Controllable Fabrication of Vertical Graphene with Tunable Growth Nature by Remote Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition.

As an important member of the graphene family, vertical graphene (VG) has broad applications like field emission, energy storage, and sensors owing to its fascinating physical and chemical properties. Among various fabrication methods for VG, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is most employed because of the fast growth rate at relatively low temperature for the high-quality VG. However, to date, relations between growth manner of VG and growth parameters such as growth temperature, dosage of gaseous carbon source, and electric power to generate plasma are still less known, which in turn hinder the massive production of VG for further applications.

Multistep optimization for the electrodeposited mixed perovskite FACsPbBrIsolar cells.

The electrodeposition method has recently been developed for the fabrication of perovskite solar cells due to its potential advantages in commercial preparation. However, there is few studies on the preparation of perovskite solar cells by the electrodeposition method, especially on the perovskite FAPbI-based solar cells. Herein, we fabricated the mixed perovskite FACsPbBrIsolar cells by an optimized electrodeposition method, in which the electrodeposited PbOreacts directly with FAI and an appropriate amount of CsBr dopants.

Constructing a Surface Multi-cationic Heterojunction for CsPbIBr Perovskite Solar Cells with Efficiency beyond 14.

All-inorganic CsPbIBr perovskite solar cells are considered as top cell candidates for tandem cells as a result of their excellent thermal stability and photoelectric performance. However, their power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) are still low and far below the theoretical limit mainly as a result of the severe non-radiative recombination and optical loss. Herein, we introduce an versatile method to construct a surface multi-cationic heterojunction to achieve an efficient and stable CsPbIBr perovskite solar cell.

A strategy to explore the quality markers of Ziziphi Spinosae semen by combining metabolic in vivo study with network pharmacology.

Ziziphi Spinosae semen (ZSS), the dried and ripe seed of Ziziphus jujube Mill. var. spinosa (Bunge) Hu ex H.

A unique insight for energy metabolism disorders in depression based on chronic unpredictable mild stress rats using stable isotope-resolved metabolomics.

Depression is currently the main disease which endangers human health and emotion. However, the existing antidepressants have the disadvantages of slowly taking effect and high recurrence rate. Numerous studies have shown that depression causes disorders in energy metabolism, but the specific metabolic pathways remain unclear.

Integrating comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography mass spectrometry and parallel two-dimensional liquid chromatography mass spectrometry for untargeted metabolomics.

The diverse characteristics and large number of entities make metabolite separation challenging in metabolomics. To date, there is not a singular instrument capable of analyzing all types of metabolites. In order to achieve a better separation for higher peak capacity and accurate metabolite identification and quantification, we integrated GC × GC-MS and parallel 2DLC-MS for analysis of polar metabolites.

An Ensemble Feature Selection Method for Biomarker Discovery.

Feature selection in Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS)-based metabolomics data (biomarker discovery) have become an important topic for machine learning researchers. High dimensionality and small sample size of LC-MS data make feature selection a challenging task. The goal of biomarker discovery is to select the few most discriminative features among a large number of irreverent ones.

Analysis of stable isotope assisted metabolomics data acquired by GC-MS.

Stable isotope assisted metabolomics (SIAM) measures the abundance levels of metabolites in a particular pathway using stable isotope tracers (e.g., C, O and/or N).

EIder: A compound identification tool for gas chromatography mass spectrometry data.

We report software entitled EIder (EI mass spectrum identifier) that provides users with eight literature reported spectrum matching algorithms for compound identification from gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) data. EIder calculates retention index according to experimental conditions categorized by column class, column type and data type, where 9 empirical distribution functions of the absolute retention index deviation to its mean value were constructed using the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 2011 retention index database to improve the accuracy of compound identification. EIder filters compound candidates based on elementary composition and derivatization reagent, and automatically adds the molecular information of the native compound to each derivatized compound using a manually created database.

(1)H NMR-based metabolic profiling of liver in chronic unpredictable mild stress rats with genipin treatment.

