A flexible, stable, semi-dry electrode with low impedance for electroencephalography recording.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide promising prospects for the field of healthcare and rehabilitation, presenting significant advantages for humanity. The development of electrodes that exhibit satisfactory performance characteristics, including high electrical conductivity, optimal comfort, and exceptional stability, is crucial for the effective implementation of electroencephalography (EEG) recording in BCI systems. The present study introduces a novel EEG electrode design that utilizes a composite material consisting of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and polyurethane (PU) sponge.

Enhanced redox kinetics of Prussian blue analogues for superior electrochemical deionization performance.

Prussian blue analogues (PBAs), representing the typical faradaic electrode materials for efficient capacitive deionization (CDI) due to their open architecture and high capacity, have been plagued by kinetics issues, leading to insufficient utilization of active sites and poor structure stability. Herein, to address the conflict issue between desalination capacity and stability due to mismatched ionic and electronic kinetics for the PBA-based electrodes, a rational design, including Mn substitution and polypyrrole (ppy) connection, has been proposed for the nickel hexacyanoferrate (Mn-NiHCF/ppy), serving as a model case. Particularly, the theoretical calculation manifests the reduced bandgap and energy barrier for ionic diffusion after Mn substitution, combined with the increased electronic conductivity and integrity through ppy connecting, resulting in enhanced redox kinetics and boosted desalination performance.

Photo-thermal synergistic CO hydrogenation towards CO over PtRh bimetal-decorated GaN nanowires/Si.

Photo-thermal-synergistic hydrogenation is a promising strategy for upcycling carbon dioxide into fuels and chemicals by maximally utilizing full-spectrum solar energy. Herein, by immobilizing Pt-Rh bimetal onto a well-developed GaN NWs/Si platform, CO was photo-thermo-catalytically hydrogenated towards CO under concentrated light illumination without extra energies. The as-designed architecture demonstrates a considerable CO evolution rate of 11.

Access to pyrrolines and fused diaziridines by selective radical addition to homoallylic diazirines.

Pyrroline derivatives are common in bioactive natural products and therapeutic agents. We report here a synthesis of pyrrolines and fused diaziridines by divergent radical cyclization of homoallylic diazirines, which can serve as an internal radical trap and a nitrogen source. This reaction proceeds by selective radical addition to C[double bond, length as m-dash]C or N[double bond, length as m-dash]N bonds followed by intramolecular cyclization.

high-valued transformation of nonmetals in waste printed circuit boards into supercapacitor electrodes with excellent performance.

Nonmetals in waste printed circuit boards after metal separation containing brominated resin and fiberglass are considered hazardous and low-recoveryvalue e-waste. However, if these nonmetals are not treated or are improperly treated, they can cause serious environmental pollution. Therefore, there is an urgent and significant need to develop an efficient recycling process for these nonmetals.

glycan sequencing by electronic excitation dissociation MS-guided MS analysis on an Omnitrap-Orbitrap hybrid instrument.

Comprehensive glycan sequencing remains an elusive goal due to the structural diversity and complexity of glycans. Present strategies employing collision-induced dissociation (CID) and higher energy collisional dissociation (HCD)-based multi-stage tandem mass spectrometry (MS) or MS/MS combined with sequential exoglycosidase digestions are inherently low-throughput and difficult to automate. Compared to CID and HCD, electron transfer dissociation (ETD) and electron capture dissociation (ECD) each generate more cross-ring cleavages informative about linkage positions, but electronic excitation dissociation (EED) exceeds the information content of all other methods and is also applicable to analysis of singly charged precursors.

Redox-neutral manganese-catalyzed synthesis of 1-pyrrolines.

This report describes a manganese-catalyzed radical [3 + 2] cyclization of cyclopropanols and oxime ethers, leading to valuable multi-functional 1-pyrrolines. In this redox-neutral process, the oxime ethers function as internal oxidants and H-donors. The reaction involves sequential rupture of C-C, C-H and N-O bonds and proceeds under mild conditions.

Mechanism of diastereoisomer-induced chirality of BiOBr.

Chiral molecule-driven asymmetric structures are known to be elusive because of the intriguing chirality transfer from chiral molecules to achiral species. Here, we found that the chiral assembly of BiOBr is independent of the chirality of the organic molecular inducer but dependent on geometric structural matching between the inducer and inorganic species. Diastereoisomeric sugar alcohols (DSAs) with identical numbers of carbon chiral centers and functional groups but with different / configurations and optical activities (OAs) were chosen as symmetry-breaking agents for inducing chiral mesostructured BiOBr films (CMBFs) under hydrothermal conditions.

