FeNi (oxy)hydroxides embedded with high-valence Mo atoms: A efficient and robust water oxidation electrocatalyst.

The incorporation of high-valence transition metal atoms into FeNi (oxy)hydroxides may be a promising strategy to regulate the intrinsic electronic states, thereby reducing the thermodynamic barrier and accelerating oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here, a high-valence Mo atoms doping route is proposed by an efficient self-reconstruction strategy to prepare MoFeNi (oxy)hydroxides for efficient alkaline OER. By using borides (MoNiB) as sacrificial template and Mo source, FeNi (oxy)hydroxides nanoflakes embedded with high-valence Mo atoms (MoFeNi) is successfully synthesized, which can modulate the electron coordination to improve the intrinsic catalytic activity. Remarkably, the obtained MoFeNi exhibits extremely low overpotential (η100 = 252 mV and η500 = 288 mV) and small Tafel slope (18.35 mV dec-1). The robust catalyst can run stably for hours at 500 mA cm-2. Characterization results and theoretical calculations confirmed that the addition of high-valence Mo effectively modulated the intrinsic electronic structure of metal sites and optimized the adsorption/desorption energy of the intermediates, accelerating OER reactions kinetics. By coupling MoFeNi anode with Pt/C cathode, anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyser can operate stably at 500 mA cm-2 with about less than 2.2 V. This research introduces a novel approach to develop ideal electrocatalysts through the incorporation of high-valence molybdenum species.

Active Microstructure Transformation and Enhanced Stability of Iron Foam Derived from Industrial Water Oxidation.

Tracking microstructure transformation under industrial conditions is significant and urgent for the development of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts. Herein, employing iron foam (IF) as an object, we closely monitor related morphologies and composition evolution under 300 mA cm-2 at 40 °C (IF-40-t)/80 °C (IF-80-t) in 6 M KOH and find that the OER activity first increases and then decreases with the continuous generation of FeOOH. Moreover, the reasons for different tendencies of Tafel slope, double-layer capacitance, and impedance for IF-40-t/IF-80-t have been investigated thoroughly. In detail, the OER activity of IF-40-t is governed by electron and mass transport, while for IF-80-t, the dominating factor is electron transfer. Further, to improve the stability, guided by the above results, two versatile methods that do not sacrifice electron and mass transport have been proposed: surface coating and dynamic interface construction. The synchronous improvements of stability and activity are deeply revealed, which may provide inspiration for catalyst design for industrial applications.

Boosting oxygen evolution by nickel nitrate hydroxide with abundant grain boundaries via segregated high-valence molybdenum.

High-valence metal doping and abundant grain boundaries (GBs) have been proved to be effective strategies to promote the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). However, the reasonable design of the two to facilitate OER collaboratively is challenging. Herein, a convenient and novel one-step molten salt decomposition strategy is proposed to fabricate segregated-Mo doped nickle nitrate hydroxide with substantial GBs on MoNi foam (Mo-NNOH@MNF). When processed in molten salt, the Mo species on the conductive substrate migrates unevenly to the surface of Mo-NNOH@MNF, which not only induces the formation of abundant GBs to modulate electronic structure, but also improves the intrinsic activity as high-valence dopants, synergistically elevating OER activity. As verification, the optimized Mo-NNOH@MNF-10h exhibits low overpotential of 150 mV at 10 mA cm-2, which can be attributed to the reduced valence charge transition energy of Ni by high-valence Mo dopant, coupled with the fine-tuning of d-band center bond and corresponding local electron density by induced GBs and Mo doping, as DFT calculations revealed. Moreover, the intrinsic robustness and strong adhesion ensure the long-term stability of 6 h at 500 mA cm-2. This work provides a promising molten salt decomposition approach to synthesize advanced materials with unique structures.

Motivating borate doped FeNi layered double hydroxides by molten salt method toward efficient oxygen evolution.

The incorporation of borate is a beneficial strategy to improve the catalytic activity of transition metal-based electrocatalyts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). However, how to efficiently introduce borate has always been a challenge. Here, a facile and scalable molten salt method is developed to successfully dope borate into FeNi layered double hydroxides (FeBi@FeNi LDH) for efficient OER. The molten salt method can not only promote the formation of evenly dispersed nano-pompous FeBi precursor, thus providing the possibility to realize the direct doping of borate and the increase of mass, charge transfer and oxygen evolution active sites in FeNi LDH, but also promote the in-situ growth of FeBi@FeNi LDH on the conductive iron foam, improvingconductivity and stability of the material. The results indicate that the synthesized FeBi@FeNi LDH shows enhanced OER activity by delivering current densities of 10 and 100 mA cm-2 at low overpotentials of 246 and 295 mV and showing a small Tafel slope of 56.48 mV dec-1, benefiting from the optimization of geometric structure of active sites as well as the adjustment of electron density by borate doping especially in the case of molten salt. In addition, the sample can maintain durability at an industrial current density of 100 mA cm-1 for 90 h. This work provides a new way for the construction of efficient catalysts using boron doping assisted by molten salt.

