CRISPR/Cas12a-enhanced DNA nanomachine for multiple respiratory pathogens detection.

Respiratory infection caused by pathogens is among the most prevalent health issues affecting people worldwide. Accurate and rapid screening of respiratory pathogens is crucial for selecting appropriate treatments to control epidemics. However, it is often challenged by two aspects: first, the low concentration of pathogens in the early stages of infection; second, the difficulty of analyzing multiple pathogens.

Adjusting Ion Diffusion Kinetics of Li Deposition Enabled by an Elastic Porous Melamine Sponge Host for Stable Lithium Metal Anodes.

Lithium (Li) dendritic growth and huge volume expansion seriously hamper Li-metal anode development. Herein, we design a lightweight 3D Li-ion-affinity host enabled by silver (Ag) nanoparticles fully decorating a porous melamine sponge (Ag@PMS) for dendrite-free and high-areal-capacity Li anodes. The compact Ag nanoparticles provide abundant preferred nucleation sites and give the host strong conductivity.

Single Particle Analysis-Enhanced DNA Walking Machine for Sensitive miRNA Detection.

DNA walking machines have achieved significant breakthroughs in areas such as biosensing, bioimaging, and early cancer diagnosis, facilitated by the self-assembly of DNA or its combination with other materials, such as magnetic beads and metal nanoparticles. However, current DNA walking machine strategies are constantly challenged by inadequate analytical sensitivity, while sophisticated signal amplification procedures are often indispensable. Single-particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICPMS) provides superior sensitivity and can effectively discriminate between background noise and detected signals due to the large number of metal atoms in a nanoparticle and the concentrating effect of single nanoparticle detection.

CRISPR-Cas12a-enhanced mass spectrometric DNA nanomachine for HPV-16 detection in human serum.

Cervical cancer is the second most harmful cancer to women, while human papillomavirus (HPV)-16 is the main cause of cervical cancer. Early virus screening can reduce the risk of death, but is sometimes challenged by the low concentration and complicated matrix in physiological samples such as human serum. Herein, we report a CRISPR-Cas12a-enhanced mass spectrometric 3D DNA nanomachine for HPV-16 detection in human serum.

Thermal Image Super-Resolution Based on Lightweight Dynamic Attention Network for Infrared Sensors.

Infrared sensors capture infrared rays radiated by objects to form thermal images. They have a steady ability to penetrate smoke and fog, and are widely used in security monitoring, military, etc. However, civilian infrared detectors with lower resolution cannot compare with megapixel RGB camera sensors.

Finger vein recognition based on bilinear fusion of multiscale features.

Finger veins are widely used in various fields due to their high safety. Existing finger vein recognition methods have some shortcomings, such as low recognition accuracy and large model size. To address these shortcomings, a multi-scale feature bilinear fusion network (MSFBF-Net) was designed.

Efficient biosynthesis of pinosylvin from lignin-derived cinnamic acid by metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli.

Background: The conversion of lignin-derived aromatic monomers into valuable chemicals has promising potential to improve the economic competitiveness of biomass biorefineries. Pinosylvin is an attractive pharmaceutical with multiple promising biological activities.

Results: Herein, Escherichia coli was engineered to convert the lignin-derived standard model monomer cinnamic acid into pinosylvin by introducing two novel enzymes from the wood plant: stilbene synthase from Pinus pinea (PpSTS) and 4-Coumarate-CoA ligase from Populus trichocarpa (Ptr4CL4).

Efficient lactic acid production from dilute acid-pretreated lignocellulosic biomass by a synthetic consortium of engineered Pseudomonas putida and Bacillus coagulans.

Background: Lignocellulosic biomass is an attractive and sustainable alternative to petroleum-based feedstock for the production of a range of biochemicals, and pretreatment is generally regarded as indispensable for its biorefinery. However, various inhibitors that severely hinder the growth and fermentation of microorganisms are inevitably produced during the pretreatment of lignocellulose. Presently, there are few reports on a single microorganism that can detoxify or tolerate toxic mixtures of pretreated lignocellulose hydrolysate while effectively transforming sugar components into valuable compounds.

A comprehensive review on microbial production of 1,2-propanediol: micro-organisms, metabolic pathways, and metabolic engineering.

1,2-Propanediol is an important building block as a component used in the manufacture of unsaturated polyester resin, antifreeze, biofuel, nonionic detergent, etc. Commercial production of 1,2-propanediol through microbial biosynthesis is limited by low efficiency, and chemical production of 1,2-propanediol requires petrochemically derived routes involving wasteful power consumption and high pollution emissions. With the development of various strategies based on metabolic engineering, a series of obstacles are expected to be overcome.

Facile synthesis of 5 nm NaYF₄:Yb/Er nanoparticles for targeted upconversion imaging of cancer cells.

5nm intense green emission NaYF4:Yb/Er upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) with pure β phase was synthesized with a simple "green" strategy for the first time. Traditional organic solvothermal method is often applied to prepare the high-quality and uniform UCNPs, but the preparation of lanthanide-oleate complexes is laborious as heating and multistep post-treatment for purification are often required. The water-alcohols solvothermal method is environmentally friendly, but the fabricated UCNPs have big size, poor biocompatibility and high cytotoxicity, which limited their application for cell imaging.

Ion adsorption components in liquid/solid systems.

Experiments on Zn2+ and Cd2+ adsorptions on vermiculite in aqueous solutions were conducted to investigate the widely observed adsorbent concentration effect on the traditionally defined adsorption isotherm in the adsorbate range 25-500 mg/L and adsorbent range 10-150 g/L. The results showed that the equilibrium ion adsorption density did not correspond to a unique equilibrium ion concentration in liquid phase. Three adsorbate/adsorbent ratios, the equilibrium adsorption density, the ratio of equilibrium adsorbate concentration in liquid phase to adsorbent concentration, and the ratio of initial adsorbate concentration to adsorbent concentration, were found to be related with unique values in the tested range.