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Abstract The high-intactness and ultraclean fabrication of suspended 2D materials has always been a challenge due to their atomically thin nature. Here, we present a universal polymer-free transfer approach for fabricating suspended 2D materials by using volatile micro-molecule cyclododecane as the transfer medium, thus ensuring the ultraclean and intact surface of suspended 2D materials. For the fabricated monolayer suspended graphene, the intactness reaches 99% for size below 10 µm and suspended size reaches 36 µm. Owing to the advantages of ultra-cleanness and large size, the thermal conductivity reaches 4914 $${\rm{W}}\,{{\rm{m}}}^{-1}{{\rm{K}}}^{-1}$$ W m − 1 K − 1 at 338 K. Moreover, this strategy can also realize efficient batch transfer of suspended graphene and is applicable for fabricating other 2D suspended materials such as MoS2. Our research not only establishes foundation for potential applications and investigations of intrinsic properties of large-area suspended 2D materials, but also accelerates the wide applications of suspended graphene grid in ultrahigh-resolution TEM characterization.

Abstract Schizophrenia (SCZ), a highly heritable mental disorder, is characterized by cognitive impairment, yet the extent of the shared genetic basis between schizophrenia and cognitive performance (CP) remains poorly understood. Therefore, we aimed to explore the polygenic overlap between SCZ and CP. Specifically, the bivariate causal mixture model (MiXeR) was employed to estimate the extent of genetic overlap between SCZ (n = 130,644) and CP (n = 257,841), and conjunctional false discovery rate (conjFDR) approach was used to identify shared genetic loci. Subsequently, functional annotation and enrichment analysis were carried out on the identified genomic loci. The MiXeR analyses revealed that 9.6 K genetic variants are associated with SCZ and 10.9 K genetic variants for CP, of which 9.5 K variants are shared between these two traits (Dice coefficient = 92.8%). By employing conjFDR, 236 loci were identified jointly associated with SCZ and CP, of which 139 were novel for the two traits. Within these shared loci, 60 exhibited consistent effect directions, while 176 had opposite effect directions. Functional annotation analysis indicated that the shared genetic loci were mainly located in intronic and intergenic regions, and were found to be involved in relevant biological processes such as nervous system development, multicellular organism development, and generation of neurons. Together, our findings provide insights into the shared genetic architecture between SCZ and CP, suggesting common pathways and mechanisms contributing to both traits.

Abstract Understanding the structure of the electric double layer (EDL) is critical for designing efficient electrocatalytic processes. However, the interplay between reactant adsorbates and the concentrated ionic species within the EDL remains an aspect that has yet to be fully explored. In the present study, we employ electrochemical CO reduction on Cu as a model reaction to reveal the significant impact of EDL structure on CO adsorption. By altering the sequence of applying negative potential and elevating CO pressure, we discern two distinct EDL structures with varying cation density and CO coverage. Our findings demonstrate that the EDL comprising densely packed cations substantially hinders CO adsorption on the Cu as opposed to the EDL containing less compact cations. These two different EDL structures remained stable over the course of our experiments, despite their identical initial and final conditions, suggesting an insurmountable kinetic barrier present in between. Moreover, we show that the size and identity of cations play decisive roles in determining the properties of the EDL in CO electroreduction on Cu. This study presents a refined adaptation of the classical Gouy-Chapman-Stern model and highlights its catalytic importance, which bridges the mechanistic gap between the EDL structure and cathodic reactions.

Abstract The oxidative dehydrogenation of propane, primarily sourced from shale gas, holds promise in meeting the surging global demand for propylene. However, this process necessitates high operating temperatures, which amplifies safety concerns in its application due to the use of mixed propane and oxygen. Moreover, these elevated temperatures may heighten the risk of overoxidation, leading to carbon dioxide formation. Here we introduce a microchannel reaction system designed for the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane within an aqueous environment, enabling highly selective and active propylene production at room temperature and ambient pressure with mitigated safety risks. A propylene selectivity of over 92% and production rate of 19.57 mmol mCu −2 h−1 are simultaneously achieved. This exceptional performance stems from the in situ creation of a highly active, oxygen-containing Cu catalytic surface for propane activation, and the enhanced propane transfer via an enlarged gas-liquid interfacial area and a reduced diffusion path by establishing a gas-liquid Taylor flow using a custom-made T-junction microdevice. This microchannel reaction system offers an appealing approach to accelerate gas-liquid-solid reactions limited by the solubility of gaseous reactant.

