Heteroatom-Based Ligand Engineering of Metal Organic Frameworks for Efficient and Robust Electrochemical Water Oxidation.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are promising catalysts for the electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER) due to their high surface area, tunable pore structures, and abundant active sites. Ligand engineering is an important strategy to optimize their performance. Here, we report the synthesis of NiFe-MOFs based on three different ligands: 1,4-terephthalic acid (BDC), 2,4-thiophene dicarboxylic acid (TDC), and 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDC), to investigate the effects of heteroatom-based aromatic rings on OER performance.

[Research progresses on PGC-1α, a key energy metabolic regulator].

Disturbance of the energy balance, when the energy intake exceeds its expenditure, is a major risk factor for the development of metabolic syndrome (MS). The peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ (PPARγ) coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) functions as a key regulator of energy metabolism and has become a hotspot in current researches. PGC-1α sensitively responds to the environmental stimuli and nutrient signals, and further selectively binds to different transcription factors to regulate various physiological processes, including glucose metabolism, lipid metabolism, and circadian clock.

GABAergic inhibitory neurons as therapeutic targets for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is considered primarily as a cognitive disorder. However, functional outcomes in schizophrenia are limited by the lack of effective pharmacological and psychosocial interventions for cognitive impairment. GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) interneurons are the main inhibitory neurons in the central nervous system (CNS), and they play a critical role in a variety of pathophysiological processes including modulation of cortical and hippocampal neural circuitry and activity, cognitive function-related neural oscillations (eg, gamma oscillations) and information integration and processing.