Anapole assisted self-hybridized exciton-polaritons in perovskite metasurfaces.

The exciton-polaritons in a lead halide perovskite not only have great significance for macroscopic quantum effects but also possess vital potential for applications in ultralow-threshold polariton lasers, integrated photonics, slow-light devices, and quantum light sources. In this study, we have successfully demonstrated strong coupling with huge Rabi splitting of 553 meV between perovskite excitons and anapole modes in the perovskite metasurface at room temperature. This outcome is achieved by introducing anapole modes to suppress radiative losses, thereby confining light to the perovskite metasurface and subsequently hybridizing it with excitons in the same material. Our results indicate the formation of self-hybridized exciton-polaritons within the perovskite metasurface, which may pave the way towards achieving high coupling strengths that could potentially bring exciting phenomena to fruition, such as Bose-Einstein condensation as well as enabling applications such as efficient light-emitting diodes and lasers.

Stretchable, Programmable and Magnet-Insensitive Protonic Display Based on Integrated Ionic Circuit.

As a new approach to "More than Moore", integrated ionic circuits serve as a possible alternative to traditional electronic circuits, yet the integrated ionic circuit composed of functional ionic elements and ionic connections is still challenging. Herein, a stretchable and transparent ionic display module of the integrated ionic circuit has been successfully prepared and demonstrated by pixelating a proton-responsive hydrogel. It is programmed to excite the hydrogel color change by a Faraday process occurring at the electrode at the specific pixel points, which enables the display of digital information and even color information. Importantly, the display module exhibits stable performance under strong magnetic field conditions (1.7 T). The transparent and stretchable nature of such ionic modules also allows them to be utilized in a broad range of scenarios, which paves the way for integrated ionic circuits.

Plasmon-induced magnetic anapole mode assisted strong field enhancement.

Optical metamaterials, sensing, nonlinear optics, and surface-enhanced spectroscopies have witnessed the remarkable potential of the anapole mode. While dielectric particles with a high refractive index have garnered significant attention in recent years, the exploration of plasmonic anapole modes with intense localized electric field enhancements in the visible frequency range remains limited. In this study, we present a theoretical investigation on the relationship between the strongest near-field response and magnetic anapole modes, along with their substantial enhancement of Raman signals from probing molecules. These captivating findings arise from the design of a practical metallic oblate spheroid-film plasmonic system that generates magnetic anapole resonances at frequencies within the visible-near-infrared range. This research not only sheds light on the underlying mechanisms in a wide range of plasmon-enhanced spectroscopies but also paves the way for innovative nano-device designs.

Modifying Escherichia coli to mimic Shigella for medical microbiology laboratory teaching: a new strategy to improve biosafety in class.

Introduction: Laboratory teaching of medical microbiology involves highly pathogenic microorganisms, thus posing potential biosafety risks to the students and the teacher. To address these risks, non/low-pathogenic microorganisms were modified to mimic highly pathogenic ones or highly pathogenic microorganisms were attenuated directly using the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. This study describes the modification of Escherichia coli DH5α to mimic Shigella and its evaluation as a safe alternative for medical laboratory teaching. Methods: To generate E. coli DH5α△FliC△tnaA2a, the tnaA and FliC genes in E. coli DH5α were knocked out using CRISPR/Cas9 technology; a plasmid bearing the O-antigen determinant of S. flexneri 2a was then constructed and transformed. Acid tolerance assays and guinea pig eye tests were used to assess the viability and pathogenicity, respectively. Questionnaires were used to analyze teaching effectiveness and the opinions of teachers and students. Results: The survey revealed that most teachers and students were inclined towards real-time laboratory classes than virtual classes or observation of plastic specimens. However, many students did not abide by the safety regulations, and most encountered potential biosafety hazards in the laboratory. E. coli DH5α△FliC△tnaA2a was biochemically and antigenically analogous to S. flexneri 2a and had lower resistance to acid than E. coli. There was no toxicity observed in guinea pigs. Most of teachers and students were unable to distinguish E. coli DH5α△FliC△tnaA2a from pure S. flexneri 2a in class. Students who used E. coli DH5α△FliC△tnaA2a in their practice had similar performance in simulated examinations compared to students who used real S. flexneri 2a, but significantly higher than the virtual experimental group. Discussion: This approach can be applied to other high-risk pathogenic microorganisms to reduce the potential biosafety risks in medical laboratory-based teaching and provide a new strategy for the development of experimental materials.