B3GNT3 acts as a carcinogenic factor in endometrial cancer via facilitating cell growth, invasion and migration through regulating RhoA/RAC1 pathway-associated markers.

BACKGROUND: Aberrant expression of beta-1,3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase-3 (B3GNT3) has been frequently clarified in various cancers, however, its role in endometrial cancer (EC) has not been assessed in detail. PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the biological role of B3GNT3 in EC and simply explored the detailed mechanism. METHODS: The EC RNA-Seq dataset from TCGA database was applied to evaluate the expression of B3GNT3 and assess its role on prognostic value. HEC-1-A and KLE cell lines of EC were used to perform loss- and gain-of-function B3GNT3 assays respectively. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and western blot were used to measure the mRNA and protein levels of indicated molecules respectively. Cell counting kit-8, clone formation tests, and Transwell assay served to determine the changes of proliferative, invasive and migratory abilities of EC cells after altering the expression of B3GNT3. RESULTS: B3GNT3 was found to be highly expressed in EC tissues compared to normal tissues according to the online public databases, which confirmed by the following qRT-PCR in 3 EC cell lines. Besides, high B3GNT3 expression presented a worse overall survival in EC patients as compared with low B3GNT3 expression group. Furthermore, functional experiments in vitro indicated that B3GNT3 could facilitate the cell growth, invasion and migration. Moreover, we found that downregulation of B3GNT3 significantly reduced the expression level of GTP-RhoA and GTP-RAC1, whereas upregulation of B3GNT3 presented the opposite results. CONCLUSION: The results of current study demonstrate that B3GNT3 acts as an oncogene that promotes EC cells growth, invasion and migration possibly through regulating the RhoA/RAC1 signaling pathway-related markers, suggesting that B3GNT3 may be a candidate biomarker for EC therapeutic intervention.

[Digital PCR and its application in biological detection].

Various derivative technologies based on PCR for nucleic acid detection have emerged with the continuous development and the diverse needs of molecular biology technology. Digital PCR (dPCR) is a nucleic acid detection method for large scale amplification based on a single molecular template, which runs an individual PCR reaction using chambers/wells or droplets. dPCR can be used for absolute quantification for the initial concentration of samples without calibrator and drawing standard curve, showing the characteristics of high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. In this review, we introduce the history of technology development, principle, and instrument platform types of digital PCR in detail. Then, we summarize the application of this technology in GMO quantification, disease diagnosis, environment and food supervision. Finally, we describe the application prospect of dPCR, providing a reference for the development and utilization of this technology in the future.

Role of lncRNAs as Novel Biomarkers and Therapeutic Targets in Ovarian Cancer.

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the leading cause of death among all gynecological malignancies in the world and its underlying mechanism is still unclear. Compared with research on microRNAs, research on long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) is still in its infancy. Studies in recent years have demonstrated that lncRNAs exhibit multiple biological functions in various stages of OC development. In this review, we conclude that lncRNAs are closely involved in the pathogenesis of OC. The expression of lncRNAs indicates the early diagnosis, prognosis, and response to chemotherapy of OC. An attractive approach to treatment of OC is lncRNA small interfering RNA or acting as a plasmid targeting the expression of toxic genes, which is a novel step toward a major breakthrough in the treatment of human OC. E2-regulated lncRNA and its polymorphism, methylation, are also involved in OC. Further research efforts are needed before fully identifying, characterizing, and elucidating the actual functions of lncRNAs in OC at the molecular level and putting them into clinical practice.

Development of maizeSNP3072, a high-throughput compatible SNP array, for DNA fingerprinting identification of Chinese maize varieties.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are abundant and evenly distributed throughout the maize (Zea mays L.) genome. SNPs have several advantages over simple sequence repeats, such as ease of data comparison and integration, high-throughput processing of loci, and identification of associated phenotypes. SNPs are thus ideal for DNA fingerprinting, genetic diversity analysis, and marker-assisted breeding. Here, we developed a high-throughput and compatible SNP array, maizeSNP3072, containing 3072 SNPs developed from the maizeSNP50 array. To improve genotyping efficiency, a high-quality cluster file, maizeSNP3072_GT.egt, was constructed. All 3072 SNP loci were localized within different genes, where they were distributed in exons (43 %), promoters (21 %), 3' untranslated regions (UTRs; 22 %), 5' UTRs (9 %), and introns (5 %). The average genotyping failure rate using these SNPs was only 6 %, or 3 % using the cluster file to call genotypes. The genotype consistency of repeat sample analysis on Illumina GoldenGate versus Infinium platforms exceeded 96.4 %. The minor allele frequency (MAF) of the SNPs averaged 0.37 based on data from 309 inbred lines. The 3072 SNPs were highly effective for distinguishing among 276 examined hybrids. Comparative analysis using Chinese varieties revealed that the 3072SNP array showed a better marker success rate and higher average MAF values, evaluation scores, and variety-distinguishing efficiency than the maizeSNP50K array. The maizeSNP3072 array thus can be successfully used in DNA fingerprinting identification of Chinese maize varieties and shows potential as a useful tool for germplasm resource evaluation and molecular marker-assisted breeding.