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Background: Microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) is a severe multisystem autoimmune disease featured by small-vessel vasculitis with few or no immune complex, also has a significant genetic predisposition. Growing evidence has confirmed that STAT4 gene is tightly associated with multiple autoimmune diseases, but its contribution to MPA onset is still elusive., Objective: The aim was to investigated the association between STAT4 gene polymorphisms (rs7572482, rs7574865 and rs12991409) and MPA susceptibility in a Guangxi population of China., Methods: 260 MPA patients and 295 healthy adult volunteers were selected, 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to control potential confounding variables, then 199 MPA patients and 199 healthy adult volunteers matched in gender, ethnicity and age were included in this study. High-throughput sequencing and multiplex PCR were applied to detect the target STAT4 SNPs. SHEsis and SNPstats were used to evaluated the allele frequency, genotype frequency, linkage disequilibrium (LD), haplotype, and the association between SNPs and the MPA susceptibility in multiple genetic models. SNP-SNP interactions were explored based on generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction (GMDR) algorithm. Some clinical indicators, such as renal pathology and therapeutic effects, were collected and compared., Results: The allele and genotype frequencies of rs7574865 displayed significant diversities between case group and control group (p < 0.05). Strong LD was found between rs7572482 and rs12991409 (D'=0.9). The haplotype GGT was related to a reduced risk of MPA (OR = 0.661, 95 %CI: 0.469-0.931, p = 0.017), and haplotype GTT might perform an increased risk of MPA (OR = 1.922, 95 %CI: 1.225-3.015, p = 0.004). Rs7574865 polymorphism was associated with an increased risk of MPA in codominant model (OR:2.03; p = 0.0093), dominant model (OR: 1.88p = 0.0023), and overdominant model (OR:1.57; p = 0.027). In Han and male subgroups, rs7574865 polymorphism dramatically increased the MPA risk. GMDR suggested that STAT4 rs7574865 and PTPN22 rs3811021 composed the most risk combinations (p = 0.0010). Moreover, renal pathology, Birmingham vasculitis activity score (BVAS), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) might be linked with STAT4 gene polymorphisms (p < 0.05)., Conclusions: The genetic polymorphism of STAT4 may be associated with MPA susceptibility and renal pathological classification in Chinese Guangxi population; the T allele of rs7574865 may be an important risk factor for MPA., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Developing active-layer systems with both high performance and mechanical robustness is a crucial step towards achieving future commercialization of flexible and stretchable organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, we design and synthesize a series of acceptors BTA-C6, BTA-E3, BTA-E6, and BTA-E9, featuring the side chains of hexyl, and 3, 6, and 9 carbon-chain with ethyl ester end groups respectively. Benefiting from suitable phase separation and vertical phase distribution, the PM6:BTA-E3-based OSCs processed by o-xylene exhibit lower energy loss and improved charge transport characteristic and achieve a power conversion efficiency of 19.92% (certified 19.57%), which stands as the highest recorded value in binary OSCs processed by green solvents. Moreover, due to the additional hydrogen-bonding provided by ethyl ester side chain, the PM6:BTA-E3-based active-layer systems achieve enhanced stretchability and thermal stability. Our work reveals the significance of dynamic hydrogen-bonding in improving the photovoltaic performance, mechanical robustness, and morphological stability of OSCs., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Concurrently achieving high efficiency, mechanical robustness and thermal stability is critical for the commercialization of all-polymer solar cells (APSCs). However, APSCs usually demonstrate complicated morphology, primarily attributed to the polymer chain entanglement which has a detrimental effect on their fill factors (FF) and morphology stability. To address these concerns, an end-group extended polymer acceptor, PY-NFT, was synthesized and studied. The morphology analysis showed a tightly ordered molecular packing mode and a favorable phase separation was formed. The PM6 : PY-NFT-based device achieved an exceptional PCE of 19.12 % (certified as 18.45 %), outperforming the control PM6 : PY-FT devices (17.14 %). This significant improvement highlights the record-high PCE for binary APSCs. The thermal aging study revealed that the PM6 : PY-NFT blend exhibited excellent morphological stability, thereby achieving superior device stability, retaining 90 % of initial efficiency after enduring thermal stress (65 °C) for 1500 hours. More importantly, the PM6 : PY-NFT blend film exhibited outstanding mechanical ductility with a crack onset strain of 24.1 %. Overall, rational chemical structure innovation, especially the conjugation extension strategy to trigger appropriate phase separation and stable morphology, is the key to achieving high efficiency, improved thermal stability and robust mechanical stability of APSCs., (© 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)