Genipin, a hydrolyzed metabolite of geniposide extracted from the fruit of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis, has shown promise in alleviating depressive symptoms, however, the antidepressant mechanism of genipin remains unclear and incomprehensive. In this study, the metabolic profiles of aqueous and lipophilic extracts in liver of the chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS)-induced rat with genipin treatment were investigated using proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR) spectroscopy coupled with multivariate data analysis. Significant differences in the metabolic profiles of rats in the CUMS model group (MS) and the control group (NS) were observed with metabolic effects including decreasing in choline, glycerol and glycogen, increasing in lactate, alanine and succinate, and a disordered lipid metabolism, while the moderate dose (50mg/kg) of genipin could significantly regulate the concentrations of glycerol, lactate, alanine, succinate and the lipid to their normal levels.

[1H NMR based metabonomics study on the antidepressant effect of genipin in rat hippocampus].

The purpose of this study is to explore depression metabolic markers in rat hippocampus and to investigate the anti-depressant effect of genipin and its mechanisms using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabonomics. Chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) procedure was conducted to establish the depressive rat model. At the beginning of the third week, genipin low dose (25 mg x kg(-1)), middle dose (50 mg x kg(-1)), high dose (100 mg x kg(-1)), and venlafaxine (50 mg x kg(-1)) were given to the CUMS rats separately once daily for two weeks except control and model groups.

1H-NMR-based metabonomic studies on the anti-depressant effect of genipin in the chronic unpredictable mild stress rat model.

The purpose of this work was to investigate the anti-depressant effect of genipin and its mechanisms using (1)H-NMR spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis on a chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) rat model. Rat serum and urine were analyzed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabonomics after oral administration of either genipin or saline for 2 weeks. Significant differences in the metabolic profile of the CUMS-treated group and the control group were observed, which were consistent with the results of behavioral tests.

Binding preference of carbon nanotube over proline-rich motif ligand on SH3-domain: a comparison with different force fields.

With the widespread applications of nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, there is a growing concern on the biosafety of these engineered nanoparticles, in particular their interactions with proteins. In molecular simulations of nanoparticle-protein interactions, the choice of empirical parameters (force fields) plays a decisive role, and thus is of great importance and should be examined carefully before wider applications. Here we compare three commonly used force fields, CHARMM, OPLSAA, and AMBER in study of the competitive binding of a single wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) with a native proline-rich motif (PRM) ligand on its target protein SH3 domain, a ubiquitous protein-protein interaction mediator involved in signaling and regulatory pathways.

A ¹H-NMR plasma metabonomic study of acute and chronic stress models of depression in rats.

To investigate and compare the metabonomic profiles of three stress-based models of depression, the effects of acute and chronic stress on the production of systemic endogenous metabolites were investigated. Such metabonomic analysis may provide researchers a new way of selecting appropriate animal models for the study of depression and antidepressants. Rats were subjected to one of three stress-based models: CUMS, FST-1d, or FST-14d.

Coherent microscopic picture for urea-induced denaturation of proteins.

In a previous study, we explored the mechanism of urea-induced denaturation of proteins by performing molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of hen lysozyme in 8 M urea and supported the "direct interaction mechanism" whereby urea denatures protein via dispersion interaction (Hua, L.; Zhou, R. H.

Folding of human telomerase RNA pseudoknot using ion-jump and temperature-quench simulations.

Globally RNA folding occurs in multiple stages involving chain compaction and subsequent rearrangement by a number of parallel routes to the folded state. However, the sequence-dependent details of the folding pathways and the link between collapse and folding are poorly understood. To obtain a comprehensive picture of the thermodynamics and folding kinetics we used molecular simulations of coarse-grained model of a pseudoknot found in the conserved core domain of the human telomerase (hTR) by varying both temperature (T) and ion concentration (C).

Dewetting transitions in the self-assembly of two amyloidogenic β-sheets and the importance of matching surfaces.

We use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the water-mediated self-assembly of two amyloidogenic β-sheets of hIAPP(22-27) peptides (NFGAIL). The initial configurations of β-sheet pairs are packed with two different modes, forming a tube-like nanoscale channel and a slab-like 2-D confinement, respectively. For both packing modes, we observe strong water drying transitions occurring in the intersheet region with high occurrence possibilities, suggesting that the "dewetting transition"-induced collapse may play an important role in promoting the amyloid fibrils formation.