Uranium is a key resource for the development of the nuclear industry, and extracting uranium from the natural seawater is one of the most promising ways to address the shortage of uranium resources. ...Herein, a semiconducting covalent organic framework (named NDA‐TN‐AO) with excellent photocatalytic and photoelectric activities was synthesized. The excellent photocatalytic effect endowed NDA‐TN‐AO with a high anti‐biofouling activity by generating biotoxic reactive oxygen species and promoting photoelectrons to reduce the adsorbed UVI to insoluble UIV, thereby increasing the uranium extraction capacity. Owing to the photoinduced effect, the adsorption capacity of NDA‐TN‐AO to uranium in seawater reaches 6.07 mg g−1, which is 1.33 times of that in dark. The NDA‐TN‐AO with enhanced adsorption capacity is a promising material for extracting uranium from the natural seawater.
Photoelectric and photocatalytic effects endow the covalent organic framework NDA‐TN‐AO with good anti‐biofouling activity. This occurs by generating biotoxic reactive oxygen species and promoting photoelectrons to reduce the adsorbed UVI to insoluble UIV, thereby improving the uranium adsorption capacity.
The inherent features of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) make them highly attractive for uranium recovery applications. A key aspect yet to be explored is how to improve the selectivity and ...efficiency of COFs for recovering uranium from seawater. To achieve this goal, a series of robust and hydrophilic benzoxazole‐based COFs is developed (denoted as Tp‐DBD, Bd‐DBD, and Hb‐DBD) as efficient adsorbents for photo‐enhanced targeted uranium recovery. Benefiting from the hydroxyl groups and the formation of benzoxazole rings, the hydrophilic Tp‐DBD shows outstanding stability and chemical reduction properties. Meanwhile, the synergistic effect of the hydroxyl groups and the benzoxazole rings in the π‐conjugated frameworks significantly decrease the optical band gap, and improve the affinity and capacity to uranium recovery. In seawater, the adsorption capacity of uranium is 19.2× that of vanadium, a main interfering metal in uranium extraction.
Excellent photocatalytic activity, photothermal and photoelectric effects make Tp‐DBD produce biotoxic ROS, have good anti‐biofouling activity, and increase the adsorption rate and affinity of uranium binding sites, thereby improving the recovery capacity of uranium.
Dysregulated autophagy is associated with many pathological disorders such as cardiovascular diseases. Emerging evidence has suggested that circular RNAs (circRNAs) have important roles in some ...biological processes. However, it remains unclear whether circRNAs participate in the regulation of autophagy. Here we report that a circRNA, termed autophagy-related circular RNA (ACR), represses autophagy and myocardial infarction by targeting Pink1-mediated phosphorylation of FAM65B. ACR attenuates autophagy and cell death in cardiomyocytes. Moreover, ACR protects the heart from ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury and reduces myocardial infarct sizes. We identify Pink1 as an ACR target to mediate the function of ACR in cardiomyocyte autophagy. ACR activates Pink1 expression through directly binding to Dnmt3B and blocking Dnmt3B-mediated DNA methylation of Pink1 promoter. Pink1 suppresses autophagy and Pink1 transgenic mice show reduced myocardial infarction sizes. Further, we find that FAM65B is a downstream target of Pink1 and Pink1 phosphorylates FAM65B at serine 46. Phosphorylated FAM65B inhibits autophagy and cell death in the heart. Our findings reveal a novel role for the circRNA in regulating autophagy and ACR-Pink1-FAM65B axis as a regulator of autophagy in the heart will be potential therapeutic targets in treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
Increasing evidence suggests that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play crucial roles in various biological processes. However, little is known about the effects of lncRNAs on autophagy. Here we report ...that a lncRNA, termed cardiac autophagy inhibitory factor (CAIF), suppresses cardiac autophagy and attenuates myocardial infarction by targeting p53-mediated myocardin transcription. Myocardin expression is upregulated upon H
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and ischemia/reperfusion, and knockdown of myocardin inhibits autophagy and attenuates myocardial infarction. p53 regulates cardiomyocytes autophagy and myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury by regulating myocardin expression. CAIF directly binds to p53 protein and blocks p53-mediated myocardin transcription, which results in the decrease of myocardin expression. Collectively, our data reveal a novel CAIF-p53-myocardin axis as a critical regulator in cardiomyocyte autophagy, which will be potential therapeutic targets in treatment of defective autophagy-associated cardiovascular diseases.
