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Membrane proteins are a widespread class of bio-macromolecules responsible for numerous vital biological processes and serve as therapeutic targets for a vast array of contemporary medications. For membrane protein isolation and purification, detergents have historically been used. Despite this, detergents frequently result in protein instability. Consequently, their application was limited. Recent detergent-free approaches have been invented. Among these, styrene-maleic acid lipid particle (SMALP), diisobutylene-maleic acid lipid particle (DIBMALP), and native cell membrane nanoparticle (NCMN) systems are the most prevalent. The NCMN system intends to create a library of membrane-active polymers suitable for high-resolution structure determination of membrane protein. Design, synthesis, characterization, and comparative application evaluations of three novel classes of NCMN polymers, NCMNP13- x , NCMNP21- x , and NCMNP21b- x , are presented in this article. Although each NCMN polymer can solubilize distinct model membrane proteins and retain native lipids in NCMN particles, only the NCMNP21b- x family produces lipid-protein particles with ideal buffer compatibility and high homogeneity suitable for single-particle cryo-EM analysis. NCMNP21b- x polymers that generate high-quality NCMN particles are particularly desirable for membrane protein structural biology., Competing Interests: Y. G. and T. K. H. T. are inventors of NCMNP13-x, NCMNP21-x and NCMNP21b-x polymers (Patent pending). Y. G. is the founder of NCMNtech LLC., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

A novel polysaccharide structure (PS-T80) was collected from Ophiocordyceps sobolifera biomass and characterized via a combination of chemical and spectral analyses. Employing high-performance gel permeation chromatography (HPGPC), the average molecular weight is proven to be 7.4 × 10 4 Da. Furthermore, a sugar composition analysis of the obtained polysaccharide suggests two main sugars, β-d-glucose and α-d-mannose, at a molar ratio of 2:1, respectively, in the backbone. The structure analysis unveils that PS-T80 is a mannoglucan, possessing the repeating unit of [→3)-β-d-Glcp-(1 → 3)-α-d-Manp-(1 → 3)-β-d-Glcp-(1→] n . Such a configuration could be considered a novel polysaccharide. Impressively, in vitro antioxidant tests revealed that PS-T80 has a promising antioxidant activity. These results demonstrate that the obtained PS is a potential bioactive material for biomedical applications., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

Today, the world's climate change is a growing problem, plant carbon sequestration is one of the effective ways to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gases, mostly carbon gases. Dicranopteris linearis (D. linearis), a common fern species in the tropic or subtropic ecoregions, has been recently recognized as a potential feedstock to produce highly porous biochar. This study aims to enhance the specific surface area (SSA) and pore volumes of biochars derived from the D. linearis by H 3 PO 4 activation and examine electrical properties of the activated biochars and their possible usage for the electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) electrode. The treated raw fern was activated with H 3 PO 4 85% by the three different mixing ratios 1:0, 1:1, and 1:3 (w/w) and then pyrolysis under N 2 flow maintained at 500 °C for 1 h. The performance as the electrode for an EDLC was evaluated in 1 mol L -1 H 2 SO 4 solution for the H 3 PO 4 -activated samples. The SSA and pore volumes were drastically increased after activation. The maximum SSA and pore volume were 1212 m 2  g -1 and 1.43 cm 3  g -1 , respectively for the biochar activated at 400 °C with a weight mixing ratio 1:3 (w/w) between the fern and H 3 PO 4 acid while these values of the biochar at 400 °C were 12 m 2  g -1 and 0.02 cm 3  g -1 , respectively. The biochar activated at 600 °C with the mixing ratio 1:1 (w/w) showed the maximum capacitance value, ca. 108 F g -1 at 1 mV s -1 . The activation using H 3 PO 4 showed a positive tendency to enhance electrochemical properties and it could be a premise toward a higher performance of EDLC from the D. linearis derived activated biochar.

Celastrus hindsii is a potential source of flavonoids with biological activities. This study aimed to develop an ultrasound-assisted technique for extracting flavonoids from leaves of C. hindsii . Response surface methodology was employed to optimize the extraction conditions for maximizing the total flavonoid content (TFC). A maximum TFC of 23.6 mg QE/g was obtained under the extraction conditions of ultrasonic power of 130 W, extraction temperature of 40°C, extraction time of 29 min, and ethanol concentration of 65%. The flavonoid-rich extracts were then studied for their antioxidant and anticancer activities. The results showed that the C. hindsii leaf extract exhibited potent radical scavenging activities against DPPH (IC 50 of 164.85  μ g/mL) and ABTS (IC 50 of 89.05  μ g/mL). The extract also significantly inhibited the growth of 3 cancer cell lines MCF7, A549, and HeLa with the IC 50 values of 88.1  μ g/mL, 120.4  μ g/mL, and 118.4  μ g/mL, respectively. Notably, the extract had no cytotoxicity effect on HK2 normal kidney cell line. This study suggests that flavonoid-rich extract is a promising antioxidant and anticancer agent and that ultrasound-assisted extraction is an efficient method for extracting flavonoids from C. hindsii leaves., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Dinh-Chuong Pham et al.)

This work consists of the adaptation of a non-additive hard sphere theory inspired by Malakhov and Volkov [Polym. Sci., Ser. A 49(6), 745-756 (2007)] to a square-well chain. Using the thermodynamic perturbation theory, an additional term is proposed that describes the effect of perturbing the chain of square well spheres by a non-additive parameter. In order to validate this development, NPT Monte Carlo simulations of thermodynamic and structural properties of the non-additive square well for a pure chain and a binary mixture of chains are performed. Good agreements are observed between the compressibility factors originating from the theory and those from molecular simulations.

Despite of much effort and significant progress in recent years, speckle removal is still a challenge for laser projection technology. In this paper, speckle reduction by dynamic deformable mirror was investigated. Time varying independent speckle patterns were generated due to the angle diversity introduced by the dynamic mirror, and these speckle patterns were averaged out by the camera or human eyes, thus reducing speckle contrast in the final image. The speckle reduction by the wavelength diversity of the lasers was also studied. Both broadband lasers and narrowband laser were used for experiment. It is experimentally shown that speckle suppression can be attained by the widening of the spectrum of the lasers. Lower speckle contrast reduction was attained by the wavelength diversity for narrowband laser compared to the broadband lasers. This method of speckle reduction is suitable in laser projectors for wide screen applications where high power laser illumination is needed.