Abstract Cytokine therapy, involving interleukin-15 (IL-15), is a promising strategy for cancer immunotherapy. However, clinical application has been limited due to severe toxicity and the relatively low immune response rate, caused by wide distribution of cytokine receptors, systemic immune activation and short half-life of IL-15. Here we show that a biomimetic nanovaccine, developed to co-deliver IL-15 and an antigen/major histocompatibility complex (MHC) selectively targets IL-15 to antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), thereby reducing off-target toxicity. The biomimetic nanovaccine is composed of cytomembrane vesicles, derived from genetically engineered dendritic cells (DC), onto which IL-15/IL-15 receptor α (IL-15Rα), tumor-associated antigenic (TAA) peptide/MHC-I, and relevant costimulatory molecules are simultaneously anchored. We demonstrate that, in contrast to conventional IL-15 therapy, the biomimetic nanovaccine with multivalent IL-15 self-transpresentation (biNV-IL-15) prolonged blood circulation of the cytokine with an 8.2-fold longer half-life than free IL-15 and improved the therapeutic window. This dual targeting strategy allows for spatiotemporal manipulation of therapeutic T cells, elicits broad spectrum antigen-specific T cell responses, and promotes cures in multiple syngeneic tumor models with minimal systemic side effects.

Abstract Gadolinium (Gd3+)-coordinated texaphyrin (Gd-Tex) is a promising radiosensitizer that entered clinical trials, but temporarily fails largely due to insufficient radiosensitization efficacy. Little attention has been given to using nanovesicles to improve its efficacy. Herein, Gd-Tex is transformed into building blocks “Gd-Tex-lipids” to self-assemble nanovesicles called Gd-nanotexaphyrins (Gd-NTs), realizing high density packing of Gd-Tex in a single nanovesicle and achieving high Gd-Tex accumulation in tumors. To elucidate the impact of O2 concentration on Gd-Tex radiosensitization, myoglobin (Mb) is loaded into Gd-NTs (Mb@Gd-NTs), resulting in efficient relief of tumor hypoxia and significant enhancement of Gd-Tex radiosensitization, eventually inducing the obvious long-term antitumor immune memory to inhibit tumor recurrence. In addition to Gd3+, the versatile Mb@Gd-NTs can also chelate 177Lu3+ (Mb@177Lu/Gd-NTs), enabling SPECT/MRI dual-modality imaging for accurately monitoring drug delivery in real-time. This “one-for-all” nanoplatform with the capability of chelating various trivalent metal ions exhibits broad clinical application prospects in imaging-guided radiosensitization therapy.

Abstract Air lasing is a simple and promising technique to efficiently produce coherent light in the atmosphere. Yet, its capability to obtain structured light like optical vortices or vector beams is still unexplored. Here, we demonstrate the generation of vortex superfluorescent radiation with the same orbital angular momentum as the pump beam, obtained via N2 + lasing by focusing a vortex pump beam on N2 gas. The vortex superfluorescence is amplified without altering the vorticity when seeded by a Gaussian beam, in which the vortex pump beam transfers the spatial spiral phase into the N2 + gain medium and the N2 + lasing obtains the phase information. The same mechanism is applied for a vector pump beam, turning the Gaussian seed into an amplified cylindrical vector beam. We corroborate our mechanism for generating vectorially structured light via air lasing with numerical calculations. This work provides a promising approach to generating structured light via superfluorescence.

The atomic pathway in the photoinduced ultrafast structural phase transition of VO2 has been a controversial problem for a long time. Here the authors, using MeV ultrafast electron diffraction, show that the melting of V-V dimers and the transformation of crystal symmetry are two processes with different timescales.

Here, the authors demonstrate a Cu-based catalyst with Cu–Ag interfacial sites, which favor oxygenate over alcohol production in CO2 electroreduction. Near 80% selectivity for multi-carbon liquid products in a 100 cm2 membrane electrode assembly electrolyzer is exhibited over 100 h.

While homodimeric prodrug assemblies can improve drug loading and limit toxicity in cancer therapy, bioactivation within the target site is limited. Here, the authors introduce a hybrid chalcogen bond linker to a docetaxel dimeric prodrug nanoassembly and demonstrate its improved selfassembly, redox-responsivity and antitumor efficacy.

Here, the authors report tunable luminescence from a single lanthanide ion upon changing excitation conditions through co-doping an energy-modulator ion, thus adjusting the photon transition process of the lanthanide activator ion. Optical encryption has also been demonstrated as an application of this universal strategy.

Reliable transfer techniques are critical for the integration of 2D materials with arbitrary substrates. Here, the authors describe a method to transfer 4-inch and A4-sized defect-free graphene films onto rigid and flexible substrates with controllable conformal contact, leading to improved electrical properties and uniformity.

Controlling the spin Hall angle is significant to tunable and energy-efficient spintronic devices. Here, the authors demonstrate that the spin Hall angle in Bi2Se3 can be tuned and even enhanced about 600% reversibly by the electric field.