Interleukin 35 (IL-35) is a heterodimeric cytokine composed of IL-12p35 and Ebi3 subunits. IL-35 suppresses autoimmune diseases while preventing host defense to infection and promoting tumor growth ...and metastasis by converting resting B and T cells into IL-10-producing and IL-35-producing regulatory B (Breg) and T (Treg) cells. Despite sharing the IL-12p35 subunit, IL-12 (IL-12p35/IL-12p40) promotes inflammatory responses whereas IL-35 (IL-12p35/Ebi3) induces regulatory responses, suggesting that IL-12p35 may have unknown intrinsic immune-regulatory functions regulated by its heterodimeric partner. Here we show that the IL-12p35 subunit has immunoregulatory functions hitherto attributed to IL-35. IL-12p35 suppresses lymphocyte proliferation, induces expansion of IL-10-expressing and IL-35-expressing B cells and ameliorates autoimmune uveitis in mice by antagonizing pathogenic Th17 responses. Recapitulation of essential immunosuppressive activities of IL-35 indicates that IL-12p35 may be utilized for in vivo expansion of Breg cells and autologous Breg cell immunotherapy. Furthermore, our uveitis data suggest that intrinsic immunoregulatory activities of other single chain IL-12 subunits might be exploited to treat other autoimmune diseases.IL-12p35 is common to IL-35 and IL-12, which have opposing effects on inflammation. Here the authors show that the IL-12p35 subunit induces regulatory B cells and can be used therapeutically to limit autoimmune uveitis in mice.
The type of reactions and the availability of monomers for the synthesis of sp
-c linked covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are considerably limited by the irreversibility of the C=C bond. Herein, ...inspired by the Claisen-Schmidt condensation reaction, two propenone-linked (C=C-C=O) COFs (named Py-DAB and PyN-DAB) are developed based on the base-catalyzed nucleophilic addition reaction of ketone-activated α-H with aromatic aldehydes. The introduction of propenone structure endows COFs with high crystallinity, excellent physicochemical stability, and intriguing optoelectronic properties. Benefitting from the rational design on the COFs skeleton, Py-DAB and PyN-DAB are applied to the extraction of radionuclide uranium. In particular, PyN-DAB shows excellent removal rates (>98%) in four uranium mine wastewater samples. We highlight that such a general strategy can provide a valuable avenue toward various functional porous crystalline materials.
Phase transition in thermoelectric (TE) material is a double‐edged sword—it is undesired for device operation in applications, but the fluctuations near an electronic instability are favorable. Here, ...Sb doping is used to elicit a spontaneous composition fluctuation showing uphill diffusion in GeTe that is otherwise suspended by diffusionless athermal cubic‐to‐rhombohedral phase transition at around 700 K. The interplay between these two phase transitions yields exquisite composition fluctuations and a coexistence of cubic and rhombohedral phases in favor of exceptional figures‐of‐merit zT. Specifically, alloying GeTe by Sb2Te3 significantly suppresses the thermal conductivity while retaining eligible carrier concentration over a wide composition range, resulting in high zT values of >2.6. These results not only attest to the efficacy of using phase transition in manipulating the microstructures of GeTe‐based materials but also open up a new thermodynamic route to develop higher performance TE materials in general.
The interplay between phase decomposition and athermal phase transition is leveraged in a Ge–Sb–Te ternary system to enable exquisite microstructure features by strong composition fluctuations and coexistence of rhombohedral and cubic GeTe. Specifically, alloying GeTe with Sb2Te3 significantly suppresses thermal conductivity while retaining eligible carrier concentration over a wide composition range, resulting in high zT values of >2.6.
Porous carbons are widely used in the energy storage and conversion field because of their excellent electrical conductivity, high specific surface area and superb electrochemical stability. The ...template method is one of the most advanced approaches to prepare porous carbons with well-defined pore structures and suitable pore size distributions. The pore formation mechanism and structure-property relationships of porous carbons obtained by template methods for supercapacitor electrodes are summarized. They include hard templates (magnesium-based, silica-based, zinc-based, calcium-based templates), soft templates (conventional soft template, ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvent) and self-templates (biomass, MOFs). Furthermore, the problems in tailoring the pore texture of porous carbons are clarified, and proposals are made for future research.
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