Toxoplasma gondii GRA9 Regulates the Activation of NLRP3 Inflammasome to Exert Anti-Septic Effects in Mice

Dense granule proteins (GRAs) are essential components in Toxoplasma gondii, which are suggested to be promising serodiagnostic markers in toxoplasmosis. In this study, we investigated the function of GRA9 in host response and the associated regulatory mechanism, which were unknown. We found that GRA9 interacts with NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) involved in inflammation by forming the NLRP3 inflammasome. The C-terminal of GRA9 (GRA9C) is essential for GRA9–NLRP3 interaction by disrupting the NLRP3 inflammasome through blocking the binding of apoptotic speck-containing (ASC)-NLRP3. Notably, Q200 of GRA9C is essential for the interaction of NLRP3 and blocking the conjugation of ASC. Recombinant GRA9C (rGRA9C) showed an anti-inflammatory effect and the elimination of bacteria by converting M1 to M2 macrophages. In vivo, rGRA9C increased the anti-inflammatory and bactericidal effects and subsequent anti-septic activity in CLP- and E. coli- or P. aeruginosa-induced sepsis model mice by increasing M2 polarization. Taken together, our findings defined a role of T. gondii GRA9 associated with NLRP3 in host macrophages, suggesting its potential as a new candidate therapeutic agent for sepsis.     

Effect of propolis phenolic compounds on free fatty acid receptor 4 activation

Food Science and Biotechnology - Propolis is known to have multiple biological and pharmacological properties including the regulation of energy homeostasis. Although phenolic compounds are...     

Multiply Charged Conjugated Polyelectrolytes as a Multifunctional Interlayer for Efficient and Scalable Perovskite Solar Cells

A series of anionic conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs) is synthesized based on poly(fluorene-co-phenylene) by varying the side-chain ionic density from two to six per repeat units (MPS2-TMA, MPS4-TMA, and MPS6-TMA). The effect of MPS2, 4, 6-TMA as interlayers on top of a hole-extraction layer of poly(bis(4-phenyl)-2,4,6-trimethylphenylamine (PTAA) is investigated in inverted perovskite solar cells (PeSCs). Owing to the improved wettability of perovskites on hydrophobic PTAA with the CPEs, the PeSCs with CPE interlayers demonstrate a significantly enhanced device performance, with negligible device-to-device dependence relative to the reference PeSC without CPEs. By increasing the ionic density in the MPS-TMA interlayers, the wetting, interfacial defect passivation, and crystal growth of the perovskites are significantly improved without increasing the series resistance of the PeSCs. In particular, the open-circuit voltage increases from 1.06 V for the PeSC with MPS2-TMA to 1.11 V for the PeSC with MPS6-TMA. The trap densities of the PeSCs with MPS2,4,6-TMA are further analyzed using frequency-dependent capacitance measurements. Finally, a large-area (1 cm²) PeSC is successfully fabricated with MPS6-TMA, showing a power conversion efficiency of 18.38% with negligible hysteresis and a stable power output under light soaking for 60 s.     

Principled analytic classifier for positive-unlabeled learning via weighted integral probability metric

Machine Learning - We consider the problem of learning a binary classifier from only positive and unlabeled observations (called PU learning). Recent studies in PU learning have shown superior...