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Viruses regulate host metabolic networks to improve their survival. The molecules that are responsive to viral infection and regulate such metabolic changes are hardly known, but are essential for understanding viral infection. Here we identify a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) that is induced by multiple viruses, but not by type I interferon (IFN-I), and facilitates viral replication in mouse and human cells. In vivo deficiency of lncRNA-ACOD1 (a lncRNA identified by its nearest coding gene Acod1, aconitate decarboxylase 1) significantly attenuates viral infection through IFN-I–IRF3 (interferon regulatory factor 3)–independent pathways. Cytoplasmic lncRNA-ACOD1 directly binds the metabolic enzyme glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT2) near the substrate niche, enhancing its catalytic activity. Recombinant GOT2 protein and its metabolites could rescue viral replication upon lncRNA-ACOD1 deficiency and increase lethality. This work reveals a feedback mechanism of virus-induced lncRNA-mediated metabolic promotion of viral infection and a potential target for developing broad-acting antiviral therapeutics.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been used in cell-based therapy for various diseases, due to their immunomodulatory and inflammatory effects. However, the function of MSCs is known to decline with age, a process that is called senescence. To date, the process of MSC senescence remains unknown as in-depth understanding of the mechanisms involved in cellular senescence is lacking. First, senescent MSCs are so heterogeneous that not all of them express the same phenotypic markers. In addition, the genes and signaling pathways which regulate this process in MSCs are still unknown. Thus, an understanding of the molecular processes controlling MSC senescence is crucial to determining the drivers and effectors of age-associated MSC dysfunction. Moreover, the proper use of MSCs for clinical application requires a general understanding of the MSC aging process. Furthermore, such knowledge is essential for the development of therapeutic interventions that can slow or reverse age-related degenerative changes to enhance repair processes and maintain healthy function in aging tissues. To further clarify the properties of senescent cells, as well as to present significant findings from studies on the mechanisms of cellular aging, we summarize these biological features in the senescence of MSCs in this scenario. This review summarizes recent advances in our understanding of the markers and differentiation potential indicating MSC senescence, as well as factors affecting MSC senescence with particular emphasis on the roles of oxidative stress, intrinsic changes in telomere shortening, histone deacetylase and DNA methyltransferase, genes and signaling pathways and immunological properties.

Protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) are more suitable for operation at low temperatures due to their smaller activation energy ( E a ). Unfortunately, the utilization of PCFC technology at reduced temperatures is limited by the lack of durable and high-activity air electrodes. A lot number of cobalt-based oxides have been developed as air electrodes for PCFCs, due to their high oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity. However, cobalt-based oxides usually have more significant thermal expansion coefficients (TECs) and poor thermomechanical compatibility with electrolytes. These characteristics can lead to cell delamination and degradation. Herein, we rationally design a novel cobalt-containing composite cathode material with the nominal composition of Sr 4 Fe 4 Co 2 O 13+ δ (SFC). SFC is composed of tetragonal perovskite phase (Sr 8 Fe 8 O 23+ δ , I 4/ mmm , 81 wt.%) and spinel phase (Co 3 O 4 , Fd 3̄ m , 19 wt.%). The SFC composite cathode displays an ultra-high oxygen ionic conductivity (0.053 S·cm −1 at 550 °C), superior CO 2 tolerance, and suitable TEC value (17.01 × 10 −6 K −1 ). SFC has both the O 2− /e − conduction function, and the triple conducting (H + /O 2− /e − ) capability was achieved by introducing the protonic conduction phase (BaZr 0.2 Ce 0.7 Y 0.1 O 3− δ , BZCY) to form SFC+BZCY (70 wt.%:30 wt.%). The SFC+BZCY composite electrode exhibits superior ORR activity at a reduced temperature with extremely low area-specific resistance (ASR, 0.677 Ω·cm 2 at 550 °C), profound peak power density (PPD, 535 mW·cm −2 and 1.065 V at 550 °C), extraordinarily long-term durability (> 500 h for symmetrical cell and 350 h for single cell). Moreover, the composite has an ultra-low TEC value (15.96 × 10 −6 K −1 ). This study proves that SFC+BZCY with triple conducting capacity is an excellent cathode for low-temperature PCFCs.

Manipulating the insulator–metal transition in strongly correlated materials has attracted a broad range of research activity due to its promising applications in, for example, memories, electrochromic windows and optical modulators 1 , 2 . Electric-field-controlled hydrogenation using ionic liquids 3 – 6 and solid electrolytes 7 – 9 is a useful strategy to obtain the insulator–metal transition with corresponding electron filling, but faces technical challenges for miniaturization due to the complicated device architecture. Here we demonstrate reversible electric-field control of nanoscale hydrogenation into VO 2 with a tunable insulator–metal transition using a scanning probe. The Pt-coated probe serves as an efficient catalyst to split hydrogen molecules, while the positive-biased voltage accelerates hydrogen ions between the tip and sample surface to facilitate their incorporation, leading to non-volatile transformation from insulating VO 2 into conducting H x VO 2 . Remarkably, a negative-biased voltage triggers dehydrogenation to restore the insulating VO 2 . This work demonstrates a local and reversible electric-field-controlled insulator–metal transition through hydrogen evolution and presents a versatile pathway to exploit multiple functional devices at the nanoscale. The authors realize local and reversible hydrogenation of VO 2 using a Pt-coated scanning probe microscope tip and forming gas.

