Di-n-butyl phthalate induces toxicity in male fetal mouse testicular development by regulating the MAPK signaling pathway.

"White pollution" has a significant impact on male reproduction. Di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP) is one of the most important factors in this type of pollution. Currently, research from international sources has demonstrated the significant reproductive toxicity of DBP. However, most of these studies have focused mainly on hormones expression at the protein and mRNA levels and the specific molecular targets of DBP and its mechanisms of action remain unclear. In this study, we established a Sprague Dawley pregnant mouse model exposed to DBP, and all male offspring were immediately euthanized at birth and bilateral testes were collected. We found through transcriptome sequencing that cell apoptosis and MAPK signaling pathway are the main potential pathways for DBP induced reproductive toxicity. Molecular biology analyses revealed a significant increase in the protein levels of JNK1(MAPK8) and BAX, as well as a significant increase in the BAX/BCL2 ratio after DBP exposure. Therefore, we propose that DBP induces reproductive toxicity by regulating JNK1 expression to activate the MAPK signaling pathway and induce reproductive cell apoptosis. In conclusion, our study provides the first evidence that the MAPK signaling pathway is involved in DBP-induced reproductive toxicity and highlights the importance of JNK1 as a potential target of DBP in inducing reproductive toxicity.

Compact high-power 320-nm continuous-wave single-frequency laser based on power scaling of a diode-pumped Pr:LiYF4 ring laser at red.

Single-frequency (SF) lasers in the visible spectral region are usually obtained through an indirect method, i.e., frequency doubling of near-infrared SF lasers. In this work, we report on the direct generation of a high-power continuous-wave (CW) SF laser in red based on a diode-pumped Pr:LiYF4 (YLF) ring cavity technology. A maximum output power is scaled to 3.98 W at 640 nm with a linewidth of about 17.2 MHz and a power stability of 0.6%. Moreover, by inserting a LBO crystal into the ring cavity for intracavity frequency doubling of the 640 nm SF laser, we have also successfully demonstrated an ultraviolet (UV) SF laser at 320 nm, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, with a maximum power of 670 mW. This work provides a promising route for the development of simple, compact, and high-power SF lasers operating in visible and UV spectral regions.

Unveiling the Critical Role of Surface Hydroxyl Groups for Electro-Assisted Uranium Extraction from Wastewater.

The electro-driven extraction of uranium from fluorine-containing uranium wastewater is anticipated to address the challenge of separating fluoro-uranium complexes in conventional technologies. Herein, we developed hydroxy-rich cobalt-based oxides (CoOx) for electro-assisted uranium extraction from fluorine-containing wastewater. Relying on theoretical calculations and other spectral measurements, the hydroxy-rich CoOx nanosheets can enhance the affinity for uranium due to the existence of a substantial quantity of hydroxyl groups. Accordingly, the CoOx nanosheets exhibit outstanding U(VI) removal efficiency in the presence of fluorine ions. Through the utilization of X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS), we confirm that hydroxy-rich CoOx nanosheets capture free uranyl ions to form a sturdy 2Oax-1U-3Oeq configuration, which can be achieved through electro-driven fluorine-uranium separation. Notably, for the first time, the whole reaction process of uranium species on the CoOx surface from the initial uranium single atom growth to uranium oxide nanosheets is monitored by aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopes (AC-TEM). This work provides a paradigm for the advancement of novel functional materials as electrocatalysts for uranium extraction, as well as a new approach for studying the evolution mechanism of uranium species.

LncRNA SOX2OT facilitates LPS-induced inflammatory injury by regulating intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM1) via sponging miR-215-5p.

