Facile synthesis of Li 2 ZrO 3 -modified LiNi 0.5 Mn 0.5 O 2 cathode material from a mechanical milling route for lithium-ion batteries

Li2ZrO3-modified LiNi0.5Mn0.5O2 materials with improved electrochemical performance were directly synthesized by a simple mechanical milling route with ZrO2, Li2CO3 and Ni0.5Mn0.5(OH)2 precursors...     

Preparation and characterization of calcium phosphate cement with enhanced tissue adhesion for bone defect repair

Anti-washout and tissue adhesion properties are essential for the clinical application of injectable bone materials. In this study, we prepared calcium phosphate cement (CPC) with anti-washout and tissue adhesion properties and attempted to build covalent bonds between CPC and the amino groups in bone tissue under a self-regulating pH system in the CPC (acidic to basic). The results of push-out tests demonstrated that a significant enhancement (from 6.42 ± 0.76 N to 61.5 ± 4.09 N) in tissue adhesion was obtained with the addition of 6% (w/w) oxidized sodium alginate (OSA) in CPC. The FTIR, XRD, anti-washout test, XPS, pH test, and SEM results suggested that the synergistic effect of OSA-citric acid (CA) led to the formation of a three-dimensional gel network structure in the CPC, and the Schiff base reaction between aldehyde and amino groups induced adhesion between CPC and the bone tissue. Further, the addition of less OSA had no significant negative effect on the hydration properties of CPC. Our work aims to promote the development of injectable bone material in clinical applications.     

Structural Cues for Understanding eEF1A2 Moonlighting

Spontaneous mutations in the EEF1A2 gene cause epilepsy and severe neurological disabilities in children. The crystal structure of eEF1A2 protein purified from rabbit skeletal muscle reveals a post-translationally modified dimer that provides information about the sites of interaction with numerous binding partners, including itself, and maps these mutations onto the dimer and tetramer interfaces. The spatial locations of the side chain carboxylates of Glu301 and Glu374, to which phosphatidylethanolamine is uniquely attached via an amide bond, define the anchoring points of eEF1A2 to cellular membranes and interorganellar membrane contact sites. Additional bioinformatic and molecular modeling results provide novel structural insight into the demonstrated binding of eEF1A2 to SH3 domains, the common MAPK docking groove, filamentous actin, and phosphatidylinositol-4 kinase IIIβ. In this new light, the role of eEF1A2 as an ancient, multifaceted, and articulated G protein at the crossroads of autophagy, oncogenesis and viral replication appears very distant from the “canonical” one of delivering aminoacyl-tRNAs to the ribosome that has dominated the scene and much of the thinking for many decades.     

Mast Cell Chymase and Kidney Disease

A sizable part (~2%) of the human genome encodes for proteases. They are involved in many physiological processes, such as development, reproduction and inflammation, but also play a role in pathology. Mast cells (MC) contain a variety of MC specific proteases, the expression of which may differ between various MC subtypes. Amongst these proteases, chymase represents up to 25% of the total proteins in the MC and is released from cytoplasmic granules upon activation. Once secreted, it cleaves the targets in the local tissue environment, but may also act in lymph nodes infiltrated by MC, or systemically, when reaching the circulation during an inflammatory response. MC have been recognized as important components in the development of kidney disease. Based on this observation, MC chymase has gained interest following the discovery that it contributes to the angiotensin-converting enzyme’s independent generation of angiotensin II, an important inflammatory mediator in the development of kidney disease. Hence, progress regarding its role has been made based on studies using inhibitors but also on mice deficient in MC protease 4 (mMCP-4), the functional murine counterpart of human chymase. In this review, we discuss the role and actions of chymase in kidney disease. While initially believed to contribute to pathogenesis, the accumulated data favor a more subtle view, indicating that chymase may also have beneficial actions.     

Occurrence and distribution of dibenzofurans and benzo[b]naphthofurans in the crude oils from the Northern and offshore Niger Delta basin,Nigeria

The occurrence and distributions of dibenzofurans (DBFs) and benzo[b]naphthofurans were investigated in crude oils from Niger Delta, Nigeria, by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-mass spectrometry. The distribution of DBFs was characterized by the predominance of C₂-dibenzofurans. 4-Methyldibenzofuran was the most abundant among the methyldibenzofurans isomers while dimethyldibenzofuran-2 (DMDBF-2), ethyldibenzofuran-1, DMDBF-3, and DMDBF-6 occurred in higher amounts when compared with other DMDBFs. Among the benzonaphthofurans, the abundance of benzo[b]naphtho[2,1-d]furan was higher than other isomers. The DBFs distributions in the oils were not affected by source facies and depositional environments. However, the DBFs concentrations increased with increasing maturity in oils from ADL and MJO oilfields.     

Oxide-Scale Evolution on a New Ni–Fe-Based Superalloy at High Temperature

Oxidation of Metals - The isothermal oxidation behavior and oxide-scale evolution on a newly developed Ni–Fe-based superalloy were investigated. Three oxidation stages were generally...     

Visual Detection of Adenosine Triphosphate by Taylor Rising: A Simple Point-of-Care Testing Method Based on Rolling Circle Amplification

Rapid and sensitive point-of-care testing (POCT) is an extremely critical mission in practical applications, especially for rigorous military medicine, home health care, and in the third world. Here, we report a visual POCT method for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) detection based on Taylor rising in the corner of quadratic geometries between two rod surfaces. We discuss the principle of Taylor rising, demonstrating that it is significantly influenced by contact angle, surface tension, and density of the sample, which are controlled by ATP-dependent rolling circle amplification (RCA). In the presence of ATP, RCA reaction effectively suppresses Taylor-rising behavior, due to the increased contact angle, density, and decreased surface tension. Without addition of ATP, untriggered RCA reaction is favorable for Taylor rising, resulting in a significant height. With this proposed method, visual sensitive detection of ATP without the aid of other instruments is realized with only a 5 μL droplet, which has good selectivity and a low detection limit (17 nM). Importantly, this visual method provides a promising POCT tool for user-friendly molecular diagnostics.