The rise of rural e-commerce, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has driven agricultural development, resulting in a dual-channel model that combines offline supermarket docking with online e-commerce direct sales. Furthermore, given the perishable nature of most agricultural products, consumers exhibit a preference for high-quality logistics services. This paper analyses the dynamics of the agricultural supply chain, beginning with the “leading enterprises + farmers” production mode, and establishes two optimal decision-making models for online and offline dual-channel agricultural supply chains, incorporating logistics service levels. The first model considers centralised decision-making, where leading agricultural producers and community superstores make decisions simultaneously, aiming to maximise the overall profit of the supply chain. The second model addresses decentralised decision-making in which the producer, as the dominant player in a Stackelberg game, anticipates the reactions of retailers and sets the wholesale price, online sales price, and online logistics service level accordingly. Retailers, as followers, then determine the offline sales price and offline logistics service level based on the producer’s decisions. Finally, we conduct a sensitivity analysis of the proposed models. Our findings reveal that as consumer focus on logistics service levels increases, the overall profit of the supply chain improves, and as the unit logistics cost corresponding to the level of logistics service increases, the marginal benefits of decreasing profit brought about by the increase in unit logistics cost also decrease.

Ionic substitution forms an essential pathway to manipulate the structural phase, carrier density and crystalline symmetry of materials via ion-electron-lattice coupling, leading to a rich spectrum of electronic states in strongly correlated systems. Using the ferromagnetic metal SrRuO 3 as a model system, we demonstrate an efficient and reversible control of both structural and electronic phase transformations through the electric-field controlled proton evolution with ionic liquid gating. The insertion of protons results in a large structural expansion and increased carrier density, leading to an exotic ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase transition. Importantly, we reveal a novel protonated compound of HSrRuO 3 with paramagnetic metallic as ground state. We observe a topological Hall effect at the boundary of the phase transition due to the proton concentration gradient across the film-depth. We envision that electric-field controlled protonation opens up a pathway to explore novel electronic states and material functionalities in protonated material systems. Ionic substitution is a useful way to manipulate structural, electronic, magnetic phase transitions in strongly correlated materials. Here, the authors report electric-field controlled protonation in SrRuO 3 , resulting in a large structural expansion and a ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic phase transition.

The rise of twistronics has increased the attention of the community to the twist-angle-dependent properties of two-dimensional van der Waals integrated architectures. Clarification of the relationship between twist angles and interlayer mechanical interactions is important in benefiting the design of two-dimensional twisted structures. However, current mechanical methods have critical limitations in quantitatively probing the twist-angle dependence of two-dimensional interlayer interactions in monolayer limits. Here we report a nanoindentation-based technique and a shearing-boundary model to determine the interlayer mechanical interactions of twisted bilayer MoS 2 . Both in-plane elastic moduli and interlayer shear stress are found to be independent of the twist angle, which is attributed to the long-range interaction of intermolecular van der Waals forces that homogenously spread over the interfaces of MoS 2 . Our work provides a universal approach to determining the interlayer shear stress and deepens the understanding of twist-angle-dependent behaviours of two-dimensional layered materials. The study of the mechanical properties of twisted van der Waals structures can provide important information about their interlayer coupling and electronic behaviour. Here, the authors report a nanoindentation-based technique to determine the interlayer shear stress in bilayer MoS2, showing its independence as a function of the twist angle.

Renal fibrosis is a common consequence of various progressive nephropathies, including obstructive nephropathy, and ultimately leads to kidney failure. Infiltration of inflammatory cells is a prominent feature of renal injury after draining blockages from the kidney, and correlates closely with the development of renal fibrosis. However, the underlying molecular mechanism behind the promotion of renal fibrosis by inflammatory cells remains unclear. Herein, we showed that unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) induced Gasdermin D (GSDMD) activation in neutrophils, abundant neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) formation and macrophage-to-myofibroblast transition (MMT) characterized by α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) expression in macrophages. Gsdmd deletion significantly reduced infiltration of inflammatory cells in the kidneys and inhibited NETs formation, MMT and thereby renal fibrosis. Chimera studies confirmed that Gsdmd deletion in bone marrow-derived cells, instead of renal parenchymal cells, provided protection against renal fibrosis. Further, specific deletion of Gsdmd in neutrophils instead of macrophages protected the kidney from undergoing fibrosis after UUO. Single-cell RNA sequencing identified robust crosstalk between neutrophils and macrophages. In vitro, GSDMD-dependent NETs triggered p65 translocation to the nucleus, which boosted the production of inflammatory cytokines and α-SMA expression in macrophages by activating TGF-β1/Smad pathway. In addition, we demonstrated that caspase-11, that could cleave GSDMD, was required for NETs formation and renal fibrosis after UUO. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that caspase-11/GSDMD-dependent NETs promote renal fibrosis by facilitating inflammation and MMT, therefore highlighting the role and mechanisms of NETs in renal fibrosis.

