Surface engineered recombinant Escherichia coli for the potential application of the cobalt contaminated wastewater treatment and the photocatalytic dye degradation.

The novel recombinant Escherichia coli strain was construct through cell surface display for the treatment of cobalt contaminated wastewater and dye contaminated wastewater. First, structural analysis of known cobalt binding peptide was conducted and core binding sites were figured out which showing better cobalt binding ability. The cobalt peptides were attached to OmpC to construct cobalt adsorbing recombinant Escherichia coli. The recombinant strain efficiently absorbed and retrieved cobalt from cobalt wastewater by adsorbing 1895 µmol/g DCW of cobalt. Following adsorption, cobalt nanoparticles were synthesized through thermal decomposition of cobalt adsorbed recombinant strain at 500˚C. The nanoparticles exhibited noteworthy photocatalytic properties, demonstrating a substantial capacity for degrading dyes when used as a catalyst at a concentration of 10 mg/dl. These results presenting potential solutions for effective and environmentally friendly approaches to address cobalt and dye contaminated wastewater treatment process.

First-principles Density Functional Theory Elucidation of the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction on TM-promoted TiC2 (TM=Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Os, Ir, Pt, and Au).

Single-atom-catalyst-based systems have been attractive by virtue of their desirable catalytic performance. Herein, the possibility of the 15 transition-metal (TM)-promoted (TM=Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Cd, Os, Ir, Pt, Au, and Hg) and their hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance were investigated on two-dimensional titanium carbides (TiC2 ). It is found that the adsorption strength of TMs on TiC2 is stronger than that of TMs on γ-graphyne and weaker than that of TMs on Ti3 C2 . Among the fifteen investigated catalysts, Ru-TiC2 , Ag-TiC2 , Ir-TiC2 , Au-TiC2 , and Fe-TiC2 exhibits overpotential of -0.18, -0.15, -0.18, -0.17, and -0.04 V, respectively. In addition, the Volmer-Tafel step was preferred to the Volmer-Heyrovsky step on Fe-TiC2 . This work suggests that Fe-TiC2 is possibly a superior HER electrocatalyst.

The predictability of T3 disease in staging MRI following prostate biopsy decreases in patients with high initial PSA and Gleason score.

To obtain improved accuracy in predicting extracapsular extension (ECE) and seminal vesicle invasion (SVI), we evaluated the variables affecting the predictability of staging magnetic resonance imaging (MRI, phased-array coil) and estimated their impact on accuracy between preoperative MRI staging and histological outcome. A total of 121 patients with localized or locally advanced prostate cancer who underwent robotic radical prostatectomy (RALP) were included. Following transrectal biopsy, all enrolled patients had undergone MRI for staging work-up. After RALP, only 43.8% (53/121) of the patients were matched with the MRI predicted stage. Compared to the matched group in the prediction of ECE, the unmatched group had significantly higher initial prostate-specific antigen (PSA, 12.8 ng ml⁻¹ versus 8.1 ng ml⁻¹, P = 0.048). In the prediction of SVI, initial PSA (8.1 ng ml⁻¹ versus 17.3 ng ml⁻¹, P = 0.009) and biopsy Gleason score (6.5 versus 7.6, P = 0.035) were significantly higher in the unmatched group. When applying clinical cutoffs of initial PSA of 10 and 20 ng ml⁻¹, the accuracy of MRI in the prediction of ECE was decreased in the group with PSA over 20 ng ml⁻¹ (75.6, 64.5 and 37.5%, P = 0.01), and this group had significantly decreased accuracy of MRI in the prediction of SVI (91.5, 77.4 and 37.5%, P<0.01). Applying the clinical cutoff of a Gleason score of 7, the accuracy of MRI in the prediction of SVI was decreased in the higher Gleason score group (93.9, 82.1 and 62.9%, P = 0.01). Thus, for these patient groups, to obtain margin negativity during radical prostatectomy, operative findings, rather than post-biopsy MRI images, may provide substantial information, implying a clinical advantage in conducting MRI before prostate biopsy.