Aqueous Choline Chloride: A Novel Solvent for Switchgrass Fractionation and Subsequent Hemicellulose Conversion into Furfural

The performance of aqueous choline chloride (ChCl) solution on switchgrass fractionation and further utilization was evaluated. Under a relatively mild pretreatment condition (120 °C, 25 min), acidified ChCl solution efficiently removed 76% xylan and 51% lignin from switchgrass. The solvent was recycled and reused with similar performance for at least four pretreatment cycles when an acidic condition was maintained. The solvent recycling and reuse led to an increase in cumulative lignin yield with increased pretreatment cycles, reaching 93% at the fifth cycle. Two-dimensional heteronuclear single quantum coherence (HSQC) NMR analysis revealed that lignin recovered from the fifth cycle had a similar β-O-4 linkage abundance to native lignin. Such lignin would be well-suited for aromatic monomer production via depolymerization. The solvent recycling also resulted in xylose-rich pretreatment liquor, which was a good substrate and reaction medium for furfural production. The pretreated switchgrass showed good cellulose digestibility which was 5-fold that of the untreated one. This work demonstrated that ChCl solution was a new and green solvent for fractionating lignocellulose complex and extracting lignin as well as upgrading hemicellulose-derived stream

Data_Sheet_1_Nutritional deficiencies in low-sociodemographic-index countries: a population-based study.docx

BackgroundWe aimed to estimate the burden of nutritional deficiency according to sex and age in countries with a low sociodemographic index (SDI).MethodsFollowing the methods of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2019, estimated annual percentage changes (EAPCs) were calculated to determine trends in the age-standardized rates of incidence and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) of nutritional deficiency and its main subcategories from 1990 to 2019 in low-SDI countries.FindingsFrom 1990 to 2019, the age-standardized incidence and DALY rates of nutritional deficiency showed decreasing trends, with EAPCs of −0.90 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.06 to −0.75] and −3.20 (95% CI, −3.29 to −3.10), respectively, in low-SDI countries. In 2019, of the subcategories analyzed, vitamin A deficiency had the highest age-standardized incidence rate and protein–energy malnutrition had the highest age-standardized DALY rate. From 1990 to 2019, the greatest decrease in the age-standardized incidence rate was observed for vitamin A deficiency and the greatest decrease in the age-standardized DALY rate was observed for protein–energy malnutrition. At the national level, from 1990 to 2019, the greatest increase in the age-standardized incidence rate of overall nutritional deficiency was observed in males in Afghanistan (EAPC: 0.28; 95% CI, 0.07 to 0.49). Of the age groups analyzed, the highest incidence and DALY rates of overall nutritional deficiency and dietary iron deficiency were observed in children aged 1–4 years.InterpretationThe age-standardized incidence and DALY rates of nutritional deficiency decreased significantly from 1990 to 2019, especially for vitamin A deficiency and protein–energy malnutrition. Overall nutritional deficiency and dietary iron deficiency occurred primarily in children aged 1–4 years.</p

Synergetic Conformational Regulations in Ground and Excited States for Realizing Stimulus-Responsive and Wide-Tuning Room-Temperature Phosphorescence

Understanding the changes of molecular conformations is crucial for realizing multiple emissive triplet states in room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials. In this work, we report two molecules, 4,4′-dimethylbenzil (DMBZ) and 4,4′-di-tert-butylbenzil (DBBZ) with conformation-dependent luminescence, and demonstrate that stimulus-responsive and wide-tuning RTP emissions can be realized via synergetic conformational regulations in ground and excited states. Due to conformational changes, DMBZ and DBBZ show abundant RTP variations upon external stimuli, including light, force, heat, and fumigation. Notably, DBBZ exhibits multiple conformational changes in both ground and excited states, which endow DBBZ with multiple emissive states and unique stimulus-responsive behaviors. DBBZ presents multiple phase transitions between the supercooled liquid state and different solid states accompanied by different phosphorescence transitions, in which the excited-state conformations are effectively regulated. Moreover, wide-range RTP regulations (between cyan, green, and yellow) are realized in both single component and host–guest systems of DBBZ, showing potential applications in temperature sensing, multicolor dynamic displays, and information encryption. These results may provide new visions for understanding the complicated conformational changes in the aggregated state, as well as unique insights into the relationship between molecular conformations, RTP emissions, and stimulus responsiveness

Histone Acetylation Induced Transformation of B‑DNA to Z‑DNA in Cells Probed through FT-IR Spectroscopy

A nucleosome is made up of DNA and histones, and acetylation of histones perturbs the interaction of DNA and histones and thus affects the chromatin conformation and function. However, whether or how acetylation induces DNA conformation changes is still elusive. In this work, we applied FT-IR spectroscopy to monitor the DNA signals in cells as the histone acetylation was regulated by trichostatin A (TSA), a reversible inhibitor to histone deacetylases (HDACs). Our results unambiguously demonstrate the significant transformation of B-DNA to Z-DNA upon histone acetylation in the TSA treated HeLa cells. This is the first report providing the explicit experimental evidence for such a B-Z transformation of DNA in the epigenetic states of cells

Differential expression of soybean HD-Zip genes under salinity and drought stress.

