Electrolyte-Induced Morphology Evolution to Boost Potassium Storage Performance of Perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic Dianhydride.

Organic materials have attracted extensive attention for potassium-ion batteries due to their flexible structure designability and environmental friendliness. However, organic materials generally suffer from unavoidable dissolution in aprotic electrolytes, causing an unsatisfactory electrochemical performance. Herein, we designed a weakly solvating electrolyte to boost the potassium storage performance of perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA). The electrolyte induces an in situ morphology evolution and achieves a nanowire structure. The weakly dissolving capability of ethylene glycol diethyl ether-based electrolyte and unique nanowire structure effectively avoid the dissolution of PTCDA. As a result, PTCDA shows excellent cycling stability (a capacity retention of 89.1% after 2000 cycles) and good rate performance (70.3 mAh g-1 at 50C). In addition, experimental detail discloses that the sulfonyl group plays a key role in inducing morphology evolution during the charge/discharge process. This work opens up new opportunities in electrolyte design for organic electrodes and illuminates further developments of potassium-ion batteries.

Facile and Widely Applicable Route to Self-Adaptive Emissivity Modulation: Energy-Saving Demonstration with Transparent Wood.

The cooling power provided by radiative cooling is unwanted during cold hours. Therefore, self-adaptive regulation is desired for radiative cooling, especially in all-weather applications. However, current routes for radiative cooling regulation are constrained by substrates and complicated processing. Here, self-adaptive radiative cooling regulation on various potential substrates (transparent wood, PET, normal glass, and cement) was achieved by a Fabry-Perot structure consisting of a silver nanowires (AgNWs) bottom layer, PMMA spacer, and W-VO2 top layer. The emissivity-modulated transparent wood (EMTW) exhibits an emissivity contrast of 0.44 (ε8-13-L = ∼0.19 and ε8-13-H = ∼0.63), which thereby yields considerable energy savings across different climate zones. The emissivity contrast can be adjusted by varying the spinning parameters during the deposition process. Positive emissivity contrast was also achieved on three other industrially relevant substrates via this facile and widely applicable route. This proves the great significance of the approach to the promotion and wide adoption of radiative cooling regulation concept in the built environment.

A heterogeneous tumor immune microenvironment of uncommon epidermal growth factor receptor mutant non-small cell lung cancer.

Common epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations are usually not considered for immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) due to poor efficacy. However, whether uncommon EGFR mutations are suitable for immunotherapy has not been thoroughly studied. Thus, we explored the tumor immune microenvironment (TME) features in uncommon EGFR mutant NSCLC. In this study, a total of 41 patients with EGFR mutations were included, the majority (85.4%) of whom were stage I. Among them, 22 patients harbored common mutations, while 19 patients presented with uncommon mutations. Compared with common mutations, uncommon mutations exhibited more infiltrating T cells and fewer M2 macrophages, upregulated expression of antigen processing and a presentation pathway. Unsupervised clustering based on the mIF profile identified two classes with heterogeneous TME in uncommon mutations. Class 1 featured the absence of PD-1+ cytotoxic T cell infiltration, and class 2 displayed a hotter TME because of the downregulated expression of hypoxia (p < 0.001), oxidative phosphorylation (p = 0.009), and transforming growth factor beta signaling (p = 0.01) pathways as well as increased expression of CTLA4 (p = 0.001) and PDCD1 (p = 0.004). The association of CTLA4 and PDCD1 with TME profiles was validated in a TCGA lung adenocarcinoma cohort with uncommon EGFR mutations. Our study reveals the distinct and heterogeneous TME features in uncommon EGFR mutant NSCLC.

Optimizing perioperative treatment for potentially resectable stage III squamous cell lung carcinoma: promising results of a condensed four-cycle regimen with tislelizumaband chemotherapy.