Asymmetric hydrogenation for the synthesis of 2-substituted chiral morpholines.

Asymmetric hydrogenation of unsaturated morpholines has been developed by using a bisphosphine-rhodium catalyst bearing a large bite angle. With this approach, a variety of 2-substituted chiral morpholines could be obtained in quantitative yields and with excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99% ee). The hydrogenated products could be transformed into key intermediates for bioactive compounds.

A highly sensitive and selective fluoride sensor based on a riboswitch-regulated transcription coupled with CRISPR-Cas13a tandem reaction.

Nucleic acid sensors have realized much success in detecting positively charged and neutral molecules, but have rarely been applied for measuring negatively charged molecules, such as fluoride, even though an effective sensor is needed to promote dental health while preventing osteofluorosis and other diseases. To address this issue, we herein report a quantitative fluoride sensor with a portable fluorometer readout based on fluoride riboswitch-regulated transcription coupled with CRISPR-Cas13-based signal amplification. This tandem sensor utilizes the fluoride riboswitch to regulate transcription and generate full-length transcribed RNA that can be recognized by CRISPR-Cas13a, triggering the collateral cleavage of the fluorophore-quencher labeled RNA probe and generating a fluorescence signal output.

Multifunctional Nanostructure RAP-RL Rescues Alzheimer's Cognitive Deficits through Remodeling the Neurovascular Unit.

Cerebrovascular dysfunction characterized by the neurovascular unit (NVU) impairment contributes to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this study, a cerebrovascular-targeting multifunctional lipoprotein-biomimetic nanostructure (RAP-RL) constituted with an antagonist peptide (RAP) of receptor for advanced glycation end-products (RAGE), monosialotetrahexosyl ganglioside, and apolipoprotein E3 is developed to recover the functional NVU and normalize the cerebral vasculature. RAP-RL accumulates along the cerebral microvasculature through the specific binding of RAP to RAGE, which is overexpressed on cerebral endothelial cells in AD.

Pyrazinamide resistance of novel mutations in and their dynamic behavior.

Pyrazinamide (PZA) is one of the essential anti-mycobacterium drugs, active against non-replicating (MTB) isolates. PZA is converted into its active state, called pyrazinoic acid (POA), by action of encoding pyrazinamidase (PZase). In the majority of PZA-resistance isolates, harbored mutations in the coding region.

Biosynthetic access to the rare antiarose sugar an unusual reductase-epimerase.

Rubrolones, isatropolones, and rubterolones are recently isolated glycosylated tropolonids with notable biological activity. They share similar aglycone skeletons but differ in their sugar moieties, and rubterolones in particular have a rare deoxysugar antiarose of unknown biosynthetic provenance. During our previously reported biosynthetic elucidation of the tropolone ring and pyridine moiety, gene inactivation experiments revealed that RubS3 is involved in sugar moiety biosynthesis.

Amphiphilic irinotecan-melampomagnolide B conjugate nanoparticles for cancer chemotherapy.

Melampomagnolide B (MMB) is a natural sesquiterpene lactone product structurally related to parthenolide (PTL). Although MMB has been widely used to treat various types of cancers, such as glioma, leukemia and colon cancer, the effective delivery of MMB to cancer cells remains a challenge. An amphiphilic drug-drug conjugate (ADDC) strategy has been proposed and developed as a promising drug self-delivery system for cancer therapy because of its simple preparation, carrier-free nature, and high therapeutic activity.

The intriguing biology and chemistry of fosfomycin: the only marketed phosphonate antibiotic.

Recently infectious diseases caused by the increased emergence and rapid spread of drug-resistant bacterial isolates have been one of the main threats to global public health because of a marked surge in both morbidity and mortality. The only phosphonate antibiotic in the clinic, fosfomycin, is a small broad-spectrum molecule that effectively inhibits the initial step in peptidoglycan biosynthesis by blocking the enzyme, MurA in both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. As fosfomycin has a novel mechanism of action, low toxicity, a broad spectrum of antibacterial activity, excellent pharmacodynamic/pharmacokinetic properties, and good bioavailability, it has been approved for clinical use in the treatment of urinary tract bacterial infections in many countries for several decades.

Multiplex detection of miRNAs based on aggregation-induced emission luminogen encoded microspheres.

