Lattice-Disordered High-Entropy Alloy Engineered by Thermal Dezincification for Improved Catalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction.

A disordered crystal structure is an asymmetrical atomic lattice resulting from the missing atoms (vacancies) or the lattice misarrangement in a solid-state material. It has been widely proven to improve the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) process. In the present work, due to the special physical properties (the low evaporation temperature of below 900 °C), Zn is utilized as a sacrificial component to create senary PtIrNiCoFeZn high-entropy alloy (HEA) with highly disordered lattices. The structure of the lattice-disordered PtIrNiCoFeZn HEA is characterized by the thermal diffusion scattering (TDS) in transmission electron microscope. Density functional theory calculations reveal that lattice disorder not only accelerates both the Volmer step and Tafel step during the HER process but also optimizes the intensity and distribution of projected density of states near the Fermi energy after the H2O and H adsorption. Anomalously high alkaline HER activity and stability are proven by experimental measurements. This work introduces a novel approach to preparing irregular lattices offering highly efficient HEA and a TDS characterization method to reveal the disordered lattice in materials. It provides a new route toward exploring and developing the catalytic activities of materials with asymmetrically disordered lattices.

Phonon stability boundary and deep elastic strain engineering of lattice thermal conductivity.

Recent studies have reported the experimental discovery that nanoscale specimens of even a natural material, such as diamond, can be deformed elastically to as much as 10% tensile elastic strain at room temperature without the onset of permanent damage or fracture. Computational work combining ab initio calculations and machine learning (ML) algorithms has further demonstrated that the bandgap of diamond can be altered significantly purely by reversible elastic straining. These findings open up unprecedented possibilities for designing materials and devices with extreme physical properties and performance characteristics for a variety of technological applications. However, a general scientific framework to guide the design of engineering materials through such elastic strain engineering (ESE) has not yet been developed. By combining first-principles calculations with ML, we present here a general approach to map out the entire phonon stability boundary in six-dimensional strain space, which can guide the ESE of a material without phase transitions. We focus on ESE of vibrational properties, including harmonic phonon dispersions, nonlinear phonon scattering, and thermal conductivity. While the framework presented here can be applied to any material, we show as an example demonstration that the room-temperature lattice thermal conductivity of diamond can be increased by more than 100% or reduced by more than 95% purely by ESE, without triggering phonon instabilities. Such a framework opens the door for tailoring of thermal-barrier, thermoelectric, and electro-optical properties of materials and devices through the purposeful design of homogeneous or inhomogeneous strains.

Cbl induced ubiquitination of HER2 mediate immune escape from HER2-targeted CAR-T.

Breast cancer (BC) with high HER2 expression has higher recurrence rate and worse prognosis, and its immunotherapy is promising. Based on the high expression of HER2, develop Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) and PDL-1 immunotherapy, and study the molecular pathways of related immune cells and recurrence. HER2-CAR-T cells were constructed using retroviruses, and their specific recognition and immune effects on HER2+ BC cells were verified by in vivo and in vitro experiments. PDL-1 was used as adjuvant immunotherapy, knocking down PDL-1 in tumor cells or dendritic cells, or depleted macrophages to study immune pathways. The negative regulation of HER2 by cbl was determined by IP, ubiquitination experiments, and segmented plasmids, elucidating the molecular mechanism of HER2+ BC recurrence after immunotherapy. HER2-CAR-T specifically recognizes HER2-positive tumor cells and inhibits tumor growth in vivo and in vitro, and anti-PDL1 treatment enhances the therapeutic effect of HER2-CAR-T on tumors. HER2-CART therapy eradicated solid tumors after PDL1 knockdown in dendritic cells. Immunotherapy of relapsed tumors lost HER2 expression by upregulating cbl. HER2-CAR-T shows specific recognition of HER2+ cells and can mediate immune response therapy with the cooperation of PDL-1.

Self-Reconstructed Spinel Surface Structure Enabling the Long-Term Stable Hydrogen Evolution Reaction/Oxygen Evolution Reaction Efficiency of FeCoNiRu High-Entropy Alloyed Electrocatalyst.