BACKGROUND: The standard care for resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) involves perioperative therapy combining chemotherapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors, typically lasting 6 to 12 months. However, the optimal treatment strategies for potentially resectable squamous cell lung carcinoma (SCC) remain unclear. This Phase 2 trial aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of a condensed four-cycle perioperative treatment regimen with tislelizumab combined with chemotherapy in patients with potentially resectable stage III SCC. METHODS: Patients with potentially resectable stage IIIA-IIIB (N2) SCC received intravenous tislelizumab, albumin-bound paclitaxel, and carboplatin for up to four cycles. The primary endpoints were major pathologic response (MPR) and incidence of treatment-related adverse events. Safety and potential biomarkers for efficacy prediction were also assessed. RESULTS: Among 35 enrolled patients, 32 underwent surgery with R0 resection achieved in all cases. MPR was achieved in 24 patients and pathological complete response (pCR) in 14 patients. Radiographic objective response was observed in 31 patients. The 12-month and 24-month event-free survival rate was 85.7 and 61.0%, respectively. Four patients experienced grade 3 or 4 adverse events. Tumor tissue based next-generation sequencing revealed the potential associations between several biomarkers and pathological response, including tumor neoantigen burden score, 18-gene expression profile score, CD8 + T cells, M1/M2 macrophages ratio and interferon-gamma expression level. Besides, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) dynamics and concentration were also associated with pathological response and the presence of ctDNA at postoperative month 1 was a strong predictor for disease relapse. Furthermore, metagenomic sequencing in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid demonstrated Streptococcus was the most abundant genus in the pCR group. CONCLUSIONS: A condensed four-cycle perioperative treatment regimen of tislelizumab combined with chemotherapy demonstrated promising efficacy and manageable toxicities in potentially resectable stage III SCC. Specific biomarkers showed potential for predicting treatment efficacy and the mechanism of superior antitumor response of pCR patients was preliminarily and indirectly explored. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05024266. Registered August 27, 2021.

Bioinspired Hierarchical Multi-Protective Membrane for Extreme Environments via Co-Electrospinning-Electrospray Strategy.

Extreme environments can cause severe harm to human health, and even threaten life safety. Lightweight, breathable clothing with multi-protective functions would be of great application value. However, integrating multi-protective functions into nanofibers in a facile way remains a great challenge. Here, a one-step co-electrospinning-electrospray strategy is developed to fabricate a superhydrophobic multi-protective membrane (S-MPM). The water contact angle of S-MPM can reach up to 164.3°. More importantly, S-MPM can resist the skin temperature drop (11.2 °C) or increase (17.2 °C) caused by 0 °C cold or 70 °C hot compared with pure electrospun membrane. In the cold climate (-5 °C), the anti-icing time of the S-MPM is extended by 2.52 times, while the deicing time is only 1.45 s due to the great photothermal effect. In a fire disaster situation, the total heat release and peak heat release rate values of flame retarded S-MPM drop sharply by 24.2% and 69.3%, respectively. The S-MPM will serve as the last line of defense for the human body and has the potential to trigger a revolution in the practical application of next-generation functional clothing.

Nanoarchitectonics toward Full Coverage of CdZnS Nanospheres by Layered Double Hydroxides for Enhanced Visible-Light-Driven H2 Evolution.

Nanoarchitectonics of semiconductors shed light on efficient photocatalytic hydrogen evolution by precisely controlling the surface microenvironment of cocatalysts. Taking cadmium zinc sulfide (CZS) nanoparticles as a target, the spontaneous modifications are conducted by interactions between surface Cd2+ /Zn2+ atoms and thiol groups in thioglycolic acid. The capping ligand impacts the semiconductor surface with a negative electronic environment, contributing to the full coverage of CZS by nickel-cobalt hydroxides (NiCo-LDHs) cocatalysts. The obtained core-shell CZS@NiCo-LDHs, possessing a shell thickness of ≈20 nm, exhibits a distinguished topology (SBET  = 87.65m2  g-1 ), long surface carrier lifetime, and efficient charge-hole separation. Further photocatalytic hydrogen evaluation demonstrates an enhanced H2 evolution rate of 18.75 mmol g-1  h-1 with an apparent quantum efficiency of 16.3% at 420 nm. The recorded catalytic performance of the core-shell sample is 44.6 times higher than that of pure CZS nanospheres under visible light irradiation. Further density functional theory simulations indicate that sulfur atoms play the role of charge acceptor and surface Ni/Co atoms are electron donors, as well as a built-in electric field effect can be established. Altogether, this work takes advantage of strong S affinity from surface metal atoms, revealing the interfacial engineering toward improved visible-light-driven photocatalytic hydrogen evolution (PHE) activity.

TSomVar: a tumor-only somatic and germline variant identification method with random forest.