Herein, we report a multiplex detection platform based on a suspension array with aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen) barcodes for simultaneous quantitative measurement of let-7b-5p, miR-16-5p and miR-19b-3p, which are associated with gastric cancer. A detection strategy by using a flow cytometer is proposed, which utilizes AIEgen-encoded microspheres to quantify the target miRNAs, and phycoerythrin as a fluorescence reporter on the detection probes to provide quantitative signals. This multiplex assay shows good specificity for recognizing single base mismatch, and possesses excellent sensitivity with limits of detection (LODs) ranging from 0.

Understanding the R882H mutation effects of DNA methyltransferase DNMT3A: a combination of molecular dynamics simulations and QM/MM calculations.

DNA (cytosine-5)-methyltransferase 3A (DNMT3A), a key enzyme for epigenetic methylation in human beings, was reported to undergo an R882H mutation in approximately 25% of M4/M5 subtype acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. In this work, a combination of classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and QM/MM calculation methods was utilized to reveal the molecular mechanism behind the activity attenuation caused by R882H mutation. We found that R882H mutation induces a "folded" conformation in the methyl donor -adenosylmethionine (SAM) through different types of hydrogen bond formation at the terminal carbonyl oxygen atom and the hydroxyl O3' atom of the ribose ring on SAM, with Arg891 as a mediator.

Correction: Silica cubosomes templated by a star polymer.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1039/C8RA09130G.].

A highly sensitive gas sensor employing biomorphic SnO with multi-level tubes/pores structure: bio-templated from waste of flax.

Metal oxide gas sensors with porous structures are widely used in numerous applications ranging from health monitoring and medical detection to safety; in this study, we report a highly sensitive SnO gas sensor with a multi-level tube/pore structure prepared biomimetic technology using flax waste as a bio-template and a simple wet chemical process combined with subsequent annealing. Indeed, MLTPS not only maintained and improved the excellence of porous structure gas sensing materials with abundant active sites and large surface-to-volume ratios, but also overcame the deficiency of the lack of gas diffusion channels in porous gas sensing materials. Thus, this novel multi-level tube/pore SnO gas sensor exhibited significantly enhanced sensing performance, an ultra-low response concentration (250 ppb), a high response (87.

Hyaluronic acid-mediated multifunctional iron oxide-based MRI nanoprobes for dynamic monitoring of pancreatic cancer.

Regarded as the most promising technology for an early and precise detection of pancreatic cancer, a sensitive nanoprobe has been developed to enhance the accumulation of contrast agent at the tumor site. Hyaluronic acid (HA)-mediated multifunctional FeO nanoparticles (NPs) were used to target pancreatic cancer cells because on their cytomembrane they overexpress CD44, a receptor protein that has a high affinity to HA. The formation of HA-mediated multifunctional FeO nanoparticles began with the synthesis of polyethyleneimine (PEI·NH) stabled FeO NPs by slight reduction.

Silica cubosomes templated by a star polymer.

The organization of amphiphilic molecules into well-defined geometries and morphologies is an area of fundamental and practical importance. Herein, we report silica cubosomes synthesized by the cooperative self-assembly of the amphiphilic star polymer poly(ethylene glycol)-(polystyrene). The silica cubosomes exhibit a spherical shape and a highly ordered bicontinuous diamond-surface structure.

Gene Silencing via PDA/ERK2-siRNA-Mediated Electrospun Fibers for Peritendinous Antiadhesion.

Sustained delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) is a challenge in gene silencing for managing gene-related disorders. Although nanoparticle-mediated electrospun fibers enable sustainable gene silencing, low efficiency, loss of biological activity, toxicity issues, and complex electrospinning techniques are all bottlenecks of these systems. Preventing peritendinous adhesion is crucial for their successful use, which involves blocking cellular signaling via physical barriers.

Removal of arsenic(v) from aqueous solutions using sulfur-doped FeO nanoparticles.

In this study, magnetic sulfur-doped FeO nanoparticles (FeO:S NPs) were applied as adsorbents for the removal of As(v). FeO:S NPs were fabricated by a two-step route, which included low-temperature mixing and high-temperature sintering. The as-prepared FeO:S NPs could effectively remove As(v) under a wide pH range of 2-10 and presented a high As(v) adsorption capacity of 58.

Silicon-Enhanced Adipogenesis and Angiogenesis for Vascularized Adipose Tissue Engineering.

The enhancement of adipogenic differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) and sufficient vascularization remain great challenges for the successful reconstruction of engineered adipose tissue. Here, the bioactive effects of silicon (Si) ions on adipogenic differentiation of human BMSCs (HBMSCs) and the stimulation of vascularization during adipose tissue regeneration are reported. The results show that Si ions can enhance adipogenic differentiation of HBMSCs through the stimulation of the expression of adipogenic differentiation switches such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ and CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α.