AIM: Long non-coding RNA SOX2 overlapping transcript (SOX2OT) is closely related to heart failure and myocardial damage. We attempted to investigate its role in endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injury in cardiomyocytes. MATERIALS & METHODS: Cell viability, apoptosis rate, and levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and apoptosis- and oxidative stress-related proteins were measured by MTS assay kit, flow cytometry, western blotting, and commercial kits. Physical interactions were confirmed by dual-luciferase report assay and RNA immunoprecipitation assay. RESULTS: Silencing SOX2OT and reinforcing miRNA (miR)-215-5p protected human AC16 cardiomyocytes from LPS-induced oxidative and inflammatory injuries by inhibiting intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM1). SOX2OT directly interacted with miR-215-5p, and miR-215-5p could target ICAM1. CONCLUSION: Inhibiting SOX2OT/miR-215-5p/ICAM1 axis might be a possible approach to treat myocardial damage. LAY ABSTRACT: Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is an endotoxin from some bacteria including Escherichia coli, and it can cause inflammation in different tissues/cells including myocardia/cardiomyocytes, resulting in diseases such as myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, and cardiac hypertrophy. The underlying mechanism was not completely clarified, but known to include the dysregulation of non-coding RNAs. Herein, we demonstrated the biological role of long non-coding RNA SOX2 overlapping transcript (SOX2OT) in LPS-infected cardiomyocytes. Eventually, we found that inhibiting the expression of SOX2OT could mitigate LPS-induced a series of injuries in human cardiomyocytes, and SOX2OT interacts with a microRNA named as miR-215-5p. Besides, restoring miR-215-5p elicited similar effects to SOX2OT knockdown. Collectively, we concluded that SOX2OT binding to miR-215-5p might protect cardiomyocytes from LPS infection through regulating an important protein named ICAM1. This study suggested SOX2OT/miR-215-5p might be novel potential treatment targets in bacterial infection-related myocardial damages.

Exploration of irradiation intensity dependent external in-band quantum yield for ZnO and CuO/ZnO photocatalysts.

Decorating metal oxides with wide band-gap semiconductor nano-particles constitute an important approach for synthesizing nano-photocatalysts, where the photocatalytic activity is attributed to the band diagram related effective charge separation and external in-band quantum yield (EIQY). However, up to now, the correlation between the irradiation intensity and the functionalization of the in-band quantum yield has not yet been explained. In this work, by investigating the photocatalytic activity of ZnO and CuO/ZnO (CZO) nano-photocatalysts under various irradiative intensities, we show that the effective charge separation in the CuO/ZnO band alignment is sensitive to weak illumination, while ZnO exhibits a competitive photocatalytic activity with CZO under strong illumination. As a consequence, by modifying the irradiation intensity, the intrinsic ZnO can achieve a similar photocatalytic activity to that of metal oxide decorated ZnO. Besides, the optimal photocatalytic activity of CZO is found to be reachable by manipulating the pollutant concentration.

Boosting the Loading of Metal Single Atoms via a Bioconcentration Strategy.

Increasing the mass loading of transition metal single atoms coordinated with nitrogen in carbon-based materials (M-N-C) is still challenging. Herein, inspired by the bioconcentration effect in the living body, a biochemistry strategy for the synthesis of Fe-N-C single atoms is demonstrated. Through introducing ferrous glycinate into the growth of fungus, the Fe atoms are bioconcentrated in hyphae. The highly dispersed Fe-N-C single atoms in hyphae-derived carbon fibers (labeled as Fe-N-C SA/HCF) are prepared by the pyrolysis of Fe-riched hyphae. In the bioconcentration process, the uptake of Fe ions by hyphae promotes the secretion of glutathione and ferritin, which provides additional coordination sites for Fe ions. Accordingly, the mass content of Fe in bioconcentrated Fe-N-C SA/HCF reaches 4.8%, which is 5.3 times larger than that of the sample prepared by the conventional pyrolysis process. The present bioconcentration strategy is further extended to the preparation of Co, Ni, and Mn single atoms. Owing to the high content of Fe-N-C single atoms, Fe-N-C SA/HCF shows the onset potential (Eonset ) of 0.931 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) and half-wave potential (E1/2 ) of 0.802 V versus RHE in oxygen reduction reaction measurements, which is comparable to the commercial Pt/C catalysts.

Hybrid phonon-polaritons at atomically-thin van der Waals heterointerfaces for infrared optical modulation.

Surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) in polar dielectrics are potential candidates for infrared nanophotonics due to their low optical loss and long phonon life-time. However, the small confinement factors of bulk SPhPs, limits their applications that require small footprint and strong light-matter interaction. Here, we report that ultrathin van der Waals dielectrics (e.g., MoS2 and h-BN) on Silicon Carbide enable ultra-confined dielectric tailored surface phonon polaritons (d-SPhPs) where the confinement factor can exceed 100. By creating a heterostructure of these vdW dielectrics with graphene, the d-SPhPs can hybridize with graphene plasmons which can be electrically tuned. By subwavelength patterning of the vdW dielectrics, these hybrid polaritons can be localized into ultra-small antenna volumes (λ03/vantenna 3~1003) with high-quality factor resonances (Q~85). Further, electric gating of graphene enables active tunability of these localized resonances which results in an electro-optic modulator with modulation depth exceeding 95%. Our report of manipulating and controlling ultra-confined SPhPs in van der Waals heterostructures, serves as a possible route for non-plasmonic platforms for infrared photodetectors, modulators and sensors.