Skin Thermal Management for Subcutaneous Photoelectric Conversion Reaching 500 mW.

Despite possessing higher tissue transmittance and maximum permissible exposure power density for skin relative to other electromagnetic waves, second near-infrared light (1000-1350 nm) is scarcely applicable to subcutaneous photoelectric conversion, owing to the companion photothermal effect. Here, skin thermal management is conceived to utmostly utilize the photothermal effect of a photovoltaic cell, which not only improves the photoelectric conversion efficiency but also eliminates skin hyperthermia. In vivo, the output power can be higher than 500 mW with a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 9.4%. This output power is promising to recharge all the clinically applied implantable devices via wireless power transmission, that is, clinical pacemakers (6-200 µW), drug pumps (0.5-2 mW), cochlear (5-40 mW), and wireless endo-photo cameras (≈100 mW).

First Report of Anthracnose Caused by Colletotrichum ciggaro on Lonicera macranthoides Hand.-Mazz. in China.

Lonicera macranthoides Hand.-Mazz. is a traditional medicinal plant that is cultivated in Hunan, Yunnan, and Guizhou Provinces in China. In June 2020, a new leaf spot disease was observed on this plant in Longhui County, Shaoyang City, Hunan Province, China, where 14,000 hm2 of L. macranthoides had been planted. About 20% of the total cultivated area exhibited symptoms. Brown spots appeared on the leaves during the early stage and gradually expanded into irregular lesions, which became necrotic and dry. The whole plant withered and died in severe cases. To isolate the pathogen, the infected leaves were collected from different fields and washed with flowing sterile water. The small lesions were then cut and surface sterilized with 75% alcohol for 45 s followed by a 3 min treatment in 3% sodium hypochlorite. The lesions were rinsed five times in sterile water, incubated on potato dextrose agar (PDA) plates and cultured for 3-5 d at 28℃. In total, eleven isolates were obtained, and eight of them were Colletotrichum (isolation frequency 73%). Three representative isolates (JYH1, JYH2, and JYH5) were selected for further study. The fungus grew as circular white colonies, which then became grey. The older colonies looked like cotton and had dense aerial hyphae. The conidia were aseptate, transparent, cylindric, and thin walled, which measured 11.54 to 22.64 × 3.55 to 4.75 µm (n=100). Six genetic regions were amplified and sequenced to further confirm the identity of fungus. They included ß-tubulin (TUB2), the internal transcribed spacer (ITS), actin (ACT), chitin synthase (CHS), calmodulin (CAL) and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). The sequences were submitted to GenBank (ITS: OQ746331; ON954583; OQ746334; TUB2: OQ772278; ON960155; OQ772279; CHS: OQ772280; ON960156; OQ772281; ACT: OQ772282; ON960157; OQ772283; CAL: OQ772284; ON960158; OQ772285; GAPDH: OQ772286; ON960159; OQ772287). The construction of a 6-gene joint phylogenetic tree analysis showed that the three isolates unambiguously clustered with Colletotrichum kahawae subsp. ciggaro strains C022-1 (GenBank: KJ001120.1, KJ001124.1, KJ001109.1, KJ001102.1, KJ001106.1, KJ001113.1) and R019 (GenBank: JN715847.1, KC860023.1, KC859980.1, KC859954.1, KC859972.1, KC859997.1), which was recently reclassified as C. cigarro (Cabral et al. 2020). Three representative isolates were used for the pathogenicity test on the young leaves of the whole plant. A sterile pin was used to prick the leaf epidermis, and 6 × 6 mm mycelial blocks that had been cultured on PDA for 7 d were placed on the leaf wounds. The controls were treated in the same manner except that sterile blocks of PDA were used. There were three replicates per treatment. All the plants used in the experiment were maintained at 28°C in a climate chamber. There was a 12 h photoperiod, and the chamber was kept at 80% relative humidity. Dark brown spots appeared at the sites of inoculation on the plants after 5 days. All the strains that were re-isolated from the lesions shared the same morphological characteristics and had the same type of colonies as the pathogen Colletotrichum ciggaro. Thus, Koch's postulates were fulfilled. C. ciggaro had been shown to cause anthracnose on Olea europaea L. (Weir et al. 2012), Mangifera indica L. (Ismail et al. 2015), Citrus reticulata L. (Perrone et al. 2016) and Areca catechu L. (Zhang et al. 2020). To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. ciggaro causing anthracnose on L. macranthoides in China and worldwide. This research provides a basis for further research to control epidemics of this disease.

