Trust, Identity, and Public-Sphere Pro-environmental Behavior in China: An Extended Attitude-Behavior-Context Theory.

Changing human behavior is critical to mitigating the increasingly severe environmental harm. Although numerous studies focus on private-sphere or generalized pro-environmental behavior (PEB), relatively little research examines explicitly public-sphere PEB from a collective action perspective. This study incorporates trust and identity into the Attitude-Behavior-Context (ABC) theory to investigate Chinese residents' participation in public-sphere PEB. Primary data collected from 648 residents in China tested the model empirically. The results indicate that social trust, environmentalist self-identity, and politicized identity positively predict public-sphere PEB and that institutional trust positively impacts non-activist behaviors but negatively relates to environmental activism. There is also evidence that trust and identity are moderators of attitude and public-sphere PEB. Specifically, social trust and environmentalist self-identity strengthen the effect of attitude on public-sphere PEB. Politicized identity increases the impact of attitude on environmental activism but not on non-activist behaviors, and there is no significant moderating effect of institutional trust. The findings deepen the understanding of public-sphere PEB and make more targeted policies accordingly.

Fabrication of SiOx-G/PAA-PANi/Graphene Composite With Special Cross-Doped Conductive Hydrogels as Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Batteries.

Silicon oxides (SiOx) have been considered to be the likeliest material to substitute graphite anode for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to its high theoretical capacity, appropriate working potential plus rich abundance. Nevertheless, the two inherent disadvantages of volume expansion and low electrical conductivity of SiOx have been a main obstacle to its application. Here, SiOx-G/PAA-PANi/graphene composite has been successfully synthesized by in-situ polymerization, in which SiOx-G particles linked together by a graphene-doped polyacrylic acid-polyaniline conductive flexible hydrogel and SiOx-G is encapsulated inside the conductive hydrogel. We demonstrate that SiOx-G/PAA-PANi/graphene composite possesses a discharge-specific capacity of 842.3 mA h g-1 at a current density of 500 mA g-1 after a cycle life of 100 cycles, and a good initial coulombic efficiency (ICE) of 74.77%. The superior performance probably due to the lithium ion transmission rate and the electric conductivity enhanced by the three-dimensional (3D) structured conductive polymer hydrogel.

Cordycepin induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis by inducing DNA damage and up-regulation of p53 in Leukemia cells.

Cordycepin, an adenosine analog derived from Cordyceps militaris has been shown to exert anti-tumor activity in many ways. However, the mechanisms by which cordycepin contributes to the anti-tumor still obscure. Here our present work showed that cordycepin inhibits cell growth in NB-4 and U937 cells by inducing apoptosis. Further study showed that cordycepin increases the expression of p53 which promotes the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria to the cytosol. The released cytochrome c can then activate caspase-9 and trigger intrinsic apoptosis. Cordycepin also blocks MAPK pathway by inhibiting the phosphorylation of ERK1/2, and thus sensitizes the apoptosis. In addition, our results showed that cordycepin inhibits the expression of cyclin A2, cyclin E, and CDK2, which leads to the accumulation of cells in S-phase. Moreover, our study showed that cordycepin induces DNA damage and causes degradation of Cdc25A, suggesting that cordycepin-induced S-phase arrest involves activation of Chk2-Cdc25A pathway. In conclusion, cordycepin-induced DNA damage initiates cell cycle arrest and apoptosis which leads to the growth inhibition of NB-4 and U937 cells.

Transcription of AAT•ATT triplet repeats in Escherichia coli is silenced by H-NS and IS1E transposition.

BACKGROUND: The trinucleotide repeats AAT•ATT are simple DNA sequences that potentially form different types of non-B DNA secondary structures and cause genomic instabilities in vivo. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The molecular mechanism underlying the maintenance of a 24-triplet AAT•ATT repeat was examined in E. coli by cloning the repeats into the EcoRI site in plasmid pUC18 and into the attB site on the E. coli genome. Either the AAT or the ATT strand acted as lagging strand template in a replication fork. Propagations of the repeats in either orientation on plasmids did not affect colony morphology when triplet repeat transcription using the lacZ promoter was repressed either by supplementing LacI(Q)in trans or by adding glucose into the medium. In contrast, transparent colonies were formed by inducing transcription of the repeats, suggesting that transcription of AAT•ATT repeats was toxic to cell growth. Meanwhile, significant IS1E transposition events were observed both into the triplet repeats region proximal to the promoter side, the promoter region of the lacZ gene, and into the AAT•ATT region itself. Transposition reversed the transparent colony phenotype back into healthy, convex colonies. In contrast, transcription of an 8-triplet AAT•ATT repeat in either orientation on plasmids did not produce significant changes in cell morphology and did not promote IS1E transposition events. We further found that a role of IS1E transposition into plasmids was to inhibit transcription through the repeats, which was influenced by the presence of the H-NS protein, but not of its paralogue StpA. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings thus suggest that the longer AAT•ATT triplet repeats in E. coli become vulnerable after transcription. H-NS and its facilitated IS1E transposition can silence long triplet repeats transcription and preserve cell growth and survival.