•mBDNF/proBDNF plays a key role in neuropsychiatric and degenerative diseases.•ProBDNF is proteolytically cleaved into mBDNF by several proteases.•These proteases could be new targets in ...neuropsychiatric and degenerative diseases.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is involved in pathophysiological mechanisms in neuropsychiatric diseases, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia (SZ), as well as neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). An imbalance or insufficient pro-brain-derived neurotrophic factor (proBDNF) transformation into mature BDNF (mBDNF) is potentially critical to the disease pathogenesis by impairing neuronal plasticity as suggested by results from many studies. Thus, promoting proBDNF transformation into mBDNF is therefore hypothesized as beneficial for the treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. ProBDNF is proteolytically cleaved into the mBDNF by intracellular furin/proprotein convertases and extracellular proteases (plasmin/matrix metallopeptidases). This article reviews the mechanisms of the conversion of proBDNF to mBDNF and the research status of intracellular/extracellular proteolytic proteases for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
Solar‐powered water evaporation is a straightforward, practical approach to use solar energy for water desalination. Solar absorbers made from photothermal materials capable of effectively confining ...heat and pumping water to the evaporation surface are essential for a high energy efficiency. However, separate designs of water transport routes and thermal insulating layers are required to simultaneously achieve desired water and thermal managements. This work reports an integrated design for efficient multifunctional capabilities through rational assembly of spectrally modified Ti3C2Tx (SM‐Ti3C2Tx) nanosheets and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) into a multiscale 3D aerogel with a feather‐like microstructure. The aerogel contains longitudinal struts with transversely parallel ligaments developed at an angle of ≈60° from the struts, resembling the microstructure of down feathers in penguins and thus leading to excellent thermal insulation. The hydrophilic porous ligaments serve as upward water transport channels, pumping the water to the evaporation surface while confining it within the ligaments to avoid oversaturation. These functional features endow the composite aerogel with a high energy efficiency of 88.52% and an evaporation rate of 0.92 kg m−2 h−1 at a weak solar irradiance of 0.5‐sun, indicating its great potential for practical solar‐powered water desalination under natural sunlight.
A novel, penguin feather‐like MXene aerogel absorber with multifunctional capabilities of excellent thermal insulation and water uptake is developed. It delivers a high energy efficiency of 88.52% and an evaporation rate of 0.92 kg m−2 h−1 at 0.5‐sun irradiance, indicating its great potential for practical solar‐powered water desalination and purification under natural sunlight.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a current world-wide public health threat. However, little is known about its hallmarks compared to other infectious diseases. Here, we report ...the single-cell transcriptional landscape of longitudinally collected peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in both COVID-19- and influenza A virus (IAV)-infected patients. We observed increase of plasma cells in both COVID-19 and IAV patients and XIAP associated factor 1 (XAF1)-, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-, and FAS-induced T cell apoptosis in COVID-19 patients. Further analyses revealed distinct signaling pathways activated in COVID-19 (STAT1 and IRF3) versus IAV (STAT3 and NFκB) patients and substantial differences in the expression of key factors. These factors include relatively increase of interleukin (IL)6R and IL6ST expression in COVID-19 patients but similarly increased IL-6 concentrations compared to IAV patients, supporting the clinical observations of increased proinflammatory cytokines in COVID-19 patients. Thus, we provide the landscape of PBMCs and unveil distinct immune response pathways in COVID-19 and IAV patients.
Display omitted
•We generated a single-cell atlas of PBMCs in both COVID-19 and influenza patients•Plasma cells increase significantly in both COVID-19 and influenza patients•COVID-19 is featured with XAF1-, TNF-, and FAS-induced T cell apoptosis•COVID-19 activates distinct pathway (STAT1/IRF3) versus influenza (STAT3/NFκB)
COVID-19 and influenza are both respiratory infections with cytokine release syndrome. Zhu et al. use single-cell RNA sequencing of longitudinally collected PBMCs in both patients to reveal distinct immune response landscapes of the two diseases and identify virus-specific cell composition and immune response pathways.
Nitrogen and sulfur co-doped graphene supported hollow ZnFe2O4 nanosphere composites have been successfully synthesized via a facile, two-step hydrothermal method. The obtained ZnFe2O4/NSG samples ...show interconnected hollow sphere nanostructure with a size of ∼250 nm. The product demonstrated a high initial discharge capacity of 2478.6 mAhg−1 at a rate of 300 mAg−1. After 100 cycles, it delivered a high reversible capacity of 729.06 mAhg−1 and coulombic efficiency of 99.36%, while at high rate capability of 1800 mAg−1, the rate capacity stabilize at 650.1 mAhg−1. It is believed that the composite with good rate capability and stability can be a competitive anode for lithium-ion batteries.
•Researched Nitrogen and sulfur co-doped graphene for lithium-ion batteries.•The ZnFe2O4/NSG has a unique interconnected network structure.•The ZnFe2O4/NSG exhibits enhanced electrochemical property and high rate stability.