Gate-tunable polariton superlens in 2D/3D heterostructures.

Polaritons in polar-dielectrics and van der Waals (vdW) materials provide a channel for strong photon confinement. Precise control of their propagation could lead to deep sub-wavelength photonic devices. Here, we report negative refraction of hybrid surface phonon-hyperbolic polaritons (SPh-HP) at the interface of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals layers such as hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and 3D semiconductors such as germanium and silicon carbide. These hybrid polariton modes have naturally negative group velocity arising from the intrinsic Type-I hyperbolicity of h-BN resulting in negative refraction at interfaces with positive group velocity. Using this phenomenon, we demonstrate an in-plane superlensing effect in an ultrathin (~10 nm) slab with spatial confinement of long Infrared wavelengths to below 200 nm focal spots. We further demonstrate electrical tunability of the superlens by controlling the Fermi level of graphene, thereby offering potential for miniaturized infrared to THz modulators, photodetectors as well as logic switches.

Probing spin density at the nanoscale using spin-orbital coupling in light scattering.

We propose a scattering-type nano-polarimeter for probing the local spin density with subwavelength spatial resolution via the spin-orbital interactions at the nanoscale. The nano-polarimeter is simple to operate and can be applied to a variety of asymmetric nanoprobes, allowing direct data retrieval using two point detectors. Moreover, this technique is not limited to the spin-density detection but can also be used for the measurement of any given polarization states of light, no matter whether it is a free-space propagating wave or nonpropagating wave bound in the near-field region of nanostructures.

Sn2+-Stabilization in MASnI3 perovskites by superhalide incorporation.

Sn-based hybrid halide perovskites are a potential solution to replace Pb and thereby reduce Pb toxicity in MAPbI3 perovskite-based solar cells. However, the instability of Sn2+ in air atmosphere causes a poor reproducibility of MASnI3, hindering steps towards this goal. In this paper, we propose a new type of organic metal-superhalide perovskite of MASnI2BH4 and MASnI2AlH4. Through first-principles calculations, our results reveal that the incorporation of BH4 and AlH4 superhalides can realize an impressive enhancement of oxidation resistance of Sn2+ in MASnI3 perovskites because of the large electron transfer between Sn2+ and [BH4]-/[AlH4]-. Meanwhile, the high carrier mobility is preserved in these superhalide perovskites and only a slight decrease is observed in the optical absorption strength. Our studies provide a new path to attain highly stable performance and reproducibility of Sn-based perovskite solar cells.

Bottom-Up Fabrication of Single-Layered Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Quantum Dots through Intermolecular Carbonization Arrayed in a 2D Plane.

A single-layered intermolecular carbonization method was applied to synthesize single-layered nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (N-GQDs) by using 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB) as the only precursor. In this method, the gas produced in the pyrolysis of TATB assists with speeding up of the reactions and expanding the layered distance, so that it facilitates the formation of single-layered N-GQDs (about 80 %). The symmetric intermolecular carbonizations of TATB arrayed in a plane and six nitrogen-containing groups ensure small, uniform sizes (2-5 nm) of the resulting products, and provide high nitrogen-doping concentrations (N/C atomic ratio ca. 10.6 %). In addition to release of the produced gas, TATB is almost completely converted into aggregated N-GQDs; thus, relatively higher production rates are possible with this approach. Investigations show that the as-produced N-GQDs have superior fluorescent characteristics; high water solubility, biocompatibility, and low toxicity; and are ready for potential applications, such as biomedical imaging and optoelectronic devices.

Core-Shell Al-Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) Configurations to Enhance Reaction Kinetics and Energy Performance for Nanoenergetic Materials.

The energy performance of solid energetic materials (Al, Mg, etc.) is typically restricted by a natural passivation layer and the diffusion-limited kinetics between the oxidizer and the metal. In this work, we use polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as the fluorine carrier and the shielding layer to construct a new type of nano-Al based fuels. The PTFE shell not only prevents nano-Al layers from oxidation, but also assists in enhancing the reaction kinetics, greatly improving the stability and reactivity of fuels. An in situ chemical vapor deposition combined with the electrical explosion of wires (EEW) method is used to fabricate core-shell nanostructures. Studies show that by controlling the stoichiometric ratio of the precursors, the morphology of the PTFE shell and the energy performance can be easily tuned. The resultant composites exhibit superior energy output characters than that of their physically mixed Al/PTFE counterparts. This synthetic strategy might provide a general approach to prepare other high-energy fuels (Mg, Si).

