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Single-site catalysts supported by ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) porous matrix are desirable for catalytic reactions, yet their synthesis remains a great challenge. Herein the authors report a cocoon silk chemistry strategy to synthesize isolated metal single-site catalysts embedded in ultrathin 2D porous N-doped carbon nanosheets.

Microbiome-based stratification of healthy individuals into compositional categories, referred to as "enterotypes" or "community types", holds promise for drastically improving personalized medicine. Despite this potential, the existence of community types and the degree of their distinctness have been highly debated. Here we adopted a dynamic systems approach and found that heterogeneity in the interspecific interactions or the presence of strongly interacting species is sufficient to explain community types, independent of the topology of the underlying ecological network. By controlling the presence or absence of these strongly interacting species we can steer the microbial ecosystem to any desired community type. This open-loop control strategy still holds even when the community types are not distinct but appear as dense regions within a continuous gradient. This finding can be used to develop viable therapeutic strategies for shifting the microbial composition to a healthy configuration.

As a common lethal disease, cancer is now responsible for the majority of deaths worldwide and has been the single most important barrier to increasing life expectancy in the world. The pathogenesis of cancer has been the key point of cancer therapeutics research. The primary cilium, a solitary microtubule-based organelle, is considered to be an important sensor for receiving mechanical and chemical stimulation from other cells and environments; it plays an important role in a variety of signal transduction and disease processes. More importantly, the primary cilium can also function as an elaborate structure to regulate cell proliferation because ciliogenesis regulates cell division by sequestering the centriole. Recently, many new findings have suggested that the length and incidence of the primary cilium are closely connected to carcinogenesis and responses to cancer therapy. Here, we review relevant evidences proving that the primary cilium plays a key role in the occurrence and treatment of cancer. We also summarize the primary cilium-associated signaling pathways in cancer, including Wnt signaling, Hedgehog signaling, PDGFR signaling, and Notch signaling, and anticipate that targeting proteins localized in the primary cilium may be a potential anti-cancer strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of inherent rigidity of the conjugated macromolecular chains resulted from the delocalized π-electron system along the polymer backbone, it has been a huge challenge to make conducting polymer hydrogels elastic by far. Herein elastic and conductive polypyrrole hydrogels with only conducting polymer as the continuous phase have been simply synthesized in the indispensable conditions of 1) mixed solvent, 2) deficient oxidant, and 3) monthly secondary growth. The elastic mechanism and oxidative polymerization mechanism on the resulting PPy hydrogels have been discussed. The resulting hydrogels show some novel properties, e.g., shape memory elasticity, fast functionalization with various guest objects, and fast removal of organic infectants from aqueous solutions, all of which cannot be observed from traditional non-elastic conducting polymer counterparts. What's more, light-weight, elastic, and conductive organic sponges with excellent stress-sensing behavior have been successfully achieved via using the resulting polypyrrole hydrogels as precursors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the synthesis of ZnV2O4 spinel oxide novel nanosheets via a template free route to explore its potential hydrogen storage properties for the first time. 2D layered nanostructures are excellent candidates for storage applications. This attracted our interest to synthesize novel spinel oxide nanosheets (NSNs) of ZnV2O4. The maximum value for hydrogen absorption in ZnV2O4 nanosheets at 473 K is 1.36 wt.% and 1.74 wt.% at 573 K, respectively. Our hydrogen storage measurements along ZnV2O4 reveal its superiority over previous reports on hydrogen absorption values concerning oxides, nitrides and chalcogenides. To understand the rate-limiting mechanism, various kinetics models are applied. The calculations show that kinetics is governed by 3D growth with constant interface velocity. The measurements point to ZnV2O4 spinel oxide as a promising hydrogen storage material. PL measurements demonstrate the potential for violet/blue optoelectronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although COVID-19 vaccines are an effective public health tool to combat the global pandemic, serious adverse events, such as hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), caused by them are a concern. In this systematic review, cases of HLH reported after COVID-19 vaccination have been examined to understand the relationship between the two and propose effective therapeutic strategies. Furthermore, ruxolitinib’s potential as a cytokine inhibitor and its affinity for CD25 were initially assessed through molecular docking, aiming to aid targeted HLH therapy. PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched for published individual case reports on the occurrence of HLH after the administration of any COVID-19 vaccine. A total of 17 articles (25 patients) were included in this qualitative analysis. Furthermore, molecular docking was employed to investigate the therapeutic potential of ruxolitinib for HLH after COVID-19 vaccination. The mean age of patients who developed HLH after COVID-19 vaccination was 48.1 years. Most HLH episodes occurred after the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (14/25 cases) and to an extent after the ChAdOx1 nCov‐19 vaccination (5/25 cases). Almost all affected patients received steroid and antibiotic therapy. Three patients died despite treatment because of esophagus rupture, neutropenic fever, bacteroides bacteremia, refractory shock, and encephalopathy and shock. Visual docking results of IL-2 Rα and ruxolitinib using the Discovery Studio 2019 Client software yielded a model score of 119.879. The findings highlight the importance of considering and identifying the adverse effects of vaccination and the possibility of using ruxolitinib for treating HLH after COVID-19 vaccination.

In recent years, various non-precious metal electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) have been extensively investigated. The development of an efficient and simple method to synthesize non-precious metal catalysts with ORR activity superior to that of Pt is extremely significant for large-scale applications of fuel cells. Here, we develop a facile, low-cost, and large-scale synthesis method for uniform nitrogen-doped (N-doped) bamboo-like CNTs (NBCNT) with Co nanoparticles encapsulated at the tips by annealing a mixture of cobalt acetate and melamine. The uniform NBCNT shows better ORR catalytic activity and higher stability in alkaline solutions as compared with commercial Pt/C and comparable catalytic activity to Pt/C in acidic media. NBCNTs exhibit outstanding ORR catalytic activity due to high defect density, uniform bamboo-like structure, and the synergistic effect between the Co nanoparticles and protective graphitic layers. This facile method to synthesize catalysts, which is amenable to the large-scale commercialization of fuel cells, will open a new avenue for the development of low-cost and high-performance ORR catalysts to replace Pt-based catalysts for applications in energy conversion., (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)