, and rheological properties of FG were investigated. The maximum associative interaction occurred at the critical mixing ratio of KC:FG (w/w) at 4:96, where the median particle size (D50) of the FG-KC coacervates was 1168 ± 175 nm, and the zeta potential was −3.8 ± 0.8 mV. Interestingly, the rheological properties of the mixed gel (KC:FG at 4:96) matched those of PG, including the melting temperature (Tm), gelling temperature (Tg), dynamic consistency factor (Kf), and instantaneous compliance (J0). The relationship between structure and physicochemical properties was proposed as a schematic model. The associative interaction between FG and KC was critical for FG's modification and could be applied to improve FG's rheological properties towards PG.
•Fish gelatin (FG) and κ-carrageenan (KC) were mixed to mimic pork gelatin (PG).•Electrostatics drive the associative interaction between FG and KC.•Maximum associative complex formed at KC:FG (w/w) of 4:96.•FG-KC coacervates were captured by nano and microstructure approaches.•The associative interaction of FG-KC improved the rheological properties of FG.
Meat adulteration, mainly for the purpose of economic pursuit, is widespread and leads to serious public health risks, religious violations, and moral loss. Rapid, effective, accurate, and reliable ...detection technologies are keys to effectively supervising meat adulteration. Considering the importance and rapid advances in meat adulteration detection technologies, a comprehensive review to summarize the recent progress in this area and to suggest directions for future progress is beneficial. In this review, destructive meat adulteration technologies based on DNA, protein, and metabolite analyses and nondestructive technologies based on spectroscopy were comparatively analyzed. The advantages and disadvantages, application situations of these technologies were discussed. In the future, determining suitable indicators or markers is particularly important for destructive methods. To improve sensitivity and save time, new interdisciplinary technologies, such as biochips and biosensors, are promising for application in the future. For nondestructive techniques, convenient and effective chemometric models are crucial, and the development of portable devices based on these technologies for onsite monitoring is a future trend. Moreover, omics technologies, especially proteomics, are important methods in laboratory detection because they enable multispecies detection and unknown target screening by using mass spectrometry databases.
Alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) is a telomerase-independent but recombination-dependent pathway that maintains telomeres. Here, we describe an assay to visualize ALT-mediated telomeric DNA ...synthesis in ALT-associated PML bodies (APBs) without DNA-damaging agents or replication inhibitors. Using this assay, we find that ALT occurs through two distinct mechanisms. One of the ALT mechanisms requires RAD52, a protein implicated in break-induced DNA replication (BIR). We demonstrate that RAD52 directly promotes telomeric D-loop formation in vitro and is required for maintaining telomeres in ALT-positive cells. Unexpectedly, however, RAD52 is dispensable for C-circle formation, a hallmark of ALT. In RAD52-knockout ALT cells, C-circle formation and RAD52-independent ALT DNA synthesis gradually increase as telomeres are shortened, and these activities are dependent on BLM and BIR proteins POLD3 and POLD4. These results suggest that ALT occurs through a RAD52-dependent and a RAD52-independent BIR pathway, revealing the bifurcated framework and dynamic nature of this process.
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•An assay to visualize ALT telomere DNA synthesis in APBs•APBs are functionally important for ALT DNA synthesis•RAD52 promotes telomere D-loops in vitro and ALT DNA synthesis in APBs•A RAD52-independent BIR pathway is responsible for C-circle formation
Alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) is a telomerase-independent but recombination-dependent process that extends telomeres. Zhang et al. show that ALT is in fact a bifurcated pathway involving both RAD52-dependent and RAD52-independent break-induced DNA replication (BIR) in ALT-associated PML bodies (APBs), revealing an unexpected framework of the ALT pathway.
Personalized zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) all-ceramic teeth are expected to be widely used in the field of oral restoration. Here, ZrO2 all-ceramic teeth were fabricated for biological engineering by ...photosensitive resin based digital light processing (DLP) technology. When sintered at 1500 °C for 3 h, dense ZrO2 ceramics were obtained with relative density of 98.02 ± 0.32%, Vickers hardness of 12.62 ± 0.15 GPa and fracture toughness of 6.11 ± 0.36 MPa∙m1/2, which were close to those of the ZrO2 ceramics prepared by dry pressing. To confirm whether the prepared ZrO2 ceramics possessed good biosafety, in vitro biological experiments were further performed with rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (rBMSCs) and preferable cell attachment was observed at the initial stages. Results illustrated that the compositions with cytotoxicity in green samples were completely decomposed after debinding and sintering process, and the ZrO2 ceramics could provide an ideal biocompatible environment for mesenchymal stem cells. This study shows that ZrO2 all-ceramic teeth with personalized structure prepared by DLP technology have good mechanical properties and biocompatibility, exhibiting strong potential in the field of oral restoration.
Gut microbiome is integral to the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis. A novel probiotic Lactobacillus intestinalis (L. intestinalis) exerts a protective effect against dextran sodium sulfate‐induced ...colitis in mice. Based on flow cytometry, colitis‐associated Th17 cells are the target of L. intestinalis, which is supported by the lack of protective effects of L. intestinalis in T cell‐null Rag1−/− mice or upon anti‐IL‐17‐A antibody‐treated mice. Although L. intestinalis exerts no direct effect on T cell differentiation, it decreases C/EBPA‐driven gut epithelial SAA1 and SAA2 production, which in turn impairs Th17 cell differentiation. Cometabolism of L. intestinalis ALDH and host ALDH1A2 contributed to elevated biosynthesis of retinoic acid (RA), which accounts for the anti‐colitis effect in RAR‐α ‐mediated way. In a cohort of ulcerative colitis patients, it is observed that fecal abundance of L. intestinalis is negatively associated with the C/EBPA‐SAA1/2‐Th17 axis. Finally, L. intestinalis has a synergistic effect with mesalazine in alleviating murine colitis. In conclusion, L. intestinalis and associated metabolites, RA, have potential therapeutic effects for suppressing colonic inflammation by modulating the crosstalk between intestinal epithelia and immunity.
By improving retinoic acid synthesis, a novel probiotic L. intestinalis exerts a protective effect against colitis. Retinoic acid triggers epithelial gene alteration, including SAA1, SAA2, and C/EBPA, to downregulate RORγt+ Th17 cells. L. intestinalis and its associated metabolite, retinoic acid, have potential therapeutic effects for suppressing colonic inflammation.