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Objective To elucidate the mechanism of action of icariin to protect photoreceptor cells suffering from endoplasmic reticulum stress. Methods Thapsigargin(0. 2 μmol/L), was used to induce endoplasmic reticulum stress in the mouse cone cell line 661W. AlamarBlue staining was used to detect cell viability. The levels of proteins related to the unfolded protein response p-PERK,GRP78,CHOP were analyzed by Western blotting. The intracellular Ca2+ level was analyzed by fluorescence imaging and the F340/F380 ratio method. Permeability transition pore protein and the membrane potential in mitochondria were analyzed by fluorescence staining. The binding and interaction between icariin and SERCA2b were analyzed in vitro by molecular docking. Results Thapsigargin induced 661W cell death. Icariin significantly inhibited 661W cell death caused by thapsigargin in the concentration of 2. 22 - 20. 00 nmol/L (P < 0. 01). Thapsigargin induced the unfolded protein responses in 661W cells, significantly promoting the phosphorylation of PERK (Thr980) (P <0. 01) and increasing the protein levels of transcription factor CHOP (P <0. 01). Icariin (2. 0 μmol/L) significantly downregulated the expression of CHOP protein (P <0. 01) and had the trend of inhibitation of phosphorylation of PERK (Thr980). Within 10 minutes after thapsigargin acting on 661 W cells, the calcium ions in the cytosol increased. Icariin pretreatment (1. 0 μmol/L) inhibited an increase of intracellular calcium content. Thapsigargin induced the opening of mitochondrial permeability transition pores in 661W cells, which in turn caused a decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential. Icariin (2. 0 μmol/L) inhibited thapsigargin-induced mitochondrial permeability transition pore opening and mitochondrial membrane potential reduction. In vitro molecular docking analysis showed that icariin stably bound to the nucleotidebinding and phosphorylation domains of SERCA2b, with a binding energy of - 8. 776 kcal/mol and multiple hydrogen bonds. Conclusion Icariin partially antagonized the effect on the binding of thapsigargin and SERCA, which maintained Ca2+ homeostasis in cones, contributing to mitochondrial health. This may be one mechanism of action of icariin in cone cell protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the phase transitions process of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (2D‐TMDs) from semiconducting (2H) to metallic (1T, 1T′) phase provides directionality for the iteration of hydrogen evolution catalysis. So far, the phase engineering methods are intensively explored, serving as practical tools for discovering low‐cost novel nanomaterials for electronic and electrode devices in the realm of energy storage and catalysis. However, the heterostructures between 2H/1T, 2H/1T′, or 1T/1T′, functionalizing as critical active sites in the electrocatalytic process, are overlooked. Herein, a facile carbon doping paradigms, enabling augmentation of MoS2 phase transition, together with density functional theory calculations and rationales to explain the counterintuitive directionality of transitions is reported. The experiment and simulation results indicate that the existence of carbon as interstitial atoms is more favorable to the phase transition than the substitution atoms. The heterogeneous interfaces between 2H and 1T or 1T′ are more conducive to charge transfer. As expected, the trinary‐heterostructure nanofilm displays excellent electrocatalytic activities both in micro‐electrochemical measurements and conventional electrolytic cells. The results provide a fresh insight into the 2D‐TMDs phase transition mechanism and guide for trinary‐heterostructure electrocatalysts for scalable production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new phenylethanoid, hebitol IV (1), along with fifteen known glycosides (2-16), were isolated from water extract of the flower buds of Buddleja officinalis. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of 1 D-NMR, 2 D-NMR and MS data. Molecular docking showed the potential activities of the natural products against VEGFR-2. Bioassay results revealed that the compounds 10 and 14 exhibited strong inhibitory activity against VEGFR-2 with IC50 values of 0.51 and 0.32 μM, respectively. Moreover, the potential retinal protective effects of 10 and 14 were then investigated in the mouse model featuring bright light-induced retinal degeneration. The results demonstrated remarkable photoreceptor protective activities of 10 and 14in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) using renewably generated electricity under mild conditions is a promising and sustainable approach to convert CO2 to value-added chemicals. Cu and Cu alloys are considered to be potential catalysts for CO2 reduction among numerous catalysts. Unfortunately, the product selectivity and conversion efficiency during the CO2RR are severely limited by the unavoidable competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Here, we developed a facile deposition method based on magnetron co-sputtering to optimize the alloy composition of Cu. As a result, we found that CuAg electrode of Sn addition can effectively inhibit the HER during the CO2RR and improve the selectivity of CO, and the FE of CO can reach 93% at −0.85 V. The large lattice distortions and strain effect after Sn addition affect the electronic structure and further result in the downshift of the d-band center, which causes the Gibbs free energy of the formation of *H on the CuAgSn surface to increase dramatically. Although the formation energy barrier of *COOH doesn't decrease after Sn addition, the selectivity of CO is enhanced, owing to the selective suppression of the HER. This work provides an effective way to improve the CO2 reduction performance of binary alloys by adding a small amount of a third metallic element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metallic phase molybdenum disulfides exhibit impressive charge transfer ability and this has made them interesting candidates for use in the field of nano-science and heterogeneous catalysis. However, the synthesis of 100% pure bare 1T-MoS2 is difficult due to its kinetic instability. In the past, the phase transition mechanism from a semiconductor (2H) to a metallic (1T) phase has been explained only by theoretical calculations. Herein, we used magnetron sputtering to deposit a series of MoS2 films containing various metal heteroatoms as the dopants. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the single-doped Cu-MoS2, Au-MoS2, Ag-MoS2, and Al-MoS2 exhibited distinct phase transitions compared to Cr-MoS2, Hf-MoS2, Ta-MoS2, and Zr-MoS2, due to the introduction of additional charge. Furthermore, the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activities of the series of MoS2 films were explored, and the adsorption free energy of H atoms was evaluated by DFT calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid economic development and increasingly serious environmental problems, many regions have launched green credit policies. Green credit can reduce the loan interest rate of the environmental protection industry and lower the financing threshold. Traditional risk prediction methods cannot comprehensively evaluate the green credit risk of the enterprise based on the degree of green environmental protection and the industry environment in which the enterprise is located, resulting in the inconsistency between the credit financial risk prediction and the actual results, which increases the bank credit risk. In order to strengthen the management level of green credit and reduce the probability of non-performing loans, a scientific risk assessment method was constructed by using a combination of automatic encoding network and bidirectional long short-term memory neural network model to predict the financial risks of green credit, driven by multi-modal data. Through the study of multimodal data, this paper took green credit financial risk as the research object, aggregated the information of various enterprises to improve the bank’s capital utilization rate, and also promoted enterprises to take the initiative to transform into the direction of green environmental protection. Finally, the experiment proved that multimodal data fusion model was more superior than random forest in risk prediction, reducing the bank’s non-performing loan rate by 3.1% and improving the bank’s risk control level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]