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Developing heterogeneous photocatalysts for the applications in harsh conditions is of high importance but challenging. Herein, by converting the imine linkages into quinoline groups of triphenylamine incorporated covalent organic frameworks (COFs), two photosensitive COFs, namely TFPA-TAPT-COF-Q and TFPA-TPB-COF-Q, are successfully constructed. The obtained quinoline-linked COFs display improved stability and photocatalytic activity, making them suitable photocatalysts for photocatalytic reactions under harsh conditions, as verified by the recyclable photocatalytic reactions of organic acid involving oxidative decarboxylation and organic base involving benzylamine coupling. Under strong oxidative condition, the quinoline-linked COFs show a high efficiency up to 11831.6 μmol·g −1 ·h −1 and a long-term recyclable usability for photocatalytic production of H 2 O 2 , while the pristine imine-linked COFs are less catalytically active and easily decomposed in these harsh conditions. The results demonstrate that enhancing the linkage robustness of photoactive COFs is a promising strategy to construct heterogeneous catalysts for photocatalytic reactions under harsh conditions. The development of heterogeneous photocatalysts applicable under harsh conditions is challenging. Here the authors report the conversion of imine linkages into quinoline groups in triphenylamine incorporated photosensitive covalent organic frameworks to develop robust heterogeneous photocatalysts for photocatalytic applications in harsh conditions.

Drought stress is one of the major abiotic stress factors that affect plant growth and crop productivity. Tartary buckwheat is a nutritionally balanced and flavonoid-rich pseudocereal crop and also has strong adaptability to different adverse environments including drought. However, little is known about its drought tolerance mechanism. In this study, we performed comparative physiological and transcriptomic analyses of two contrasting drought-resistant Tartary buckwheat genotypes under nature drought treatment in the reproductive stage. Under drought stress, the drought-tolerant genotype XZSN had significantly higher contents of relative water, proline, and soluble sugar, as well as lower relative electrolyte leakage in the leaves than the drought-susceptible LK3. A total of 5,058 (2,165 upregulated and 2,893 downregulated) and 5,182 (2,358 upregulated and 2,824 downregulated) potential drought-responsive genes were identified in XZSN and LK3 by transcriptome sequencing analysis, respectively. Among the potential drought-responsive genes of XZSN, 1,206 and 1,274 genes were identified to be potential positive and negative contributors for XZSN having higher drought resistance ability than LK3. Furthermore, 851 out of 1,206 positive drought-resistant genes were further identified to be the core drought-resistant genes of XZSN based on WGCNA analysis, and most of them were induced earlier and quicker by drought stress than those in LK3. Functional annotation of the 851 core drought-resistant genes found that a large number of stress-responsive genes were involved in TFs, abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis, signal transduction and response, non-ABA signal molecule biosynthesis, water holding, oxygen species scavenging, osmotic adjustment, cell damage prevention, and so on. Transcriptional regulatory network analyses identified the potential regulators of these drought-resistant functional genes and found that the HD-ZIP and MYB TFs might be the key downstream TFs of drought resistance in Tartary buckwheat. Taken together, these results indicated that the XZSN genotype was more drought-tolerant than the LK3 genotype as evidenced by triggering the rapid and dramatic transcriptional reprogramming of drought-resistant genes to reduce water loss, prevent cell damage, and so on. This research expands our current understanding of the drought tolerance mechanisms of Tartary buckwheat and provides important information for its further drought resistance research and variety breeding.

The significance of hypoxia at the maternal–fetal interface is proven to be self-explanatory in the context of pregnancy. During the first trimester, low oxygen conditions play a crucial role in processes such as angiogenesis, trophoblast invasion and differentiation, and immune regulation. Recently, there has been increasing research on decidual macrophages, which contribute to the maintenance of immune tolerance, placental and fetal vascular development, and spiral artery remodeling, to investigate the effects of hypoxia on their biological behaviors. On these grounds, this review describes the dynamic changes in oxygen levels at the maternal–fetal interface throughout gestation, summarizing current knowledge on how the hypoxic environment sustains a successful pregnancy by regulating retention, differentiation and efferocytosis of decidual macrophages. Additionally, we explore the relationship between spontaneous miscarriages and an abnormal hypoxia–macrophage axis, shedding light on the underlying mechanisms. However, further studies are essential to elucidate these pathways in greater detail and to develop targeted interventions that could improve pregnancy outcomes.

Background Ribosome engineering is a semi-empirical technique used to select antibiotic-resistant mutants that exhibit altered secondary metabolism. This method has been demonstrated to effectively select mutants with enhanced synthesis of natural products in many bacterial species, including actinomycetes. Myxobacteria are recognized as fascinating producers of natural active products. However, it remains uncertain whether this technique is similarly effective in myxobacteria, especially for the heterologous production of epothilones in Myxococcus xanthus . Results Antibiotics that target the ribosome and RNA polymerase (RNAP) were evaluated for ribosome engineering of the epothilone-producing strain M. xanthus ZE9. The production of epothilone was dramatically altered in different resistant mutants. We screened the mutants resistant to neomycin and rifampicin and found that the yield of epothilones in the resistant mutant ZE9N-R22 was improved by sixfold compared to that of ZE9. Our findings indicate that the improved growth of the mutants, the upregulation of epothilone biosynthetic genes, and specific mutations identified through genome re-sequencing may collectively contribute to the yield improvement. Ultimately, the total titer of epothilones achieved in a 10 L bioreactor reached 93.4 mg/L. Conclusions Ribosome engineering is an efficient approach to obtain M. xanthus strains with enhanced production of epothilones through various interference mechanisms. Here, we discuss the potential mechanisms of the semi-empirical method.

