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Abstract: A rhodamine-azacrown derivative (2-(2-(1,4-dioxa-7,13-dithia-10-azacyclo- pentadecan-10-yl)ethyl)-3′,6′-bis(diethyl amino)spiro[isoindoline-1,9′-xanthen]-3-one) responded to Al3+ and Fe3+ in ethanol–water solutions (20/80, v/v, pH = 7.0) and selectively responded to Al3+ in acetonitrile. In addition, it bound to the cation with a simple 1:1 mode in aqueous solutions and 2:1 mode in acetonitrile. The association constants (logKa) of the sensor for Fe3+ and Al3+ were obtained to be 6.5 and 3.6 in ethanol–water, and the corresponding detection limits were calculated to be 1.2 and 8.6 × 10−8 M, respectively, while the association constant (logKa) for Al3+ was 3.9 with a detection limit of 5.9 × 10−7 M in acetonitrile under our experimental conditions. Nuclear magnetic resonance and other investigations indicated that in acetonitrile the existence of the second Al3+ shifted the binding location of the first Al3+, which led to the spirolactam ring-open and fluorescence formation. The mechanisms for the sensor to Al3+ and Fe3+ in different solvents are discussed in detail. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the causative agent of African swine fever (ASF) which reaches up to 100% case fatality in domestic pigs and wild boar and causes significant economic losses in the swine industry. Lack of knowledge of the function of ASFV genes is a serious impediment to the development of the safe and effective vaccine. Herein, I267L was identified as a relative conserved gene and an early expressed gene. A recombinant virus (SY18ΔI267L) with I267L gene deletion was produced by replacing I267L of the virulent ASFV SY18 with enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) cassette. The replication kinetics of SY18ΔI267L is similar to that of the parental isolate in vitro. Moreover, the doses of 102.0 TCID50 (n = 5) and 105.0 TCID50 (n = 5) SY18ΔI267L caused virulent phenotype, severe clinical signs, viremia, high viral load, and mortality in domestic pigs inoculated intramuscularly as the virulent parental virus strain. Therefore, the deletion of I267L does not affect the replication or the virulence of ASFV. Utilizing the fluorescent-tagged virulence deletant can be easy to gain a visual result in related research such as the inactivation effect of some drugs, disinfectants, extracts, etc. on ASFV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electron transporting layer (ETL) used in high performance inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs) is typically composed of C60, which requires time‐consuming and costly thermal evaporation deposition, posing a significant challenge for large‐scale production. To address this challenge, herein, we present a novel design of solution‐processible electron transporting material (ETM) by grafting a non‐fullerene acceptor fragment onto C60. The synthesized BTPC60 exhibits an exceptional solution processability and well‐organized molecular stacking pattern, enabling the formation of uniform and structurally ordered film with high electron mobility. When applied as ETL in inverted PSCs, BTPC60 not only exhibits excellent interfacial contact with the perovskite layer, resulting in enhanced electron extraction and transfer efficiency, but also effectively passivates the interfacial defects to suppress non‐radiative recombination. Resultant BTPC60‐based inverted PSCs deliver an impressive power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 25.3 % and retain almost 90 % of the initial values after aging at 85 °C for 1500 hours in N2. More encouragingly, the solution‐processed BTPC60 ETL demonstrates remarkable film thickness tolerance, and enables a high PCE up to 24.8 % with the ETL thickness of 200 nm. Our results highlight BTPC60 as a promising solution‐processed fullerene‐based ETM, opening an avenue for improving the scalability of efficient and stable inverted PSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inorganic nickel oxide (NiO x ) is an ideal hole transport material (HTM) for the fabrication of high-efficiency, stable, and large-area perovskite photovoltaic devices because of its low cost, stability, and ease of solution processing. However, it delivers low power conversion efficiency (PCE) in tin perovskite solar cells (TPSCs) compared to other organic HTMs. Here, the origin of hole transport barriers at the perovskite-NiO x interface is identified and a self-assembled monolayer interface modification is developed, through introducing (4-(7H-dibenzo[c,g]carbazol-7-yl)ethyl)phosphonic acid (2PADBC) into the perovskite-NiO x interface. The 2PADBC anchors undercoordinated Ni cations through phosphonic acid groups, suppressing the reaction of highly active Ni ≥3+ defects with perovskites, while increasing the electron density and oxidation activation energy of Sn at the perovskite interface, reducing the interface nonradiative recombination caused by tetravalent Sn defects. The devices deliver significantly increased open-circuit voltage from 0.712 to 0.825 V, boosting the PCE to 14.19% for the small-area device and 12.05% for the large-area (1 cm 2 ) device. In addition, the 2PADBC modification enhances the operational stability of NiO x -based TPSCs, maintaining more than 93% of their initial efficiency after 1000 h., (© 2023 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

