Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2RR) into value‐added chemicals is a promising tactic to mitigate global warming. However, this process resists catalyst preparation, low faradaic ...efficiency (FE%) towards multi‐carbon products, and insights into mechanistic understanding. Indeed, it is demonstrated that this Fe single‐atom catalyst (Fe SAC) exists in three oxygen coordination of Fe–(O)3 configuration in Nafion coated functionalized multi‐wall carbon nanotubes (Fe‐n‐f‐CNTs), which is obtained via a simple ionic exchange method under ambient conditions. The electrochemical performance reveals that Fe SACs achieve an FE of 45% and a yield rate of 56.42 µmol cm−2 h−1 at −0.8 VRHE for ethanol. In situ X‐ray analysis reveals that the Fe SACs have variable electronic states and keeps close +3 of the oxidation state at the potential range of CO2RR. The catalytic feature reduces the reaction energy and induces the electrons transferred to the adsorbed products intermediates of *COOH and *OCHO, thus promoting CO. The carboxylic functional group on the CNTs stabilizes the Fe active sites via electrostatic interaction, verified by density functional theory calculations. The yield rate of Fe SACs indicates that the Fe single‐atom site can instantly provide a large CO to help conversion of CO2‐to‐C2 product on the CNTs.
The Fe–(O)3 single‐atom catalyst synthesis via a simple ionic exchange method on Nafion‐coated functionalized multi‐wall carbon nanotubes (Fe‐n‐f‐CNTs). The Fe SACs and functionalized CNTs are dual active sites toward CO2RR with enhanced selectivity of C2 products. During CO2RR, the carboxylic functional group stabilizes the Fe single‐atom active catalytic site via electrostatic interactions.
Human gastric cancer (GC) is characterized by a high incidence and mortality rate, largely because it is normally not identified until a relatively advanced stage owing to a lack of early diagnostic ...biomarkers. Gastroscopy with biopsy is the routine method for screening, and gastrectomy is the major therapeutic strategy for GC. However, in more than 30% of GC surgical patients, cancer has progressed too far for effective medical resection. Thus, useful biomarkers for early screening or detection of GC are essential for improving patients' survival rate. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in tumorigenesis. They contribute to gastric carcinogenesis by altering the expression of oncogenes and tumor suppressors. Because of their stability in tissues, serum/plasma and other body fluids, miRNAs have been suggested as novel tumor biomarkers with suitable clinical potential. Recently, aberrantly expressed miRNAs have been identified and tested for clinical application in the management of GC. Aberrant miRNA expression profiles determined with miRNA microarrays, quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and next-generation sequencing approaches could be used to establish sample specificity and to identify tumor type. Here, we provide an up-to-date summary of tissue-based GC-associated miRNAs, describing their involvement and that of their downstream targets in tumorigenic and biological processes. We examine correlations among significant clinical parameters and prognostic indicators, and discuss recurrence monitoring and therapeutic options in GC. We also review plasma/serum-based, GC-associated, circulating miRNAs and their clinical applications, focusing especially on early diagnosis. By providing insights into the mechanisms of miRNA-related tumor progression, this review will hopefully aid in the identification of novel potential therapeutic targets.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs of approximately 22 nucleotides, which negatively regulate the gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. This study describes an update of the ...miRTarBase (http://miRTarBase.mbc.nctu.edu.tw/) that provides information about experimentally validated miRNA-target interactions (MTIs). The latest update of the miRTarBase expanded it to identify systematically Argonaute-miRNA-RNA interactions from 138 crosslinking and immunoprecipitation sequencing (CLIP-seq) data sets that were generated by 21 independent studies. The database contains 4966 articles, 7439 strongly validated MTIs (using reporter assays or western blots) and 348 007 MTIs from CLIP-seq. The number of MTIs in the miRTarBase has increased around 7-fold since the 2014 miRTarBase update. The miRNA and gene expression profiles from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) are integrated to provide an effective overview of this exponential growth in the miRNA experimental data. These improvements make the miRTarBase one of the more comprehensively annotated, experimentally validated miRNA-target interactions databases and motivate additional miRNA research efforts.
Despite the unique advantages of single‐atom catalysts, molecular dual‐active sites facilitate the C‐C coupling reaction for C2 products toward the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). The Ni/Cu proximal ...dual‐active site catalyst (Ni/Cu‐PASC) is developed, which is a harmonic catalyst with dual‐active sites, by simply mixing commercial Ni‐phthalocyanine (Ni‐Pc) and Cu‐phthalocyanine (Cu‐Pc) molecules physically. According to scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) data, Ni and Cu atoms are separated, creating dual‐active sites for the CO2RR. The Ni/Cu‐PASC generates ethanol with an FE of 55%. Conversely, Ni‐Pc and Cu‐Pc have only detected single‐carbon products like CO and HCOO−. In situ X‐ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) indicates that CO generation is caused by the stable Ni active site's balanced electronic state. The CO production from Ni‐Pc consistently increased the CO concentration over Cu sites attributed to subsequent reduction reaction through a C‐C coupling on nearby Cu. The CO bound (HCOO−) peak, which can be found on Cu‐Pc, vanishes on Ni/Cu‐PASC, as shown by in situ fourier transformation infrared (FTIR). The characteristic intermediate of *CHO instead of HCOO− proves to be the prerequisite for multi‐carbon products by electrochemical CO2RR. The work demonstrates that the harmonic dual‐active sites in Ni/Cu‐PASC can be readily available by the cascading proximal active Ni‐ and Cu‐Pc sites.