A Programmable Actuator as Synthetic Earthworm.

Natural earthworm with the ability to loosen soils that favors sustainable agriculture has inspired worldwide interest in the design of intelligent actuators. Given the inability to carry heavy loads and uncontrolled deformation, the vast majority of actuators can only perform simple tasks by bending, contraction, or elongation. Herein, a degradable actuator with the ability to deform in desired ways is presented, which successfully mimics the burrowing activities of earthworms to loosen soils with increased soil porosity by digging, grabbing, and lifting the soil when it receives rains. Such a scarifying actuator is made of degradable cellulose acetate and uncrosslinked polyacrylamide via the swelling-photopolymerizing method. The water absorption of polyacrylamide in moisture conditions causes rapid and remarkable bending. Such mechanical bending can be controlled in specific areas of the cellulose acetate film if polyacrylamide is polymerized in a patterned way, so as to generate complicated deformations of the whole cellulose acetate. Patterning polyacrylamide within cellulose acetate is achieved based on reversible surface protection by means of pen writing, rather than the traditional masking techniques. The water-induced deformation of programmable cellulose-based actuators is well preserved in soil, which is appropriate for promoting rain diffusion as well as root breath.

Antifreezing, Adhesive, and Ultra-Stretchable Ionogel for AI-Enabled Motion Tracking and Recognition in Winter Sports.

Motion tracking and recognition are gaining increasing attention in athletes' training for winter sports due to their importance in posture correction and injury prevention. Electronic skin serves as a better candidate compared to vision-based methods. However, the challenges of its application include sensing materials with good stretchability, softness, anti-freeze, non-volatility, and adhesion, and data processing techniques of high intelligence and efficiency. Here, we propose an antifreezing, adhesive, and ultra-stretchable organic ionogel (OIG). Maximum elongation of over 6500% has been obtained for the OIG of the double network, and the mechanical stretchability is retained at temperatures ranging from -50 to 50 °C. Importantly, the multi-sensor system could realize motion "recognition" rather than "perception" with the help of a convolutional neural network.

Structural basis for catalysis of human choline/ethanolamine phosphotransferase 1.

Phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) are two primary components of the eukaryotic membrane and play essential roles in the maintenance of membrane integrity, lipid droplet biogenesis, autophagosome formation, and lipoprotein formation and secretion. Choline/ethanolamine phosphotransferase 1 (CEPT1) catalyzes the last step of the biosynthesis of PC and PE in the Kennedy pathway by transferring the substituted phosphate group from CDP-choline/ethanolamine to diacylglycerol. Here, we present the cryo-EM structures of human CEPT1 and its complex with CDP-choline at resolutions of 3.7 Å and 3.8 Å, respectively. CEPT1 is a dimer with 10 transmembrane segments (TMs) in each protomer. TMs 1-6 constitute a conserved catalytic domain with an interior hydrophobic chamber accommodating a PC-like density. Structural observations and biochemical characterizations suggest that the hydrophobic chamber coordinates the acyl tails during the catalytic process. The PC-like density disappears in the structure of the complex with CDP-choline, suggesting a potential substrate-triggered product release mechanism.

