High‐Performance and Low‐Temperature Lithium–Sulfur Batteries: Synergism of Thermodynamic and Kinetic Regulation

The intrinsic polysulfides shuttle, resulting from not only concentration‐gradient diffusion but also slow conversion kinetics of polysulfides, bears the primary responsibility for the poor capacity and cycle stability of lithium–sulfur batteries (LSBs). Here, it is first presented that enriched edge sites derived from vertical standing and ultrathin 2D layered metal selenides (2DLMS) can simultaneously achieve the thermodynamic and kinetic regulation for polysulfides diffusion, which is systematically elucidated through theoretical calculation, electrochemical characterization, and spectroscopic/microscopic analysis. When employed to fabricate compact coating layer of separator, an ultrahigh capacity of 1338.7 mA h g^?1 is delivered after 100 cycles at 0.2 C, which is the best among the reports. Over 1000 cycles, the cell still maintains the capacity of 546.8 mA h g^?1 at 0.5 C. Moreover, the cell exhibits outstanding capacities of 1106.2 and 865.7 mA h g^?1 after 100 cycles at stern temperature of 0 and ?25 °C. The superior low‐temperature performance is appealing for extended practical application of LSBs. Especially, in view of the economy, the 2DLMS is recycled as an anode of lithium‐ion and sodium‐ion batteries after finishing the test of LSBs. The low‐cost and scalable 2DLMS with enriched egde sites open a new avenue for the perfect regulation of the sulfur electrode.     

A Practicable Li/Na‐Ion Hybrid Full Battery Assembled by a High‐Voltage Cathode and Commercial Graphite Anode: Superior Energy Storage Performance and Working Mechanism

With the rapidly growing demand for low‐cost and safe energy storage, the advanced battery concepts have triggered strong interests beyond the state‐of‐the‐art Li‐ion batteries (LIBs). Herein, a novel hybrid Li/Na‐ion full battery (HLNIB) composed of the high‐energy and lithium‐free Na₃V₂(PO₄)₂O₂F (NVPOF) cathode and commercial graphite anode mesophase carbon micro beads is for the first time designed. The assembled HLNIBs exhibit two high working voltage at about 4.05 and 3.69 V with a specific capacity of 112.7 mA h g^?1. Its energy density can reach up to 328 W h kg^?1 calculated from the total mass of both cathode and anode materials. Moreover, the HLNIBs show outstanding high‐rate capability, long‐term cycle life, and excellent low‐temperature performance. In addition, the reaction kinetics and Li/Na‐insertion/extraction mechanism into/out NVPOF is preliminarily investigated by the galvanostatic intermittent titration technique and ex situ X‐ray diffraction. This work provides a new and profound direction to develop advanced hybrid batteries.     

Comparative digestibility of energy and ileal amino acids in yeast extract and spray-dried porcine plasma fed to pigs

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the digestible (DE) and metabolisable energy (ME), apparent (AID) and standardised ileal digestibility (SID) of amino acids (AA) in yeast extract (YE) and spray-dried porcine plasma (SDPP). In Experiment 1, 18 barrows (25.1 ± 1.2 kg body weight [BW]) were randomly allotted to three treatments with six replicates per treatment. The DE and ME of YE was 20.64 and 19.31 MJ/kg, respectively, which were not significantly different with the DE and ME of SDPP (18.74 and 18.05 MJ/kg, respectively). In Experiment 2, six barrows (20.6 ± 2.6 kg BW) fitted with ileal T-cannulas were fed three diets in a repeated 3-period Latin square design. For Met and Glu, the AID tended to be, while the SID was significantly higher (p < 0.05), in YE than in SDPP. The AID of Cys tended to be lower in YE (p = 0.07), while the SID of Phe tended to be higher in YE than in SDPP (p = 0.06). Accordingly, YE could be a potential substitute for SDPP as a superior protein ingredient in diets for pigs in terms of the available energy and AA digestibility.     