Purpose Glial fibrillary acidic protein astrocytopathy (GFAP-A) is a form of autoimmune encephalitis (AE) that commonly affects the central nervous system (CNS). The pathogenesis of GFAP-A remains unclear, with infection proposed as a potential trigger, often leading to a misdiagnosis as meningoencephalitis due to overlapping clinical manifestations. This study aims to reports a case of GFAP-A associated with Enterococcus faecium infection, summarize the clinical characteristics, treatment details, and prognostic outcomes of GFAP-IgG-positive patients with concurrent infections, and provide evidence for optimizing clinical diagnosis and treatment strategies. Methods We report a detailed case of an 81-year-old male GFAP-A patient with an E. faecium infection, with primary manifestations of drowsiness and seizures. We also retrospectively analyzed 4 additional GFAP-A patients with confirmed infections from our institution (2022–2024) and systematically reviewed 20 eligible cases from the literature (2016–2024). The inclusion criteria were: (1) GFAP-IgG positivity in CSF/ serum, (2) definitive evidence of infection, (3) complete clinical, imaging, treatment, prognostic and laboratory data available. Results A total of 25 patients (19 males, 6 females; median age 45 years, range 12–81 years) were included. The most common initial symptoms were fever (80%, 20/25) and headache (76%, 19/25), followed by altered consciousness (76%, 19/25), urinary dysfunction (68%, 17/25), weakness (56%, 14/25), ataxia (44%, 11/25), blurred vision (40%,10/25), neuropsychiatric abnormalities (40%, 10/25), seizures (36%, 9/25), respiratory dysfunction (32%, 8/25), and positive meningeal signs (8%, 2/25). Brain MRI was abnormal in 75% (18/24) of patients, with T2-FLAIR hyperintensity (42%, 10/24) being the most common finding, and classic periventricular enhancement in 12.5% (3/24). All patients were GFAP-IgG-positive in CSF, and 52% (13/25) were positive in serum. Treatment included anti-infective therapy (all 25 cases) plus immunotherapy (21/25 cases: intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) in 16, corticosteroids in 12, plasma exchange (PE) in 4, protein A immunoadsorption (PAIA) in 1). Prognostic outcomes: 10 patients (40%) achieved complete recovery, 11 (44%) had residual sequelae (urinary dysfunction in 5, cognitive impairment in 3, motor weakness in 2, behavioral abnormalities in 1), and 4 (16%) had unknown prognosis. The index case showed significant recovery after combined anti-infective (piperacillin-tazobactam + linezolid) and IVIG, with modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score improving from 5 to 2 at 1-month follow-up. Conclusion Infection is a potential trigger for GFAP-A, and differentiation from infectious meningoencephalitis is challenging. For patients presenting with meningoencephalitis accompanied by persistent disturbances of consciousness and seizures, GFAP reactive antibody testing of CSF and plasma is appropriate. In patients with GFAP-A, early and effective anti-infective and immunotherapies may help to prevent disease progression and improve the likelihood of full recovery. In severe cases, additional immunotherapies may be required.

Emerging functionalities in two-dimensional materials, such as ferromagnetism, superconductivity and ferroelectricity, open new avenues for promising nanoelectronic applications. Here, we report the discovery of intrinsic in-plane room-temperature ferroelectricity in two-dimensional Bi 2 TeO 5 grown by chemical vapor deposition, where spontaneous polarization originates from Bi column displacements. We found an intercalated buffer layer consist of mixed Bi/Te column as 180° domain wall which enables facile polarized domain engineering, including continuously tunable domain width by pinning different concentration of buffer layers, and even ferroelectric-antiferroelectric phase transition when the polarization unit is pinned down to single atomic column. More interestingly, the intercalated Bi/Te buffer layer can interconvert to polarized Bi columns which end up with series terraced domain walls and unusual fan-shaped ferroelectric domain. The buffer layer induced size and shape tunable ferroelectric domain in two-dimensional Bi 2 TeO 5 offer insights into the manipulation of functionalities in van der Waals materials for future nanoelectronics. Tunability of ferroelectric domain structure is significant in ferroelectric materials. Here, the authors present in-plane ferroelectricity in 2D Bi 2 TeO 5 in which the ferroelectric domain size and shape can be continuously tuned by the Bi/Te ratio.