High catalytic efficiency and long-term stability are two main components for the performance assessment of an electrocatalyst. Previous attention has been paid more to efficiency other than stability. The present work is focused on the study of the stability processed on the FeCoNiRu high-entropy alloy (HEA) in correlation with its catalytic efficiency. This catalyst has demonstrated not only performing the simultaneous hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with high efficiency but also sustaining long-term stability upon HER and OER. The study reveals that the outstanding stability is attributed to the spinel oxide surface layer developed during evolution reactions. The spinel structure preserves the active sites that are inherited from the HEA's intrinsic structure. This work will provide an insightful direction/pathway for the design and manufacturing activities of other metallic electrocatalysts and a benchmark for the assessment of their efficiency-stability relationship.

Structural diversity of CuZn2InSe4 quaternary chalcogenides: electronic and phonon properties from first principles.

First principles simulations are utilized to calculate the electronic and vibrational properties of several metastable structural phases of the CuZn2InSe4 quaternary chalcogenide, including stanite, kesterite, primitive mixed CuAu, wurtzite-stanite, and wurtzite-kesterite lattices. We find that although each phase is formed by nearest cation-chalcogen bonds, the structural diversity due to cation and polyhedral arrangements has direct consequences in the electronic structure. The simulations further indicate that hybrid functionals are needed to account for the s-p and p-d orbital hybridization that is found around the Fermi level, which leads to much enhanced energy band gaps when compared with standard exchange-correlation approaches. We also find that the thermal conductivities for all phases are relatively low, and the main scattering channel comes from a low frequency optical band hybridized with acoustic phonons. Given that CuZn2InSe4 is a material from a larger class of quaternary chalcogenides, other materials may exhibit similar electronic and vibrational properties, which may be useful for electronic and thermal management applications.

The moderate substitution of Astragalus sinicus returning for chemical fertilizer improves the N cycle function of key ecological bacterial clusters in soil.

Astragalus sinicus (Chinese milk vetch) is a well-established resource of organic fertilizer widely used in paddy soil to partially replace chemical fertilizers. However, the influence of returning A. sinicus to fields on the soil bacterial community remains poorly understood. Here, we used different amounts of A. sinicus partially replacing chemical fertilizers and investigated the changes in soil physicochemical factors and the soil bacterial community structure responses. Returning A. sinicus to the field significantly increased the soil total nitrogen and available phosphorus content (p < 0.05). Weighted gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) was applied to detect significant associations between the soil microbiome data and physicochemical factors. Two key ecological bacterial clusters (MEturquoise and MEgreen), mainly containing Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Chloroflexi, were significantly correlated with soil nitrogen (N) levels. A. sinicus partially replacing chemical fertilizers reduced the normalized stochasticity ratio (NST) of rare amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), abundant ASVs, MEturquoise, and MEgreen (p < 0.05). Our results further indicated that a moderate amount of A. sinicus returned to the soil effectively mitigated the trend of reduced relative abundance of N fixation function of key ecological clusters caused by chemical fertilizer. However, a large amount of A. sinicus led to a significant increase in relative abundance of denitrification function and a significant decrease in relative abundance of N fixation function of key ecological clusters. This implies that the moderate substitution of A. sinicus returning for chemical fertilizer improves the N cycling function of key ecological bacterial clusters in soil. From the perspective of the bacterial community in paddy soil, this study provides new insight and a reference on how to find a good balance between the amount of A. sinicus returned to the soil and ecological safety.

Differential impact of Bt-transgenic rice plantings on bacterial community in three niches over consecutive years.

Transgenic-Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crops express insecticidal proteins, which can accumulate in plants and soil where they may influence microbial populations. The impact of Bt crops on bacterial communities has only been assessed under short-term, and results have been contradictory. Here, we analyzed the bacterial communities in three niches, rhizosphere soil (RS), root endosphere (RE) and leaf endosphere (LE), of three Bt rice and their non-Bt parental lines for three consecutive years by high-throughput sequencing. In principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and PERMANOVA (Adonis) analysis, operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were clustered primarily by niche type and differed significantly in the RE and LE but not in the RS between each of three Bt lines compared with the non-Bt rice line, and not in each respective niche among the three Bt rice lines. The bacterial communities in the RS of different rice lines over the 3 years were clustered mainly by year rather than by lines. The differential bacterial taxa among the lines did not overlap between years, presumably because Cry proteins are rapidly degraded in the soil. A network analysis of RS bacterial communities showed that the network complexity and density for the three Bt rice lines did not decrease compared with those for the non-Bt line. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that bacterial communities differed significantly in RE and LE between Bt and non-Bt rice lines, but the differences were mild and transient, and had no adverse impact on RS over the 3 years. This study provides favorable evidence in support of the commercialization of Bt rice.

