Multiplex Base-Editing Enables Combinatorial Epigenetic Regulation for Genome Mining of Fungal Natural Products.

Genome mining of cryptic natural products (NPs) remains challenging, especially in filamentous fungi, owing to their complex genetic regulation. Increasing evidence indicates that several epigenetic modifications often act cooperatively to control fungal gene transcription, yet the ability to predictably manipulate multiple genes simultaneously is still largely limited. Here, we developed a multiplex base-editing (MBE) platform that significantly improves the capability and throughput of fungal genome manipulation, leading to the simultaneous inactivation of up to eight genes using a single transformation. We then employed MBE to inactivate three negative epigenetic regulators combinatorially in Aspergillus nidulans, enabling the activation of eight cryptic gene clusters compared to the wild-type strains. A group of novel NPs harboring unique cichorine and polyamine hybrid chemical scaffolds were identified, which were not reported previously. We envision that our scalable and efficient MBE platform can be readily applied in other filamentous fungi for the genome mining of novel NPs, providing a powerful approach for the exploitation of fungal chemical diversity.

Interface-induced spin Hall magnetoresistance enhancement in Pt-based tri-layer structure.

In this study, we integrated bilayer structure of covered Pt on nickel zinc ferrite (NZFO) and CoFe/Pt/NZFO tri-layer structure by pulsed laser deposition system for a spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) study. In the bilayer structure, the angular-dependent magnetoresistance (MR) results indicate that Pt/NZFO has a well-defined SMR behavior. Moreover, the spin Hall angle and the spin diffusion length, which were 0.0648 and 1.31 nm, respectively, can be fitted by changing the Pt thickness in the longitudinal SMR function. Particularly, the MR ratio of the bilayer structure (Pt/NZFO) has the highest changing ratio (about 0.135%), compared to the prototype structure Pt/Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) because the NZFO has higher magnetization. Meanwhile, the tri-layer samples (CoFe/Pt/NZFO) indicate that the MR behavior is related with CoFe thickness as revealed in angular-dependent MR measurement. Additionally, comparison between the tri-layer structure with Pt/NZFO and CoFe/Pt bilayer systems suggests that the SMR ratio can be enhanced by more than 70%, indicating that additional spin current should be injected into Pt layer.

Proximity Effect induced transport Properties between MBE grown (Bi1-xSbx)2Se3 Topological Insulators and Magnetic Insulator CoFe2O4.

In this study, we investigate the proximity effect in topological insulator (TI) and magnetic insulator bilayer system. (Bi1-xSbx)2Se3/CoFe2O4 (CFO) heterostructure was fabricated using molecular beam epitaxy and pulsed laser deposition system respectively. As revealed from the magnetoresistance measurement, the weak anti-localization (WAL) is strongly suppressed by proximity effect in (Bi1-xSbx)2Se3/CFO interface. Modified Hikama-Larkin-Nagaoka equation was used to fit the WAL results so that the size of surface state gap can be extracted successfully. The temperature-dependent resistance of the heterostructures at small and large perpendicular magnetic fields were also measured and analyzed. The results indicate that the surface band gap can be induced in TI and continuously enlarged up to 9 T, indicating the gradual alignment of the magnetic moment in CFO under perpendicular magnetic field. The approaches and results accommodated in this work show that CFO can effectively magnetize (Bi1-xSbx)2Se3 and the heterostructures are promising for TI-based spintronic device applications.