Skin Barrier-Enhancing Effects of Dermabiotics HDB with Regulation of Skin Microbiota.

In the regulation of inflammatory responses and skin homeostasis, the skin and its microbiota are closely related. Studies have reported that lactic acid bacteria extracts can improve the skin condition and microbiota. In our previous study, we developed probiotic lysates, which are efficacious in improvement of human skin cells and the skin barrier. The skin-moisturizing effect of Dermabiotics HDB (HDB) prepared with Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, and the correlation between changes in the skin microbiota and moisture contents, were evaluated and analyzed in clinical trials. The clinical parameters on the cheeks of 21 female participants were measured using biophysical tools before and after (2 weeks) using HDB or control. The skin microbes were collected and identified using 16s rRNA gene sequencing. HDB significantly improved moisture intensity, transepidermal water loss (TEWL), and hot flush level on the cheek. The beta-diversity of the skin microbiota was different from that of the control in the unweighted UniFrac principal coordinate analysis after using HDB. The genus Lawsonella demonstrated a positive correlation with TEWL and a negative correlation with the moisture contents of the keratin layer, regardless of the use of HDB and control. Conversely, after HDB use, the genus Staphylococcus was increased and associated with a lower hot flush level, while the genera of the phylum Proteobacteria tended to decrease, which is associated with an improved skin condition. Overall, HDB showed clinically proven effects, including skin moisturization with regulation of the skin microbiota.

Metabolomic Investigation on Fermentation Products of Achyranthes japonica Nakai by Lactobacillus plantarum.

Fermentation has recently re-emerged as an approach for improved functionality of food products in addition to the traditional roles such as shelf life, taste, and texture. Here, we report dynamic changes in the metabolite profiles of Achyranthes japonica Nakai by Lactobacillus plantarum fermentation, primarily, the significant increases in representative functional ingredients, 20-hydroxyecdysone and 25S-inokosterone. Additionally, untargeted metabolite profiling showed 58% of metabolites underwent significant alteration. The most dynamic change was observed in cellobiose, which showed a 56-fold increase. Others were sugar alcohols and amino acids, while lyxitol and erythritol that were among the most dynamically down-regulated.

Lipidomic profiles disturbed by the internet gaming disorder in young Korean males.

Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) is characterized by uncontrollable and persistent playing of internet games despite the occurrence of negative consequences. Although there is a worldwide treatment demand, IGD still doesn't have an explicit biomarker. The primary goal of the study is to characterize lipidomic profiles specific to internet gaming disorder (IGD) based on liquid-chromatography Orbitrap mass-spectrometry (LC Orbitrap MS). Primarily, a total of 19 lipids were significantly dys-regulated in the IGD group compared to healthy controls. The lipidomic feature was mainly characterized by various types of phosphatidylcholines (PCs) and lyso-phosphatidylcholines (LysoPCs). Subsequent multivariate statistical model and linear regression model prioritized two LysoPCs (C16:0 and C18:0) for potential biomarker. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated excellent performance of the combined lipid set for discriminating the IGD group from healthy controls (AUC: 0.981, 95% confidence interval: 0.958-1.000). Additional evaluation with potential confounders and clinical parameters suggested robustness and potential applicability of the outcome as biomarkers which may aid diagnosis.

Integrative metabolomics reveals unique metabolic traits in Guillain-Barré Syndrome and its variants.

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an acute fatal progressive disease caused by autoimmune mechanism mainly affecting peripheral nervous system. Although the syndrome is clinically sub-classified into several variants, specific biomarker and exact pathomechanism of each subtypes are not well elucidated yet. In current study, integrative metabolomic and lipidomic profiles were acquisitioned from cerebrospinal fluid samples of 86 GBS from three variants and 20 disease controls. And the data were systematically compared to our previous result on inflammatory demyelination disorders of central nervous system (IDDs) and healthy controls. Primary metabolite profiles revealed unique metabolic traits in which 9 and 7 compounds were specifically changed in GBS and IDD, respectively. Next, the biomarker panel with 10 primary metabolites showed a fairly good discrimination power among 3 GBS subtypes, healthy controls, and disease controls (AUCs ranged 0.849-0.999). The robustness of the biomarker panel was vigorously validated by multi-step statistical evaluation. Subsequent lipidomics revealed GBS variant-specific alteration where the significant elevations of lyso-phosphatidylcholines and sphingomyelins were unique to AIDP (acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy) and AMAN (acute motor axonal neuropathy), respectively. And metabolome-wide multivariate correlation analysis identified potential clinical association between GBS disability scale (Hughes score) and CSF lipids (monoacylglycerols, and sphingomyelins). Finally, Bayesian network analysis of covarianced structures of primary metabolites and lipids proposed metabolic hub and potential biochemical linkage associated with the pathology.

Improvement of Gas-Sensing Performance of Large-Area Tungsten Disulfide Nanosheets by Surface Functionalization.

