In Situ Studies on the Influence of Surface Symmetry on the Growth of MoSe Monolayer on Sapphire Using Reflectance Anisotropy Spectroscopy and Differential Reflectance Spectroscopy.

The surface symmetry of the substrate plays an important role in the epitaxial high-quality growth of 2D materials; however, in-depth and in situ studies on these materials during growth are still limited due to the lack of effective in situ monitoring approaches. In this work, taking the growth of MoSe as an example, the distinct growth processes on AlO (112¯0) and AlO (0001) are revealed by parallel monitoring using in situ reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy (RAS) and differential reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), respectively, highlighting the dominant role of the surface symmetry. In our previous study, we found that the RAS signal of MoSe grown on AlO (112¯0) initially increased and decreased ultimately to the magnitude of bare AlO (112¯0) when the first layer of MoSe was fully merged, which is herein verified by the complementary DRS measurement that is directly related to the film coverage.

Rechargeable alkali metal-chlorine batteries: advances, challenges, and future perspectives.

The emergence of Li-SOCl batteries in the 1970s as a high-energy-density battery system sparked considerable interest among researchers. However, limitations in the primary cell characteristics have restricted their potential for widespread adoption in today's sustainable society. Encouragingly, recent developments in alkali/alkaline-earth metal-Cl (AM-Cl) batteries have shown impressive reversibility with high specific capacity and cycle performance, revitalizing the potential of SOCl batteries and becoming a promising technology surpassing current lithium-ion batteries.

Superwetting Capillary Tubes: Surface Science under Confined Space.

Capillarity is a crucial and pervasive phenomenon in nature and has found important applications in wearable electronics, medical devices, and miniature energy systems. Capillary tubes are the transport vessels in which the surface wettability plays an essential role in efficient and accurate liquid delivery. However, it remains a challenging issue to tailor and measure the surface wettability inside the tubes in view of the confined space.

TiO Nanotube Arrays Inside Ultrafine Ti Tubes with an Aspect Ratio of 2500 for Sensing Needles: The Bubble Effect in a Confined Space.

Capillary metal tubes have attracted considerable interest for flexible electronics, portable devices, trace sampling, and detection. Tailoring the microstructure and wettability inside the capillary tubes is of paramount importance, yet it presents great difficulty because of the spatial confinement. Here, the coupling effect is revealed between the fluidic and electric field induced by bubble motion in a confined space during anodic oxidation.

[Effect of Spatholobi Caulis extract from ethyl acetate on immune killing function of NK cells].

This study aims to investigate the regulatory effect of the Spatholobi Caulis extract from ethyl acetate(SEA) on natural killer(NK) cells under physiological conditions and elucidate the underlying mechanism. The C57BL/6 mice were randomized into NC and SEA groups, and NK-92 cells were respectively treated with 0, 25, 50, and 100 μg·mL~(-1) SEA. The body weight and immune organ index of the mice were compared between groups.

TFE3-SLC36A1 axis promotes resistance to glucose starvation in kidney cancer cells.

Higher demand for nutrients including glucose is characteristic of cancer. "Starving cancer" has been pursued to curb tumor progression. An intriguing regime is to inhibit glucose transporter GLUT1 in cancer cells.

Ethyl-acetate extract of Spatholobi Caulis blocked the pro-metastatic support from the hemato-microenvironment of colon cancer by specific disruption of tumor-platelet adhesion.

Background: Within the pro-metastatic hemato-microenvironment, interaction between platelets and tumor cells provides essential support for tumor cells by inducing Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), which greatly increases the stemness of colon cancer cells. Pharmacologically, although platelet deactivation has proved to be benefit against metastasis, its wide application is severely restricted due to the bleeding risk. Spatholobi Caulis, a traditional Chinese herb with circulatory promotion and blood stasis removal activity, has been proved to be clinically effective in malignant medication, leaving its mechanistic relevance to tumor-platelet interaction largely unknown.

YTHDF2 protein stabilization by the deubiquitinase OTUB1 promotes prostate cancer cell proliferation via PRSS8 mRNA degradation.

Prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality in males. Dysregulation of RNA adenine N-6 methylation (m6A) contributes to cancer malignancy. m6A on mRNA may affect mRNA splicing, turnover, transportation, and translation.

The P53-P21-RB1 pathway promotes BRD4 degradation in liver cancer through USP1.

Liver cancer is notoriously refractory to conventional therapeutics. Tumor progression is governed by the interplay between tumor-promoting genes and tumor-suppressor genes. BRD4, an acetyl lysine-binding protein, is overexpressed in many cancer types, which promotes activation of a pro-tumor gene network.

OTUB1-mediated inhibition of ubiquitination: a growing list of effectors, multiplex mechanisms, and versatile functions.

Protein ubiquitination plays a pivotal role in protein homeostasis. Ubiquitination may regulate the stability, activity, protein-protein interaction, and localization of a protein. Ubiquitination is subject to regulation by two groups of counteracting enzymes, the E3 ubiquitin ligases and deubiquitinases.

Enrichment of Chlorine in Porous Organic Nanocages for High-Performance Rechargeable Lithium-Chlorine Batteries.

Rechargeable Li-Cl batteries are recognized as promising candidates for energy storage due to their ultrahigh energy densities and superior safety features. However, Li-Cl batteries suffer from a short cycle life and low Coulombic efficiency (CE) at a high specific cycling capacity due to a sluggish and insufficient Cl supply during the redox reaction. To achieve Li-Cl batteries with high discharge capacity and CE, herein, we propose and design an imine-functionalized porous organic nanocage (POC) to enrich Cl molecules.

