An all-iron non-aqueous redox flow battery (NARFB) based on iron acetylacetonate (Fe(acac)3) anolyte and N-(ferrocenylmethyl)-N,N-dimethyl -N-ethylammonium bis(trifluoromethane-sulfonyl)imide ...(Fc1N112-TFSI) catholyte with an open circuit voltage of 1.34 V is designed. Due to the high electrochemical activity of the active species, the resultant battery demonstrates fairly high cycling performance and rate capability with anion exchange membrane FAP-375-PP. The Coulombic efficiency (CE) of 98.7%, voltage efficiency (VE) of 84.5%, and energy efficiency (EE) of 83.4% are achieved over 100 cycles at the current density of 10 mA cm−2. VE and EE can be further enhanced by employing mixed-reactant electrolyte as both anolyte and catholyte, which are 89.2% and 85.2%, respectively. The underlying reasons for the capacity decay are discussed for future optimization.
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•An all-iron non-aqueous RFB based on Fc1N112-TFSI and Fe(acac)3 is proposed.•The anion exchange membrane FAP-375-PP is preferable for this battery system.•The iron-based RFB shows high rate capability.•The factors for capacity decay during cycling are analyzed.
TGF-β promotes tumor invasion and metastasis through inducing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are recognized as functional ...non-coding RNAs involved in human cancers. However, whether and how circRNAs contribute to TGF-β-induced EMT and metastasis in NSCLC remain vague. Here, we investigated the regulation and function of Circular RNA hsa_circ_0008305 (circPTK2) in TGF-β-induced EMT and tumor metastasis, as well as a link between circPTK2 and transcriptional intermediary factor 1 γ (TIF1γ) in NSCLC.
Circular RNAs were determined by human circRNA Array analysis, real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR and northern blot. Luciferase reporter, RNA-binding protein immunoprecipitation (RIP), RNA pull-down and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assays were employed to test the interaction between circPTK2 and miR-429/miR-200b-3p. Ectopic overexpression and siRNA-mediated knockdown of circPTK2, TGF-β-induced EMT, Transwell migration and invasion in vitro, and in vivo experiment of metastasis were used to evaluate the function of circPTK2. Transcription and prognosis analyses were done in public databases.
CircPTK2 and TIF1γ were significantly down-regulated in NSCLC cells undergoing EMT induced by TGF-β. CircPTK2 overexpression augmented TIF1γ expression, inhibited TGF-β-induced EMT and NSCLC cell invasion, whereas circPTK2 knockdown had the opposite effects. CircPTK2 functions as a sponge of miR-429/miR-200b-3p, and miR-429/miR-200b-3p promote TGF-β-induced EMT and NSCLC cell invasion by targeting TIF1γ. CircPTK2 overexpression inhibited the invasion-promoting phenotype of endogenous miR-429/miR-200b-3p in NSCLC cells in response to TGF-β. CircPTK2 overexpression significantly decreased the expression of Snail, an important downstream transcriptional activator of TGF-β/Smad signaling. In an in vivo experiment of metastasis, circPTK2 overexpression suppressed NSCLC cell metastasis. Moreover, circPTK2 expression was dramatically down-regulated and positively correlated with TIF1γ expression in human NSCLC tissues. Especially, circPTK2 was significantly lower in metastatic NSCLC tissues than non-metastatic counterparts.
Our findings show that circPTK2 (hsa_circ_0008305) inhibits TGF-β-induced EMT and metastasis by controlling TIF1γ in NSCLC, revealing a novel mechanism by which circRNA regulates TGF-β-induced EMT and tumor metastasis, and suggesting that circPTK2 overexpression could provide a therapeutic strategy for advanced NSCLC.
