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Baicalein and scutellarein are bioactive flavonoids isolated from the traditional Chinese medicine Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi; however, there is a lack of effective strategies for producing baicalein and scutellarein. In this study, we developed a sequential self-assembly enzyme reactor involving two enzymes in the baicalein pathway with a pair of protein-peptide interactions in E. coli. These domains enabled us to optimize the stoichiometry of two baicalein biosynthetic enzymes recruited to be an enzymes complex. This strategy reduces the accumulation of intermediates and removes the pathway bottleneck. With this strategy, we successfully promoted the titer of baicalein by 6.6-fold (from 21.6 to 143.5 mg/L) and that of scutellarein by 1.4-fold (from 84.3 to 120.4 mg/L) in a flask fermentation, respectively. Furthermore, we first achieved the de novo biosynthesis of baicalein directly from glucose, and the strain was capable of producing 214.1 mg/L baicalein by fed-batch fermentation. This work provides novel insights for future optimization and large-scale fermentation of baicalein and scutellarein.

Augmented vehicular reality (AVR) is one of the key technologies to realize intelligent transportation in the future, which can significantly improve traffic safety and transportation efficiency of autonomous driving. However, available computation and spectrum resources of vehicles are not well utilized to meet the requirements of cooperative perception of autonomous vehicles. In order to meet the needs of sharing sensing data to cooperatively perceive the surrounding environment, executing delay-sensitive and computationally intensive tasks of autonomous driving applications, we propose computation offloading and resource allocation optimization for AVR (CoroAVR) algorithm with hybrid sensing data fusion of cooperative perception to process the real-time data in fog-edge computing for maximizing system throughput and spectrum utilization on the premise of ensuring the quality of task completion. First, the minimum signal to interference plus noise ratio needed to complete the task is obtained with the given maximum computing resources. Second, the optimal power allocation is carried out by using convex optimization theory, and the throughput gain is calculated, and the offloading decision is made by comparing the throughput gain. Finally, the channel allocation problem is solved by using the maximum matching algorithm of the bipartite graph, and the computation resource allocation is studied. The simulation results show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is better than that of the contrast algorithm.

To improve the wear resistance of carbon fabric reinforced polyimide (CF/PI) composite, surface-modified graphene (MG) was synthesized and employed as a filler. The flexural strength, Rockwell hard...

Poly(vinylidene fluoride)-based polymer electrolytes are being intensely investigated for solid-state lithium metal batteries. However, phase separation and porous structures are still pronounced issues in traditional preparing procedure. Herein, a bottom-to-up strategy is employed to design single-phase and densified polymer electrolytes via incorporating quasi-ionic liquid with poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene). Due to strong ion/dipole-dipole interaction, the optimized polymer electrolyte delivers high room-temperature ionic conductivity of 1.55 × 10

The diterpenoid paclitaxel (Taxol®) is a blockbuster anticancer agent that was originally isolated from the Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) five decades ago. Despite the wealth of information gained over the years on Taxol research, there still remains supply issues to meet increasing clinical demand. Although alternative Taxol production methods have been developed, they still face several drawbacks that cause supply shortages and high production costs. It is highly desired to develop biotechnological production platforms for Taxol, however, there are still gaps in our understanding of the biosynthetic pathway, catalytic enzymes, regulatory and control mechanisms that hamper production of this critical drug by synthetic biology approaches. Over the past 5 years, significant advances were made in metabolic engineering and optimization of the Taxol pathway in different hosts, leading to accumulation of taxane intermediates. Computational and experimental approaches were leveraged to gain mechanistic insights into the catalytic cycle of pathway enzymes and guide rational protein engineering efforts to improve catalytic fitness and substrate/product specificity, especially of the cytochrome P450s (CYP450s). Notable breakthroughs were also realized in engineering the pathway in plant hosts that are more promising in addressing the challenging CYP450 chemistry. Here, we review these recent advances and in addition, we summarize recent transcriptomic data sets of Taxus species and elicited culture cells, and give a bird’s-eye view of the information that can be gleaned from these publicly available resources. Recent mining of transcriptome data sets led to discovery of two putative pathway enzymes, provided many lead candidates for the missing steps and provided new insights on the regulatory mechanisms governing Taxol biosynthesis. All these inferences are relevant to future biotechnological production of Taxol.

The main-chain thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (LCP), Vectra A950, has been reported to be able to simultaneously lower dynamic friction coefficient and wear rate when introduced into poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) as lubricant. In this investigation, we evaluate the friction surfaces of Vectra A950 through atomic force microscopy (AFM), spectroscopy and nanoindentation. By AFM, various frozen nanometer-level textures are observed at friction surfaces of LCP particles after cessation of friction. Besides, orientation and microscopic hardness of textures for Vectra A950 are unveiled via polarized Raman spectroscopy and nanoindentation tests, respectively. It is worth noting that as an important hint of orientation for LCPs under shear, observation of LCPs textures is conventionally conducted at molten state by polarized-light optical microscope and shear apparatus, however, which hardly detects textures morphology at solid state. Overall, this investigation not only proposes a new approach to evaluate textures of LCPs, but also provides guide for further exploring tribological enhancement mechanism of LCPs.