Ethanol is produced by a Ni/Cu dual active site in the Ni/Cu‐PASC catalyst. Because of the CO that has migrated from the Ni atom, a harmonious Ni/Cu dual atom site modifies the coordination bind site, converting the Cu‐*OCHO intermediate site to Cu‐*CHO. Ethanol is eventually produced when the Ni/Cu dual site facilitates the C‐C coupling via Cu‐*CHO‐CO
.
The dysbiosis of human gut microbiota is strongly associated with the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). The dysbiotic features of the transition from advanced polyp to early-stage CRC are ...largely unknown. We performed a 16S rRNA gene sequencing and enterotype-based gut microbiota analysis study. In addition to Bacteroides- and Prevotella-dominated enterotypes, we identified an Escherichia-dominated enterotype. We found that the dysbiotic features of CRC were dissimilar in overall samples and especially Escherichia-dominated enterotype. Besides a higher abundance of Fusobacterium, Enterococcus, and Aeromonas in all CRC faecal microbiota, we found that the most notable characteristic of CRC faecal microbiota was a decreased abundance of potential beneficial butyrate-producing bacteria. Notably, Oscillospira was depleted in the transition from advanced adenoma to stage 0 CRC, whereas Haemophilus was depleted in the transition from stage 0 to early-stage CRC. We further identified 7 different CAGs by analysing bacterial clusters. The abundance of microbiota in cluster 3 significantly increased in the CRC group, whereas that of cluster 5 decreased. The abundance of both cluster 5 and cluster 7 decreased in the Escherichia-dominated enterotype of the CRC group. We present the first enterotype-based faecal microbiota analysis. The gut microbiota of colorectal neoplasms can be influenced by its enterotype.
Fusion transcripts are formed by either fusion genes (DNA level) or trans-splicing events (RNA level). They have been recognized as a promising tool for diagnosing, subtyping and treating cancers. ...RNA-seq has become a precise and efficient standard for genome-wide screening of such aberration events. Many fusion transcript detection algorithms have been developed for paired-end RNA-seq data but their performance has not been comprehensively evaluated to guide practitioners. In this paper, we evaluated 15 popular algorithms by their precision and recall trade-off, accuracy of supporting reads and computational cost. We further combine top-performing methods for improved ensemble detection.
Fifteen fusion transcript detection tools were compared using three synthetic data sets under different coverage, read length, insert size and background noise, and three real data sets with selected experimental validations. No single method dominantly performed the best but SOAPfuse generally performed well, followed by FusionCatcher and JAFFA. We further demonstrated the potential of a meta-caller algorithm by combining top performing methods to re-prioritize candidate fusion transcripts with high confidence that can be followed by experimental validation.
Our result provides insightful recommendations when applying individual tool or combining top performers to identify fusion transcript candidates.
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common malignant neoplasm of the oral cavity and the fourth leading malignancy and cause of cancer-related death in the male population of Taiwan. Most ...cases are detected at advanced stages, resulting in poor prognosis. Therefore, improved detection of early oral health disorders is indispensable. The involvement of oral bacteria in inflammation and their association with OSCC progression provide a feasible target for diagnosis. Due to the nature of oral neoplasms, the diagnosis of epithelial precursor lesions is relatively easy compared with that of other types of cancer. However, the transition from an epithelial precursor lesion to cancer is slow and requires further and continuous follow-up. In this study, we investigated microbiota differences between normal individuals, epithelial precursor lesion patients, and cancer patients with different lifestyle habits, such as betel chewing and smoking, using next-generation sequencing. Overall, the oral microbiome compositions of five genera, Bacillus, Enterococcus, Parvimonas, Peptostreptococcus, and Slackia, revealed significant differences between epithelial precursor lesion and cancer patients and correlated with their classification into two clusters. These composition changes might have the potential to constitute a biomarker to help in monitoring the oral carcinogenesis transition from epithelial precursor lesion to cancer.
In this paper, we propose a new method for multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM) based on the proposed interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy aggregation (IVIFA) operators (including the ...interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging (IVIFWA) operator, the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy ordered weighted averaging (IVIFOWA) operator and the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy hybrid weighted averaging (IVIFHWA) operator) of interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy values (IVIFVs). First, we propose transformation techniques between IVIFVs and right-angled triangular fuzzy numbers based on the proposed addition operator of IVIFVs. We also prove some properties of the proposed addition operator of IVIFVs. Then, we propose the IVIFWA operator, the IVIFOWA operator and the IVIFHWA operator for aggregating IVIFVs. Finally, we propose a new MAGDM method based on the proposed IVIFA operators. The experimental results show that the proposed MAGDM method can overcome the drawbacks of the existing methods. It provides us with a useful way for MAGDM in interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy environments.
Abstract
Catalysts assumed that properly designed bimetallic systems would provide superior catalytic performance due to the cooperative effects between two atoms. Dual single‐atom catalyst (DSAC) ...PdN
4
/CuN
4
is synthesized using a simple, cost‐effective, and efficient electrochemical reduction method. The palladium single‐atom is prepared first by electrochemical reduction of copper phthalocyanine to create defective N
4
sites. The new structural feature is characterized by copper reduction from Cu‐N
4
coordination and the formation of defected N
4
(▫
M
‐N
4
) sites, which react with a Pd precursor and form PdN
4
on the host surface. The DSAC PdN
4
/CuN
4
technique synergistically improves electrocatalytic performance toward the ethylene glycol oxidation reaction. It possesses excellent glycolate selectivity (above 88%) in an alkaline solution with an onset oxidation potential as low as 0.6 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode, compared to commercial Pd/C. The DSAC electrocatalyst is characterized by its high current density of 83.92 mA cm
−2
and high faradic efficiency value (>80%) for glycolate at 1.0
V
RHE
. The findings suggest a promising method to synthesize the DSACs in varying transition metals to achieve highly efficient, selective, and environmentally friendly catalysts for different applications.
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