P-i-n geometry perovskite solar cells (PSCs) offer simplified fabrication, greater amenability to charge extraction layers, and low-temperature processing over n-i-p counterparts. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) can enhance the performance of p-i-n PSCs but ultrathin SAMs can be thermally unstable. We report a thermally robust hole-selective layer comprised of nickel oxide (NiO x ) nanoparticle film with a surface-anchored (4-(3,11-dimethoxy-7H-dibenzo[c,g]carbazol-7-yl)butyl)phosphonic acid (MeO-4PADBC) SAM that can improve and stabilize the NiO x /perovskite interface. The energetic alignment and favorable contact and binding between NiO x /MeO-4PADBC and perovskite reduced the voltage deficit of PSCs with various perovskite compositions and led to strong interface toughening effects under thermal stress. The resulting 1.53-electron-volt devices achieved 25.6% certified power conversion efficiency and maintained >90% of their initial efficiency after continuously operating at 65 degrees Celsius for 1200 hours under 1-sun illumination.

Perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) have drawn great attention due to their high processability and superior photovoltaic properties. However, their further development is often hindered by severe nonradiative recombination at interfaces that decreases power conversion efficiency (PCE). To this end, a facile strategy to construct a 3D/2D vertical heterostructure to reduce the energy loss in PVSCs is developed. The heterostructure is contrived through the van der Waals integration of 2D perovskite ((BA) 4 AgBiBr 8 ) nanosheets onto the surface of 3D-FAPbI 3 -based perovskites. The large bandgap of (BA) 4 AgBiBr 8 enables the formation of type-I heterojunction with 3D-FAPbI 3 -based perovskites, which serves as a barrier to suppress the trap-assisted recombination at the interface. As a result, a satisfying PCE of 24.48% is achieved with an improved open-circuit voltage (V OC ) from 1.13 to 1.17 V. Moreover, the 2D perovskite nanosheets can effectively mitigate the iodide ion diffusion from perovskite to the metal electrode, hence enhancing the device stability. 3D/2D architectured devices retain ≈90% of their initial PCE under continuous illumination or heating after 1000 h, which are superior to 3D-based devices. This work provides an effective and controllable strategy to construct 3D/2D vertical heterostructure to simultaneously boost the efficiency and stability of PVSCs., (© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

The spatial distribution and composition of microplastics in near-surface water (8 m) was investigated from the East Asian Seas to the Arctic Central Basin. Microplastics were detected in 93.9% of the sampling sites. Abundances ranged from 0.48 to 7.62 items/m 3 , with an average abundance of 2.91 ± 1.93 items/m 3 . The highest average abundance was observed in the Arctic Central Basin. Polyester (PET) was the dominant type, accounting for 71.3% of total microplastics, followed by rayon or cellophane and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Microplastics < 2 mm accounted for 81.9% of total particles. Its distribution peaked in the 1-2 mm size range. The 0.30-2 mm fibers were the most abundant. In the East Asian Seas, the abundance was significantly negatively correlated with longitude, whereas the accumulation of microplastics was not observed in the northeastern sector of Japan Sea. Abundances of microplastics at sites located in the sub-Arctic and Arctic Oceans showed a significant positive relationship with latitude, indicating that the Arctic Ocean is a potential accumulation zone of microplastics. The findings of this study will provide systematical insights into distribution of microplastics and basic information for understanding the accumulation mechanism of microplastics in near-surface waters from the East Asian Seas to the Arctic Central Basin., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest No conflict of the interest exits in the submission of this revised manuscript, and manuscript is approved by all the authors for publication. This article is our original work, hasn't received prior publication and isn't under consideration for publication elsewhere., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is one of the most contagious and lethal viruses infecting pigs. This virus is endemic in many countries and has very recently spread to China, but no licensed vaccines or treatments are currently available. Despite extensive research, the basic question of how ASFV-encoded proteins inhibit host translation remains. Here, we examined how ASFV interfered with host translation and optimized viral gene expression. We found that 14 ASFV proteins inhibited Renilla luciferase (Rluc) activity greater than 5-fold, and the protein with the strongest inhibitory effect was pE66L, which was not previously reported. Combined with bioinformatical analysis and biochemical experiment, we determined that the transmembrane (TM) domain (amino acids 13-34) of pE66L was required for the inhibition of host gene expression. Notably, we constructed a recombinant plasmid with the TM domain linked to enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and further demonstrated that this domain broadly inhibited protein synthesis. Confocal and biochemical analyses indicated that the TM domain might help proteins locate to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to suppress translation though the PKR/eIF2α pathway. Deletion of the E66L gene had little effect on virus replication in macrophages, but significantly recovered host gene expression. Taken together, our findings complement studies on the host translation of ASFV proteins and suggest that ASFV pE66L induces host translation shutoff, which is dependent on activation of the PKR/eIF2α pathway. Importance African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a member of the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA virus superfamily that predominantly replicates in the cytoplasm of infected cells. The ASFV double-stranded DNA genome varies in length from approximately 170 to 193 kbp depending on the isolate and contains between 150 and 167 open reading frames (ORFs), of which half the encoded proteins have not been explored. Our study showed that 14 proteins had an obvious inhibitory effect on Renilla luciferase (Rluc) gene synthesis, with pE66L showing the most significant effect. Furthermore, the transmembrane (TM) domain of pE66L broadly inhibited host protein synthesis in a PKR/eIF2a pathway-dependent manner. Loss of pE66L during ASFV infection had little effect on virus replication, but significantly recovered host protein synthetic. Based on the above results, our findings expand our view of ASFV in determining the fate of host-pathogen interactions., (Copyright © 2020 American Society for Microbiology.)