Negative refraction in molybdenum disulfide.

Recently, negative refractions have been demonstrated in uniaxial crystals with no necessary of negative permittivity and permeability. However, the small anisotropy parameterγin the uniaxial crystals limits the negative refraction occurrence only in a small range of the incident light angle, retarding its practical applications. In this paper, we report negative refraction induced by a pronounced anisotropic behavior in the bulk MoS(2). Using the first-principles, the dielectric function and refractive index calculations confirm a uniaxial trait of MoS(2) with a calculated anisotropy parameterγlarger than 2.5 in the entire range of visible wavelength. The critical incident angle to trigger a negative refraction in the bulk MoS(2) is calculated up to 90°. The finite-difference time-domain simulations prove that the incident light with a density of 59.5% can be negatively refracted in a MoS(2) slab with a thickness of 0.1 µm. Our results open up a new pathway for MoS(2)-like materials to a novel field of optical integration.

Hyperbolic tangential function-based progressive addition lens design.

The diopter distribution is key to the successful design of a progressive addition lens. A hyperbolic tangential function is then introduced to describe well the desired diopter distribution on the lens. Simulation and fabrication show that the astigmia on the whole surface is very close to the addition, exhibiting superior performance than that of currently used high-order polynomials and cosine functions. Our investigations found that once the diopter distribution design is reasonable, both the direct and indirect methods of constructing a progressive addition lens can give consistent results. With this function we are able to effectively control the design of critical areas, the position, sizes of far-view and near-view zones, as well as the channel of the lens. This study would provide an efficient way to customize different progressive lenses not only for presbyopia, but also for anti-fatigue, office progressive usages, etc.

Werner helicase mediates the senescence and cell cycle of leukemia cells by regulating DNA repair pathways.

Leukemia is a type of malignant hematological disease that is generally resistant to chemotherapy and has poor therapeutic outcomes. Werner (WRN) DNA helicase, an important member of the RecQ family of helicases, plays an important role in DNA repair and telomere stability maintenance. WRN gene dysfunction leads to premature aging and predisposes humans to various types of cancers. However, the biological function of WRN in cancer remains unknown. In this study, the expression of this RecQ family helicase was investigated in different types of leukemia cells, and the leukemia cell line K562 with high WRN expression was selected to construct a WRN knockdown cell line. The results showed that WRN knockdown inhibited leukemia occurrence and development by regulating the proliferation, cell cycle, differentiation, and aging of cells and other biological processes. The results of transcriptome sequencing revealed that WRN promoted the sensitivity of leukemia cells to the DNA damage inducer Etoposide by regulating cell cycle-related proteins, such as CDC2, cyclin B1, p16, and p21, as well as key proteins in DNA damage repair pathways, such as p53, RAD50, RAD51, and MER11. Our findings show that WRN helicase is a promising potential target for leukemia treatment, providing new ideas for the development of targeted drugs against leukemia.

Research of biomimetic corrugation on the blade flutter suppression in large-scale wind turbine systems.

Aiming at the blade flutter of large horizontal-axis wind turbines, a method by utilizing biomimetic corrugation to suppress blade flutter is first proposed. By extracting the dragonfly wing corrugation, the biomimetic corrugation airfoil is constructed, finding that mapping corrugation to the airfoil pressure side has better aerodynamic performance. The influence of corrugation type, amplitudeλ, and intensity on airfoil flutter is analyzed using orthogonal experiment, which determines that theλhas the greatest influence on airfoil flutter. Based on the fluctuation range of the moment coefficient ΔCm, the optimal airfoil flutter suppression effect is obtained when the type is III,λ= 0.6, and intensity is denser (n= 13). The effective corrugation layout area in the chord direction is determined to be the leading edge, and the ΔCmof corrugation airfoil is reduced by 7.405%, compared to the original airfoil. The application of this corrugation to NREL 15 MW wind turbine 3D blades is studied, and the influence of corrugation layout length in the blade span direction on the suppressive effect is analyzed by fluid-structure interaction. It is found that when the layout length is 0.85 R, the safety marginSfreaches a maximum value of 0.3431 Hz, which is increased 2.940%. The results show that the biomimetic corrugated structure proposed in this paper can not only improve the aerodynamic performance by changing the local flow field on the surface of the blade, but also increase the structural stiffness of the blade itself, and achieve the effect of flutter suppression.

Trifluoromethyl quinoline derivative targets inhibiting HDAC1 for promoting the acetylation of histone in cervical cancer cells.