Although main-chain thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) has been extensively investigated as self-reinforcing composites, tribological application is rarely reported. This paper explores tribological enhancement effect of LCP on representative matrix poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF). Moreover, structures of PVDF/LCP blends are assessed in detail. Due to immiscibility, LCP in blends is uniformly dispersed in the form of particles or microfibrils, dependent on LCP content. Besides, LCP improves storage modulus of PVDF. Most importantly, tribological performance of PVDF is obviously promoted. Compared with neat PVDF, the wear rate, coefficient of friction and oscillation amplitude of blend containing 20 wt% LCP simultaneously decrease by 97.7%, 80.7% and 80.2%, respectively. In particular, frequency-enhancement phenomenon is observed. By probing worn PVDF domains with nanoindentation test and atomic force microscopy (AFM), preliminary tribological enhancement mechanism of LCP is unveiled. Overall, this finding provides a new, but promising lubrication route of polymer.

In this article, we report a robust strategy to prepare polymer composites with enhanced thermal conductivity and mechanical properties for geothermal heat pump pipes, in which high density polyethylene (HDPE) used as matrix, various inorganic fillers including zero-dimensional (0D) aluminium spherical particles (Al-SPs), one-dimensional (1D) carbon fibres (CF) and two-dimensional (2D) graphite platelets (GPs), used alone or blended as modifier. The as-prepared polymer composites are GPs/HDPE, GPs/CF/HDPE, GPs/Al-SPs/HDPE and GPs/CF/Al-SPs/HDPE. Thermal conductivity and mechanical properties of these polymer composites were characterised. The results indicate that of all these as-prepared polymer composites, GPs/CF/Al-SPs/HDPE composites are the only one which possesses preferable and comprehensive properties both in thermal conductivity and mechanical properties due to the synergistic effect of filler. The thermal conductivity, elongation at break and tensile strength of GPs/ CF/Al-SPs/HDPE composites prepared with GPs (9 wt%), CF (3 wt%) and Al-SPs (3 wt%) were 0.803 W m−1K−1, 70.6 % and 26.69 MPa, respectively, which could meet the commercial requirements of the geothermal heat pump pipes.

The main-chain thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) has been reported to be able to simultaneously lower friction coefficient and wear rate when introduced into poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) as the lubricant. In this investigation, we aim to obtain some insight into the lubricating mechanism of LCP. Through atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Raman spectroscopy, friction-induced in-situ nanocoatings of LCP are observed on friction PVDF domains, which arises from increasing surface temperatures and high shear thinning properties of LCP. Consequently, LCP nanocoatings obviously enhance microscopic hardness of friction PVDF domains. In other words, LCP nanocoatings could be treated as a type of protective lubricant to prevent the direct contact between counterface and PVDF domains, promote wear resistance and lower friction coefficient. To our best knowledge, such an interesting lubricating mechanism is rarely reported. Overall, this investigation not only proposes the novel lubricating mechanism of LCP, but also provides support for further tribological applications in the polymeric systems.

5-Deoxy(iso)flavonoids are structural representatives of phenylpropanoid-derived compounds and play critical roles in plant ecophysiology. Recently, 5-deoxy(iso)flavonoids gained significant interest due to their potential applications as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and food additives. Given the difficulties in their isolation from native plant sources, engineered biosynthesis of 5-deoxy(iso)flavonoids in a microbial host is a highly promising alternative approach. However, the production of 5-deoxy(iso)flavonoids is hindered by metabolic flux imbalances that result in a product profile predominated by non-reduced analogues. In this study, GmCHS7 (chalcone synthase from Glycine max) and GuCHR (chalcone reductase from Glycyrrhizza uralensis) were preliminarily utilized to improve the CHR ratio (CHR product to total CHS product). The use of this enzyme combination improved the final CHR ratio from 39.7% to 50.3%. For further optimization, a protein-protein interaction strategy was employed, basing on the spatial adhesion of GmCHS7:PDZ and GuCHR:PDZlig. This strategy further increased the ratio towards the CHR-derived product (54.7%), suggesting partial success of redirecting metabolic flux towards the reduced branch. To further increase the total carbon metabolic flux, 15 protein scaffolds were programmed with stoichiometric arrangement of the three sequential catalysts GmCHS7, GuCHR and MsCHI (chalcone isomerase from Medicago sativa), resulting in a 1.4-fold increase in total flavanone production, from 69.4 mg/L to 97.0 mg/L in shake flasks. The protein self-assembly strategy also improved the production and direction of the lineage-specific compounds 7,4′-dihydroxyflavone and daidzein in Escherichia coli. This study presents a significant advancement of 5-deoxy(iso)flavonoid production and provides the foundation for production of value-added 5-deoxy(iso)flavonoids in microbial hosts., Highlights • 5-Deoxyflavonoids synthetic pathways were constructed and engineered in E. coli. • CHR ratio was optimized by orthologous enzyme selection, and CHS-CHR interaction. • Artificial scaffold P4S2G1 was programmed to improve the total metabolic flux. • Daidzein and genistein were synthesized from L-tyr in E. coli for the first time.

