Discovery of fast and stable proton storage in bulk hexagonal molybdenum oxide.

Ionic and electronic transport in electrodes is crucial for electrochemical energy storage technology. To optimize the transport pathway of ions and electrons, electrode materials are minimized to nanometer-sized dimensions, leading to problems of volumetric performance, stability, cost, and pollution. Here we find that a bulk hexagonal molybdenum oxide with unconventional ion channels can store large amounts of protons at a high rate even if its particle size is tens of micrometers. The diffusion-free proton transport kinetics based on hydrogen bonding topochemistry is demonstrated in hexagonal molybdenum oxide whose proton conductivity is several orders of magnitude higher than traditional orthorhombic molybdenum oxide. In situ X-ray diffraction and theoretical calculation reveal that the structural self-optimization in the first discharge effectively promotes the reversible intercalation/de-intercalation of subsequent protons. The open crystal structure, suitable proton channels, and negligible volume strain enable rapid and stable proton transport and storage, resulting in extremely high volumetric capacitance (~1750 F cm-3), excellent rate performance, and ultralong cycle life (>10,000 cycles). The discovery of unconventional materials and mechanisms that enable proton storage of micrometer-sized particles in seconds boosts the development of fast-charging energy storage systems and high-power practical applications.

Associations between dietary fatty acid patterns and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in typical dietary population: A UK biobank study.

Background and Aims: Dietary fatty acid composition is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Few evidence had identified a clear role of dietary fatty acid composition of typical diet in NAFLD. We aimed to investigate the relationship between dietary patterns and NAFLD in populations with typical diets and to explore the effect of fatty acid composition in dietary patterns on NAFLD. Methods: Principal component analysis was used to identify 4 dietary patterns in UK Biobank participants. Logistic regression was used to estimate the association between dietary patterns and NAFLD. Mediation analysis was performed to evaluate the extent to which the relationship between dietary patterns and NAFLD was explained by dietary fatty acid combinations, as surrogated by serum fatty acids measured by nuclear magnetic resonance. Results: A dietary fatty acid pattern (DFP1) characterized by "PUFA enriched vegetarian" was negatively associated with NAFLD risk. Serum fatty acids were significantly associated with DFP1 and NAFLD. Mediation analysis showed SFA (27.8%, p < 0.001), PUFA (25.1%, p < 0.001), ω-6 PUFA (14.3%, p < 0.001), LA (15.6%, p < 0.001) and DHA (10%, p < 0.001) had a significant indirect effect on the association between DFP1 and NAFLD. A dietary pattern characterized by "PUFA enriched carnivore" (DFP2) was not associated with NAFLD risk. Conclusion: A "PUFA enriched vegetarian" dietary pattern with increased LA and DHA, may be beneficial for the treatment or prevention of NAFLD, while a "PUFA enriched carnivore" dietary pattern may not be harmful to NAFLD.

A 3D-Printed Proton Pseudocapacitor with Ultrahigh Mass Loading and Areal Energy Density for Fast Energy Storage at Low Temperature.

The sluggish ionic transport in thick electrodes and freezing electrolytes has limited electrochemical energy storage devices in lots of harsh environments for practical applications. Here, a 3D-printed proton pseudocapacitor based on high-mass-loading 3D-printed WO3 anodes, Prussian blue analog cathodes, and anti-freezing electrolytes is developed, which can achieve state-of-the-art electrochemical performance at low temperatures. Benefiting from the cross-scale 3D electrode structure using a 3D printing direct ink writing technique, the 3D-printed cathode realizes an ultrahigh areal capacitance of 7.39 F cm-2 at a high areal mass loading of 23.51 mg cm-2 . Moreover, the 3D-printed pseudocapacitor delivers an areal capacitance of 3.44 F cm-2 and excellent areal energy density (1.08 mWh cm-2 ). Owing to the fast ion kinetics in 3D electrodes and the high ionic conductivity of the hybrid electrolyte, the 3D-printed supercapacitor delivers 61.3% of the room-temperature capacitance even at -60 °C. This work provides an effective strategy for the practical applications of energy storage devices with complex physical structure at extreme temperatures.

