Enhancing Electroreduction CO2 to Hydrocarbons via Tandem Electrocatalysis by Incorporation Cu NPs in Boron Imidazolate Frameworks.

Due to the higher value of deeply-reduced products, electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2 RR) to multi-electron-transfer products has received more attention. One attractive strategy is to decouple individual steps within the complicated pathway via multi-component catalysts design in the concept of tandem catalysts. Here, a composite of Cu@BIF-144(Zn) (BIF = boron imidazolate framework) is synthesized by using an anion framework BIF-144(Zn) as host to impregnate Cu2+ ions that are further reduced to Cu nanoparticles (NPs) via in situ electrochemical transformation. Due to the microenvironment modulation by functional BH(im)3 - on the pore surfaces, the Cu@BIF-144(Zn) catalyst exhibits a perfect synergetic effect between the BIF-144(Zn) host and the Cu NP guest during CO2 RR. Electrochemistry results show that Cu@BIF-144(Zn) catalysts can effectively enhance the selectivity and activity for the CO2 reduction to multi-electron-transfer products, with the maximum FECH4 value of 41.8% at -1.6 V and FEC2H4 value of 12.9% at -1.5 V versus RHE. The Cu@BIF-144(Zn) tandem catalyst with CO-rich microenvironment generated by the Zn catalytic center in the BIF-144(Zn) skeleton enhanced deep reduction on the incorporated Cu NPs for the CO2 RR to multi-electron-transfer products.

A Cu(I) based boron imidazolate framework for visible light driven CO2 reduction.

A new Cu(i) based boron imidazolate framework, Cu[BH(im)3] (BIF-105, im = imidazole), with a two-dimensional fes-type layer structure was designed and synthesized. The resulting BIF-105 exhibited efficient photocatalytic performance for CO2 reduction with an evolution rate of 933 µmol g-1 h-1 and a selectivity of 83.4% for CO under visible light irradiation, with [Ru(bpy)3]Cl2 as the light absorber and triethanolamine as a sacrificial agent.

Synthesis of Supramolecular Boron Imidazolate Frameworks for CO2 Photoreduction.

Presented here are two novel porous supramolecular boron imidazolate frameworks (BIF-106 and BIF-107), which are stabilized through relatively weak interactions between two-dimensional boron imidazolate layers. Moreover, BIF-107 exhibits efficient CO2 photoreduction to CO with a remarkable rate of 1186.0 µmol·g-1·h-1 under visible-light irradiation.

Identification of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) microRNAs and microRNA-related SNPs.

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) exist pervasively across viruses, plants and animals and play important roles in the post-transcriptional regulation of genes. In the common carp, miRNA targets have not been investigated. In model species, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been reported to impair or enhance miRNA regulation as well as to alter miRNA biogenesis. SNPs are often associated with diseases or traits. To date, no studies into the effects of SNPs on miRNA biogenesis and regulation in the common carp have been reported. RESULTS: Using homology-based prediction combined with small RNA sequencing, we have identified 113 common carp mature miRNAs, including 92 conserved miRNAs and 21 common carp specific miRNAs. The conserved miRNAs had significantly higher expression levels than the specific miRNAs. The miRNAs were clustered into three phylogenetic groups. Totally 394 potential miRNA binding sites in 206 target mRNAs were predicted for 83 miRNAs. We identified 13 SNPs in the miRNA precursors. Among them, nine SNPs had the potential to either increase or decrease the energy of the predicted secondary structures of the precursors. Further, two SNPs in the 3' untranslated regions of target genes were predicted to either disturb or create miRNA-target interactions. CONCLUSIONS: The common carp miRNAs and their target genes reported here will help further our understanding of the role of miRNAs in gene regulation. The analysis of the miRNA-related SNPs and their effects provided insights into the effects of SNPs on miRNA biogenesis and function. The resource data generated in this study will help advance the study of miRNA function and phenotype-associated miRNA identification.

[Isolation of microsatellite markers from Paralichthys olivaceus and its application in genetic structure analysis].

Magnetic bead enrich-method and plasmid detection-method were used to isolate microsatellite DNA from Paralichthys olivaceus genome. The microsatellite markers were applied to analyze natural population structure of four populations, which were collected from Dalian, Beidaihe, Dandong, and Qingdao. Two thousand eight hundred and five microsatellite sequence clones were isolated and 3120 microsatellite loci were obtained. From these sequences, 57.97% were perfect, 7.25% were imperfect and 34.78% were compound. This allowed to design 135 pairs of primers with the software Primer Premier 3.0. Seventy-eight pairs were synthesized and 30 pairs were polymorphic. The effective number of alleles ranged from 3.93 to 9.94 (6.95 in average) with observed and expected heterozygosities ranging from 0.532 to 0.895 (0.753 in average) and 0.635 to 0.902 (0.820 in average), respectively. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium analysis in 30 microsatellite loci by genetic deviation index (d) ranged from -0.247 to 0.512, among which 7 loci had heterozygote excess (d>0) and the rest showed heterozygote deficit (damp;0). A dendrogram was constructed based on NJ methods using MEGA3.0 software package. Four populations were divided into two clusters. Dalian population and Dandong population were grouped in one cluster, while Beidaihe population and Qingdao population were classified into another cluster.