Distribution of Bacterial Endophytes in the Non-lesion Tissues of Potato and Their Response to Potato Common Scab.

The response of plant endophytes to disease within infected tissues has been well demonstrated, but the corresponding response of endophytes in non-lesion tissues remains unclear. Here, we studied the composition and distribution of bacterial endophytes in potato roots (RE), stems (SE), and tubers (TE), and explored the response of endophytes in non-lesion tissues to potato common scab (PCS), which is a soil-borne disease caused by pathogenic Streptomyces and results in serious losses to the global economy every year. Via high-throughput sequencing, it was seen that the composition of endophytes in roots, stems, and tubers had significant differences (P < 0.05) and the distribution of the bacterial communities illustrated a gradient from soil to root to tuber/stem. PCS significantly reduced bacterial endophytes α-diversity indexes, including ACE and the number of observed operational taxonomic units (OTUs), of RE without significantly reducing the indexes of SE and TE. No significant effect on the composition of endophytes were caused by PCS in roots, tubers, or stems between high PCS severity (H) and low PCS severity (L) infections at the community level, but PCS did have a substantial impact on the relative abundance of several specific endophytes. Rhizobium and Sphingopyxis were significantly enriched in root endophytes with low PCS severity (REL); Delftia and Ochrobactrum were significantly enriched in stem endophytes with low PCS severity (SEL); Pedobacter, Delftia, and Asticcacaulis were significantly enriched in tuber endophytes with high PCS severity (TEH). OTU62, a potential PCS pathogen in this study, was capable of colonizing potato tubers, roots, and stems with few or no symptoms present. Co-occurrence networks showed that the number of correlations to OTU62 was higher than average in these three tissue types, suggesting the importance of OTU62 in endophytic communities. This study clarified the distribution and composition of potato endophytes in tubers, roots, and stems, and demonstrated the response of endophytes in non-lesion tissues to PCS.

Material conversion, microbial community composition and metabolic functional succession during green soybean hull composting.

In this study, green soybean hulls and maize straw were used for composting to explore the dynamics of material conversion, bacterial and fungal communities and metabolic functions. The results showed that bacterial and fungal communities had different temporal successions during composting. The bacterium Streptosporangiaceae was a biomarker in the thermophilic stage of composting, and the fungus Chaetomiaceae was a biomarker in the thermophilic stage and cooling stage. In the bacterial network, the germination index (GI) had a time-delayed association with Truepera, Pseudomonas and Methylococcaceae, which represented the key physicochemical characteristics that affect the community. In the fungal community, the GI, pH, fulvic acid (FA) and temperature etc. had a joint effect. Carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism were the main metabolic pathways, and saprotrophs represented the dominant fungal trophic mode in the composting process. These results provide a reference from screening specific and efficient agents to accelerate natural vegetable composting.

Synthesis, transport properties and electronic structure of p-type Cu1+xMn2-xInTe4 (x = 0, 0.2, 0.3).

The synthesis, electronic structure and temperature dependent transport properties of polycrystalline Cu1+xMn2-xInTe4 (x = 0, 0.2, 0.3) are reported for the first time. These quaternary chalcogenides were synthesized by direct reaction of the elements, followed by solid state annealing and hot press densification. The thermal conductivity is low for all specimens and intrinsic to the material system. Furthermore, the off-stoichiometry specimens illustrate the sensitivity of the transport properties to stoichiometry, with a greater than two-orders-of magnitude increase in carrier concentration with increased Cu content. First principles calculations of the electronic structure are also reported, and are in agreement with the experimental data. This fundamental investigation shows the potential towards further optimization of the electrical properties that, in addition to the intrinsically low thermal conductivity, provides a basis for further research into the viability of this material system for potential energy-related applications.

The occurrence of potato common scab correlates with the community composition and function of the geocaulosphere soil microbiome.

