MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, endogenous RNAs that play important regulatory roles in development and stress response in plants by negatively affecting gene expression post-transcriptionally. ...Identification of miRNAs at the global genome-level by high-throughout sequencing is essential to functionally characterize miRNAs in plants. Drought is one of the common environmental stresses limiting plant growth and development. To understand the role of miRNAs in response of plants to drought stress, drought-responsive miRNAs were identified by high-throughput sequencing in a legume model plant, Medicago truncatula.
Two hundreds eighty three and 293 known miRNAs were identified from the control and drought stress libraries, respectively. In addition, 238 potential candidate miRNAs were identified, and among them 14 new miRNAs and 15 new members of known miRNA families whose complementary miRNA*s were also detected. Both high-throughput sequencing and RT-qPCR confirmed that 22 members of 4 miRNA families were up-regulated and 10 members of 6 miRNA families were down-regulated in response to drought stress. Among the 29 new miRNAs/new members of known miRNA families, 8 miRNAs were responsive to drought stress with both 4 miRNAs being up- and down-regulated, respectively. The known and predicted targets of the drought-responsive miRNAs were found to be involved in diverse cellular processes in plants, including development, transcription, protein degradation, detoxification, nutrient status and cross adaptation.
We identified 32 known members of 10 miRNA families and 8 new miRNAs/new members of known miRNA families that were responsive to drought stress by high-throughput sequencing of small RNAs from M. truncatula. These findings are of importance for our understanding of the roles played by miRNAs in response of plants to abiotic stress in general and drought stress in particular.
Summary Background Whether concomitant therapy is superior to bismuth quadruple therapy or 14-day triple therapy for the first-line treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection remains poorly ...understood. We aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of 10-day concomitant therapy, 10-day bismuth quadruple therapy, and 14-day triple therapy in the first-line treatment of H pylori. Methods In this multicentre, open-label, randomised trial, we recruited adult patients (aged >20 years) with H pylori infection from nine medical centres in Taiwan. Patients who had at least two positive tests from the rapid urease test, histology, culture, or serology or who had a single positive13 C-urea breath test for gastric cancer screening were eligible for enrolment. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to either concomitant therapy (lansoprazole 30 mg, amoxicillin 1 g, clarithromycin 500 mg, and metronidazole 500 mg, all given twice daily) for 10 days; bismuth quadruple therapy (bismuth tripotassium dicitrate 300 mg four times a day, lansoprazole 30 mg twice daily, tetracycline 500 mg four times a day, and metronidazole 500 mg three times a day) for 10 days; or triple therapy (lansoprazole 30 mg, amoxicillin 1 g, and clarithromycin 500 mg, all given twice daily) for 14 days. A computer-generated permuted block randomisation sequence with a block size of 6 was used for randomisation, and the sequence was concealed in an opaque envelope until the intervention was assigned. Investigators were masked to treatment allocation. The primary outcome was the eradication frequency of H pylori with first-line therapy assessed in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , number NCT01906879. Findings Between July 17, 2013, and April 20, 2016, 5454 patients were screened for eligibility. Of these, 1620 patients were randomly assigned in this study. The eradication frequencies were 90·4% (488/540 95% CI 87·6–92·6) for 10-day bismuth quadruple therapy, 85·9% (464/540 82·7–88·6) for 10-day concomitant therapy, and 83·7% (452/540 80·4–86·6) for 14-day triple therapy in the intention-to-treat analysis. 10-day bismuth quadruple therapy was superior to 14-day triple therapy (difference 6·7% 95% CI 2·7–10·7, p=0·001), but not 10-day concomitant therapy. 10-day concomitant therapy was not superior to 14-day triple therapy. The frequency of adverse events was 67% (358/533) in patients treated with 10-day bismuth quadruple therapy, 58% (309/535) in patients treated with 10-day concomitant therapy, and 47% (252/535) in patients treated with 14-day triple therapy. Interpretation Bismuth quadruple therapy is preferable to 14-day triple therapy in the first-line treatment in the face of rising prevalence of clarithromycin resistance. Concomitant therapy given for 10 days might not be optimum and a longer treatment length should be considered. Funding National Taiwan University Hospital and Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan.
As a cathode for sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs), Na3V2(PO4)2F3 (NVPF) with 3D open framework is a promising candidate due to its high working voltage and large theoretical capacity. However, the severe ...capacity degradation and poor rate capability hinder its practical applications. The present study demonstrated the optimization of Na‐storage performance of NVPF via delicate lattice modulation. Aliovalent substitution of V3+ at Na+ in NVPF induces the generation of electronic defects and expansion of Na+‐migration channels, resulting in the enhancement in electronic conductivity and acceleration of Na+‐migration kinetics. It is disclosed that the formed stronger NaO bonds with high ionicity than VO bonds lead to the significant increase in structural stability and ionicity in the Na+‐substituted NVPF (NVPF‐Nax). The aforementioned effects of Na+ substitution achieve the unprecedented electrochemical performance in the optimized Na3.14V1.93Na0.07(PO4)2F3 (NVPF‐Na0.07). As a result, NVPF‐Na0.07 delivers a high‐rate capability (77.5 mAh g−1 at 20 C) and ultralong cycle life (only 0.027% capacity decay per cycle over 1000 cycles at 10 C). Sodium‐ion full cells are designed using NVPF‐Na0.07 as cathode and Se@reduced graphene oxide as anode. The full cells exhibit excellent wide‐temperature electrochemical performance from −25 to 25°C with an outstanding rate capability (96.3 mAh g−1 at 20 C). Furthermore, it delivered an excellent cycling performance over 300 cycles with a capacity retention exceeding 90% at 0.5 C under different temperatures. This study demonstrates a feasible strategy for the development of advanced cathode materials with excellent electrochemical properties to achieve high‐efficiency energy storage.