The chromosomal position effect can significantly affect the transgene expression, which may provide an efficient strategy for the inauguration of alien genes in new hosts, but has been less explored rationally. The bacterium Myxococcus xanthus harbors a large circular high-GC genome, and the position effect in this chassis may result in a thousand-fold expression variation of alien natural products. In this study, we conducted transposon insertion at TA sites on the M. xanthus genome, and used enrichment and dilution indexes to respectively appraise high and low expression potentials of alien genes at insertion sites. The enrichment sites are characteristically distributed along the genome, and the dilution sites are overlapped well with the horizontal transfer genes. We experimentally demonstrated the enrichment sites as high expression integration sites (HEISs), and the dilution sites unsuitable for gene integration expression. This work highlights that HEISs are the plug-and-play sites for efficient expression of integrated genes. [Display omitted] •The global chromosomal position effects in Myxococcus xanthus chassis are determinated using the Tn-seq technique.•Insertion index is developed for the evaluation of the positive and negative position effects.•High expression integration sites (HEISs) are identified for the plug-and-play application.

Background Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is a rare but the most aggressive type of thyroid carcinoma. Nevertheless, limited advances were made to reduce mortality and improve survival over the last decades. Therefore, identifying novel diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for ATC patients is still needed. Materials and methods RNA sequencing data and corresponding clinical features were available from GEO and TCGA databases. We integrated WGCNA and PPI network analysis to identify hub genes associated with ATC development, and RT-qPCR was employed for data verification. Univariate and LASSO Cox regression analyses were used to generate prognostic signatures. Results Based on PPI and WGCNA, 6 hub genes were identified, namely KIF2C, PBK, TOP2A, CDK1, KIF20A, and ASPM, which play vital roles in ATC development. Subsequently, RT-qPCR experiments showed that most of these genes were significantly upregulated in CAL-62 cells compared to Nthy-ori 3–1 cells. Moreover, a prognostic signature featuring GPSM2, FGF5, ASXL3, CYP4B1, CLMP, and DUXAP9 was generated, which was also verified by RT-qPCR results and proved as an independent predictor of poorer prognosis of ATC. Additionally, a nomogram incorporating the risk score and clinicopathological parameters was further constructed for accurate prediction of 1-, 3- and 5-year survival probabilities of ATC. Conclusions Our study identified 6 key genes critical to ATC development and constructed a prognostic signature. These findings provide reliable biomarkers and a relatively comprehensive tumorigenesis profile of ATC, which may inform future strategies for clinical diagnosis and pharmaceutical design.

Multiple objective function with beamforming techniques by algorithms have been studied for the Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT) technology at millimeter wave. Using the feed length to adjust the phase for different objects of SWIPT with Bit Error Rate (BER) and Harvesting Power (HP) are investigated in the broadband communication. Symmetrical antenna array is useful for omni bearing beamforming adjustment with multiple receivers. Self-Adaptive Dynamic Differential Evolution (SADDE) and Asynchronous Particle Swarm Optimization (APSO) are used to optimize the feed length of the antenna array. Two different object functions are proposed in the paper. The first one is the weighting factor multiplying the constraint BER and HP plus HP. The second one is the constraint BER multiplying HP. Simulations show that the first object function is capable of optimizing the total harvesting power under the BER constraint and APSO can quickly converges quicker than SADDE. However, the weighting for the final object function requires a pretest in advance, whereas the second object function does not need to set the weighting case by case and the searching is more efficient than the first one. From the numerical results, the proposed criterion can achieve the SWIPT requirement. Thus, we can use the novel proposed criterion (the second criterion) to optimize the SWIPT problem without testing the weighting case by case.

We developed a novel cement evaluation logging tool, named the azimuthally acoustic bond tool (AABT), which uses a phased-arc array transmitter with azimuthal detection capability. We combined numerical simulations and field tests to verify the AABT tool. The numerical simulation results showed that the radiation direction of the subarray corresponding to the maximum amplitude of the first arrival matches the azimuth of the channeling when it is behind the casing. With larger channeling size in the circumferential direction, the amplitude difference of the casing wave at different azimuths becomes more evident. The test results showed that the AABT can accurately locate the casing collars and evaluate the cement bond quality with azimuthal resolution at the casing—cement interface, and can visualize the size, depth, and azimuth of channeling. In the case of good casing—cement bonding, the AABT can further evaluate the cement bond quality at the cement—formation interface with azimuthal resolution by using the amplitude map and the velocity of the formation wave.

Mechanofluorochromic materials that render sensitive fluorescence color/pattern change upon mechanical stimuli have drawn extensive attention. However, traditional mechanofluorochromism relies on the chemical transformations of mechanophores, but their types are quite few. It remains challenging to develop mechanofluorochromic materials with customized fluorescence color changing response. Herein, a generally applicable strategy is proposed to present a class of double-layer mechanofluorochromic hydrogels based on the facile integration of two different-colored fluorescent hydrogels. Due to the UV transmittance change of top layer under Poisson’s effect, the emission intensity ratio of the upper and lower hydrogels exhibits a strain-dependent change, resulting in a force-triggered overlapping color variation. Both the UV transmittance of top layer and the fluorescence emission of bottom layer can be readily modulated to enrich the variety of mechanofluorochromism. Besides, the bottom layer is available to be printed by ion inks to fabricate patterned double-layer fluorescent hydrogel, holding great potential to design flexible mechanofluorochromic platforms for smart display and information encryption.