A Common Variant in CLDN14 is Associated with Primary Biliary Cirrhosis and Bone Mineral Density.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), a chronic autoimmune liver disease, has been associated with increased incidence of osteoporosis. Intriguingly, two PBC susceptibility loci identified through genome-wide association studies are also involved in bone mineral density (BMD). These observations led us to investigate the genetic variants shared between PBC and BMD. We evaluated 72 genome-wide significant BMD SNPs for association with PBC using two European GWAS data sets (n = 8392), with replication of significant findings in a Chinese cohort (685 cases, 1152 controls). Our analysis identified a novel variant in the intron of the CLDN14 gene (rs170183, Pfdr = 0.015) after multiple testing correction. The three associated variants were followed-up in the Chinese cohort; one SNP rs170183 demonstrated consistent evidence of association in diverse ethnic populations (Pcombined = 2.43 × 10(-5)). Notably, expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data revealed that rs170183 was correlated with a decline in CLDN14 expression in both lymphoblastoid cell lines and T cells (Padj = 0.003 and 0.016, respectively). In conclusion, our study identified a novel PBC susceptibility variant that has been shown to be strongly associated with BMD, highlighting the potential of pleiotropy to improve gene discovery

CHARACTERISTIC ANALYSIS ON GaN NANOCRYSTALLINE POWDER PREPARED BY SOL–GEL METHOD

Gallium nitride (GaN) nanocrystalline powder has been prepared by sol–gel method. The GaN powder has been confirmed as single-crystalline GaN with wurtzite structure by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and selected-area electron diffraction (SAED), and the diameter of the grains of GaN powder changes from 30 to 100 nm under transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Having been excited by 240 nm light at room temperature, GaN powder has a strong luminescence peak located at 395 nm and a weak luminescence peak located at 295 nm, attributed to GaN band-edge emission and blue-shift of the band-gap emission. Moreover, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirms the formation of the bond between Ga and N, and Raman scattering spectrum confirms A1 (TO) and E1 (TO) vibrational modes of GaN.GaN, nanocrystalline, sol–gel, luminescence

Effects of doping and biaxial strain on the electronic properties of GaN/graphene/WS2 trilayer vdW heterostructure

© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Based on the calculation using first-principles, we discussed adjustment for electronic properties of the GaN/graphene/WS2 trilayer vdW heterostructure by doping and biaxial strain. Mg or Se doping can regulate the band gap of the GaN/graphene/WS2 trilayer vdW heterostructure and achieve p-type or n-type dopant in graphene and the trilayer heterostructure system. Band gap decreases with the increase in positive strain, and a p-type Schottky barrier is always maintained. As the negative strain increases, the band gap reaches its maximum at ε = − 3% and then gradually decreases. And after |ε| ≥ | − 5|%, it changes to an indirect band gap. When |ε| ≥ | − 7|%, the Schottky contact type changes from p-type to n-type. Electrons are transferred from GaN layer to graphene and WS2 layer, and transfer increases with the increase in strain from negative to positive. More electrons are transferred to WS2 with positive strain, and more electrons are transferred to graphene with negative strain. The results will provide valuable information for the design of trilayer Schottky devices

Protein pKa prediction with machine learning

Protein pKa prediction is essential for the investigation of pH-associated relation ship between protein structure and function. In this work, we introduce a deep learning based protein pKa predictor DeepKa, which is trained and validated with the pKa val ues derived from continuous constant pH molecular dynamics (CpHMD) simulations of 279 soluble proteins. Here the CpHMD implemented in the Amber molecular dynamics package has been employed (Huang, Harris, and Shen J. Chem. Inf. Model. 2018, 58, 1372-1383). Notably, to avoid discontinuities at the boundary, grid charges are proposed to represent protein electrostatics. We show that the prediction accuracy by DeepKa is close to that by CpHMD benchmarking simulations, validating DeepKa as an efficient protein pKa predictor. In addition, the training and validation sets created in this study can be applied to the development of machine learning based protein pKa predictors in future. Finally, the grid charge representation is general and applicable to other topics, such as the protein-ligand binding affinity prediction

Effects of an Intermittent Fasting 5:2 Plus Program on Body Weight in Chinese Adults with Overweight or Obesity: A Pilot Study

