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Mesoporous TiO2 (m-TiO2) is widely used in the preparation of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) due to its fast carrier transfer and strong light scattering capacity, but the trap states of TiO2 will cause serious recombination, which will affect the performance of the PSCs to a great extent. Surface treatment is an efficient way to passivate the surface defects of TiO2 and improve the performance of devices. In this study, we introduce a TiO2 composite treatment strategy that treats TiO2 films with low-concentration hydrochloric (HCl) solution and ultraviolet ozone (UVO). The composite treatment has no adverse impact on the structure of TiO2, which can be confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) measurement. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) shows a 4.62% decrease of surface oxygen vacancies in TiO2 films, which means the composite treatment can reduce the surface defects resulting from oxygen vacancies. To further explore the carrier transfer performance of treated TiO2 films, the time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) spectroscopy and space charge-limited currents (SCLC) measurement were used. The measurements show a decrease to 59.03 ns of average charge carrier lifetime and a 0.023 V reduction of limit voltage, indicating a stronger electron extraction capability and less defect states. Finally, we achieve a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.9% compared to 17.6% for the control PSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a promising drug candidate to combat metabolic diseases. However, high-level expression and purification of recombinant FGF21 (rFGF21) in Escherichia coli (E. coli) is difficult because rFGF21 forms inclusion bodies in the bacteria making it difficult to purify and obtain high concentrations of bioactive rFGF21. To overcome this problem, we fused the FGF21 with SUMO (Small ubiquitin-related modifier) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and expressed the fused gene in E. coli BL21(DE3). Results By inducing with IPTG, SUMO-FGF21 was expressed at a high level. Its concentration reached 30% of total protein, and exceeded 95% of all soluble proteins. The fused protein was purified by DEAE sepharose FF and Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. Once cleaved by the SUMO protease, the purity of rFGF21 by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was shown to be higher than 96% with low endotoxin level (in vivo animal experiments showed that rFGF21 produced by using this method, could decrease the concentration of plasma glucose in diabetic rats by streptozotocin (STZ) injection. Conclusions This study demonstrated that SUMO, when fused with FGF21, was able to promote its soluble expression of the latter in E. coli, making it more convenient to purify rFGF21 than previously. This may be a better method to produce rFGF21 for pharmaceutical research and development.

The article focuses on classic Philadelphia chromosome negative myeloproliferative neoplasms are a group of clonal stem cell diseases characterized by excessive proliferation of one or more differentiated myeloid lineages, including polycythaemia vera, essential thrombocytosis and primary myelofibrosis. Topics include the JH2 domain to lose its inhibitory effect on the C-terminal tyrosine kinase domain, and the studies on exons 13 and 15 near the mutation hotspots of JAK2 are limited.

Organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells have become one of the highly promising candidates for photovoltaic technologies because of their low processing cost, rapid-growing power conversion efficiency and easy preparation process. Electron transfer layer (ETL) plays an important role in exciton separation and charge transport for perovskite devices. A TiO2–ZnO binary mixed nanoparticle (NP) ETL, which can be prepared in low-temperature hydrothermal method, was proposed. By analyzing the XRD and SEM, the incorporation of mixed NPs thin film improved the interfacial stability of ZnO/perovskite and prevented the perovskite layer from being decomposed as compared to the pure ZnO NPs thin film. Furthermore, UV spectrum and EIS results show that TiO2–ZnO mixed NP ETL has high transmittance and maintains good electrical properties of pure ZnO NPs basically. Finally, the efficiency of perovskite device based on TiO2–ZnO mixed NP ETL was improved to 15%. Our research provides a simple way for the application of ZnO in PCSs. A TiO2–ZnO binary mixed NPs thin film was proposed as ETL for planar perovskite solar cells, which was fabricated by adding TiO2 NPs into ZnO NPs that were both synthesized by hydrothermal method in low temperature. The presence of TiO2 NPs could improve the electrical properties of ETL and stabilize the interface of ZnO/perovskite at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the immunophenotypic characteristics of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) and explore the sensitivity and specificity of various antibody combinations for the timely and accurate diagnosis APL. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed using morphological, immunological, genetic, and molecular biological data from 92 patients diagnosed with APL and 190 controls diagnosed with non‐APL acute myeloid leukemia. Results: For APL diagnosis, the CD9/CD11b/human leukocyte antigen (HLA)‐DR antibody combination had 85% sensitivity and 95% specificity, AUC = 0.85. However, the sensitivity and specificity were 39% and 92%, AUC = 0.65, respectively, for the HLA‐DR/CD34/CD117 combination, and 80% and 80%, AUC = 0.80, respectively for the CD11b/HLA‐DR combination. Significant differences were observed between the different antibody combinations. Conclusions: The CD9/CD11b/HLA‐DR antibody combination displays high sensitivity and specificity and can be used to diagnose APL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Joseph P Zackular; Jessica L Moore; Ashley T Jordan; Lillian J Juttukonda; Michael J Noto; Maribeth R Nicholson; Jonathan D Crews; Matthew W Semler; Yaofang Zhang; Lorraine B Ware; [...]

Hemophilia A (HA) is an X-linked bleeding disorder caused by heterogeneous mutations in the factor VIII gene (F8). Our aim is to identify the causative mutations in a large HA cohort from China. We studied 216 unrelated HA families. Molecular analyses of F8 were performed using a combination of molecular techniques, including polymerase chain reaction, direct sequencing, and multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification. The deleterious consequences of the unreported missense mutations were evaluated using various bioinformatics approaches. Causative mutations in F8 were identified in 209 families, intron 22 inversion (Inv22) was identified in 89 severe families, and intron 1 inversion (Inv1) was positive in 5 severe families; 95 mutations were detected among 115 noninversion families, of which 42 were novel, including 29 null variations and 13 missense mutations for which causality was demonstrated via bioinformatics. Among the 53 previously reported mutations, more nonsense (5 of 9) and missense (10 of 26) mutation sites were found to occur at Arginine (Arg) sites and multiple small deletions/insertions (5 of 10) located within the poly-A runs of the B domain. The majority of these sequence variants frequently recurred in the database. The odds ratios for the likelihood of developing inhibitors significantly increased in the presence of nonsense mutation. Our F8 defect spectrum was heterogeneous. Small deletions/insertions in the poly-A runs of the B domain and nonsense and missense mutations at Arg sites were identified as mutation hot spots. Nonsense mutation increased the risk of developing inhibitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]