An advanced Na3.14V1.93Na0.07(PO4)2F3 cathode with high ionicity and excellent energy‐storage performance is prepared via aliovalent substitution of V3+ at Na+ sites. It exhibits the higher structural stability and improved electron/ion‐transport kinetics than the pristine Na3V2(PO4)2F3 owing to the stronger NaO and VO bonds, thereby extending the cycle life of NASICON cathode materials.
It is critically important to characterize the band alignment in semiconductor heterojunctions (HJs) because it controls the electronic and optical properties. However, the well‐known Anderson's ...model usually fails to predict the band alignment in bulk HJ systems due to the presence of charge transfer at the interfacial bonding. Atomically thin 2D transition metal dichalcogenide materials have attracted much attention recently since the ultrathin HJs and devices can be easily built and they are promising for future electronics. The vertical HJs based on 2D materials can be constructed via van der Waals stacking regardless of the lattice mismatch between two materials. Despite the defect‐free characteristics of the junction interface, experimental evidence is still lacking on whether the simple Anderson rule can predict the band alignment of HJs. Here, the validity of Anderson's model is verified for the 2D heterojunction systems and the success of Anderson's model is attributed to the absence of dangling bonds (i.e., interface dipoles) at the van der Waal interface. The results from the work set a foundation allowing the use of powerful Anderson's rule to determine the band alignments of 2D HJs, which is beneficial to future electronic, photonic, and optoelectronic devices.
The band alignment of stacked 2D material heterojunctions is experimentally proven to follow the Anderson's model. Based on this discovery it is demonstrated that electron affinity and band gap values are sufficient to construct the band alignment of stacked 2D heterojunctions.
Current efforts in the proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) field mostly focus on choosing an appropriate E3 ligase for the target protein, improving the binding affinities towards the target ...protein and the E3 ligase, and optimizing the PROTAC linker. However, due to the large molecular weights of PROTACs, their cellular uptake remains an issue. Through comparing how different warhead chemistry, reversible noncovalent (RNC), reversible covalent (RC), and irreversible covalent (IRC) binders, affects the degradation of Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase (BTK), we serendipitously discover that cyano-acrylamide-based reversible covalent chemistry can significantly enhance the intracellular accumulation and target engagement of PROTACs and develop RC-1 as a reversible covalent BTK PROTAC with a high target occupancy as its corresponding kinase inhibitor and effectiveness as a dual functional inhibitor and degrader, a different mechanism-of-action for PROTACs. Importantly, this reversible covalent strategy is generalizable to improve other PROTACs, opening a path to enhance PROTAC efficacy.
The Majorana fermion, which is its own antiparticle and obeys non-Abelian statistics, plays a critical role in topological quantum computing. It can be realized as a bound state at zero energy, ...called a Majorana zero mode (MZM), in the vortex core of a topological superconductor, or at the ends of a nanowire when both superconductivity and strong spin orbital coupling are present. A MZM can be detected as a zero-bias conductance peak (ZBCP) in tunneling spectroscopy. However, in practice, clean and robust MZMs have not been realized in the vortices of a superconductor because of contamination from impurity states or other closely packed Caroli–de Gennes-Matricon (CdGM) states, which hampers further manipulations of MZMs. Here, using scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we show that a ZBCP well separated from the other discrete CdGM states exists ubiquitously in the cores of free vortices in the defect-free regions of(Li0.84Fe0.16)OHFeSe, which has a superconducting transition temperature of 42 K. Moreover, a Dirac-cone-type surface state is observed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and its topological nature is confirmed by band calculations. The observed ZBCP can naturally be attributed to a MZM arising from the chiral topological surface state of a bulk superconductor. Thus,(Li0.84Fe0.16)OHFeSeprovides an ideal platform for studying MZMs and topological quantum computing.
Abstract
Intrinsic antiferromagnetism in van der Waals (vdW) monolayer (ML) crystals enriches our understanding of two-dimensional (2D) magnetic orders and presents several advantages over ...ferromagnetism in spintronic applications. However, studies of 2D intrinsic antiferromagnetism are sparse, owing to the lack of net magnetisation. Here, by combining spin-polarised scanning tunnelling microscopy and first-principles calculations, we investigate the magnetism of vdW ML CrTe
2
, which has been successfully grown through molecular-beam epitaxy. We observe a stable antiferromagnetic (AFM) order at the atomic scale in the ML crystal, whose bulk is ferromagnetic, and correlate its imaged zigzag spin texture with the atomic lattice structure. The AFM order exhibits an intriguing noncollinear spin reorientation under magnetic fields, consistent with its calculated moderate magnetic anisotropy. The findings of this study demonstrate the intricacy of 2D vdW magnetic materials and pave the way for their in-depth analysis.
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are self-renewing cells that facilitate tumor initiation, promote metastasis, and enhance cancer therapy resistance. Transcriptomic analyses across many cancer types have ...revealed a prominent association between stemness and immune signatures, potentially implying a biological interaction between such hallmark features of cancer. Emerging experimental evidence has substantiated the influence of CSCs on immune cells, including tumor-associated macrophages, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, and T cells, in the tumor microenvironment and, reciprocally, the importance of such immune cells in sustaining CSC stemness and its survival niche. This review covers the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the symbiotic interactions between CSCs and immune cells and how such heterotypic signaling maintains a tumor-promoting ecosystem and informs therapeutic strategies intercepting this co-dependency.
Cancer stem cells play vital roles in tumor initiation, metastases, and resistance to chemotherapy. Emerging evidence has revealed symbiotic reciprocal interactions between cancer stem cells and immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. In this review, Chen et al. detail the complexity of this signaling crosstalk and its therapeutic implications.
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