Screening and identification of antimicrobial peptides from the gut microbiome of cockroach Blattella germanica.

Background: The overuse of antibiotics has led to lethal multi-antibiotic-resistant microorganisms around the globe, with restricted availability of novel antibiotics. Compared to conventional antibiotics, evolutionarily originated antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising alternatives to address these issues. The gut microbiome of Blattella germanica represents a previously untapped resource of naturally evolving AMPs for developing antimicrobial agents.

Visualization study of the effects of polycarboxylates on CO hydrate generation and interfacial property.

Marine carbon sequestration, with its high potential and low risk of leakage, is an attractive technology for effectively addressing global climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A current concern about marine sequestration lies in the potential negative effects of the carbon sequestration process on the marine environment. CO hydrate sequestration is considered to be one of the most stable method of sequestration, and researchers are actively searching for promoters that facilitate hydrate sequestration and are friendly to the marine environment.

Palladium-Catalyzed -Allylic Alkylation of Pyrazoles and Unactivated Vinylcyclopropanes.

An efficient palladium-catalyzed -allylic alkylation of pyrazoles and unactivated vinylcyclopropanes is demonstrated, affording various -alkyl pyrazoles in ≤99% yield. This protocol displays high atom economy, a broad range of substrates, and excellent regioselectivity and stereoselectivity. Late-stage modification of bioactive molecules, scaled-up reaction, and divergent derivatization documented the practicability of this methodology.

Indium Mediated Reformatsky-Type Allylation of N--Butanesulfinyl Iminoester with 1,3-Butadiene.

This study presents the indium-mediated three-component radical Reformatsky-type allylation of --butanesulfinyl iminoester with 1,3-butadiene. This novel approach offers a rapid synthesis pathway to valuable homoallylic noncanonical amino acids, demonstrated with over 30 examples showing nice regio- and diastereoselectivity. Mechanism studies revealed that allylindium complexes served as key intermediates, formed through a single-electron reduction of allylic radicals by Indium species.

Asperuloside alleviates osteoporosis by promoting autophagy and regulating Nrf2 activation.

Background: Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease that has a common occurrence in postmenopausal women. Asperuloside (ASP) has been reported to exert anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects in numerous diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and acute lung injury. However, whether ASP plays a role in osteoporosis has not been addressed.

Effect of alkali-activation conditions on microstructure and heavy metal solidification of alkali-activated converter steel slag and municipal solid waste incineration fly ash.

Alkaline-activation technology was an effective means of disposing of low-activity and heavy-metal-containing industrial solid wastes. In this paper, alkali-activated converter steel slag and municipal solid waste incineration fly ash (MSWIFA) were prepared by modulating alkali-activation conditions. The effect of alkali-activation conditions on microstructure of C-(A)-S-H and leaching of lead and zinc, pore solution pH, and the correlation among them were revealed.

JTIS: enhancing biomedical document-level relation extraction through joint training with intermediate steps.

Biomedical Relation Extraction (RE) is central to Biomedical Natural Language Processing and is crucial for various downstream applications. Existing RE challenges in the field of biology have primarily focused on intra-sentential analysis. However, with the rapid increase in the volume of literature and the complexity of relationships between biomedical entities, it often becomes necessary to consider multiple sentences to fully extract the relationship between a pair of entities.

Hydrogel-Assisted Robust Supraparticles Evolved from Droplet Evaporation.

Supraparticles, formed through the self-assembly of nanoparticles, are promising contenders in catalysis, sensing, and drug delivery due to their exceptional specific surface area and porosity. However, their mechanical resilience, especially in dimensions spanning micrometers and beyond, is challenged by the inherently weak interactions among their constituent building blocks, significantly constraining their broad applicability. Here, we have exploited a robust supraparticle fabrication strategy by integrating hydrogel components into the assembly system and evaporating on the superamphiphobic surface.

Evaluation of the SwiftScan mode in bone single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging: effect on imaging quality and a semi-quantitative analysis.

Background: Tc-stannous methylene diphosphonate (Tc-MDP) bone single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) imaging plays a crucial role in various clinical applications. Many strategies have been developed to reduce the injection activity and procedure time, improve the patient experience and reduce their anxiety prior to and during SPECT imaging. This study aimed to evaluate the SwiftScan mode and its effect on image quality, and diagnostic performance of malignant skeletal lesions in bone SPECT image.

The value of thoracoscopic ultrasound for the localization of ground-glass opacities with incomplete lung collapse in video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery.

Background: Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) has been widely used for the resection of lung lesions. However, it is difficult to palpate or see small lesions, especially ground-glass opacities (GGOs) during VATS. Thoracoscopic ultrasound has definite value in locating pulmonary parenchymal nodules.

Mesenchymal stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles for human diseases.

Stem cell therapy is a novel approach for treating various severe and intractable diseases, including autoimmune disorders, organ transplants, tumors, and neurodegenerative diseases. Nevertheless, the extensive utilization of stem cells is constrained by potential tumorigenicity, challenges in precise differentiation, rejection concerns, and ethical considerations. Extracellular vesicles possess the ability to carry diverse bioactive factors from stem cells and deliver them to specific target cells or tissues.

Discovery and Characterization of Chitin Synthase Inhibitors with Novel Mechanism for Control of .

, a highly destructive global pest, infests a wide range of plant species, including crucial food crops and ornamental plants. Effective control methods for this pest remain limited. Chitin synthase (CHS) is a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of chitin, which is essential for the growth and development of arthropods.

MACC1 ablation suppresses the dedifferentiation process of non-CSCs in lung cancer through stabilizing KLF4.