Semiconducting two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are promising gas-sensing materials due to their large surface-to-volume ratio. However, their poor gas-sensing performance resulting from the low response, incomplete recovery, and insufficient selectivity hinders the realization of high-performance 2D TMDC gas sensors. Here, we demonstrate the improvement of gas-sensing performance of large-area tungsten disulfide (WS2) nanosheets through surface functionalization using Ag nanowires (NWs). Large-area WS2 nanosheets were synthesized through atomic layer deposition of WO3 followed by sulfurization. The pristine WS2 gas sensors exhibited a significant response to acetone and NO2 but an incomplete recovery in the case of NO2 sensing. After AgNW functionalization, the WS2 gas sensor showed dramatically improved response (667%) and recovery upon NO2 exposure. Our results establish that the proposed method is a promising strategy to improve 2D TMDC gas sensors.

Self-Limiting Layer Synthesis of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides.

This work reports the self-limiting synthesis of an atomically thin, two dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2D TMDCs) in the form of MoS2. The layer controllability and large area uniformity essential for electronic and optical device applications is achieved through atomic layer deposition in what is named self-limiting layer synthesis (SLS); a process in which the number of layers is determined by temperature rather than process cycles due to the chemically inactive nature of 2D MoS2. Through spectroscopic and microscopic investigation it is demonstrated that SLS is capable of producing MoS2 with a wafer-scale (~10 cm) layer-number uniformity of more than 90%, which when used as the active layer in a top-gated field-effect transistor, produces an on/off ratio as high as 10(8). This process is also shown to be applicable to WSe2, with a PN diode fabricated from a MoS2/WSe2 heterostructure exhibiting gate-tunable rectifying characteristics.

Controllable synthesis of molybdenum tungsten disulfide alloy for vertically composition-controlled multilayer.

The effective synthesis of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides alloy is essential for successful application in electronic and optical devices based on a tunable band gap. Here we show a synthesis process for Mo1-xWxS2 alloy using sulfurization of super-cycle atomic layer deposition Mo1-xWxOy. Various spectroscopic and microscopic results indicate that the synthesized Mo1-xWxS2 alloys have complete mixing of Mo and W atoms and tunable band gap by systematically controlled composition and layer number. Based on this, we synthesize a vertically composition-controlled (VCC) Mo1-xWxS2 multilayer using five continuous super-cycles with different cycle ratios for each super-cycle. Angle-resolved X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, Raman and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer results reveal that a VCC Mo1-xWxS2 multilayer has different vertical composition and broadband light absorption with strong interlayer coupling within a VCC Mo1-xWxS2 multilayer. Further, we demonstrate that a VCC Mo1-xWxS2 multilayer photodetector generates three to four times greater photocurrent than MoS2- and WS2-based devices, owing to the broadband light absorption.

Synthesis of carbon nanotube-nickel nanocomposites using atomic layer deposition for high-performance non-enzymatic glucose sensing.

A useful strategy has been developed to fabricate carbon-nanotube-nickel (CNT-Ni) nanocomposites through atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Ni and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of functionalized CNTs. Various techniques, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), were used to characterize the morphology and the structure of as-prepared samples. It was confirmed that the products possess uniform Ni nanoparticles that are constructed by finely controlled deposition of Ni onto oxygen or bromine functionalized CNT surface. Electrochemical studies indicate that the CNT-Ni nanocomposites exhibit high electrocatalytic activity for glucose oxidation in alkaline solutions, which enables the products to be used in enzyme-free electrochemical sensors for glucose determination. It was demonstrated that the CNT-Ni nanocomposite-based glucose biosensor offers a variety of merits, such as a wide linear response window for glucose concentrations of 5 µM-2 mM, short response time (3 s), a low detection limit (2 µM), high sensitivity (1384.1 µA mM(-1) cm(-2)), and good selectivity and repeatability.

Layer-controlled, wafer-scale, and conformal synthesis of tungsten disulfide nanosheets using atomic layer deposition.

The synthesis of atomically thin transition-metal disulfides (MS2) with layer controllability and large-area uniformity is an essential requirement for their application in electronic and optical devices. In this work, we describe a process for the synthesis of WS2 nanosheets through the sulfurization of an atomic layer deposition (ALD) WO3 film with systematic layer controllability and wafer-level uniformity. The X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, Raman, and photoluminescence measurements exhibit that the ALD-based WS2 nanosheets have good stoichiometry, clear Raman shift, and bandgap dependence as a function of the number of layers. The electron mobility of the monolayer WS2 measured using a field-effect transistor (FET) with a high-k dielectric gate insulator is shown to be better than that of CVD-grown WS2, and the subthreshold swing is comparable to that of an exfoliated MoS2 FET device. Moreover, by utilizing the high conformality of the ALD process, we have developed a process for the fabrication of WS2 nanotubes.