Celiac Disease and the Susceptibility of COVID-19 and the Risk of Severe COVID-19: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

INTRODUCTION: Previous observational studies have found that the susceptibility of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the risk of severe COVID-19 are not increased in patients with celiac disease (CeD). However, the findings of observational studies are prone to bias due to reverse causation and confounding factors, especially in the case of a newly emerged disease. In this study, we aimed to further clarify the underlying relationship by both observational and Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. METHODS: This observational study was conducted in the UK Biobank cohort. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify the risk factors of COVID-19 susceptibility and severe COVID-19. To understand the causality between CeD and COVID-19 susceptibility and severe COVID-19, we performed a 2-sample MR analysis. RESULTS: Our observational study showed that patients with CeD had a lower susceptibility of COVID-19 (odds ratio [OR] = 0.699, P = 0.006) while CeD was not significantly associated with severe COVID-19 (P > 0.05). The findings from our MR study further demonstrated that both the susceptibility to COVID-19 (OR = 0.963, P = 0.006) and severe COVID-19 (OR = 0.919, P = 0.049) were lower in patients with CeD, although the former seemed to be specific to the UK Biobank cohort. DISCUSSION: Our results suggested that it may be unnecessary to take extra COVID-19 precaution in patients with CeD.

Novel insights into the consequences of obesity: a phenotype-wide Mendelian randomization study.

Obesity is thought to significantly impact the quality of life. In this study, we sought to evaluate the health consequences of obesity on the risk of a broad spectrum of human diseases. The causal effects of exposing to obesity on health outcomes were inferred using Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses using a fixed effects inverse-variance weighted model. The instrumental variables were SNPs associated with obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI) reported by GIANT consortium. The spectrum of outcome consisted of the phenotypes from published GWAS and the UK Biobank. The MR-Egger intercept test was applied to estimate horizontal pleiotropic effects, along with Cochran's Q test to assess heterogeneity among the causal effects of instrumental variables. Our MR results confirmed many putative disease risks due to obesity, such as diabetes, dyslipidemia, sleep disorder, gout, smoking behaviors, arthritis, myocardial infarction, and diabetes-related eye disease. The novel findings indicated that elevated red blood cell count was inferred as a mediator of BMI-induced type 2 diabetes in our bidirectional MR analysis. Intriguingly, the effects that higher BMI could decrease the risk of both skin and prostate cancers, reduce calorie intake, and increase the portion size warrant further studies. Our results shed light on a novel mechanism of the disease-causing roles of obesity.

Exploring the genetic correlation between obesity-related traits and regional brain volumes: Evidence from UK Biobank cohort.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether there is a correlation between obesity-related variants and regional brain volumes. METHODS: Based on a mixed linear model (MLM), we analyzed the association between 1,498 obesity-related SNPs in the GWAS Catalog and 164 regional brain volumes from 29,420 participants (discovery cohort N = 19,997, validation cohort N = 9,423) in UK Biobank. The statistically significant brain regions in association analysis were classified into 6 major neural networks (dopamine (DA) motive system, central autonomic network (CAN), cognitive emotion regulation, visual object recognition network, auditory object recognition network, and sensorimotor system). We summarized the association between obesity-related variants (metabolically healthy obesity variants, metabolically unhealthy obesity variants, and unclassified obesity-related variants) and neural networks. RESULTS: From association analysis, we determined that 17 obesity-related SNPs were associated with 51 regional brain volumes. Several single SNPs (e.g., rs13107325-T (SLC39A8), rs1876829-C (CRHR1), and rs1538170-T (CENPW)) were associated with multiple regional brain volumes. In addition, several single brain regions (e.g., the white matter, the grey matter in the putamen, subcallosal cortex, and insular cortex) were associated with multiple obesity-related variants. The metabolically healthy obesity variants were mainly associated with the regional brain volumes in the DA motive system, sensorimotor system and cognitive emotion regulation neural networks, while metabolically unhealthy obesity variants were mainly associated with regional brain volumes in the CAN and total tissue volumes. In addition, unclassified obesity-related variants were mainly associated with auditory object recognition network and total tissue volumes. The results of MeSH (medical subject headings) enrichment analysis showed that obesity genes associated with brain structure pointed to the functional relatedness with 5-Hydroxytryptamine receptor 4 (5-HT4), growth differentiation factor 5 (GDF5), and high mobility group protein AT-hook 2 (HMGA2 protein). CONCLUSION: In summary, we found that obesity-related variants were associated with different brain volume measures. On the basis of the multiple SNPs, we found that metabolically healthy and unhealthy obesity-related SNPs were associated with different brain neural networks. Based on our enrichment analysis, modifications of the 5-HT4 pathway might be a promising therapeutic strategy for obesity.