Abstract Members of the genus Bougainvillea are rich sources of natural dyes, pigments, and traditional medicines. They are also commonly used as ornamentals in roadside landscape construction. However, the horticultural development of Bougainvillea flowers with extended growth periods and coloration is not always feasible. One reason is limited molecular knowledge and no genomic information for Bougainvillea. Here, we compiled an integrative transcriptome of all expressed transcripts for Bougainvillea × buttiana Miss Manila by integrating 20 Illumina-sequencing RNA transcriptomes. The integrative transcriptome consisted of 97,623 distinct transcripts. Of these, 47,006 were protein-coding, 31,109 were non-coding, and 19,508 were unannotated. In addition, we affirmed that the integrative transcriptome could serve as a surrogate reference to the genome in aiding accurate transcriptome assembly. For convenience, we curated the integrative transcriptome database for Bougainvillea, namely InTransBo, which can be freely accessed at http://www.bio-add.org/InTransBo/index.jsp . To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the most comprehensive genomic resource for Bougainvillea up-to-date. The integrative transcriptome helps fill the genomic gap and elucidate the transcriptional nature of Bougainvillea. It may also advance progress in the precise regulation of flowering in horticulture. The same strategy can be readily applied toward the systematic exploration of other plant species lacking complete genomic information.

Electrokinetic results are key to understanding the mechanisms in electrochemical CO reduction reaction. Here, the authors determine mass transport free kinetics using a gas-diffusion electrode and identified dependence of copper surface speciation on the electrolyte pH using in situ surface enhanced spectroscopies.

Evolution of accretion disk and corona during outbursts in black hole binary systems is still unclear. Here, the authors show spectral analysis of MAXI J1820+070 and propose a scenario of a dynamical corona to explain the evolution of the reflection fraction observed by Insight-HXMT.

While the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to highly reduced products is unique to copper, there are still gaps in understanding copper catalysts’ efficacy. Here, authors find that co-electrolysis of CO2 with O2 can enhance copper’s catalytic activities.

The chaperone Hsp90 uses the free energy from ATP hydrolysis to control the folding of client proteins in eukaryotic cells. Here the authors provide mechanistic insights into how its catalytic activity is coupled to conformational changes by combining large-scale molecular simulations with NMR, FRET and SAXS experiments.

Methylation of a lysine residue in Hsp90 is a recently discovered post-translational modification but the mechanistic effects of this modification have remained unknown so far. Here the authors combine biochemical and biophysical approaches, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and functional experiments with yeast and show that this lysine is a switch point, which specifically modulates conserved Hsp90 functions including co-chaperone regulation and client activation.

Carbon dioxide can be electrocatalytically reduced to valuable fuels and chemicals, but is hindered by poor catalytic efficiency and selectivity. Here the authors report improved electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into methane using a tandem catalysis strategy.

The heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) chaperone undergoes large conformational changes during its functional cycle. Here the authors combine in vivo, biochemical, biophysical and computational approaches and provide insights into the allosteric regulation of Hsp90 by identifying and characterizing a switch point in the Hsp90 middle domain.

Abstract Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) covers one of the largest drylands in the world, while the relative effects of different environmental factors on plant diversity are poorly understood. We sampled 66 sites in a typical dryland of XUAR, which covers more than 450,000 km2, to evaluate the relative influences of different factors on the patterns of local plant species richness (LPSR). We found that overall and herbaceous LPSR were positively correlated with water availability, soil nutrients but negatively correlated with energy availability, while the shrub LPSR showed the opposite response. Climate, soil attributes together explained 53.2% and 59.2% of the variance in overall and herbaceous LPSR, respectively; revealing that LPSR patterns were shaped by abiotic and underground biotic factors together. Only 31.5% of the variance in the shrub LPSR was explained by soil attributes, indicating that shrub LPSR was mainly limited by non-climatic factors. There findings provide robust evidence that relative contribution of climate and soil attributes differ markedly depending on the plant functional group. Furthermore, we found the different relationship between microbes and plant diversity, indicating that the linkages between soil microbial diversity and plant diversity may vary across functional groups of microbes and plant. These findings provide robust evidence that the relative roles of climate, soil and microbes differ markedly depending on the plant functional group. Microbial richness showed a significantly pure influence on the LPSR of all groups, suggesting that microbes play a non-negligible role in regulating plant diversity in dryland ecosystems.

Capture of low-abundance multiply phosphorylated peptides (MPPs) is difficult due to limitation of enrichment materials and their interactions with phosphates. Here the authors show, a smart polymer driven by specific but tunable hydrogen bonding interactions can differentially complex with MPPs, singly phosphorylated and non-modified peptides.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.