NASICON-type solid-state electrolyte is characterized by high electrical conductivity but its application in all-solid-state battery is limited by the high sintering temperature and poor interface ...contact with the electrodes. Here, solid-state reactive sintering, without intermediate calcination and ball-milling steps and no sintering additive, is proposed to prepare dense and highly conductive NASICON at lower temperatures. The samples sintered at 950 and 1000 °C achieve relative density of ~90% and high ion conductivity of 8.43 × 10−4 and 1.48 × 10−3 S cm−1 at room temperature, respectively. The reasonable interface contact between sodium metal and 950 °C-sintered electrolyte affords the symmetric sodium battery to cycle stably at 0.05 mA cm−2 for ~1000 h and full battery at 0.1C (0.02 mA cm−2) at room temperature. This work provides a new strategy to prepare NASICON solid-state electrolyte, which can be extended to prepare other solid-state electrolytes and thus promote the development of all-solid-state battery.
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•950 °C-sintered NASICON electrolyte has relative density of 91.9%.•950 °C-sintered sample shows electrical conductivity of 8.43 × 10−4 S cm−1 at RT.•Symmetric sodium and full batteries cycle stably at room temperature.
CO2 emission is deemed to be mainly responsible for global warming. To reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and to use it as a carbon source, CO2 capture and its conversion into valuable ...chemicals is greatly desirable. To reduce the transportation cost, the integration of the capture and utilization processes is a feasible option. Here, the recent progress in the integration of CO2 capture and conversion is reviewed. The absorption, adsorption, and electrochemical separation capture processes integrated with several utilization processes, such as CO2 hydrogenation, reverse water–gas shift reaction, or dry methane reforming, is discussed in detail. The integration of capture and conversion over dual functional materials is also discussed. This review is aimed to encourage more efforts devoted to the integration of CO2 capture and utilization, and thus contribute to carbon neutrality around the world.
Myocardin (MYOCD) promotes Smad3-mediated transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling in mouse fibroblast cells. Our previous studies show that TGF-β/SMADs signaling activation enhances ...epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. However, whether and how MYOCD contributes to TGF-β-induced EMT of NSCLC cells are poorly elucidated. Here, we found that TGF-β-induced EMT was accompanied by increased MYOCD expression. Interestingly, MYOCD overexpression augmented EMT and invasion of NSCLC cells induced by TGF-β, whereas knockdown of MYOCD expression attenuated these effects. Overexpression and knockdown of MYOCD resulted in the upregulation and downregulation of TGF-β-induced Snail mRNA, respectively. Moreover, MYOCD overexpression promoted TGF-β-stimulated NSCLC cell metastasis in vivo. MYOCD was highly expressed and positively correlated with Snail in metastatic NSCLC tissues. Mechanistically, MYOCD directly interacted with SMAD3 and sustained the formation of TGF-β-induced nuclear SMAD3/SMAD4 complex, facilitating TGF-β/SMAD3-induced transactivation of Snail. Importantly, MYOCD was transcriptionally activated by TGF-β-induced SMAD3/SMAD4 complex and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated silencing of SMAD3/SMAD4 led to a reduction in MYOCD mRNA expression. Taken together, our findings indicate that MYOCD promotes TGF-β-induced EMT and metastasis of NSCLC and identify a positive feedback loop between MYOCD and SMAD3/SMAD4 driving TGF-β-induced EMT.
The prognosis of pancreatic cancer (PC) is relatively dismal due to the lack of effective therapy. In this study, we explored the specific functions and molecular mechanisms of miR-107 to uncover ...effective therapeutic targets for PC.
The miR-107 expression in PC cell lines was assessed via quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Besides, online bioinformatics analysis was adopted to predict the underlying targets of miR-107. Meanwhile, TCGA database was employed to explore the prognosis of PC patients. In addition, MTT and transwell assays were conducted to explore the PC cells' biological functions.
MiR-107 was remarkably increased in PC cells which could promote the proliferation, invasion and migration of PC cells. In addition, miR-107 could directly down-regulate TGFBR3 expression through binding to TGFBR3 3'UTR. Survival analysis from TCGA suggested that PC patients with higher miR-107 expression was significantly involved in poorer prognosis.
