Hepatic and extrahepatic metabolic modulation in hbv-related decompensated cirrhosis and acute-on-chronic liver failure.

Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) and decompensated cirrhosis (DC) are life-threatening syndromes that can develop at the end-stage of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Both ACLF and DC are complicated by hepatic and extrahepatic pathogeneses. To better understand the compartment-specific metabolic modulations related to their pathogenesis, HBV-DC, HBV-ACLF patients, and controls (30 each) were analyzed by metabolomics using portal (Port), hepatic vein (Hep), and peripheral (Peri) serum. Compartment ratios of metabolites (RatioHep/Port, RatioPeri/Hep, and RatioPort/Peri) were calculated. The liver tissues (10 per group) were analyzed using transcriptomics and metabolomics. An additional 75 patients with ACLF, 20 with DC, and 20 with liver cirrhosis (LC) were used to confirm oxlipid dysregulation. Both multi-omics datasets suggest suppressed energy, amino acid, and pyrimidine metabolism in the ACLF/DC liver. The serum metabolomic variations were contributed primarily by disease rather than sampling compartments, as both HBV-ACLF and HBV-DC patients demonstrated abnormal profiles of amino acids and peptides, indoles, purines, steroids, and benzimidazoles. In ACLF/DC patients, impaired hepatic metabolism resulted in a highly correlated hepatic and portal vein serum metabolome and release of inflammatory lipids and heme metabolites from the liver. HBV-ACLF showed higher RatioPeri/Hep of extrahepatic inflammatory oxlipids, while HBV-DC patients showed higher RatioPort/Peri of gut microbial metabolites. An inflammatory oxlipid outburst was confirmed in the early stages of HBV-ACLF. The inflammatory effects of the selected oxlipids were confirmed in monocytes. These findings support a synergy between liver-specific mechanisms and systemic inflammation in ACLF/DC development, and that pro-inflammatory oxlipids are metabolic signatures of early HBV-ACLF.

Efficient Solar-osmotic Power Generation from Bioinspired Anti-fouling 2D WS2 Composite Membranes.

Nanofluidic reverse electrodialysis provides an attractive way to harvest osmotic energy. However, most attention was paid to monotonous membrane structure optimization to promote selective ion transport, while the role of external fields and relevant mechanisms are rarely explored. Here, we demonstrate a Kevlar-toughened tungsten disulfide (WS2 ) composite membrane with bioinspired serosa-mimetic structures as an efficient osmotic energy generator coupling light. As a result, the output power could be up to 16.43 W m-2 under irradiation, outperforming traditional two-dimensional (2D) membranes. Both the experiment and simulation uncover that the generated photothermal and photoelectronic effects could synergistically promote the confined ion transport process. In addition, this membrane also possesses great anti-fouling properties, endowing its practical application. This work paves new avenues for sustainable power generation by coupling solar energy.

Copper-Catalyzed Double Thiolation To Access Sulfur-Bridged Imidazopyridines with Isothiocyanate.

A copper(I)-catalyzed sulfur-bridged dimerization of imidazopyridines has been developed using isothiocyanate as the sulfur source. This method enables a switchable synthesis of bis(imidazo[1,2- a]pyridin-3-yl)sulfanes or bis(2-(imidazo[1,2- a]pyridin-2-yl)phenyl)sulfanes in the presence of 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) or K2CO3 when different imidazopyridines were employed. Under optimized conditions, a variety of sulfur-bridged imidazopyridines were obtained in good yields. Moreover, thiourea was proved to be the key intermediate under catalytic system A.

Three-dimensional ionic liquid functionalized magnetic graphene oxide nanocomposite for the magnetic dispersive solid phase extraction of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in vegetable oils.

In this paper, a novel three-dimensional ionic liquid functionalized magnetic graphene oxide nanocomposite (3D-IL@mGO) was prepared, and used as an effective adsorbent for the magnetic dispersive solid phase extraction (MSPE) of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in vegetable oil prior to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The properties of 3D-IL@mGO were characterized by scanning electron micrographs (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The 3D-IL@mGO, functionalized by ionic liquid, exhibited high adsorption toward PAHs. Compared to molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction (MISPE), the MSPE method based on 3D-IL@mGO had less solvent consumption and low cost, and was more efficent to light PAHs in quantitative analysis. Furthermore, the rapid and accurate GC-MS method coupled with 3D-IL@mGO MSPE procedure was successfully applied for the analysis of 16 PAHs in eleven vegetable oil samples from supermarket in Zhejiang Province. The results showed that the concentrations of BaP in 3 out of 11 samples were higher than the legal limit (2.0µg/kg, Commission Regulation 835/2011a), the sum of 8 heavy PAHs (BaA, CHR, BbF, BkF, BaP, IcP, DaA, BgP) in 11 samples was between 3.03µg/kg and 229.5µg/kg. Validation results on linearity, specificity, accuracy, precision and stability, as well as on application to the analysis of PAHs in oil samples demonstrated the applicability to food safety risk monitoring in China.