Somatic variants act as critical players during cancer occurrence and development. Thus, an accurate and robust method to identify them is the foundation of cutting-edge cancer genome research. However, due to low accessibility and high individual-/sample-specificity of the somatic variants in tumor samples, the detection is, to date, still crammed with challenges, particularly when lacking paired normal samples as control. To solve this burning issue, we developed a tumor-only somatic and germline variant identification method (TSomVar) using the random forest algorithm established on sample-specific variant datasets derived from genotype imputation, reads-mapping level annotation and functional annotation. We trained TSomVar by using genomic variant datasets of three major cancer types: colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma and skin cutaneous melanoma. Compared with existing tumor-only somatic variant identification tools, TSomVar shows excellent performances in somatic variant detection with higher accuracy and better capability of recalling for test datasets from colorectal cancer and skin cutaneous melanoma. In addition, TSomVar is equipped with the competence of accurately identifying germline variants in tumor samples. Taken together, TSomVar will undoubtedly facilitate and revolutionize somatic variant explorations in cancer research.

Prototype development and evaluation of a hyperspectral lidar optical receiving system.

As a new type of active Earth observation technology, airborne hyperspectral lidar combines the advantages of traditional lidar 3D information acquisition and passive hyperspectral imaging technology, and it can achieve integrated imaging detection with a high spatial and hyperspectral resolution. Thus, it has become an important future direction of Earth surface remote sensing technology. This article introduces the design and development of an airborne hyperspectral imaging lidar system. The hyperspectral lidar adopts a focal plane splitting method, combined with an array of 168 optical fibers, to couple wide-spectral-range laser echo signals one by one to the corresponding single tube detector, achieving efficient splitting and precise coupling of supercontinuum laser pulse echo signals. This article proposes a fast synchronous calibration method that is suitable for hyperspectral imaging lidar systems. Results show that the spectral range of the hyperspectral lidar system is 400-900 nm, and the spectral resolution of single-fiber detection is greater than 3 nm. Notably, this article focuses on analyzing the abnormal detection channels based on the calibration results. With the test results of adjacent channels combined, the reason for the abnormal spectral bandwidth of channel 17 is analyzed as an example. This research points out the direction for verifying the design parameters of the hyperspectral lidar prototype and lays an important foundation for airborne flight test of the hyperspectral lidar.

CancerSCEM: a database of single-cell expression map across various human cancers.

With the proliferating studies of human cancers by single-cell RNA sequencing technique (scRNA-seq), cellular heterogeneity, immune landscape and pathogenesis within diverse cancers have been uncovered successively. The exponential explosion of massive cancer scRNA-seq datasets in the past decade are calling for a burning demand to be integrated and processed for essential investigations in tumor microenvironment of various cancer types. To fill this gap, we developed a database of Cancer Single-cell Expression Map (CancerSCEM, https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/cancerscem), particularly focusing on a variety of human cancers. To date, CancerSCE version 1.0 consists of 208 cancer samples across 28 studies and 20 human cancer types. A series of uniformly and multiscale analyses for each sample were performed, including accurate cell type annotation, functional gene expressions, cell interaction network, survival analysis and etc. Plus, we visualized CancerSCEM as a user-friendly web interface for users to browse, search, online analyze and download all the metadata as well as analytical results. More importantly and unprecedentedly, the newly-constructed comprehensive online analyzing platform in CancerSCEM integrates seven analyze functions, where investigators can interactively perform cancer scRNA-seq analyses. In all, CancerSCEM paves an informative and practical way to facilitate human cancer studies, and also provides insights into clinical therapy assessments.

Critical role of minor eggcase silk component in promoting spidroin chain alignment and strong fiber formation.

Natural spider silk with extraordinary mechanical properties is typically spun from more than one type of spidroin. Although the main components of various spider silks have been widely studied, little is known about the molecular role of the minor silk components in spidroin self-assembly and fiber formation. Here, we show that the minor component of spider eggcase silk, TuSp2, not only accelerates self-assembly but remarkably promotes molecular chain alignment of spidroins upon physical shearing. NMR structure of the repetitive domain of TuSp2 reveals that its dimeric structure with unique charged surface serves as a platform to recruit different domains of the main eggcase component TuSp1. Artificial fiber spun from the complex between TuSp1 and TuSp2 minispidroins exhibits considerably higher strength and Young's modulus than its native counterpart. These results create a framework for rationally designing silk biomaterials based on distinct roles of silk components.

