PD-1/PD-L1 axis induced host immunosuppression via PI3K/Akt/mTOR signalling pathway in piglets infected by Glaesserella Parasuis.

Glaesserella parasuis, an important respiratory bacterial pathogen, causes Glässer's disease in piglets, with potential immunosuppression. We established a piglet infection model and explored the immunosuppression mechanism to improve our understanding of the host immune response to G. parasuis. Twenty piglets were randomly divided into two groups (n = 10). The infection group was intraperitoneally challenged with 2 × 108 CFU of G. parasuis in 2 mL TSB. The control group was intraperitoneally injected with equivalent TSB. After 72 h, the piglets were sacrificed, and spleen tissue was collected. PD-1/PD-L1 expression was determined. The splenocytes were isolated to detect CD3+ T, CD3+CD4+ T, CD3+CD8+ T and CD3-CD21+cell differentiation. Via data-independent acquisition (DIA), we compared the proteomics of healthy and infected spleen tissues. Glaesserella parasuis modified CD3+ T, CD3+CD4+ T, CD3+CD8+ T and CD3-CD21+ cell differentiation and PD-1/PD-L1 expression in the spleen. The infection group had 596 proteins with significant differences in expression, of which 301 were significantly upregulated and 295 downregulated. Differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were mainly related to immune responses. This is the first study on PD-1/PD-L1 expression in the spleen associated with immunosuppression in a piglet model to explore the protein changes related to immune responses via DIA.

Dicarbon nitride and Janus transition metal chalcogenides van der Waals heterojunctions for photocatalytic water splitting.

Two-dimensional graphene-like dicarbon nitride (C2N) is a newly synthesized metal-free material, which has attracted significant research interest owing to the direct band gap, high carrier mobility, thermal stability, and great tunable properties. However, their application in photocatalytic water splitting has not been well explored. In this work, the properties of photocatalytic water decomposition in heterojunctions composed of C2N and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) with Janus structure MoXY (X, Y = S, Se, Te) are systematically studied by the first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. The results show that except for MoTeS/C2N, the other five heterojunctions have type-Ⅱ band alignment, which causes electrons and holes to gather in the C2N and MoXY layer separately. Because the coupled built-in electric field at the intra-layer and inter-layer of asymmetric TMDs with Janus structure forms van der Waals heterojunction, the external electric field is an effective means of modulating the electronic properties of the heterojunction. Under the imposition of an external electric field, the MoSeS/C2N, MoTeSe/C2N, and MoTeS/C2N heterojunctions meet the band edge requirements for the photocatalytic decomposition of water. Detailed analysis demonstrates that the MoSeS/C2N heterojunction could effectively improve the optical absorption properties of monolayer C2N, making it a potential photocatalytic water decomposition material.

Tuning the Thermal Transport of Hexagonal Boron Nitride/Reduced Graphene Oxide Heterostructures.

Tuning the thermal properties of materials is considered to be of crucial significance for improving the performance of electronic devices. Along these lines, the development of van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures becomes an effective solution to affect the thermal transport mechanisms. However, vdW interactions usually block phonon transport, which leads to a reduction in thermal conductivity. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate a large enhancement in the thermal conductivity of a vdW heterostructure composed of few-layer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and reduced graphene oxide (RGO). By controlling the reduction temperature of RGO and changing the thickness of h-BN, the thermal conductivity of the RGO is increased by nearly 18 times, namely, from 91 to 1685 W m-1 K-1. Photothermal scanning imaging is used to reveal the changes in the heat transfer and temperature distribution of the h-BN/RGO heterostructure. Both photothermal scanning and Raman spectroscopy experiments show that the vdW interaction between h-BN and RGO can greatly increase the thermal conductivity of RGO, which is in contrast to the conventional understanding that vdW interaction reduces thermal conductivity. Our work paves the way for the manipulation of the thermal conductivity of two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures, which could be of great significance for future nanoelectronic circuits.

Photothermal-Transport Imaging and Thermal Management of 2D Materials.

Thermal management plays an important role in miniaturized and integrated nanoelectronic devices, where finding ways to enable efficient heat-dissipation can be critical. 2D materials, especially graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), are generally regarded as ideal materials for thermal management due to their high inherent thermal conductivity. In this paper, a new method is reported, which can be used to characterize thermal transport in 2D materials. The separation of pumping from detection can obtain the temperature at different distances from the heat source, which makes it possible to study the heat distribution of 2D materials. Using this method, the thermal conductivity of graphene and molybdenum disulfide is measured, and the thermal diffusion for different shapes of graphene is explored. It is found that thermal transport in graphene changes when the surrounding environment changes. In addition, thermal transport is restricted at the boundary. These processes are accurately simulated using the finite element method, and the simulated results agree well with the experiment. Furthermore, by depositing a layer of h-BN on graphene, the heat-dissipation characteristics of graphene become tunable. This study introduces and describes a new method to investigate and optimize thermal management in 2D materials.

Optimization of grating duty cycle in non-interferometric grating-based X-ray phase contrast imaging.

Grating-based X-ray phase contrast imaging technology is one of the most potential imaging methods in real applications. It can be classified into two categories: interferometry and non-interferometric imaging. The non-interferometric grating-based X-ray phase contrast imaging (NIGPCI) instrument has a great advantage in the forthcoming commercial applications for the flexible system design and the use of large periodic gratings. The performance of the NIGPCI instrument depends on its angular sensitivity to a great extent. Therefore, good angular sensitivity is mandatory in order to obtain high quality phase-contrast images. Several parameters, such as the X-ray spectrum, the inter-grating distances, and the parameters of the three gratings, influence the angular sensitivity of the imaging system. However, the quantitative relationship between the angular sensitivity and grating duty cycle is unclear. Therefore, this paper is devoted to revealing their internal relation by theoretical deduction and emulation of the imaging process with the theories of linear system and Fourier optics. Furthermore, a quantitative analysis method to optimize the duty cycles of gratings is proposed and its applicability to a general NIGPCI system is verified.

A modified equally sloped algorithm based on the total variation algorithm in computed tomography for insufficient data.

Computed tomography (CT) has become an important technique for analyzing the inner structures of material, biological and energy fields. However, there are often challenges in the practical application of CT due to insufficient data. For example, the maximum rotation angle of the sample stage is limited by sample space or image reconstruction from the limited number of views required to reduce the X-ray dose delivered to the sample. Therefore, it is difficult to acquire CT images with complete data. In this work, an iterative reconstruction algorithm based on the minimization of the image total variation (TV) has been utilized to develop equally sloped tomography (EST), and the reconstruction was carried out from limited-angle, few-view and noisy data. A synchrotron CT experiment on hydroxyapatite was also carried out to demonstrate the ability of the TV-EST algorithm. The results indicated that the new TV-EST algorithm was capable of achieving high-quality reconstructions from projections with insufficient data.