[SigE inhibits DNA damage and participates in the regulation of DNA damage repair in Mycobacterium smegmatis].

Objective To investigate the anti-DNA damage role of Sigma factor E (SigE) and its regulation mechanism of DNA damage repair in Mycobacterium smegmatis(MS). Methods The SigE gene of Mycobacterium smegmatis was cloned into plasmid pMV261 to construct recombinant plasmid pMV261(+)-SigE, and the inserted gene was verified by sequencing. The recombinant plasmid was electrically transformed into Mycobacterium smegmatis to construct SigE over-expression strain, and the expression of SigE was detected by Western blot analysis. The Mycobacterium smegmatis containing pMV261 plasmid was used as the control strain. Growth differences between the two stains were monitored by measuring the 600 nm absorbance (A600) value of the bacterial culture suspension. The survival rate differences between two kinds of strains which were treated with three kinds of DNA damaging agents including ultraviolet ray (UV), cisplatin (DDP), and mitomycin C (MMC) were detected by colony forming unit (CFU) counting assay. DNA damage repair pathways of Mycobacteria were analyzed through bioinformatics and SigE-related genes were screened. The relative expression levels of these genes possibly related to the SigE against DNA damage were detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR. Results SigE over-expression strain pMV261(+)-SigE/MS was constructed and the expression of SigE in Mycobacterium smegmatis was detected. Compared with the control strain, the SigE over-expression strain grew more slowly and entered the growth plateau later; survival rate analysis found that SigE over-expression strain was more resistant to three DNA damaging agents including UV, DDP, and MMC. Bioinformatic analysis indicated that SigE gene was closely related to DNA damage repair genes recA, single-strand DNA binding protein, (ssb), and dnaE2; the expression levels of recA, dnaE2, and ssb in SigE over-expression strain all increased with varying degrees compared with those in the control strain. Conclusion SigE plays an important role in inhibiting the DNA damage of Mycobacterium smegmatis, whose mechanism is closely related to the regulation of DNA damage repair.

Methylprednisolone Promotes Mycobacterium smegmatis Survival in Macrophages through NF-κB/DUSP1 Pathway.

BACKGROUND: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) is the causative agent of tuberculosis. As an important component of host immunity, macrophages are not only the first line of defense against M. tuberculosis but also the parasitic site of M. tuberculosis in the host. Glucocorticoids can cause immunosuppression, which is considered to be one of the major risk factors for active tuberculosis, but the mechanism is unclear. OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of methylprednisolone on the proliferation of mycobacteria in macrophages and try to find key molecules of this phenomenon. METHODS: The macrophage line RAW264.7 infected by M. smegmatis was treated with methylprednisolone, and the intracellular bacterial CFU, Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), cytokine secretion, autophagy, and apoptosis were measured. After the cells were treated with NF-κB inhibitor BAY 11-7082 and DUSP1 inhibitor BCI, respectively, the intracellular bacterial CFU, ROS, IL-6, and TNF-α secretion were detected. RESULTS: After treatment with methylprednisolone, the CFU of intracellular bacteria increased, the level of ROS decreased, and the secretion of IL-6 and TNF-α decreased in infected macrophages. After BAY 11-7082 treatment, the CFU of M. smegmatis in macrophages increased, and the level of ROS production and the secretion of IL-6 by macrophages decreased. Transcriptome high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis suggested that DUSP1 was the key molecule in the above phenomenon. Western blot analysis confirmed that the expression level of DUSP1 was increased in the infected macrophages treated with methylprednisolone and BAY 11-7082, respectively. After BCI treatment, the level of ROS produced by infected macrophages increased, and the secretion of IL-6 increased. After the treatment of BCI combined with methylprednisolone or BAY 11-7082, the level of ROS produced and the secretion of IL-6 by macrophages were increased. CONCLUSION: methylprednisolone promotes the proliferation of mycobacteria in macrophages by suppressing cellular ROS production and IL-6 secretion through down-regulating NF-κB and up-regulating DUSP1 expression. BCI, an inhibitor of DUSP1, can reduce the level of DUSP1 in the infected macrophages and inhibit the proliferation of intracellular mycobacteria by promoting cellular ROS production and IL-6 secretion. Therefore, BCI may become a new molecule for host-directed therapy of tuberculosis, as well as a new strategy for the prevention of tuberculosis when treated with glucocorticoids.