Cervical cancer is the leading cause of death among gynecological malignant tumors, especially due to the poor prognosis of patients with advanced tumors due to recurrence, metastasis, and chemotherapy resistance. Therefore, exploring new antineoplastic drugs with high efficacy and low toxicity may bring new expectations in patients with cervical cancer. Natural products and their derivatives exert an antitumor activity. Therefore, in this work, combined with network pharmacology analysis and experimental validation, we investigated the anti-cervical cancer activity and molecular mechanism of a new trifluoromethyl quinoline (FKL) derivative in vivo and in vitro. FKL117 inhibited the proliferation of cervical cancer cells in a dose and time-dependent manner, induced apoptosis in HeLa cells, arrested the cell cycle in the G2/M phase, and regulated the expression of the apoptotic and cell cycle-related proteins Bcl-2, Bax, cyclin B1, and CDC2. We used online databases to obtain HDAC1 as one of the possible targets of FKL117 and the target binding and binding affinity were modeled by molecular docking. The results showed that FKL117 formed a hydrogen bond with HDAC1 and had good binding ability. We found that FKL117 targeted to inhibit the expression and function of HDAC1 and increased the acetylation of histone H3 and H4, which was also confirmed in vivo. The migration of HMGB1 from the nucleus to the cytoplasm further verified the above results. In conclusion, our study suggested that FKL117 might be used as a novel candidate for targeting the inhibition of HDAC1 against cervical cancer.

Fermat principle based reflector design for fast and contactless freeform optical component inspections.

We propose a well-designed reflector, based on the Fermat principle, that is placed on a transmitted optical path to reflect the impinging light on the surface so that the null testing of the interference inspection for the freeform lens can be realized. The design methodology of such a reflector for a freeform lens with rotational symmetry is given and a reflector designed for a high-order aspheric surface is manufactured. Our investigations show that the theoretical accuracy of such an interference inspection can be up to 10(-7) mm with the designed reflector. We fabricated the designed reflector by a single point diamond turning machine and a high-order aspheric lens was measured with our methods, showing a good agreement with conventional interference inspection approaches. This might open a way to the fast inspection of freeform surfaces and thus improve the efficiencies of optical testing.

MedOptNet: Meta-Learning Framework for Few-shot Medical Image Classification.

In the medical research domain, limited data and high annotation costs have made efficient classification under few-shot conditions a popular research area. This paper proposes a meta-learning framework, termed MedOptNet, for few-shot medical image classification. The framework enables the use of various high-performance convex optimization models as classifiers, such as multi-class kernel support vector machines, ridge regression, and other models. End-to-end training is then implemented using dual problems and differentiation in the paper. Additionally, various regularization techniques are employed to enhance the model's generalization capabilities. Experiments on the BreakHis, ISIC2018, and Pap smear medical few-shot datasets demonstrate that the MedOptNet framework outperforms benchmark models. Moreover, the model training time is also compared to prove its effectiveness in the paper, and an ablation study is conducted to validate the effectiveness of each module.

Distribution, source identification and ecological effects of aerosol dissolved nutrients in the Bohai Bay.

The atmospheric aerosols around the Bohai Bay are affected intensively by the surrounding industrial, shipping and other human activities. Although atmospheric dry deposition is an important way for nutrients to enter the Bohai Bay, few studies explore the distribution patterns, source and deposition fluxes of typical nutrients in aerosols and their impacts on the marine ecosystem. This paper explored the spatial-temporal distribution of typical aerosol nutrients in summer and autumn, and their source and ecological effects were illustrated further. The mean concentration of dissolved total phosphorus (DTP), dissolved total nitrogen (DTN), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), ammonium (NH4-N), nitrate (NO3-N), nitrite (NO2-N), silicate (SiO3-Si), phosphate (PO4-P), and dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) were 31.22, 847.22, 288.19, 559.77, 288.19, 304.00, 253.65, 2.12, 15.74 and 15.48 nmol/m3, respectively, while their fluxes were corresponding to 0.61, 8.36, 2.52, 4.90, 1.41, 2.49, 0.02, 0.04, 0.19 and 0.26 mmol/(m2 month). Typical aerosol nutrient concentrations in autumn were mostly higher than those in summer, with high values occurring mainly in the central region. The potential sources of pollution were mainly concentrated in Shandong and Mongolia, and the sources of pollution were mainly agriculture, dust and industry. The large N:P and N:Si ratios in the dry deposition likely exacerbated Si and P limitation in the water column. These results provided the data basis for evaluating the pollution status and revealed that the dry deposition of aerosol nutrients should not be neglected by the ecological environment in the Bohai Bay.