Organocatalytic Lithium Chloride Oxidation by Covalent Organic Frameworks for Rechargeable Lithium-Chlorine Batteries.

Rechargeable Li-Cl battery is a promising high energy density battery system. However, reasonable cycle life could only be achieved under low specific capacities due to the sluggish oxidation of LiCl to Cl . Herein, we propose an amine-functionalized covalent organic framework (COF) with catalytic activity, namely COF-NH , that significantly decreases the oxidation barrier of LiCl and accelerates the oxidation kinetics of LiCl in Li-Cl cell.

Monitoring Autophagy with GFP-LC3 Reporter.

Autophagy is a key process that maintains cellular homeostasis. Autophagy contributes to various physiological and pathophysiological processes. Development of methodologies for autophagy detection has greatly facilitated the research on autophagy.

Excitons Enabled Topological Phase Singularity in a Single Atomic Layer.

The nontrivial and rigorous Heaviside phase jump behavior of phase singularities (PSs) empowers exotic topological modes and widely divergent nature compared to neighboring points, which has attracted great attention in condensed matter physics as well as applications in photonics and ultrasensitive sensors. Here we demonstrate the universal existence of a family of topologically protected PSs generated from exciton resonances of single-atom layers. We obtain the PSs by coating the transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers on a nonabsorptive semi-infinite substrate without surface plasmon effect or other assisted resonators, which exploits the benefits of both exciton-dominated enhancement and peculiarities of the singular phase.

TRIM28 represses renal cell carcinoma cell proliferation by inhibiting TFE3/KDM6A-regulated autophagy.

Autophagy plays a pivotal role in physiology and pathophysiology, including cancer. Mechanisms of autophagy dysregulation in cancer remain elusive. Loss of function of TRIM28, a multifunction protein, is seen in familial kidney malignancy, but the mechanism by which TRIM28 contributes to the etiology of kidney malignancy is unclear.

[Research status and prospect of remyelination in multiple sclerosis based on "inflammation-tissue" homeostatic coupling].

Multiple sclerosis(MS) shows the pathological characteristics of "inflammatory injury of white matter" and "myelin repair disability" in the central nervous system(CNS). It is very essential for MS treatment and reduction of disease burden to strengthen repair, improve function, and reduce disability. Accordingly, different from the simple immunosuppression, we believe that key to strengthening remyelination and maintaining the "damage-repair" homeostasis of tissue is to change the current one-way immunosuppression strategy and achieve the "moderate pro-inflammation-effective inflammation removal" homeostasis.

Metal Fluoride Cathode Materials for Lithium Rechargeable Batteries: Focus on Iron Fluorides.

Exploring prospective rechargeable batteries with high energy densities is urgently needed on a worldwide scale to address the needs of the large-scale electric vehicle market. Conversion-type metal fluorides (MFs) are attractive cathodes for next-generation rechargeable batteries because of their high theoretical potential and capacities and provide new perspectives for developing novel battery systems that satisfy energy density requirements. However, some critical issues, such as high voltage hysteresis and poor cycling stability must be solved to further enhance MF cathode materials.

Efficient and reversible Cas13d-mediated knockdown with an all-in-one lentivirus-vector.

Type VI CRISPR effector Cas13d from Ruminococcus flavefaciens XPD3002 (RfxCas13d) is an RNA-guided RNA endonuclease. RfxCas13d has been harnessed to knockdown gene expression with high specificity in various systems including mammalian cells. While inducible knockdown is advantageous over constitutive knockdown in many scenarios, current inducible systems of RfxCas13d express CRISPR RNA and Cas13d separately.

Lysine demethylase KDM1A promotes cell growth via FKBP8-BCL2 axis in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a dismal prognosis. KDM1A (lysine demethylase 1A), overexpressed in multiple cancer types, is a lysine demethylase that targets both histone and nonhistone proteins. However, it is unclear how KDM1A expression affects HCC etiology.

Versatile functions of RNA m6A machinery on chromatin.

m6A, a conserved and abundant modification on RNA, regulates RNA processing and function. RNA m6A machinery, including writers, erasers, and readers of m6A, is indispensable for m6A installation and function. Intriguingly, recent studies have revealed that m6A machinery can be recruited to chromatin by pleiotropic factors, including nascent RNA, transcription factors, regulatory RNA, histone modifications, and epigenetic machinery.

O-GlcNAcylation links oncogenic signals and cancer epigenetics.

Prevalent dysregulation of epigenetic modifications plays a pivotal role in cancer. Targeting epigenetic abnormality is a new strategy for cancer therapy. Understanding how conventional oncogenic factors cause epigenetic abnormality is of great basic and translational value.

Dissecting the Chain Length Effect on Separation of Alkane-in-Water Emulsions with Superwetting Microchannels.

Oil/water separation is an essential process in the petrochemical industry, environmental remediation, and water treatment. Alkanes are the major components of crude oil and are difficult to separate once they form emulsions in water. Much less attention has been focused on the feature of liquid alkanes that could, in turn, influence the separation process.

Chamaejasmenin B, an Inhibitor for Metastatic Outgrowth, Reversed M2-Dominant Macrophage Polarization in Breast Tumor Microenvironment.

Metastasis is a multistep process that depends on the interactions between tumor cells and their microenvironment. Macrophages in the tumor microenvironment show high polarization plasticity and have a paradoxical role in cancer progression. Hijacked by tumor-promoting signals, the polarization status of macrophages was pathologically disturbed and believed to be the decisive mechanism forcing the progression of metastasis.