A three-step strategy was employed to prepare a self-lubricating and anti-wear graphene oxide/nano-MoS2 (GO/nano-MoS2, abbreviated GMS) hybrid by chemical compounding as a novel multidimensional assembly. This development aims to overcome the high friction coefficient of GO/polymer composites and to explore the variations in the tribological properties stemming from the different nanoparticles immobilized on the GO surface. The as-prepared GMS was incorporated into a polyimide (PI) matrix to yield GMS/PI composites by in situ polymerization. The mechanical, thermodynamic, surface, and tribological properties of the GMS/PI composites were investigated, and the synergistic effects of the abovementioned properties between nano-MoS2 and GO were discussed in detail. A homogeneous dispersion of GMS, a suppressive and protective effect of graphene sheets, a rolling friction effect of the detached nano-MoS2 particles, and a transfer film composed of MoS2 were achieved herein, contributing to the enhanced tribological properties. The differences in the enhancement effects of nanohybrids can be mainly attributed to two aspects: the intrinsic characteristics of the assembled nanoparticles and the combinational structure of the multidimensional assemblies.

Modified graphene/carbon nanotube (abbreviated GCNT) assemblies were prepared by chemical compounding from amino-functionalized graphene (abbreviated MG) and carboxyl-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube (abbreviated MCNT). Diverse hybrid structures, such as graphene-shelled CNT microspheres, graphene/CNT interlayers and CNT-coated graphene nanosheets, have been obtained by adjusting the reaction ratio of the two precursor particles. The as-prepared GCNTs were incorporated into polyimide (PI) matrix to yield GCNT/PI composites by in situ polymerization. The mechanical, thermo-mechanical and tribological properties of GCNT/PI composites were investigated and synergistic effects in terms of lubrication and wear resistance have been acquired. The friction coefficient and wear rate decreased by 29.3% and 75.8%, respectively, with only 0.5 wt% addition of GCNT14 (WMG/WMCNT = 1 : 4), compared to virgin PI. The results indicate that combinational structure of multidimensional assemblies has a great influence on the enhancement performance and tribological mechanism of nanocomposites.

Modified carbon nanotube/nano-MoS2 (CMS) hybrid as a self-lubricating and anti-wear nanofiller was prepared through chemical compounding and then incorporated into polyimide (PI) matrix to yield CMS/PI composite by in situ polymerization. For comparison, carbon nanotube (CNT), nano-MoS2 as well as the mixture of them (CNT-MoS2) were also incorporated into PI matrix separately to evaluate the superior performance of CMS hybrid. Morphology, mechanical capacity and tribological behavior of the as-prepared nanocomposites were investigated, and the discrepancies on the above-mentioned properties caused by the different structures between CMS hybrid and CNT-MoS2 mixture were discussed in detail. With only 0.5 wt% addition of CMS, the friction coefficient and wear rate of CMS/PI composite decreased by 31 and 84%, respectively, compared to virgin PI. The results showed that the combinational structure of CMS hybrid, as CNT-coated few-layer MoS2 nanosheet, which took the advantage of both CNT and nano-MoS2, contributed to the synergistic effect on the tribological properties.

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) has been widely used in electric devices due to electroactive β polymorph. In this article, we probe the formation of β phase under friction by spectroscopy and thermal analysis. During continuous friction, entire sliding of PVDF is identified with two regimes, i.e., running-in and steady-state. At initial running-in period, friction surfaces are dominated by plastic strain, which leads to striking formation of β phase from α polymorph (α→β). Subsequently, melting-flow domains almost cover friction surfaces at steady-state. Thus, formation of β crystal is correspondingly induced by shear crystallization. Nevertheless, β-crystal content at steady-state is lower than that at running-in. With sliding proceeding, moreover, β-crystal content exhibits a gradually decreasing tendency, attributed to rising surface temperature. Besides, the friction-induced β phase is further confirmed by evaluation of wear debris. Overall, friction plays a crucial role as to the formation of β phase. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018, 135, 46395.