Tetraploid black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) is adaptable to salt stress. Here, we compared morphological, physiological, ultrastructural, and proteomic traits of leaves in tetraploid black ...locust and its diploid relatives under salt stress. The results showed that diploid (2×) plants suffered from greater negative effects than those of tetraploid (4×) plants. After salt treatment, plant growth was inhibited, photosynthesis was reduced, reactive oxygen species, malondialdehyde content, and relative electrolyte leakage increased, and defense-related enzyme activities decreased in 2× compared to those in 4×. In addition, salt stress resulted in distorted chloroplasts, swollen thylakoid membranes, accumulation of plastoglobules, and increased starch grains in 2× compared to those in 4×. However, 4× developed diverse responses under salt stress. A comparative proteomic analysis revealed that 41 and 37 proteins were differentially expressed in 2× and 4×, respectively. These proteins were mainly involved in photosynthesis, stress and defense, energy, metabolism, transcription/translation, and transportation. Distinct patterns of protein changes between 2× and 4× were analyzed. Collectively, our results suggest that the plants showed significantly different responses to salt stress based on ploidy level of the plant. The 4× possessed a better salt protection mechanism than that of 2×, suggesting salt tolerance in the polyploid plant.
With the advent of flexible electronics, flexible secondary rechargeable batteries have attracted considerable attentions as a promising power source in the new generation of flexible electronics ...such as roll-up displays, smart electronics, and implantable medical devices. In this work, we report the fabrication of 3D NiCo2O4 arrays on carbon cloth as a binder-free anode for sodium/lithium ion storage. Amorphous carbon layer is used to modify the surface of NiCo2O4 arrays by physical vapor deposition (PVD). The electrochemical performance measurements demonstrate that the amorphous carbon layer can improve the electrochemical stability of NiCo2O4. The NiCo2O4@ C/carbon cloth electrode exhibits a high reversible capacity of 749.9 mAh g−1, stable cycling with more than 535.47 mAh g−1 at 500 mA g−1 over 100 cycles and impressive rate capability (318 mAh g−1 at 5 A g−1 over 700 cycles) for SIBs and excellent electrochemical performance for LIBs (reversible capacity of 807.63 mAh g−1 were observed for 100 cycles).
Display omitted
Enterprises’ green technology innovation is critical to achieving the “win-win” of enterprise competitiveness and environmental protection. The impact of environmental regulation on green technology ...innovation by enterprises has been widely considered, but the conclusion has not yet been determined, and needs to be studied in detail. To this end, we studied the impact of pollution charge policy on different types of green technology innovation by industrial enterprises in China. We found that (1) the impact of pollution charges on most types of green technology innovation by enterprises has increased significantly over time; (2) the pollution charge policy has a certain inhibition effect on the end-of-pipe technology innovation, but can promote the process improvement of reducing industrial wastewater emissions; (3) there is a U-shaped relationship between the pollution charges and some green technological innovation (e.g., emission intensity of SO2, industrial wastewater emission intensity, and industrial wastewater removal intensity), which is dynamically adjusted over time; and (4) the larger the enterprise’s solid assets, the faster the asset depreciation will inhibit the enterprise from adopting the green process innovation strategy.
Soft carbon materials are considered as promising anodes for potassium-ion batteries (KIBs) due to their low cost, ease of available, excellent electronic conductivity and tunable interlayer ...distance. However, they still exhibit unsatisfying performance for K-ions storage owing to the serious volume expansion and sluggish kinetics when forming potassium intercalation compounds. To date, the bulk soft carbon anodes for outstanding capacity of potassium storage have been rarely studied. Herein, a unique bulk soft carbon has been synthesized via a facile pyrolysis method, which shows a high reversible capacity of 343.2 mA h g−1, excellent rate capability, and good cycling performance (a retention of 86.2% at 100 mA g−1 after 100 cycles). The soft carbon with larger interlayer spacing and moderate defects can not only facilitate ion diffusion but also provide active sites for K-ions storage, contributing to an outstanding capacity and excellent rate performance. In addition, full cells constructed with the obtained soft carbon as anode also exhibit a good performance with a capacity of 201 mA h g−1. Considering the cost issue, practical application and electrochemical performance, this work provides a strategy for manufacturing low cost and brilliant electrochemical performance KIBs anode material.
Display omitted
•Soft carbon derived from low cost pitch were obtained by a simple pyrolysis method.•Potassium-ion batteries exhibit high capacity and excellent rate performance.•The high-performance anode was applied to full cell and displayed potential application.
For the remote sensing classification task, the ability of a single data source to identify the ground objects remains limited due to the lack of feature diversity. As the typical remote sensing data ...sources, hyperspectral imagery (HSI) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data can provide complementary spectral features and elevation information, respectively. To enhance classification ability, a multi-scale Pseudo-Siamese Network with attention mechanism (MA-PSNet) is proposed by fusing HSI and LiDAR data. In the network, two sub-branch networks are designed for extracting the features from HSI and LiDAR, respectively, and the connection is further established between these two branches. Specifically, a multi-scale feature learning module is incorporated, enabling the image features to be fully extracted at different scales. Similarly, a convolutional attention module is also embedded to highlight the saliency information of the objects, which makes the network training can be more targeted, thereby eventually improving the model performance for classification. The evaluation experiments of the proposed model are carried out on an urban dataset from Houston, USA, and a rural dataset from Trento, Italy. The overall accuracy (OA) of the model can reach 95.03% on the Houston data and 99.16% on the Trento data. The experimental results fully demonstrate that the proposed model has competitive performance compared with several state-of-the-art methods.
PDF