To retrospectively review the efficacy of intermittent fasting 5:2 plus program (30% of energy requirements on fast days and 70% of energy requirements on nonfasting days) in Chinese patients with overweight or obesity. This retrospective cohort study evaluated weight loss outcomes of patients treated with 12 weeks weight loss program in clinic. Adults with overweight or obesity participated in intermittent fasting 5:2 plus, daily calorie restriction (70% of energy requirements every day) or daily calorie restriction with meal replacement (70% of energy requirements every day, partly provided with high-protein meal replacement) programs for 12 weeks. The primary objective was to compare the weight loss of three groups. The primary outcome measure was the change in the % total weight loss. A total of 131 patients (35.3 ± 10.1 years; 81.7% female) were included, and the mean weight loss was 7.8 ± 4.4% after 12 weeks. The intermittent fasting 5:2 plus group (n = 42) achieved 9.0 ± 5.3% weight loss, compared with 5.7 ± 3.7% in the daily calorie restriction group (n = 41) (p n = 48) (p = 0.650). A total of 85.7% of patients in the intermittent fasting 5:2 plus group lost more than 5% body weight, vs. 58.5% in the daily calorie restriction group (p = 0.008), and 45.2% lost more than 10% body weight, vs. 14.6% in the daily calorie restriction group (p = 0.005). No serious adverse events were reported in the three groups. The intermittent fasting 5:2 plus program more effectively led to weight loss than daily calorie restriction in the short-term in Chinese patients with overweight or obesity. A longer-term prospective randomized controlled trial is needed

Density Functional Theory Study on Defect Feature of AsGaGaAs in Gallium Arsenide

We investigate the defect feature of AsGaGaAs defect in gallium arsenide clusters in detail by using first-principles calculations based on the density functional theory (DFT). Our calculations reveal that the lowest donor level of AsGaGaAs defect on the gallium arsenide crystal surface is 0.85 eV below the conduction band minimum, while the lowest donor level of the AsGaGaAs defect inside the gallium arsenide bulk is 0.83 eV below the bottom of the conduction band, consistent with gallium arsenide EL2 defect level of experimental value (Ec-0.82 eV). This suggests that AsGaGaAs defect is one of the possible gallium arsenide EL2 deep-level defects. Moreover, our results also indicate that the formation energies of internal AsGaGaAs and surface AsGaGaAs defects are predicted to be around 2.36 eV and 5.54 eV, respectively. This implies that formation of AsGaGaAs defect within the crystal is easier than that of surface. Our results offer assistance in discussing the structure of gallium arsenide deep-level defect and its effect on the material

Enhancing the field emission properties of Se-doped GaN nanowires

Pure and Se-doped GaN nanowires (NWs) are synthesized on Pt-coated Si(111) substrates via chemical vapor deposition. The GaN NWs exhibit a uniform density with an average diameter of 20-120 nm. The structure of the NWs is wurtzite hexagonal, and the growth direction is along [0001]. Field emission measurements show that the Se-doped GaN NWs possess a low turn-on field (2.9 V μm−1 ) compared with the pure GaN NWs (7.0 V μm−1 ). In addition, density functional theory calculations indicate that the donor states near the Fermi level are mainly formed through the hybridization between Se 4p and N 2p orbitals and that the Fermi level move towards the vacuum level. Consequently, the work functions of Se-doped GaN NWs are lower than those of pure GaN NWs

Alkali-metal-adsorbed g-GaN monolayer: ultralow work functions and optical properties

Abstract The electronic and optical properties of alkali-metal-adsorbed graphene-like gallium nitride (g-GaN) have been investigated using density functional theory. The results denote that alkali-metal-adsorbed g-GaN systems are stable compounds, with the most stable adsorption site being the center of the hexagonal ring. In addition, because of charge transfer from the alkali-metal atom to the host, the g-GaN layer shows clear n-type doping behavior. The adsorption of alkali metal atoms on g-GaN occurs via chemisorption. More importantly, the work function of g-GaN is substantially reduced following the adsorption of alkali-metal atoms. Specifically, the Cs-adsorbed g-GaN system shows an ultralow work function of 0.84 eV, which has great potential application in field-emission devices. In addition, the alkali-metal adsorption can lead to an increase in the static dielectric constant and extend the absorption spectrum of g-GaN

Cisplatin Loaded Hyaluronic Acid Modified TiO2 Nanoparticles for Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy of Ovarian Cancer

Novel tumor-targeting titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles modified with hyaluronic acid (HA) were developed to explore the feasibility of exploiting the pH-responsive drug release property of TiO2 and the tumor-targeting ability of HA to construct a tumor-targeting cisplatin (CDDP) delivery system (HA-TiO2) for potential neoadjuvant chemotherapy of ovarian cancer. The experimental results indicated that CDDP release from the HA-TiO2 nanoparticles was significantly accelerated by decreasing pH from 7.4 to 5.0, which is of particular benefit to cancer therapy. CDDP-loaded HA-TiO2 nanoparticles increased the accumulation of CDDP in A2780 ovarian cancer cells via HA-mediated endocytosis and exhibited superior anticancer activity in vitro. In vivo real-time imaging assay revealed that HA-TiO2 nanoparticles possessed preferable tumor-targeting ability which might potentially minimize the toxic side effects of CDDP in clinical application