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Objective: Metabolic dysfunction‐associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) affects many populations, and screening out the high‐risk populations at an early stage is a challenge. As a sarcopenia index, the relationship between creatinine to cystatin C ratio (CCR) and MASLD remains unclear. This cross‐sectional, prospective study aimed to explore the relationship between CCR and MASLD. Design Firstly, explored the correlation between CCR and MASLD in cross‐sectional analyses. Then excluded the population with baseeline diagnosis of MASLD and analyzed the association with baseline CCR levels and the onset of MASLD in the population with available follow‐up data. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) to evaluate the association between CCR levels and MASLD. Patients and Measurements: This study included 368,634 participants from the UK Biobank for cross‐sectional and prospective analyses. The demographic characteristics and laboratory measurements of all participants were obtained from the UK Biobank. MASLD was diagnosed according to the multi‐society consensus nomenclature. Hepatic steatosis was defined as FLI ≥60. Results: We grouped the study participants according to CCR tertiles. In cross‐sectional analyses, participants in CCR tertile 1 had the highest MASLD risk (OR: 1.070, 95% CI: 1.053−1.088, p <.001). And the similar association was observed in the prospective analyses (CCR tertile 1 OR: 1.340, 95% CI: 1.077−1.660, p =.009; CCR tertile 2 OR: 1.217, 95% CI: 1.021−1.450, p =.029, respectively). After stratification by gender, the significant association between CCR and the onset of MASLD was only observed in males (CCR tertile 1 OR: 1.639, 95% CI: 1.160−2.317, p =.005; CCR tertile 2 OR: 1.322, 95% CI: 1.073−1.628, p =.005, respectively). Conclusion: Our results indicated that lower CCR was significantly associated with higher risk of MASLD, based on which predictive models can be developed to screen populations at high risk of developing MASLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cancer metastasis is still a life threat to patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). Brain and muscle ARNT‐like protein 1 (BMAL1) is an important biological proteins that can regulate the behavior of cancer cells and their response to chemotherapy. However, the role of BMAL1 in the tumorigenic phenotype of CRC remains unclear. Here, we aim to investigate the functional role and mechanisms of BMAL1 in CRC. Methods: The mRNA expression of BMAL1 was studied using the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases. The protein level in clinical tissues was confirmed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The effects of BMAL1 on the epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) and proliferation of CRC cell lines (including BMAL1 overexpressed or silencing cells) were studied by Transwell, wound healing, CCK‐8 and colony formation experiments. A series of experiments were conducted to demonstrate the mechanisms of BMAL1 regulating EMT and cancer proliferation in vitro and in vivo. Results: We found that BMAL1 expression was closely related to the poor prognosis of CRC. BMAL1 overexpression promoted cell proliferation and migration. Mechanistically, we found that BMAL1 may activate the epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) pathway and induce the β‐catenin release further promotes the expression of oncogene c‐Myc and the migration of colorectal cells by activating MAPK pathway. However, BMAL1 silencing achieved the opposite effect. In addition, blocking MAPK‐signaling pathway with specific inhibitors of ERK1/2 and JNK can also downregulate the expressions of c‐Myc in vitro. Taken together, these results suggested that the BMAL1/ c‐Myc‐signaling pathway may regulate the metastasis of CRC through the JNK/ERK1/2 MAPK‐dependent pathway. Conclusions: Our study showed that BMAL1 promotes CRC metastasis through MAPK‐c‐Myc pathway. These results deepen our understanding of the relationship between BMAL1 and tumorigenic phenotypes, which may become a promising therapeutic target for BMAL1 overexpressing CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surface ligand environment plays a dominant role in determining the physicochemical, optical, and electronic properties of colloidal quantum dots (CQDs). Specifically, the ligand‐related electronic traps are the main reason for the carrier nonradiative recombination and the energetic losses in colloidal quantum dot solar cells (CQDSCs), which are usually solved with numerous advanced ligand exchange reactions. However, the synthesis process, as the essential initial step to control the surface ligand environment of CQDs, has lagged behind these post‐synthesis ligand exchange reactions. The current PbS CQDs synthesis tactic generally uses lead oxide (PbO) as lead precursor, and thus suffers from the water byproducts issue increasing the surface‐hydroxyl ligands and aggravating trap‐induced recombination in the PbS CQDSCs. Herein, an organic‐Pb precursor, lead (II) acetylacetonate (Pb(acac)2), is used instead of a PbO precursor to avoid the adverse impact of water byproducts. Consequently, the Pb(acac)2 precursor successfully optimizes the surface ligands of PbS CQDs by reducing the hydroxyl ligands and increasing the iodine ligands with trap‐passivation ability. Finally, the Pb(acac)2‐based CQDSCs possess remarkably reduced trap states and suppressed nonradiative recombination, generating a certified record Voc of 0.652 V and a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.48% with long‐term stability in planar heterojunction‐structure CQDSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metasurfaces have an exceptional capacity to manipulate the phase, amplitude, polarization, or spectrum of light. However, unit cells, or meta‐atoms, of metasurfaces are conventionally designed using regular shapes, limiting performance improvement. The utilization of metasurfaces with freeform shaped meta‐atoms for on‐chip ultraspectral imaging is proposed, where the freeform shaped patterns are generated with controllable feature sizes and boundary curvatures for feasible fabrication. These patterns broaden design diversity and enrich metasurface‐unit spectral response with complicated Bloch modes, thus improving spectral imaging performance with enhanced spectrum recovery precision for broadband spectra and smaller center‐wavelength deviation for narrowband spectra. A snapshot on‐chip ultraspectral imaging, with 356 × 436 spectral pixels is experimentally demonstrated. Spectral resolution is state‐of‐the‐art, at 0.5 nm, and mean fidelity of spectral reconstruction for a standard color board reaches 98.78%. These results support future applications in the field of precise intelligent perception. Moreover, the generating method for freeform shaped patterns also benefits for the forward and inverse designs for high‐performance metasurfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro multiple quantum well (MQW) III‐nitride diodes usually function as micro light‐emitting diodes, which are considered the next generation of display technology. In addition to both illumination and display, MQW III‐nitride diodes in theory have the capability to both detect and modulate light. Here, proof that the III‐nitride diode can simultaneously emit and detect light is experimentally confirmed by a wireless light communication system using two identical devices. The 20 × 20 MQW III‐nitride diodes are monolithically integrated into a single chip and a real‐time imaging system of transmitted images is established, which in practice can perform display, illumination, imaging, and simultaneous illumination‐imaging operations. These functions can be software controlled and switched freely. This work may lead to a multifunctional display that merges millions of III‐nitride diodes together to perform these functions at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultraspectral Imaging Based on Metasurfaces with Freeform Shaped Meta-Atoms (Laser Photonics Rev. 16(7)/2022) B On-Chip Ultraspectral Imaging b In article number 2100663, Jiawei Yang, Kaiyu Cui, Yidong Huang and colleagues demonstrate a snapshot on-chip ultraspectral imager based on freeform metasurfaces with both high spatial resolution of 356 × 436 and spectral resolution of 0.5 nm, which will provide a new paradigm for future intellisense. The freeform shaped meta-atoms are generated with a proposed general method and could be utilized in forward or inverse design of other novel metasurfaces. [Extracted from the article]