Methylome-wide association study of first-episode schizophrenia reveals a hypermethylated CpG site in the promoter region of the TNIK susceptibility gene.

Accumulating evidence suggests that epigenetics plays an important role in the etiology of schizophrenia. Here, we performed a methylome-wide association study (MWAS) of first-onset schizophrenia patients and controls from the Han Chinese population using microarray technology. The DNA methylation profiles revealed 4494 differentially methylated CpG sites. Gene ontology (GO) analysis showed that the functions of differentially methylated genes were primarily involved in enzymatic activity, cytoskeleton organization and cell adhesion, and the TNIK (encoding TRAF2- and NCK-interacting kinase) gene was enriched in most of these terms. By combining the MWAS results with those of previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs), we identified 72 candidate genes located in 49 human genome loci. Among the overlapping genes, the most significantly methylated CpG sites were in the transcriptional start site (TSS) 200 region (cg21413905, Punadjusted = 3.20 × 10-5) of TNIK. TNIK was listed in the top 50 differentially methylated loci. The results of pyrosequencing and TNIK mRNA expression were consistent with those of the microarray study. Bioinformatics analyses, dual-luciferase reporter assays and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) studies showed that TNIK interacted with genes associated with schizophrenia and NRF1 was identified as a novel transcription factor (TF) that binds to TNIK in its TSS200 region. Thus, the regulatory function of NRF1 may be influenced by the status of the methylated CpG site in this region. In summary, our study provides new insights into the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate schizophrenia. Studies of the functions of TNIK methylation should be performed in vitro and in vivo to provide a better understanding of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

Red-Carbon-Quantum-Dot-Doped SnO2 Composite with Enhanced Electron Mobility for Efficient and Stable Perovskite Solar Cells.

An efficient electron transport layer (ETL) plays a key role in promoting carrier separation and electron extraction in planar perovskite solar cells (PSCs). An effective composite ETL is fabricated using carboxylic-acid- and hydroxyl-rich red-carbon quantum dots (RCQs) to dope low-temperature solution-processed SnO2 , which dramatically increases its electron mobility by ≈20 times from 9.32 × 10-4 to 1.73 × 10-2 cm2 V-1 s-1 . The mobility achieved is one of the highest reported electron mobilities for modified SnO2 . Fabricated planar PSCs based on this novel SnO2 ETL demonstrate an outstanding improvement in efficiency from 19.15% for PSCs without RCQs up to 22.77% and have enhanced long-term stability against humidity, preserving over 95% of the initial efficiency after 1000 h under 40-60% humidity at 25 °C. These significant achievements are solely attributed to the excellent electron mobility of the novel ETL, which is also proven to help the passivation of traps/defects at the ETL/perovskite interface and to promote the formation of highly crystallized perovskite, with an enhanced phase purity and uniformity over a large area. These results demonstrate that inexpensive RCQs are simple but excellent additives for producing efficient ETLs in stable high-performance PSCs as well as other perovskite-based optoelectronics.