As an emerging marine environmental issue, marine plastic debris pollution has attracted worldwide attention. Studies have covered more and more areas of the world's oceans. To further understand the sources and variation of marine plastic debris in the surface water of the Bohai Sea, in this study, plastic debris was collected during the four seasons of 2016-2017. The results showed the mean density of plastic debris over these seasons was 0.49 ± 0.18 particles/m 3 . Macro-, meso-, and micro- plastics accounted for 5%, 26%, and 69% of the total number of plastic debris, respectively. The density of the microplastics was 0.35 ± 0.13 particles/m 3 . The highest density was found in spring, followed by summer and winter, and the lowest in autumn. High distribution densities were observed in the Liaodong Bay and the Bohai Strait, which were attributed to the dynamics of the rim current, terrain, and fishery activities. CAPSULE ABSTRACT: Riverine input, dynamics of the rim current, terrain, and fishery activities contribute to the variations in marine plastic debris in the surface water of the Bohai Sea., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

A major challenge for organic solar cell (OSC) research is how to minimize the tradeoff between voltage loss and charge generation. In early 2019, we reported a non-fullerene acceptor (named Y6) that can simultaneously achieve high external quantum efficiency and low voltage loss for OSC. Here, we use a combination of experimental and theoretical modeling to reveal the structure-property-performance relationships of this state-of-the-art OSC system. We find that the distinctive π-π molecular packing of Y6 not only exists in molecular single crystals but also in thin films. Importantly, such molecular packing leads to (i) the formation of delocalized and emissive excitons that enable small non-radiative voltage loss, and (ii) delocalization of electron wavefunctions at donor/acceptor interfaces that significantly reduces the Coulomb attraction between interfacial electron-hole pairs. These properties are critical in enabling highly efficient charge generation in OSC systems with negligible donor-acceptor energy offset.

Large Li 2 O 2 aggregations can produce high-capacity of lithium oxygen (Li-O 2 ) batteries, but the larger ones usually lead to less-efficient contact between Li 2 O 2 and electrode materials. Herein, a hierarchical cathode architecture based on different discharge characteristics of α-MnO 2 and Co 3 O 4 is constructed, which can enable the embedded growth of large Li 2 O 2 aggregations to solve this problem. Through experimental observations and first-principle calculations, it is found that α-MnO 2 nanorod tends to form uniform Li 2 O 2 particles due to its preferential Li + adsorption and similar LiO 2 adsorption energies of different crystal faces, whereas Co 3 O 4 nanosheet tends to simultaneously generate Li 2 O 2 film and Li 2 O 2 nanosheets due to its preferential O 2 adsorption and different LiO 2 adsorption energies of varied crystal faces. Thus, the composite cathode architecture in which Co 3 O 4 nanosheets are grown on α-MnO 2 nanorods can exhibit extraordinary synergetic effects, i.e., α-MnO 2 nanorods provide the initial nucleation sites for Li 2 O 2 deposition while Co 3 O 4 nanosheets provide dissolved LiO 2 to promote the subsequent growth of Li 2 O 2 . Consequently, the composite cathode achieves the embedded growth of large Li 2 O 2 aggregations and thus exhibits significantly improved specific capacity, rate capability, and cyclic stability compared with the single metal oxide electrode.