Systematic re-evaluation of intraoperative motor-evoked potential suppression in scoliosis surgery

Background

Motor- (MEP) and somatosensory-evoked potentials (SSEP) are susceptible to the effects of intraoperative environmental factors.

Methods

Over a 5-year period, 250 patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) who underwent corrective surgery with IOM were retrospectively analyzed for MEP suppression (MEPS).

Results

Our results show that four distinct groups of MEPS were encountered over the study period. All 12 patients did not sustain any neurological deficits postoperatively. However, comparison of groups 1 and 2 suggests that neither the duration of anesthesia nor speed of surgical or anesthetic intervention were associated with recovery to a level beyond the criteria for MEPS. For group 3, spontaneous MEPS recovery despite the lack of surgical intervention suggests that anesthetic intervention may play a role in this process. However, spontaneous MEPS recovery was also seen in group 4, suggesting that in certain circumstances, both surgical and anesthetic intervention was not required. In addition, neither the duration of time to the first surgical manoeuver nor the duration of surgical manoeuver to MEPS were related to recovery of MEPS. None of the patients had suppression of SSEPs intraoperatively.

Conclusion

This study suggests that in susceptible individuals, MEPS may rarely occur unpredictably, independent of surgical or anesthetic intervention. However, our findings favor anesthetic before surgical intervention as a proposed protocol. Early recognition of MEPS is important to prevent false positives in the course of IOM for spinal surgery.

     

A dual role for proline iminopeptidase in the regulation of bacterial motility and host immunity

During plant–pathogen interactions, pathogenic bacteria have evolved multiple strategies to cope with the sophisticated defence systems of host plants. Proline iminopeptidase (PIP) is essential to Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc) virulence, and is conserved in many plant‐associated bacteria, but its pathogenic mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we found that disruption of pip in Xcc enhanced its flagella‐mediated bacterial motility by decreasing intracellular bis‐(3′,5′)‐cyclic dimeric guanosine monophosphate (c‐di‐GMP) levels, whereas overexpression of pip in Xcc restricted its bacterial motility by elevating c‐di‐GMP levels. We also found that PIP is a type III secretion system‐dependent effector capable of eliciting a hypersensitive response in non‐host, but not host plants. When we transformed pip into the host plant Arabidopsis, higher bacterial titres were observed in pip‐overexpressing plants relative to wild‐type plants after Xcc inoculation. The repressive function of PIP on plant immunity was dependent on PIP's enzymatic activity and acted through interference with the salicylic acid (SA) biosynthetic and regulatory genes. Thus, PIP simultaneously regulates two distinct regulatory networks during plant–microbe interactions, i.e. it affects intracellular c‐di‐GMP levels to coordinate bacterial behaviour, such as motility, and functions as a type III effector translocated into plant cells to suppress plant immunity. Both processes provide bacteria with the regulatory potential to rapidly adapt to complex environments, to utilize limited resources for growth and survival in a cost‐efficient manner and to improve the chances of bacterial survival by helping pathogens to inhabit the internal tissues of host plants.     

An Attenuated Highly Pathogenic Chinese PRRS Viral Vaccine Confers Cross Protection to Pigs against Challenge with the Emerging PRRSV NADC30-Like Strain

A novel PRRSV strain was isolated in China that was genetically similar to the NADC30 strain which is reported to have spread throughout China. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the cross-protective efficacy of the live vaccine TJM-F92 in young pigs against challenge with a NADC30-like strain, HN201605. Twenty-five PRRSV- and antibody-free pigs were randomly divided into the following five groups: Vac/ChA, Unvac/ChA, Vac/ChB, Unvac/ChB and the mock. The pigs in groups Vac/ChA and Vac/ChB were inoculated intramuscularly with 1 mL TJM-F92 (10^5.0 TCID₅₀/mL). At 28 days post vaccination (0 days post challenge), groups Vac/ChA and Unvac/ChA were inoculated intranasally with 10^4.5 TCID₅₀/mL PRRSV strain TJ F3 (2 mL/pig), while groups Vac/ChB and Unvac/ChB were inoculated, using the same route, with the same dose of the NADC30-like strain HN201605 F3. Protective effects of the PRRSV strain were observed in all pigs in the Vac/ChA and Vac/ChB groups. Neither high fever nor signs of clinical disease were observed through the experiment in these groups, whereas pigs in Unvac/ChA group exhibited serious clinical symptoms, pathological lesions, and weight loss. In Unvac/ChB group, pigs developed milder clinical symptoms, which demonstrated that the NADC30-like strain HN201605 had moderate pathogenicity. The results suggest that the MLV vaccine strain TJM-F92 is an effective and safe vaccine candidate for use in China.     

