Conductive Porous Laminated Vanadium Nitride as Carbon-Free Hosts for High-Loading Sulfur Cathodes in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

Improving the sulfur loading in cathodes is a significant challenge for practical lithium-sulfur batteries. Although carbonaceous sulfur hosts can achieve higher sulfur content and loading, the low tap densities of carbonaceous materials lead to low volumetric energy densities, restricting practical application. Here, conductive porous laminated vanadium nitride (VN) as a carbon-free sulfur host has been successfully developed to construct high tap density, high sulfur loading, and high energy density sulfur electrodes. The laminated stacking multiscale VN featuring interconnected holes possesses high storage space for sulfur loading, achieving high sulfur loading and utilization. VN@S materials' sulfur content and tap density can achieve 80 wt % and 1.17 g cm-3, respectively. At the sulfur loading of 1.0 mg cm-2, the VN@S cathode reaches the reversible capacity of 790 mAh g-1 at 1 C after 200 cycles and 145.2 mAh g-1 at 15 C after 500 cycles. Precisely, at a high sulfur loading of 12.6 mg cm-2, the VN@S cathode delivers a reversible capacity of 518.8 mAh g-1 (485.6 mAh cm-3) at 0.1 C after 100 cycles.

Upregulation of neuronal PGC-1α ameliorates cognitive impairment induced by chronic cerebral hypoperfusion.

Rationale: Mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress occur in vascular dementia (VaD), but the specific molecular mechanism regulating these events remains unclear. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ co-activator-1α (PGC-1α) is a master regulator for mitochondrial function. This study aims to investigate whether PGC-1α is involved in the pathophysiology of VaD. Methods: We firstly generated PGC-1αf/f Eno2-Cre mice to induce neuron-specific overexpression of PGC-1α by crossbreeding PGC-1αf/f mice with Eno2-cre mice. Then, the mice were subjected to bilateral common carotid artery stenosis to induce chronic cerebral hypoperfusion. Neurological function and hippocampal PGC-1α expression was evaluated. Next, RNA-Seq analysis and Seahorse assay were performed on the hippocampal neurons. In addition, mitochondrial antioxidants, uncoupling proteins, ROS production and the activation of glial cells were also measured. Results: Our results showed that hippocampal PGC-1α expression is down-regulated in the mouse VaD model induced by chronic cerebral hypoperfusion. In contrast, neuronal PGC-1α overexpression significantly ameliorated cognitive deficits. RNA-Seq analysis indicated that PGC-1α improved energy metabolism of neurons under hypoxic condition, and Seahorse assay confirmed that PGC-1α increases the metabolic activity of neurons. Further study demonstrated that PGC-1α boosted the expressions of mitochondrial antioxidants and uncoupling proteins (UCPs), including SOD2, Prx3, GPx1, UCP2, UCP4 and UCP5, which in turn reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Moreover, the activation of microglia and astrocytes was also found to decrease in the hippocampus. All of these changes greatly contributed to protect hippocampal neurons against ischemic insults. Conclusions: PGC-1α could suppress the excessive ROS and neuroinflammation in the hippocampus, opening up a potential therapeutic target for cognitive impairment.

Remote ischemic conditioning improves cognition in patients with subcortical ischemic vascular dementia.

BACKGROUND: Subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (SIVD) is very common among the older people, but has no approved treatment. Preclinical trials show that remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) reduces recurrence of ischemic stroke. We hypothesize that RIC may also be an effective therapy for patients with SIVD. METHODS: Thirty-seven consecutive SIVD cases were enrolled in this randomized control study. Eighteen RIC patients underwent five brief cycles of conditioning (bilateral upper limb compression at 200 mmHg) followed by reperfusion twice daily over 6 consecutive months. Nineteen control patients underwent the same process, but at a pressure of 60 mmHg which caused no restriction on the blood flow of the upper limb. The primary outcome measures were changes in neuropsychological assessments. The secondary outcomes included the changes in high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) concentration, white matter lesion volume (WMLV), diffusion tension imaging (DTI) metrics of white matter. All data were collected at baseline and follow-up. RESULTS: A significant treatment difference favoring RIC at 6 months was observed on performance of Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R), Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), Trail Making Test A and B (TMT-A & TMT-B), and Judgment of Line Orientation (JLO) (p < 0.05). The control group did not show much improvement after the treatment, and only with a slight change in HVLT-R and TMT-R (p < 0.05). Covariance analysis of efficacy between the two groups suggested that RIC patients performed better on JLO than control patients at the 6-month follow-up (RIC 23.10 vs. control 18.56; p = 0.013). Although DTI metrics were comparable, Hs-CRP levels and WMLV in RIC patients showed a declining trend. CONCLUSIONS: Over the 6-month treatment period, we found that RIC was safe and effective for improving cognitive function in SIVD patients. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical Trial Registration ( http://www.clinicaltrials.gov ), Unique identifier: NCT03022149; Retrospectively registered; Date of registration: January 16, 2017.