BACKGROUND: Soil microorganisms can mediate the occurrence of plant diseases. Potato common scab (CS) is a refractory disease caused by pathogenic Streptomyces that occurs worldwide, but little is known about the interactions between CS and the soil microbiome. In this study, four soil-root system compartments (geocaulosphere soil (GS), rhizosphere soil (RS), root-zone soil (ZS), and furrow soil (FS)) were analyzed for potato plants with naturally high (H) and low (L) scab severity levels. We aimed to determine the composition and putative function of the soil microbiome associated with potato CS. RESULTS: The copy numbers of the scab phytotoxin biosynthetic gene txtAB and the bacterial 16S rRNA gene as well as the diversity and composition of each of the four soil-root system compartments were examined; GS was the only compartment that exhibited significant differences between the H and L groups. Compared to the H group, the L group exhibited a lower txtAB gene copy number, lower bacterial 16S copy number, higher diversity, higher co-occurrence network complexity, and higher community function similarity within the GS microbiome. The community composition and function of the GS samples were further revealed by shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Variovorax, Stenotrophomonas, and Agrobacterium were the most abundant genera that were significantly and positively correlated with the scab severity level, estimated absolute abundance (EAA) of pathogenic Streptomyces, and txtAB gene copy number. In contrast, Geobacillus, Curtobacterium, and unclassified Geodermatophilaceae were significantly negatively correlated with these three parameters. Compared to the function profiles in the L group, several genes involved in "ABC transporters," the "bacterial secretion system," "quorum sensing (QS)," "nitrogen metabolism," and some metabolism by cytochrome P450 were enriched in the H group. In contrast, some antibiotic biosynthesis pathways were enriched in the L group. Based on the differences in community composition and function, a simple model was proposed to explain the putative relationships between the soil microbiome and CS occurrence. CONCLUSIONS: The GS microbiome was closely associated with CS severity in the soil-root system, and the occurrence of CS was accompanied by changes in community composition and function. The differential functions provide new clues to elucidate the mechanism underlying the interaction between CS occurrence and the soil microbiome, and varying community compositions provide novel insights into CS occurrence.

[Application of Overlap method to digestive tract reconstruction of totally laparoscopic left colectomy].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the application value of the Overlap method in digestive tract reconstruction of totally laparoscopic left colectomy(TLLC) and its potential advantage. METHODS: The retrospective cohort study was adopted. Clinicopathological data of 16 patients with left colon cancer who underwent TLLC and Overlap anastomosis between August 2016 and August 2017 at Tangdu Hospital were retrospectively collected as Overlap group. Twenty-one patients who underwent laparoscopic assisted left colectomy (LALC) between January 2015 and July 2016 at Tangdu Hospital were used as control (traditional group). The intraoperative and postoperative data were compared between the two groups. During digestive tract reconstruction in the Overlap group, the proximal colon and distal colon were lined up side by side; a side-to-side anastomosis was conducted on colic band with a 60 mm linear stapler; and the common entry hole was closed using running suture. While in traditional group, the bowel was pulled out of abdominal wall through the assisted incision; the sample was resected and a proximal and distal end-to-end anastomosis was performed. RESULTS: In Overlap group, 10 cases were male and 6 cases were female, with a mean age of (66.4±4.8) years and a BMI of (23.6±2.3) kg/m2; the tumor located in distal transverse colon in 1 case, in splenic flexure in 2 cases, in descending colon in 4 cases, in upper sigmoid colon in 9 cases. TLLC was successfully completed in all the cases without conversion to laparotomy. In traditional group, 12 cases were male and 9 cases were female, with mean age of (65.9±5.8) years and BMI of (22.7±2.8) kg/m2; the tumor located in the distal transverse colon in 1 case, in the splenic flexure in 3 cases, in the descending colon in 6 cases, in the upper sigmoid colon in 11 cases. No statistically significant differences in baseline data were found between the two groups (all P>0.05). Compared to the traditional group, the total operation time was shorter [(143.4±11.1) minutes vs. (166.4±16.5) minutes, t=4.792, P=0.000], the anastomosis time was prolonged [(44.3±3.3) minutes vs. (22.4±3.0) minutes, t=-20.948, P=0.000], the amount of bleeding was reduced [(46.6±13.6) ml vs. (70.5±20.0) ml, t=4.106, P=0.000], and the incision length was shorter [(3.9±0.9) cm vs. (6.7±1.3) cm, t=7.056, P=0.000] in the Overlap group. There were no significant differences in lymph nodes harvested (17.3±2.9 vs. 15.5±3.0), time to flatus [(2.8±1.3) days vs. (2.6±1.0)days], postoperative complications [6.2%(1/16) vs. 9.5%(2/21)] and postoperative hospitalization [(4.6±1.4) days vs.(4.7±1.2) days] between the two groups (all P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The Overlap reconstruction method in totally laparoscopic left colectomy is a safe and feasible procedure, and provides less injury and better cosmetic outcome of abdominal wall.