Production of Lignin-Derived Functional Material for Efficient Electromagnetic Wave Absorption with an Ultralow Filler Ratio.

Industrial lignin, a by-product of pulping for papermaking fibers or of second-generation ethanol production, is primarily served as a low-grade combustible energy source. The fabrication of high-value-added functional materials with industrial lignin is still a challenge. Herein, a three-dimensional hierarchical lignin-derived porous carbon (HLPC) was prepared with lignosulfonate as the carbon source and MgCO3 as the template. The uniform mixing of precursor and template agent resulted in the construction of a three-dimensional hierarchical porous structure. HLPC presented excellent electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption performance. With a low filler content of 7 wt%, HLPC showed a minimum reflection loss (RL) value of -41.8 dB (1.7 mm, 13.8 GHz), and a maximum effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) of 4.53 GHz (1.6 mm). In addition, the enhancement mechanism of HLPC for EMW absorption was also explored through comparing the morphology and electromagnetic parameters of lignin-derived carbon (LC) and lignin-derived porous carbon (LPC). The three-dimensional hierarchical porous structure endowed the carbon with a high pore volume, resulting in an abundant gas-solid interface between air and carbon for interfacial polarization. This structure also provided conductive networks for conduction loss. This work offers a strategy to synthesize biomass-based carbon for high-performance EMW absorption.

Evaluation of a new lithium complex hydride: a derivative of BH4- and NH2- for fast Li-ion conduction and H2 sorption.

A new ternary complex hydride is synthesized by the interaction between Li2NH and LiBH4. The crystal structure of this new hydride is tentatively indexed using an orthorhombic cell with a space group of Pna21 and lattice parameters of a = 9.643 Å, b = 6.228 Å, and c = 5.563 Å. The Li2NH-2LiBH4 sample shows excellent hydrogenation properties with hydrogen absorption starting at near-ambient temperature (50 °C), which is more than 100 °C lower than that of pristine Li2NH. Furthermore, it attains 100% hydrogenation under isothermal conditions at 60 °C and 50 bar hydrogen pressure. Such superior low-temperature hydrogen absorption may be due to the formation of this new complex hydride. Interestingly, above 97 °C, the lithium-ion conductivity of this new hydride is higher than those of Li2NH and LiBH4 and reaches 10-2 S cm-1 at 114 °C. Meanwhile, the ionic conductivity of this new hydride is ∼30 times higher than that of LiBH4 reaching 10-5 S cm-1 at room temperature. The interaction between imides and borohydrides described in this work expands the options for strategic design of novel hydrogen storage materials and solid ionic conductors.

Bivalent Histone Modifications and Development.

BACKGROUND: Development is an epigenetic regulation dependent event. As one pretranscriptional regulator, bivalent histone modifications were observed to be involved in development recently. It is believed that histone methylation potentially takes charge of cell fate determination and differentiation. The synchronous existence of functionally opposite histone marks at transcript start sequence (TSS) is defined as "Bivalency", which mainly mark development related genes. H3K4me3 and H3K27me3, the prominent histone methylations of bivalency, are implicated in transcriptional activation and transcriptional repression respectively. The delicate balance between H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 produces diverse chromatin architectures, resulting in different transcription states of downstream genes: "poised", "activated" or "repressed". OBJECTIVE: In order to explore the developmental role of bivalent histone modification and the underlying mechanism, we did systematic review and rigorous assessment about relative literatures. RESULT: Bivalent histone modifications are considered to set up genes for activation during lineage commitment by H3K4me3 and repress lineage control genes to maintain pluripotency by H3K27me3. Summarily, bivalency in stem cells keeps stemness via poising differentiation relevant genes. After receiving developmental signals, the balance between "gene activation" and "gene repression" is broken, which turns genes transcription state from "poised" effect to switch on or switch off effect, thus initiates irreversible and spontaneous differentiation procedures. CONCLUSION: Bivalent histone modifications and the associated histone-modifying complexes safeguard proper and robust differentiation of stem cells, thus playing an essential role in development.

Enamel Regeneration in Making a Bioengineered Tooth.

Overall enamel is the hard tissue overlying teeth that is vulnerable to caries, congenital defects, and damage due to trauma. Not only is enamel incapable of self-repair in most species, but it is also subject to attrition. Besides the use of artificial materials to restore enamel, enamel regeneration is a promising approach to repair enamel damage. In order to comprehend the progression and challenges in tissue-engineered enamel, this article elaborates alternative stem cells potential for enamel secretion and expounds fined strategies for enamel regeneration in bioengineered teeth. Consequently, more and more cell types have been induced to differentiate into ameloblasts and to secrete enamel, and an increasing number of reports have emerged to provide various potential approaches to induce cells to secrete enamel based on recombination experiments, artificial bioactive nano-materials, or gene manipulation. Accordingly, it is expected to further project more optimal conditions for enamel formation in bioengineering based on a more thorough knowledge of reciprocal epithelial-mesenchymal interactions, by which the procedures of enamel regeneration are able to be practically recapitulated and widely spread for the potential clinical value of enamel repair.

Bivalent histone modifications during tooth development.

Histone methylation is one of the most widely studied post-transcriptional modifications. It is thought to be an important epigenetic event that is closely associated with cell fate determination and differentiation. To explore the spatiotemporal expression of histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) and histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3) epigenetic marks and methylation or demethylation transferases in tooth organ development, we measured the expression of SET7, EZH2, KDM5B and JMJD3 via immunohistochemistry and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis in the first molar of BALB/c mice embryos at E13.5, E15.5, E17.5, P0 and P3, respectively. We also measured the expression of H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 with immunofluorescence staining. During murine tooth germ development, methylation or demethylation transferases were expressed in a spatial-temporal manner. The bivalent modification characterized by H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 can be found during the tooth germ development, as shown by immunofluorescence. The expression of SET7, EZH2 as methylation transferases and KDM5B and JMJD3 as demethylation transferases indicated accordingly with the expression of H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 respectively to some extent. The bivalent histone may play a critical role in tooth organ development via the regulation of cell differentiation.