The purpose of this study was to express the matrix protein of rabies virus in baculovirus expression system and prepare its polyclonal antibody. Using the total RNA of RABV strain BD06 as a template, RT-PCR technique was utilized to amplify the sequence of M gene, which were then inserted into shuttle vector pFastbac I to construct the recombinant vector pFastbac I-M. After identification using the double restriction endonuclease cleavage method, the recombinant vector pFastbac I-M were transformed into the competent E. coli DH10 Bac to construct the recombinant expression vector Bacmid-M, which were transfected into Sf9 cells mediated by lipofectamine 2000 to obtain the recombinant baculovirus AcMNPV-M. The mice anti-His monoclonal antibody, rabbit anti-RV positive serum and canine anti-RV positive serum were used in Western Blot assays to identify the expression and reactogenicity of the recombinant. The recombinant M protein were purified under denaturing conditions using the nickel iron affinity chromatography column, then used to immunize the New Zealand White rabbit to prepare its polyclonal antibody. Western Blot assay and FAVN assay were used to validate the polyclonal antibody. Our results showed that the M protein of RABV were successfully expressed in baculovirus expression system,of which molecular weight was of about 25kD;the recombinant M protein has a good reactogenicity and immunogenicity; the rabbit polyclonal antibody prepared by purification of M protein could react with the M protein of RABV strain BD06,SRV 9,CVS-24,ERA,PV2061 and aG. Undoubtedly, the successfully preparation of both recombinant M protein and its polyclonal antibody support a material foundation for further study on the properties of M protein of RABV.

Hepatitis C virus(HCV)infection is a global public health problem, primarily triggering acute and chronic liver hepatitis. Owing to the narrow host range, a suitable animal model is still lacking, hindering study of viral pathogenesis, immune control,and prophylactic vaccine development. There has no relevant evidence that homologs of HCV originating from the animal may have the potential to cross the species barrier to cause human disease until recently. Several agents discovered that new viruses related to HCV, including HCV and GBV-like viruses(belonging to the Hepacivirus and Pegivirus genera, respectively), in small wild mammals (e.g., rodents and bats)and domesticated animals(e.g., dogs, horses, and cattle). Genetic and biological characterization of these novel HCV-related viruses may provide novel insight into the origins, pathogenesis, and immune response to HCV infection in humans. In this review, we introduce the gene characteristics of HCV, concerned viruses, and many newly discovered viruses closely related to HCV-like viruses. The exploration of their natural reservoirs will be performed, and we then discuss possible theories regarding the origin of this important viral human pathogen.

Between March and August 2009, there was an outbreak of rabies in both humans and dogs in Hanzhong District, Shaanxi province, China. About 7300 humans were bitten by dogs and 20 died of rabies due to failure to perform postexposure prophylaxis. The local authorities therefore conducted a dog slaughter campaign. From a random selection of brains of dogs culled in the campaign, 0/27 tested positive for rabies virus by immunofluorescence. Of two dogs known to have bitten humans, one was shown to contain live rabies virus by immunofluorescence and mouse intracerebral inoculation. Serological studies during the outbreak revealed that only 1/27 dog was antibody positive: after a mass vaccination campaign, 20.8% seroconverted. Lack of canine vaccination was clearly the main reason for dog rabies spread and human infection. Phylogenetic analysis of a virus isolate showed that its genomic sequence was closely related to the clade 1 rabies strains widely circulating in China. The highest homology was found with the isolate circulating in Sichuan province, a neighboring province south of Shaanxi, indicating the spread of rabies from the south to the north.

The sequences of the cDNA variant lumbrokinase and the genomic DNA of beta-casein gene expression regulatory elements have been submitted to the GenBank(R), DDBJ, EMBL and GSDB Nucleotide Sequence Databases under the accession numbers AY327442C and AY311384 respectively. In order to identify whether the product of a genetically modified or newly isolated eukaryotic gene has biological activity, the gene of interest is usually subcloned into a mammalian expression vector and then expressed in an in vitro system such as in tissue culture. In the present study an efficient in vivo system has been developed by employing a mammary-gland-specific vector and expressing the targeted protein in the lactating-goat mammary glands. In this system, the synthesized lumbrokinase cDNA variant (LK-m) and the tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) cDNA were selected as genes of interest and cloned downstream of the goat beta-casein regulatory sequence. The LK-m- and tPA-expressing plasmids were prepared to high purity and portions (100-800 microg) injected into lactating-goat mammary-gland tissues. High-level expression of the LK-m and tPA was detected, by a fibrin-agarose plate assay, as fibrin-lysis activity. A dynamic study showed that the specific expression starts immediately after injection, generally reaches peak in 6-9 h, persists for 20-24 h at peak and the expression lasts for 4 days with gradual decline in the amounts expressed. The potential use of this system as bioreactor for the production of biological proteins in place of transgenic animals is implicated from this study.