Network pharmacology study on fermented soybeans for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease in older individuals.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the disruption of synaptic communication among millions of neurons. Recent research has highlighted the potential therapeutic effectiveness of natural polyphenolic compounds in addressing AD. Soybeans are abundant in polyphenols, and their polyphenolic composition undergoes significant alteration through fermentation by Eurotium cristatum. Through comprehensive database searches, we identified active components within fermented soybean polyphenols and genes associated with AD. Subsequently, we utilized Venn diagrams to analyze the overlap between AD-related genes and these components. Furthermore, we visualized the network between intersecting targets and proteins using Cytoscape software. The anti-AD effects of soybeans were further explored through comprehensive analysis, including protein-protein interaction analysis, pathway enrichment analysis, and molecular docking studies. Our investigation unveiled 6-hydroxydaidzein as a major component of fermented soybean polyphenols, shedding light on its potential therapeutic significance in combating AD. The intersection between target proteins of fermented soybeans and disease-related targets in AD comprised 34 genes. Protein-protein interaction analysis highlighted key potential targets, including glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3B), amyloid precursor protein (APP), cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5), and beta-site APP cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1). Molecular docking results demonstrated a robust binding effect between major components from fermented soybeans and the aforesaid key targets implicated in AD treatment. These findings suggest that fermented soybeans demonstrate a degree of efficacy and present promising prospects in the prevention of AD.

Screening of Genes Associated with Immune Infiltration of Discoid Lupus Erythematosus Based on Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis.

Discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) is a disorder of the immune system commonly seen in women of childbearing age. The pathophysiology and aetiology are still poorly understood, and no cure is presently available. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the underlying molecular mechanisms, as well as search for new therapeutic targets. Gene expression data from skin biopsies samples of DLE patients and healthy controls were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between DLE and healthy control samples were identified by differential expression analysis. Samples were analysed using CIBERSORT to examine the proportion of immune infiltration. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis was used to screen for the module most relevant to immune infiltration. Candidate genes were uploaded to the TRRUST database to obtain the potential transcription factors regulating these genes. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis was performed to obtain the hub genes most associated with immune infiltration among the candidate genes. A total of 273 DEGs were identified between the DLE and healthy control samples. The results of immunoinfiltration analysis showed that the abundances of resting memory CD4 T cells, activated memory CD4 T cells and M1 macrophages were significantly higher, while those of resting infiltration of plasma cells, regulatory T cells and dendritic cells were lower in DLE samples than in healthy control samples. Correlation analysis showed that ISG15, TRIM22, XAF1, IFIT2, OAS2, OAS3, OAS1, IFI44, IFI6, BST2, IFIT1 and MX2 were negatively correlated with the abundances of plasma cells, T-cell regulatory cells and resting dendritic cells and positively correlated with activated memory CD4 T cells and M1 macrophages. Our study shows that these hub genes may regulate DLE via immune-related pathways mediated by the infiltration of these immune cells.

Anion-Reinforced Solvation Structure Enables Stable Operation of Ether-Based Electrolyte in High-Voltage Potassium Metal Batteries.

Electrolytes with anion-dominated solvation are promising candidates to achieve dendrite-free and high-voltage potassium metal batteries. However, it's challenging to form anion-reinforced solvates at low salt concentrations. Herein, we construct an anion-reinforced solvation structure at a moderate concentration of 1.5 M with weakly coordinated cosolvent ethylene glycol dibutyl ether. The unique solvation structure accelerates the desolvation of K+, strengthens the oxidative stability to 4.94 V and facilitates the formation of inorganic-rich and stable electrode-electrolyte interface. These enable stable plating/stripping of K metal anode over 2200 h, high capacity retention of 83.0 % after 150 cycles with a high cut-off voltage of 4.5 V in K0.67MnO2//K cells, and even 91.5 % after 30 cycles under 4.7 V. This work provides insight into weakly coordinated cosolvent and opens new avenues for designing ether-based high-voltage electrolytes.

RefRGim: an intelligent reference panel reconstruction method for genotype imputation with convolutional neural networks.

Genotype imputation is a statistical method for estimating missing genotypes from a denser haplotype reference panel. Existing methods usually performed well on common variants, but they may not be ideal for low-frequency and rare variants. Previous studies showed that the population similarity between study and reference panels is one of the key factors influencing the imputation accuracy. Here, we developed an imputation reference panel reconstruction method (RefRGim) using convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which can generate a study-specified reference panel for each input data based on the genetic similarity of individuals from current study and references. The CNNs were pretrained with single nucleotide polymorphism data from the 1000 Genomes Project. Our evaluations showed that genotype imputation with RefRGim can achieve higher accuracies than original reference panel, especially for low-frequency and rare variants. RefRGim will serve as an efficient reference panel reconstruction method for genotype imputation. RefRGim is freely available via GitHub: https://github.com/shishuo16/RefRGim.

