RESUMEN
Polarized optical microscopy (POM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and synchrotron microbeam wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) were used to investigate the mechanisms of periodic assemblies leading to ring-banded crystal aggregates with light-grating capacity for iridescence in poly (1,4-butylene adipate) (PBA) modulated with poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO). A critical finding is that the PBA crystal assembly on the top surface and in the interior constitutes a grating architecture, with a cross-bar pitch equaling the inter-band spacing. The inner lamellae are arranged perpendicularly to the substrate under the ridge region, where they scroll, bend, and twist 90° to branch out newly spawned lamellae to form the parallel lamellae under the valley region. The cross-hatch grating with a fixed inter-spacing in the PBA aggregated crystals is proved in this work to perfectly act as light-interference entities capable of performing iridescence functions, which can be compared to those widely seen in many of nature's organic bio-species or inorganic minerals such as opals. This is a novel breakthrough finding for PBA or similar polymers, such as photonic crystals, especially when the crystalline morphology could be custom-made and modulated with a second constituent.
RESUMEN
Rare skin diseases include more than 800 diseases affecting more than 6.8 million patients worldwide. However, only 100 drugs have been developed for treating rare skin diseases in the past 38 years. To investigate potential treatments through drug repurposing for rare skin diseases, it is necessary to have a well-organized database to link all known disease causes, mechanisms, and related information to accelerate the process. Drug repurposing provides less expensive and faster potential options to develop treatments for known diseases. In this work, we designed and constructed a rare skin disease database (RSDB) as a disease-centered information depository to facilitate repurposing drug candidates for rare skin diseases. We collected and integrated associated genes, chemicals, and phenotypes into a network connected by pairwise relationships between different components for rare skin diseases. The RSDB covers 891 rare skin diseases defined by the Orphanet and GARD databases. The organized network for each rare skin disease comprises associated genes, phenotypes, and chemicals with the corresponding connections. The RSDB is available at https://rsdb.cmdm.tw .