Ozone exposure tunes the physicochemical properties of sweet potato starch by modifying its molecular structure.

Ozonation is an efficient method for improving the technical performance of some starches, but the feasibility of its use for sweet potato starch remains unknown. The effects of aqueous ozonation on the multi-scale structure and physicochemical properties of sweet potato starch were explored. Structurally, ozonation did not generate significant alterations at the granular level (size, morphology, lamellar structure, and long-range and short-range ordered structures), but led to tremendous changes at the molecular level, including converting hydroxyl groups to carbonyl and carboxyl groups and depolymerizing starch molecules. These structural changes resulted in prominent alternations in the technological performance of sweet potato starch, such as increases in water solubility and paste clarity and decreases in water absorption capacity, paste viscosity, and paste viscoelasticity. For these traits, their amplitudes of variation elevated when the ozonation time was extended and peaked at the longest ozonation time (60 min). The greatest changes in paste setback (30 min), gel hardness (30 min), and the puffing capacity of the dried starch gel (45 min) were observed at moderate ozonation times. In summary, aqueous ozonation is a new method for fabricating sweet potato starch with improved functionality.

Unraveling the regulating mechanisms of moisture content in the puffing of sweet potato starch gel.

Starch-based puffed crisps are a major group of popular snacks. In this work, the effects and underlying mechanisms of moisture content (MC) on the puffing of sweet potato starch gels were explored. The results showed that the gel with 12 % MC generated the highest puffing ratio (8.96), then followed by gels with 16 % MC (8.45) and 8 % MC (8.28). All starch gels presented a two-stage puffing pattern, but their evolutions with the heating temperature were highly dependent on the MC of gels. The relative puffing area percentages of gels with 8 % MC, 12 % MC and 16 % MC in the first (second) stages were 57.64 % (42.36 %), 60.66 % (39.34 %), and 18.36 % (81.64 %), respectively. The final pores in puffed products originated from the small water clusters that were regionalized in gel cells. The air cells started to expand as the gels with 8 % MC, 12 % MC and 16 % MC respectively reached the glass transition temperatures of 158.45 °C, 142.15 °C and 111.03 °C. The puffing was a joint consequence of the extensibility of cell walls and the pressure of water vapor in cells and the MC of the gels could regulate both of them. This study would facilitate the production of starch snacks with higher quality.

Bilayer Actuator with Overload Protection on the Basis of Semicrystalline Polyurethane.

Response to external stimuli plays a significant role in the environmental adaptation of living matters and intelligent devices. Most stimulus-response systems in nature can respond to appropriate stimuli, and inhibit the response under excessive stimuli, such as excessive heat or water, which can be called overload protection. However, even though various responsive materials have been developed for different stimuli, most of them are not protective against the overload stimuli. In this work, a bilayer actuator based on semicrystalline polyurethane is designed, which can respond differently to proper stimuli and excessive stimuli, i.e., water. This actuator can bend gradually under the proper stimulation of water, but will straighten and even bend reversely with excessive stimulation. The mechanism behind the reversible and adjustable actuator with overload protection is investigated both experimentally and theoretically, and the competition between dynamic factors and thermodynamic stability in the swelling process is considered the main cause.