Associations of HSP90AA2 gene polymorphisms with disease susceptibility,glucocorticoids efficacy and health-related quality of life in Chinese systemic lupus erythematosus patients

Although the current glucocorticoids (GCs) treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is effective to a certain extent, the difference in therapeutic effect between patients is still a widespread problem. Some patients can have repeated attacks that greatly diminish their quality of life. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between HSP90AA2 polymorphisms and disease susceptibility, GCs efficacy and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in Chinese SLE patients. A case–control study was performed in 470 SLE patients and 470 normal controls. Then, 444 patients in the case group were followed up for 12 weeks to observe efficacy of GCs and improvement of HRQoL. Two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of HSP90AA2 were selected for genotyping: rs1826330 and rs6484340. HRQoL was assessed using the SF-36 questionnaire. The minor T allele of rs1826330 and the TT haplotype formed by rs1826330 and rs6484340 showed associations with decreased SLE risk (T allele: P_BH?=?0.022; TT haplotype: P_BH?=?0.033). A significant association between rs6484340 and improvement of HRQoL was revealed in the follow-up study. Five subscales of SF-36 were appeared to be influenced by rs6484340: total score of SF-36 (additive model: P_BH?=?0.026), physical function (additive model: P_BH?=?0.026), role-physical (recessive model: P_BH?=?0.041), mental health (dominant model: P_BH?=?0.047), and physical component summary (additive model: P_BH?=?0.026). No statistical significance was found between HSP90AA2 gene polymorphisms and GCs efficacy. These results revealed a genetic association between HSP90AA2 and SLE. Remarkably, HSP90AA2 has an impact on the improvement of HRQoL in Chinese population with SLE.     

RNAi targeting STMN alleviates the resistance to taxol and collectively contributes to down regulate the malignancy of NSCLC cells in vitro and in vivo

Stathmin (STMN) plays a vital role in maintaining the malignant behavior of cancer through directly regulating microtubule dynamics equilibrium. Taxol, an effective chemotherapeutics mainly acting to promote microtubule polymerization, has been commercially applied in treating solid tumors, which results in serious drug resistance. Our study demonstrated that STMN RNA interference (RNAi) enlarged taxol-induced inhibitions in cellular proliferation, colony formation, and multidimensional spaces of cell immigration and decreased half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of taxol in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) NCI-H1299 cells; STMN RNAi and taxol jointly attenuated the expressions of extracellular regulated kinase (ERK), nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and B cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), but up regulated Bax expression and initiated intrinsic cell death pathway by activating caspase-3 and caspase-9, while inhibited interleukin 10 (IL-10) autocrine from cell culture supernatant and xenografted mouse serum, as well as intracellular expressions of IL-10 protein and mRNA in vitro; additionally, neutralizing IL-10 alone would incur cell apoptosis to some degree; the further study confirmed that RNAi targeting STMN promoted the sensitivity of taxol in different NSCLC cells. In vivo animal experiments proved that STMN RNAi and taxol cooperatively inhibited the tumorigenicity of NCI-H1299 cells and histological atypia and Ki-67 proliferative index of xenografted tumors and promoted cell differentiation to a higher grade with well-differentiated indicators of glandular lumen-like structure and proliferative fibroblasts. These findings suggest that silencing STMN alleviates the resistance to taxol and collectively contributes to induce the dysfunction of multiple signals and down regulate the malignancy of tumors; thus, STMN is a promising target in treating refractory tumors.