Wavelength selection of dual-mechanism LiDAR with reflection and fluorescence spectra for plant detection.

With the continuous expansion and refinement in plant detection range, reflection, and fluorescence spectra present great research potentials and commercial values. Referring technical advantages with hyperspectral and fluorescence lidar for monitoring plants, the synchronous observation with reflection and fluorescence signals achieved by one lidar system has attracted wide attention. This paper plans to design and construct a dual-mechanism lidar system that can obtain spatial information, reflection, and fluorescence signals simultaneously. How to select the optimal detected bands to the dual-mechanism lidar system for monitoring plants is an essential step. Therefore, this paper proposes a two-step wavelength selection method to determine the optimal bands combination by considering the spectral characteristic of reflection and fluorescence signals themselves, and the hardware performance of lidar units comprehensively. The optimal bands combination of 4 reflection bands of 481 nm, 541 nm, 711.5 nm, 775.5 nm, and 2 fluorescence bands of 686.5 nm, 737 nm was determined. Besides, compared with the original reflection or fluorescence bands, the overall accuracy and average accuracy of the optimal band combination were respectively improved by 2.51%, 15.45%, and 7.8%, 29.06%. The study demonstrated the reliability and availability of the two-step wavelength selection method, and can provide references for dual-mechanism lidar system construction.

The construction of Fe-porphyrin nanozymes with peroxidase-like activity for colorimetric detection of glucose.

As a type of nanomaterials with enzyme-mimetic catalytic properties, nanozymes have attracted wide concern in biological detection. H2O2 was the characteristic product of diverse biological reactions, and the quantitative analysis for H2O2 was an important way to detect disease biomarkers, such as acetylcholine, cholesterol, uric acid and glucose. Therefore, there is of great significance for developing a simple and sensitive nanozyme to detect H2O2 and disease biomarkers by combining with corresponding enzyme. In this work, Fe-TCPP MOFs were successfully prepared by the coordination between iron ions and porphyrin ligands (TCPP). In addition, the peroxidase (POD) activity of Fe-TCPP was proved, in detail, Fe-TCPP could catalyze H2O2 to produce ·OH. Herein, glucose oxidase (GOx) was chosen as the model to build cascade reaction by combining Fe-TCPP to detect glucose. The results indicated glucose could be detected by this cascade system selectively and sensitively, and the limit of detection of glucose was achieved to 0.12 µM. Furthermore, a portable hydrogel (Fe-TCPP@GEL) was further established, which encapsulated Fe-TCPP MOFs, GOx and TMB in one system. This functional hydrogel could be applied for colorimetric detection of glucose by coupling with a smartphone easily.

Infrared detector module for airborne hyperspectral LiDAR: design and demonstration.

Realizing the integrated acquisition and identification of the elevation information and spectral information of the observation target is at the frontier and a future trend of Earth observation technology. This study designs and develops a set of airborne hyperspectral imaging lidar optical receiving systems and investigates the detection of the infrared band echo signal of the lidar system. A set of avalanche photodiode (APD) detectors is independently designed to detect the weak echo signal of  800-900 nm band. The actual radius of the photosensitive surface of the APD detector is 0.25 mm. We design and demonstrate the optical focusing system of the APD detector in the laboratory and obtain that the image plane size of the optical fiber end faces of the APD detector from channel 47 to channel 56 is close to 0.3 mm. Results show that the optical focusing system of the self-designed APD detector is reliable. On the basis of the focal plane splitting technology of the fiber array, we couple the echo signal of  800-900 nm band to the corresponding APD detector through the fiber array and conduct a series of test experiments for the APD detector. Field test results of the ground-based platform show that the APD detectors in all channels can complete the remote sensing measurement of 500 m. The development of this APD detector solves the problem of hyperspectral imaging under weak light signals and realizes the accurate detection of ground targets in the infrared band by airborne hyperspectral imaging lidar.

Gene expression changes reveal the impact of the space environment on the skin of International Space Station astronauts.