GaS0.5Te0.5 monolayer as an efficient water splitting photocatalyst.

Herein, two-dimensional materials for photocatalytic water splitting are drawing more attention due to the larger surface areas for photocatalytic reactions and shorter migration distances for photogenerated carriers. In this present study, we systematically investigated the fundamental electronic properties of GaS1-xTex monolayers (x = 0, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 0.875, and 1) for water splitting based on density functional theory (DFT) using the HSE06 functional. The simulation of the defect formation energy under each experimental synthetic condition shows that the Te substitutional impurity in GaS can be relatively easily realized under Ga-rich conditions. Our results show that the GaS0.5Te0.5 monolayer is a direct band gap (2.09 eV) semiconductor, which is attributed to the elevation of Te px/py states at the Γ point by the strain effect. Moreover, the GaS0.5Te0.5 monolayer has appropriate band edge alignment with respect to the water redox potentials in both acidic and neutral environments. Additionally, the carrier effective mass of the GaS0.5Te0.5 monolayer along the direction of Γ â†’ K is smaller than those of pristine GaS and GaTe monolayers, which can cause the carriers to quickly transfer from the photogenerated center to the surface of the photocatalyst. These results imply that the GaS0.5Te0.5 monolayer is a promising candidate as a visible-light water splitting photocatalyst, which should be properly synthesized and tested in further experimental investigations.

Expression profile of long noncoding RNAs and mRNAs in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from myasthenia gravis patients.

For the epigenetic characterization of myasthenia gravis (MG), we determined whether long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) are expressed differentially in subjects with and without MG. Compared with healthy control subjects, the MG patients had 1561 upregulated lncRNAs, 1034 downregulated lncRNAs, 921 upregulated mRNAs, and 806 downregulated mRNAs (fold change>2.0). Several GO terms including nucleic acid transcription factor activity, inflammatory response, regulation of leukocyte activation, lymphocyte proliferation and regulation of B cell proliferation were enriched in gene lists, suggesting a potential correlation with MG. Pathway analysis then demonstrated that cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, intestinal immune network for lgA production, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway, NF-kappaB signaling pathway, cell adhesion molecules and TNF signaling pathway play important roles in MG. Co-expression network analysis indicated that 33 lncRNAs were predicted to have 31 cis-regulated target genes, and 65 lncRNAs appeared to regulate the patients' 45 trans target genes among differentially expressed lncRNAs. Our present study identified a subset of dysregulated lncRNAs and mRNAs in patients with MG, which may impact this disease process.

Liposome-mediated enhancement of the sensitivity in immunoassay based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering at gold nanosphere array substrate.

A novel immunoassay based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been developed. The method exploits the SERS-derived signal from reporter molecules (crystal violet, CV) encapsulated in antibody-modified liposome particles. The antigen is firstly captured by the primary antibody immobilized in microwell plates and then sandwiched by secondary antibody-modified liposome. The CV molecules are released from the liposome and transferred to specially designed substrate of gold nanosphere arrays with sub-10-nm gaps. The concentration of the antigen is indirectly read out by the SERS intensity of the CVs. The substrate used could substantially improve the sensitivity and reproducibility of SERS measurement. The SERS intensity responses are linearly correlated to logarithm of antigen concentration in the range of 1.0 x 10(-8) to 1.0 x 10(-4) gm L(-1) with a detection limit of 8 ng mL(-1). To our knowledge, this is the first report describing liposome-mediated enhancement of the sensitivity in immunoassay based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Experimental results show that the proposed method illustrates a potential prospect of applications in immunoassay.