We concluded that miR-107 promoted proliferation, invasion and migration of PC cells via targeting TGFBR3, which may provide novel underlying therapeutic targets.
•Bacterial endophytes of tomato root represented mainly Proteobacterial groups.•Most endophytic isolates showed antagonistic activity against pathogenic targets and plant growth ...promotion.•Host-benefiting traits were derived mainly from endophytic Pseudomonas, Bacillus and Rhizobium.
Extensive research has been done to assess the potential of endophytes as inoculants to promote plant growth and as biocontrol agents. However, little work has been done to determine the key endophytes and their associated functions that benefit or harm plant growth or protect the host from pathogens at the community level. In this study, we attempted to identify plant growth-promoting endophytes within the bacterial groups identified as part of the core tomato root microbiome. In total, 49 bacterial endophytic strains, identified as members of the phyla of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, were picked and isolated from tomato roots on selected media. A phylogenetic analysis was performed using the 16S rRNA gene sequences that were obtained from the isolated bacterial endophytes and the core OTUs of the previously published tomato root microbiome. The results indicated that the isolates clustered into groups of the orders Pseudomonadales, Enterobacteriales, Rhizobiales, Burkholderiales, and Xanthomonadales, representing the majority of the Proteobacterial groups of tomato root endophytes, in addition to the phylum Firmicutes. In vitro bioassays showed that most strains (31 of the 49 isolated endophytic strains) showed antagonistic activity against the tested microbial targets, including Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Aspergillus niger. Most of the endophytic isolates with antimicrobial activities were from the genera Bacillus and Pseudomonas. However, few of the identified active strains clustered with the core endophytic groups. In experiments to assess the ability of endophytes to promote the growth of wheat plants in vivo, almost all the isolated tomato root endophytic strains demonstrated an ability to promote plant growth. Four strains were shown to produce IAA when grown in medium containing L-tryptophan. The IAA-producing Pseudomonas spp. closely clustered with the most abundant Pseudomonadales OTU, which harbored an intact IAA synthesis pathway using the precursor tryptophan. Eighteen identified nitrogen-fixing endophytes were primarily Bacillus and Rhizobium species. The results suggested that in tomato root endophytes, most of the tested plant host-benefiting traits were derived from bacteria of three genera, Pseudomonas, Bacillus and Rhizobium. Bacillus strains have great taxonomic and functional potential to explore as biological agents that contribute diverse nutrient acquisition and growth promotion activities to their hosts. As one of the most predominant groups in the healthy tomato root endophytic microbiome, the majority of Pseudomonas spp. showed the most promising potential in promoting plant growth, while other species demonstrated their ability as biological control agents, especially for the fungal targets.
This paper presents a novel adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) method to solve the optimal consensus problem for a class of discrete‐time multi‐agent systems with completely unknown dynamics. ...Different from the classical RL‐based optimal control algorithms based on one‐step temporal difference method, a multi‐step‐based (also call n‐step) policy gradient ADP (MS‐PGADP) algorithm, which have been proved to be more efficient owing to its faster propagation of the reward, is proposed to obtain the iterative control policies. Moreover, a novel Q‐function is defined, which estimates the performance of performing an action in the current state. Then, through the Lyapunov stability theorem and functional analysis, the proof of optimality of the performance index function is given and the stability of the error system is also proved. Furthermore, the actor‐critic neural networks are used to implement the proposed method. Inspired by deep Q network, the target network is also introduced to guarantee the stability of NNs in the process of training. Finally, two simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
This paper presents a novel adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) method to solve the optimal consensus problem for a class of discrete‐time multi‐agent systems with completely unknown dynamics. Different from the classical RL‐based optimal control algorithms based on one‐step temporal difference method, a multi‐step‐based (also call n‐step) policy gradient ADP (MS‐PGADP) algorithm, which have been proved to be more efficient owing to its faster propagation of the reward, is proposed to obtain the iterative control policies.
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