Metastasis-associated in colon cancer-1 (MACC1) was identified as a new player in lung cancer development, and some stemness-related genes can be novel transcriptional targets of MACC1. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are responsible for sustaining tumorigenesis and plasticity. Both CSCs and non-CSCs are plastic and capable of undergoing phenotypic transition, especially the dedifferentiation of non-CSCs switch to CSC-like cells.

Mechanism-Inspired Synthesis of Poly(alkyl malonates) via Alternating Copolymerization of Epoxides and Meldrum's Acid Derivatives.

Direct incorporation of malonate units into polymer backbones is a synthetic challenge. Herein, we report the alternating and controlled anionic copolymerization of epoxides and Meldrum's acid (MA) derivatives to access poly(alkyl malonates) using (-bis(salicylidene)phenylenediamine)AlCl and a tris(dialkylamino)cyclopropenium chloride cocatalyst. This unique copolymerization yields a malonate-containing repeat unit while releasing a small molecule upon MA-derivative ring-opening.

Lighthouses illuminating tumor metastasis: The application of fluorescent probes in the localization and imaging metastatic lymph nodes across various tumors.

The significance of metastatic lymph nodes in tumor diagnosis and prognosis is self-evident. With the deepening of research on the lymphatic system and the advancement of imaging technology, an increasing number of near-infrared fluorescent probes targeting tumor metastatic lymph nodes have been developed. These probes can identify tumors while further detecting lymph nodes (LNs), showcasing great potential in image-guided surgery.

Temporal spiking generative adversarial networks for heading direction decoding.

The spike-based neuronal responses within the ventral intraparietal area (VIP) exhibit intricate spatial and temporal dynamics in the posterior parietal cortex, presenting decoding challenges such as limited data availability at the biological population level. The practical difficulty in collecting VIP neuronal response data hinders the application of sophisticated decoding models. To address this challenge, we propose a unified spike-based decoding framework leveraging spiking neural networks (SNNs) for both generative and decoding purposes, for their energy efficiency and suitability for neural decoding tasks.

Visualize PIM-1 Protein Function and Its Interaction With PI3K/Akt/mTOR Pathway Regulated by Its Active Sites Through FRET Biosensors.

Pro-viral Insertion site for the Moloney Murine Leukemia virus 1 (PIM-1) is widely involved in various biological processes and diseases, which is based on its structure and functional sites. However, the relationship between active sites and function of PIM-1 kinase remains unclear due to the lack of effective study approaches in live cells. Herein, to visualize the effect of different active sites in PIM-1 protein on its function activity and relation with PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway, three mutant probes of EPHY which was developed previously based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) technology to detect PIM-1 kinase activity in living cells were further constructed and transfected into cells followed by treating with PIM-1 inhibitors, ATP and PI3K inhibitor, respectively.

How Users' Personality Traits Predict Sentiment Tendencies of User-Generated Content in Social Media: A Mixed Method of Configuration Analysis and Machine Learning.

Objective: Social media content created by users with different personality traits presents various sentiment tendencies, easily leading to irrational public opinion. This study aims to explore the relationships between users' personality traits and sentiment tendencies of user-generated content (UGC).

Method: We crawled 18,686 tweets of 1, 215 users from Twitter to figure out the relationships between personality traits and sentiment tendencies.

Solid-state fermentation of corn wet distiller grains and wheat bran with Trichoderma reesei and Candida utilis for improving feed value.

Background: Solid-state fermentation is one of the most effective methods for the high-value utilization of agro-industrial by-products. Co-fermentation of wet distiller grains and agricultural waste is an effective way to mitigate the feed shortage caused by corn consumption for bioethanol. It is still challenging to convert wet distiller grains and wheat bran to easily accessible carbon sources and adjust the balanced proportion of amino acids together by fermentation.

Polyanionic Electrolyte Ionization Desalination Empowers Continuous Solar Evaporation Performance.

Solar evaporation contributes to sustainable and environmentally friendly production of fresh water from seawater and wastewater. However, poor salt resistance and high degree of corrosion of traditional evaporators in brine make their implementation in real applications scarce. To overcome such deficiency, a polyanionic electrolyte functionalization strategy empowering excellent uniform desalination performance over extended periods of time is exploited.

Optical Evidence of Interfacial Strain-Induced Ferroelectric Tuning and Enhancement in CuInPS via Ferroelectric Substrate.

The precise domain control in ferroelectric CuInPS (CIPS) remains challenging. A promising approach is by interfacing CIPS with the ferroelectric layer, but interface-driven ferroelectricity tunning mechanism remains unclear. Here, the demonstration of interfacial strain-induced ferroelectric tuning and enhancement in CIPS via ferroelectric substrate is reported by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, combined with piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

Enhanced NH-SCR activity of Cu-SAPO-34 by regulating Si distribution an interzeolite conversion strategy.

An interzeolite conversion (IZC) method was developed for the rapid synthesis of Cu-SAPO-34 from SAPO-37, achieving isolated Si distribution and optimized Cu states. The resulting Cu-SAPO-34 exhibited exceptional NH-SCR performance, with over 90% NO conversion from 200-600 °C due to proper acidity and Cu status generated from the isolated Si.

A heterobimetallic MOF as a stable heterogeneous catalyst with high activity for ethylene oligomerization.

Herein, the performance of heterobimetallic clusters MOF-1213(Dy/Ni) for ethylene oligomerization reactions was investigated. At 30 °C and 40 bar, its average ethylene turnover frequency is approximately 160 000 h (α-olefins selectivity above 80%), which was higher than the activity previously reported for most heterogeneous catalysts under similar conditions.