Lead halide perovskite has demonstrated remarkable potential in the wearable field due to its exceptional photoelectric conversion capability. However, its lead toxicity issue has consistently been subject to criticism, significantly impeding its practical application. To address this challenge, an innovative approach called lead-rivet was proposed for the in-situ growth of perovskite crystalline structures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHumans produce 350 million metric tons of plastic waste per year, leading to microplastic pollution and widespread environmental contamination, particularly in aquatic environments. This subsequently impacts aquatic organisms in myriad ways, yet the vast majority of research is conducted in marine, rather than freshwater systems. In this study, we exposed eggs and hatchlings of the Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) to 80-nm polystyrene nanoplastics (PS-NPs) and monitored the impacts on development, behavior and the gut microbiome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnvironmental temperature affects the composition, structure, and function of the gut microbial communities in host animals. To elucidate the role of gut microbiota in thermal adaptation, we designed a 2 species × 3 temperatures experiment, whereby we acclimated adult males of two agamid lizard species (warm-climate and cold-climate ) to 20, 28, and 36°C for 2 weeks and then collected their fecal and small-intestinal samples to analyze and compare the microbiota using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing technology. The fecal microbiota displayed more pronounced interspecific differences in microbial community than the small-intestinal microbiota in the two species occurring in thermally different regions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe established a normal embryonic development table for the Anji salamander Hynobius amjiensis, a critically endangered tailed amphibian of the family Hynobiidae with a very limited distribution in East China, following the standards set by the early developmental table of vertebrates. Put together 32 embryonic stages for the Anji salamander was defined. The total embryonic period from oviposition to hatching is approximately 30 days at 9 °C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenomic signatures of local adaptation have been identified in many species but remain sparsely studied in amphibians. Here, we explored genome-wide divergence within the Asiatic toad, , to study local adaptation and genomic offset (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNumerous studies have demonstrated that multiple intrinsic and extrinsic factors shape the structure and composition of gut microbiota in a host. The disorder of the gut microbiota may trigger various host diseases. Here, we collected fecal samples from wild-caught Japanese geckos () and captive conspecifics fed with mealworms (mealworm-fed geckos) and fruit flies (fly-fed geckos), aiming to examine the dietary and sexual correlates of the gut microbiota.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe liver is important in the synthesis, metabolism and storage of nutrients, detoxification and immune response of the body, and the liver immune response against exogenous pathogens from the intestinal tract plays a key role in the immune activities. However, the cellular composition of the liver immune atlas remains sparsely studied in reptiles. We used single-cell RNA sequencing to identify the cellular profile of the liver of the Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The metabolic cold-climate adaption hypothesis predicts that animals from cold environments have relatively high metabolic rates compared with their warm-climate counterparts. However, studies testing this hypothesis are sparse. Here, we compared gut microbes between two cold-climate lizard species of the genus Phrynocephalus to see if gut microbiota could help lizards adapt to cold environments by promoting metabolism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnhanced electrochemiluminescence (ECL) aims to promote higher sensitivity and obtain better detection limit. The core-shell nanostructures, owing to unique surface plasmon resonance (SPR) enabling distance-dependent strong localized electromagnetic field, have attracted rising attention in enhanced ECL research and application. However, the present structures usually with porous shell involve electrocatalytic activity from the metal core and adsorption effect from the shell, which interfere with practical SPR enhancement contribution to ECL signal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn understanding of solid-liquid interfaces is of great importance for fundamental research as well as industrial applications. However, it has been very challenging to directly image solid-liquid interfaces with high resolution, thus their structure and properties are often unknown. Here, we report a quasi-liquid phase between metal (In, Sn) nanoparticle surfaces and an aqueous solution observed using liquid cell transmission electron microscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo compare the safety and effectiveness of a novel flexible vacuum-assisted ureteral access sheath (FV-UAS) and traditional ureteral access sheath (UAS) in simulating retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS). A manometric model was established in porcine kidneys to observe the change in intrarenal pressure (IRP) in the FV-UAS and traditional UAS groups at different irrigation fluid velocities of 30, 50, 80, and 100 mL/min. Establish a kidney stone model (with 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudies have indicated that the abundance and community structure of gut microbiota are altered by diet. In this study, next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene amplicon was performed to evaluate variations in the gut microbiota of wild and captive individuals of both sexes of . The results showed that there was a significant sex difference in microbial community structure for wild , was the dominant genus in wild females (WF), whereas was the dominant genus in wild males (WM).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNumerous studies have demonstrated that food shapes the structure and composition of the host's oral and gut microbiota. The disorder of oral and gut microbiota may trigger various host diseases. Here, we collected oral and gut samples from wild water monitor lizards () and their captive conspecifics fed with bullfrogs, eggs, and depilated chicken, aiming to examine dietary correlates of oral and gut microbiota.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTemperature sensing based on fluorescent semiconductor nanocrystals has recently received immense attention. Enhancing the trap-facilitated thermal quenching of the fluorescence should be an effective approach to achieve high sensitivity for temperature sensing. Compared with conventional semiconductor nanocrystals, the defect-tolerant feature of lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (LHP NCs) endows them with high density of defects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGiven that the venom system in sea snakes has a role in enhancing their secondary adaption to the marine environment, it follows that elucidating the diversity and function of venom toxins will help to understand the adaptive radiation of sea snakes. We performed proteomic and de novo NGS analyses to explore the diversity of venom toxins in the annulated sea snake () and estimated the adaptive molecular evolution of the toxin-coding unigenes and the toxicity of the major components. We found three-finger toxins (3-FTxs), phospholipase A (PLA) and cysteine-rich secretory protein (CRISP) in the venom proteome and 59 toxin-coding unigenes belonging to 24 protein families in the venom-gland transcriptome; 3-FTx and PLA were the most abundant families.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A comprehensive evaluation of the -omic profiles of venom is important for understanding the potential function and evolution of snake venom. Here, we conducted an integrated multi-omics-analysis to unveil the venom-transcriptomic and venomic profiles in a same group of spine-bellied sea snakes (Hydrophis curtus) from the South China Sea, where the snake is a widespread species and might generate regionally-specific venom potentially harmful to human activities. The capacity of two heterologous antivenoms to immunocapture the H.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitochondrial DNA B Resour
February 2021
The Bingzhi's stout newt ( Chang, 1933) is distributed in mountainous areas of Zhejiang, China. The first complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of was determined by next-generation sequencing. The size of the assembled mitogenome for was 16,293 bp, which included 13 protein coding genes, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs, a non-coding region, and a control region (D-loop).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe used mitochondrial cytochrome b and ND4 genes and 9 microsatellite loci to determine genetic diversity, population structure, evolutionary history, and migration patterns within the Reeves' butterfly lizard Leiolepis reevesii (Agamidae). Considering molecular-based phylogeographical lineages, we then performed niche equivalency and similarity tests between divergent lineages. Phylogenetic analyses based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data revealed 2 lineages (A and B) diverging ≈0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The mutualistic symbiosis between the gut microbial communities (microbiota) and their host animals has attracted much attention. Many factors potentially affect the gut microbiota, which also varies among host animals. The native Chinese three-keeled pond turtle () and the invasive red-eared slider turtle () are two common farm-raised species in China, with the latter generally considered a more successful species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnimals in captivity undergo a range of environmental changes from wild animals. An increasing number of studies show that captivity significantly affects the abundance and community structure of gut microbiota. The northern grass lizard (Takydromus septentrionalis) is an extensively studied lacertid lizard and has a distributional range covering the central and southeastern parts of China.
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