BACKGROUND: The various types of ionizing radiation and altered gravity in the space environment present a risk to humans during space missions. Changes in the space environment lead to skin diseases, affecting the status of the aviators to fly. Therefore, it is important to explore the molecular-level changes in the skin during space missions. OBJECTIVES: Bioinformatics analysis of gene arrays from hair follicle tissue of 10 astronauts was performed to explore changes in gene expression before, during and after space missions. METHODS: First, STEM (Short Time-series Expression Miner) software was used to identify the expression patterns of hair follicle genes of astronauts pre-, in- and postflight. Gene Ontology Enrichment Analysis was then performed to explore the gene functions within the module. Protein-protein interaction network analysis was performed on skin-related genes. The transcriptional regulatory network within the module was constructed using the TRRUST database. The circadian rhythm-related genes within the module were screened using the MSigDB (Molecular Signatures Database). RESULTS: Based on differential expression analysis between the two groups, there were 327 differentially expressed genes after the astronauts entered space compared with preflight, and only 54 differentially expressed genes after returning to Earth. This outcome suggests that the expression of most genes can be recovered on return to the ground, but there are a small number of genes whose expression cannot be recovered in a short period of time. Based on time series analysis, 311 genes showed increased expression on entry into space and decreased expression on return to Earth. The genes of this expression pattern were associated with skin development, keratinocyte differentiation and cornification. Ten hub genes were identified as skin-related genes within the module, as well as nine transcription factors and three circadian genes. One hundred and seventy-nine genes decreased in expression after entry into space and increased on return to Earth. By reviewing the literature, we found that four of the genes, CSCD2, HP, CXCR1 and SSTR4, are associated with skin diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Through bioinformatics analysis, we found that the space environment affects skin keratinocyte differentiation, leading to skin barrier damage and inflammatory responses, and that this effect was decreased after return to Earth.

PIWIL1 promotes gastric cancer via a piRNA-independent mechanism.

Targeted cancer therapy aims to achieve specific elimination of cancerous but not normal cells. Recently, PIWI proteins, a subfamily of the PAZ-PIWI domain (PPD) protein family, have emerged as promising candidates for targeted cancer therapy. PPD proteins are essential for small noncoding RNA pathways. The Argonaute subfamily partners with microRNA and small interfering RNA, whereas the PIWI subfamily partners with PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA). Both PIWI proteins and piRNA are mostly expressed in the germline and best known for their function in transposon silencing, with no detectable function in mammalian somatic tissues. However, PIWI proteins become aberrantly expressed in multiple types of somatic cancers, thus gaining interest in targeted therapy. Despite this, little is known about the regulatory mechanism of PIWI proteins in cancer. Here we report that one of the four PIWI proteins in humans, PIWIL1, is highly expressed in gastric cancer tissues and cell lines. Knocking out the PIWIL1 gene (PIWIL1-KO) drastically reduces gastric cancer cell proliferation, migration, metastasis, and tumorigenesis. RNA deep sequencing of gastric cancer cell line SNU-1 reveals that KO significantly changes the transcriptome, causing the up-regulation of most of its associated transcripts. Surprisingly, few bona fide piRNAs exist in gastric cancer cells. Furthermore, abolishing the piRNA-binding activity of PIWIL1 does not affect its oncogenic function. Thus, PIWIL1 function in gastric cancer cells is independent of piRNA. This piRNA-independent regulation involves interaction with the UPF1-mediated nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) mechanism. Altogether, our findings reveal a piRNA-independent function of PIWIL1 in promoting gastric cancer.

Biodegradable Dual-Network Cellulosic Composite Bioplastic Metafilm for Plastic Substitute.

With the escalating environmental and health concerns over petroleum-based plastics, sustainable and biodegradable cellulosic materials are a promising alternative to plastics, yet remain unsatisfied properties such as fragility, inflammability and water sensitivity for practical usage. Herein, we present a novel dual-network design strategy to address these limitations and fabricate a high-performance cellulosic composite bioplastic metafilm with the exceptional mechanical toughness (23.5 MJ m-3 ), flame retardance, and solvent resistance by in situ growth of cyclotriphosphazene-bridged organosilica network within bacterial cellulose matrix. The phosphorus, nitrogen-containing organosilica network, verified by the experimental and theoretical results, plays a triple action on significantly enhancing tensile strength, toughness, flame retardance and water resistance of composite bioplastic metafilm. Furthermore, cellulosic bioplastic composite metafilm demonstrates a higher maximum usage temperature (245 °C), lower thermal expansion coefficient (15.19 ppm °C-1 ), and better solvent resistance than traditional plastics, good biocompatibility and natural biodegradation. Moreover, the composite bioplastic metafilm have a good transparency of average 74 % and a high haze over 80 %, which can serve as an outstanding substrate substitute for commercial polyethylene terephthalate film to address the demand of flexible ITO films. This work paves a creative way to design and manufacture the competitive bioplastic composite to replace daily-used plastics.