Inhibition of mycobacteria proliferation in macrophages by low cisplatin concentration through phosphorylated p53-related apoptosis pathway.

BACKGROUND: Drug resistance is a prominent problem in the treatment of tuberculosis, so it is urgent to develop new anti- tuberculosis drugs. Here, we investigated the effects and mechanisms of cisplatin (DDP) on intracellular Mycobacterium smegmatis to tap the therapeutic potential of DDP in mycobacterial infection. RESULTS: Macrophages infected with Mycobacterium smegmatis were treated with DDP alone or combined with isoniazid or rifampicin. The results showed that the bacterial count in macrophages decreased significantly after DDP (≤ 6 µg/mL) treatment. When isoniazid or rifampicin was combined with DDP, the number of intracellular mycobacteria was also significantly lower than that of isoniazid or rifampicin alone. Apoptosis of infected cells increased after 24 h of DDP treatment, as shown by flow cytometry and transmission electron microscopy detection. Transcriptome sequencing showed that there were 1161 upregulated and 645 downregulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the control group and DDP treatment group. A Trp53-centered protein interaction network was found based on the top 100 significant DEGs through STRING and Cytoscape software. The expression of phosphorylated p53, Bax, JAK, p38 MAPK and PI3K increased after DDP treatment, as shown by Western blot analysis. Inhibitors of JAK, PI3K or p38 MAPK inhibited the increase in cell apoptosis and the reduction in the intracellular bacterial count induced by DDP. The p53 promoter Kevetrin hydrochloride scavenges intracellular mycobacteria. If combined with DDP, Kevetrin hydrochloride could increase the effect of DDP on the elimination of intracellular mycobacteria. In conclusion, DDP at low concentrations could activate the JAK, p38 MAPK and PI3K pathways in infected macrophages, promote the phosphorylation of p53 protein, and increase the ratio of Bax to Bcl-2, leading to cell apoptosis, thus eliminating intracellular bacteria and reducing the spread of mycobacteria. CONCLUSION: DDP may be a new host-directed therapy for tuberculosis treatment, as well as the p53 promoter Kevetrin hydrochloride.

Gigahertz optoacoustic vibration in Sub-5 nm tip-supported nano-optomechanical metasurface.

The gigahertz acoustic vibration of nano-optomechanical systems plays an indispensable role in all-optical manipulation of light, quantum control of mechanical modes, on-chip data processing, and optomechanical sensing. However, the high optical, thermal, and mechanical energy losses severely limit the development of nano-optomechanical metasurfaces. Here, we demonstrated a high-quality 5 GHz optoacoustic vibration and ultrafast optomechanical all-optical manipulation in a sub-5 nm tip-supported nano-optomechanical metasurface (TSNOMS). The physical rationale is that the design of the semi-suspended metasurface supported by nanotips of <5 nm enhances the optical energy input into the metasurface and closes the mechanical and thermal output loss channels, result in dramatically improvement of the optomechanical conversion efficiency and oscillation quality of the metasurface. The design strategy of a multichannel-loss-mitigating semi-suspended metasurface can be generalized to performance improvements of on-chip processed nano-optomechanical systems. Applications include all-optical operation of nanomechanical systems, reconfigurable nanophotonic devices, optomechanical sensing, and nonlinear and self-adaptive photonic functionalities.

Metal Halides for High-Capacity Energy Storage.

