High-quality genome of a modern soybean cultivar and resequencing of 547 accessions provide insights into the role of structural variation.

Soybean provides protein, oil and multiple health-related compounds. Understanding the effects of structural variations (SVs) on economic traits in modern breeding is important for soybean improvement. Here we assembled the high-quality genome of modern cultivar Nongdadou2 (NDD2) and identified 25,814 SV-gene pairs compared to 29 reported genomes, with 13 NDD2-private SVs validated in 547 deep-resequencing (average = 18.

Ecosystem engineers can regulate resource allocation strategies in associated plant species.

Balancing the biomass requirements of different functions for the purpose of population reproduction and persistence can be challenging for alpine plants due to extreme environmental stresses from both above- and below-ground sources. The presence of ecosystem engineers in alpine ecosystems effectively alleviates microenvironmental stresses, hence promoting the survival and growth of other less stress-tolerant species. However, the influence of ecosystem engineers on plant resource allocation strategies remains highly unexplored.

Long-Cycle Stability of In Situ Ultraviolet Curable Organic/Inorganic Composite Electrolyte for Solid-State Batteries.

Lithium-ion solid-state batteries with spinel LiTiO (LTO) electrodes have significant advantages, such as stability, long life, and good multiplication performance. In this work, the LTO electrode was obtained by the atmospheric plasma spraying method, and a composite solid electrolyte was prepared by in situ ultraviolet (UV) curing on the LTO electrode. The composite solid electrolyte was designed using a soft-hard combination strategy, and the electrolyte was prepared into a composite of a poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) flexible structure and high-conductivity LiAlTi(PO) (LATP) hard particles.

Preparation and Study of a Simple Three-Matrix Solid Electrolyte Membrane in Air.

Solid-state lithium batteries have attracted much attention due to their special properties of high safety and high energy density. Among them, the polymer electrolyte membrane with high ionic conductivity and a wide electrochemical window is a key part to achieve stable cycling of solid-state batteries. However, the low ionic conductivity and the high interfacial resistance limit its practical application.

Terahertz Broadband Absorber Based on a Combined Circular Disc Structure.

To solve the problem of complex structure and narrow absorption band of most of today's terahertz absorbers, this paper proposes and utilizes the finite element (COMSOL) method to numerically simulate a broadband absorber based on a straightforward periodic structure consisting of a disk and concentric ring. The final results show that our designed absorber has an absorption rate of over 99% in the broadband range of 9.06 THz to 9.

Synthesis of taurine-fluorescein conjugate and evaluation of its retina-targeted efficiency in vitro.

In this work, retinal penetration of fluorescein was achieved in vitro by covalent attachment of taurine to fluorescein, yielding the F-Tau conjugate. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) were used to confirm the successful synthesis of F-Tau. The cellular uptake of F-Tau in adult retinal pigment epithelial cells (ARPE-19) and human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (hRMECs) was visualized via confocal scanning microscopy.

Improving oral bioavailability of metformin hydrochloride using water-in-oil microemulsions and analysis of phase behavior after dilution.

Microemulsions show significant promise for enhancing the oral bioavailability of biopharmaceutics classification system (BCS) class II drugs, but how about class III drugs remains unclear. Here we employed metformin hydrochloride (MET) as the model drug and prepared drug-loaded water-in-oil (W/O) microemulsions selecting different hydrophile-lipophile balance (HLB) surfactant systems, using HLB 8 as a cut-off. We examined the phase behaviors of microemulsions after dilution and attempted to correlate these behaviors to drug oral bioavailability.

Preparation, transportation mechanisms and brain-targeting evaluation in vivo of a chemical delivery system exploiting the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier.

In recent years, specific transportation mechanisms on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) are extensively employed for brain-targeted drug delivery via colloidal nanocarriers. However, in this study, we purposed to exploit the sodium-dependent vitamin C transporter 2 (SVCT2)-mediated transportation on the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier to enhance central nervous system penetration of the highly hydrophilic ibuprofen (IBU) by synthesizing a SVCT2-targeted chemical delivery system (CDS), ibuprofen-C6-O-ascorbic acid (IAA). The physicochemical parameters of IAA were determined, and the transporter-mediated transportation mechanism of IAA was explored on a BBB monolayer mode.