<p>Expression is indicated as fold-change of experimental treatments relative to control samples and visualized in heatmaps. Color scale represents log2 expression values, with yellow representing low levels and blue indicating high levels of transcript abundance. To increase the contrast in this figure, the color scale values were reduced. The heatmap shows hierarchical clustering of 59 genes under salinity and drought stress. The pairs with light blue background are paralogous genes. Microarray data (under accession numbers GSE40627 and GSE41125) were obtained from the NCBI GEO database. M, mock; S, salinity stress; W, well-watered; D, drought stress. The paralogous pairs are indicated with a light blue background.</p

Synthesis of Organo-Silane Functionalized Nanocrystal Micelles and Their Self-Assembly

We report a general method to synthesize gold nanocrystal micelles with organo-silane headgroups. The method involves encapsulation of monodisperse, hydrophobic gold nanocrystals within the core of a micelle of an amphiphilic silane precursor. Formation and stability of monodisperse gold NC micelles have been confirmed using UV−visible spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Self-assembly of such nanocrystal micelles through siloxane hydrolysis and cross-linking leads to an ordered array with a face-centered-cubic mesostructure

Additional file 1 of Causal relationship between blood metabolites and risk of five infections: a Mendelian randomization study

Additional file 1: Supplement Figure 1. Scatterplot for the significant Mendelian randomization (MR) association (FDR < 0.05) between metabolites and 4 types of infection phenotypes (sepsis, pneumonia, URTI, and UTI). SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism; URTI, upper respiratory tract infection; UTI, urinary tract infection. Supplement Figure 2. Forest plots for the Mendelian randomization (MR) leave-one-out analysis of the significant inverse variance weighted (IVW) estimates. URTI, upper respiratory tract infection; UTI, urinary tract infection. Supplement Figure 3. Meta‑analysis of the causal associations between metabolites and 4 types of infection phenotypes (sepsis, pneumonia, URTI, and UTI). OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence interval; URTI, upper respiratory tract infection; UTI, urinary tract infection

Nanoporous Carbon Nanotubes Synthesized through Confined Hydrogen-Bonding Self-Assembly

We report a simple and direct synthetic method for the preparation of nanoporous carbon nanotubes with larger pores (>10 nm) on the tube wall. The method combines the use of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) as a template for the tube diameter and block copolymer/carbohydrates self-assembly within thin films confined inside AAO pore channels to form nanopores. It involves coating the AAO inner pore channel surface with block copolymer (polystyrene-co-poly(vinylpyridine)) and carbohydrates in dimethylformamide (DMF) solution. Drying of DMF induced microphase separation of PS−PVP and formation of ordered PS and PVP/carbohydrate domains. Within the coating, the carbohydrates stay specifically only in the pyridine domains surrounding PS domains due to the hydrogen bonding between carbohydrates and pyridine blocks. After carbonization at high temperature (>460 °C) in argon, PS was removed, forming the nanopores and carbohydrates, and PVP was carbonized, forming the framework of nanoporous carbon tubes within AAO channels. Removal of AAO led to the formation of individual monodisperse nanoporous carbon nanotubes with a tube wall of ∼16 nm. The ease with which these nanoporous carbon nanotubes can be fabricated, and the ability to tune tube nanostructures and surface chemistry through the choice of block copolymers used and carbonization temperature, should facilitate investigations of their scope for practical applications

Phylogenetic trees of full-length HD-Zip domain proteins from soybean, <i>Arabidopsis</i> and rice.

<p>The tree was generated with the MEGA5.0 program using the NJ method. Numbers at nodes indicate the percentage bootstrap scores, and only bootstrap values higher than 50% from 1,000 replicates are shown. Soybean, <i>Populus</i> and <i>Arabidopsis</i> HD-Zip proteins were marked with different colored dots. The scale bar corresponds to 0.1 estimated amino acid substitutions per site. The unrooted tree in the lower-left corner was constructed with the same method.</p

Chromosomal locations of soybean HD-Zip genes.

<p>Colored boxes ahead of the gene names represent the classes to which each HD-Zip gene belongs (HD-Zip I, red; HD-Zip II, green; HD-Zip III, pink; HD-Zip IV, blue). The 88 HD-Zip genes were mapped to the 20 chromosomes, while only one gene (<i>Gmhdz1</i>) resides on unassembled scaffolds. The data used to generate the schematic diagram of the genome-wide chromosome organization were obtained from the SoyBase browser. Only segmental duplicated blocks including HD-Zip genes are indicated with the same colors. Small boxes connected by colored line (two types) indicate corresponding sister gene pairs, of which the genes connected by solid lines are located in the homologous duplicated blocks, while genes connected by the dashed line were observed in the duplicated blocks shown with different colors. Tandemly duplicated genes are indicated with red boxes. The scale represents the length of the chromosome.</p