High-capacity electrochemical energy storage systems are more urgently needed than ever before with the rapid development of electric vehicles and the smart grid. The most efficient way to increase capacity is to develop electrode materials with low molecular weights. The low-cost metal halides are theoretically ideal cathode materials due to their advantages of high capacity and redox potential. However, their cubic structure and large energy barrier for deionization impede their rechargeability. Here, the reversibility of potassium halides, lithium halides, sodium halides, and zinc halides is achieved through decreasing their dimensionality by the strong π-cation interactions between metal cations and reduced graphene oxide (rGO). Especially, the energy densities of KI-, KBr-, and KCl-based materials are 722.2, 635.0, and 739.4 Wh kg-1 , respectively, which are higher than those of other cathode materials for potassium-ion batteries. In addition, the full-cell with 2D KI/rGO as cathode and graphite as anode demonstrates a lifespan of over 150 cycles with a considerable capacity retention of 57.5%. The metal halides-based electrode materials possess promising application prospects and are worthy of more in-depth researches.

Beneficial shift of rhizosphere soil nutrients and metabolites under a sugarcane/peanut intercropping system.

Intercropping systems have been studied as a sustainable agricultural planting pattern to increase soil quality and crop yields. However, the relationships between metabolites and soil physicochemical properties remain poorly understood under sugarcane/peanut intercropping system. Thus, we determined the rhizosphere soil physicochemical properties, and analyzed rhizosphere soil metabolites and root metabolites by metabolomics method under monoculture and intercropping patterns of sugarcane and peanut. The results showed that pH, the contents of total phosphorus (P), total potassium (K), available nitrogen (N), available phosphorus (P), and available potassium (K) were higher in rhizosphere soil of intercropping peanut than monoculture peanut, and the content of total P was higher in rhizosphere soil of intercropping sugarcane than monoculture sugarcane. Sugarcane/peanut intercropping also significantly increased the activities of acid phosphatase and urease in rhizosphere soil. The metabolomics results showed that 32 metabolites, mainly organic acids and their derivatives (25.00%), nucleotides and their metabolites (18.75%), were detected in root and rhizosphere soil samples. In the MP-S (rhizosphere soil of monoculture peanut) vs. IP-S (rhizosphere soil of intercropping peanut) comparison, 47 differential metabolites (42 upregulated) were screened, including glycerolipids (19.15%), organic acids and their derivatives (17.89%), and amino acids and their metabolites (12.77%). In the MS-S (rhizosphere soil of monoculture sugarcane) vs. IS-S (rhizosphere soil of intercropping sugarcane) comparison, 51 differential metabolites (26 upregulated) were screened, including heterocyclic compounds (15.69%), glycerolipids (11.76%), and organic acids and their derivatives (9.80%). The metabolite species from MP-S, MS-S, IP-S, and IS-S were similar, but some metabolite contents were significantly different, such as adenine, adenosine, maltotriose, thermozeaxanthin-13 and PE-NMe (20:0/24:0). Adenine and adenosine were detected in root and rhizosphere soils, and their levels were increased in the intercropping treatment, which were mainly related to enhanced purine metabolism in root and rhizosphere soils under the sugarcane/peanut intercropping system. Importantly, adenine and adenosine were significantly positively correlated with total P and total K contents, acid phosphatase and urease activities, and pH. This study clarified that the sugarcane/peanut intercropping system could improve soil nutrients and enzymes and was related to purine metabolism.

Subcutaneous power supply by NIR-II light.

Implantable medical devices are wished to be recharged via contactless power transfer technologies without interventional operations. Superior to subcutaneous power supply by visible light or electromagnetic wave, second near-infrared (NIR-II) light is predicted to possess 60 times subcutaneous power transmission but hard to be utilized. Here we report a photo-thermal-electric converter via the combination of photothermal conversion and thermoelectric conversion. It is able to generate an output power as high as 195 mW under the coverage of excised tissues, presenting advantages of non-invasion, high output power, negligible biological damage, and deep tissue penetration. As an in vivo demonstration, the output power of a packaged converter in the abdominal cavity of a rabbit reaches 20 mW under NIR-II light irradiation through the rabbit skin with a thickness of 8.5 mm. This value is high enough to recharge an implanted high-power-consumption wireless camera and transfer video signal out of body in real-time.