Protective Effect of Selenium-Enriched Red Radish Sprouts on Carbon Tetrachloride-Induced Liver Injury in Mice.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of Se (Selenium) treatment on nutritional quality in radish sprouts. The results showed that 15 µM sodium selenite significantly increased phenolics compounds, flavonoids compounds, anthocyanins, and some essential amino acid content, while improving the total antioxidant capacity of radish sprouts. Besides, the Se-enriched radish sprouts significantly alleviated the liver damage caused by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4 ) in mice and improved the antioxidant capacity of the liver in mice, whereas the Se-enriched radish sprouts alleviated the inflammatory reaction and apoptosis caused by CCl4 . These results imply that Se-enriched radish sprouts have a positive impact on mice with CCl4 -induced liver injury, and that in future Se-enriched radish sprouts could be developed into an effective food and health care product for the liver injury prevention. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Because selenium is an essential trace element in the human body, selenium-enriched sprouts can help eliminate free radicals in the body, relieve aging, and selenium-deficient diseases. They are easy to grow and have low costs. Hence, selenium-enriched sprouts have a great potential of being widely consumed.

Multicolor tunable highly luminescent carbon dots for remote force measurement and white light emitting diodes.

Multicolor tunable carbon dots (CDs) are obtained by only altering the reaction solvents in solvothermal treatment. The red CDs (R-CDs) have a quantum yield of 50.8%, the highest reported for nitrogen and sulfur co-doped R-CDs so far. These CDs are developed into fluorescent hydrogels for precise remote force measurement and WLEDs with the CIE color coordinate of (0.31, 0.32).

CPS1 T1405N polymorphism, HDL cholesterol, homocysteine and renal function are risk factors of VPA induced hyperammonemia among epilepsy patients.

PURPOSE: Valproic acid (VPA) is frequently used in the treatment of epilepsy. The adverse effects of VPA include hyperammonemia (HA) which is characterized by abnormally elevated blood ammonia level. Carbamoyl-Phosphate Synthase 1 (CPS1) is an enzyme catalyzing the initial step of removing ammonia from blood. Studies have demonstrated that the CPS1 polymorphism rs1047891-A allele carriers were susceptible to VPA-induced HA. However, the evidences remained controversial. In this study, we sought to validate the association between rs1047891 and VPA-induced HA by combining the association results from previous studies together. METHODS: We first conducted a systematic meta-analysis to determine whether rs1047891 was statistically significant. Then, we further evaluated the pleiotropic effects of rs1047891 using published genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and UKBB results. A conditional analysis was conducted to investigate whether the association between rs1047891 and VPA-induced HA was mediated by cardiovascular or renal disease risk factors or vice versa. RESULTS: The allelic, dominant and recessive ORs of rs1047891-A were all significant in our fixed-effect meta-analysis. In GWAS catalog and UKBB data, rs1047891 was associated with basal metabolic rate, adiposity and hematology traits, cardiovascular and renal disease risk factors. We further proved that plasma HDL cholesterol and homocysteine level, in addition to eGFR by serum creatinine, were associated with VPA-induced HA risk independently from rs1047891 polymorphism. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the SNP rs1047891 was associated with VPA-induce HA among epilepsy patients. Meanwhile, plasma HDL cholesterol and homocysteine level had independent effects from it.

Photoluminescence mechanism and applications of Zn-doped carbon dots.

Heteroatom-doped carbon dots (CDs) with excellent optical characteristics and negligible toxicity have emerged in many applications including bioimaging, biosensing, photocatalysis, and photothermal therapy. The metal-doping of CDs using various heteroatoms results in an enhancement of the photophysics but also imparts them with multifunctionality. However, unlike nonmetal doping, typical metal doping results in low fluorescence quantum yields (QYs), and an unclear photoluminescence mechanism. In this contribution, we detail results concerning zinc doped CDs (Zn-CDs) with QYs of up to 35%. The zinc ion charges serve as a surface passivating agent and prevent the aggregation of graphene π-π stacking, leading to an increase in the QY of the Zn-CDs. Structural and chemical investigations using spectroscopic and first principle simulations further revealed the effects of zinc doping on the CDs. The robust Zn-CDs were used for the ultra-trace detection of Hg2+ with a detection limit of 0.1 µM, and a quench mechanism was proposed. The unique optical properties of the Zn-CDs have promise for use in applications such as in vivo sensing and future phototherapy applications.