Inhibition of epidermal growth factor receptor attenuates atherosclerosis via decreasing inflammation and oxidative stress

Atherosclerosis is a progressive disease leading to loss of vascular homeostasis and entails fibrosis, macrophage foam cell formation, and smooth muscle cell proliferation. Recent studies have reported that epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is involved vascular pathophysiology and in the regulation of oxidative stress in macrophages. Although, oxidative stress and inflammation play a critical role in the development of atherosclerosis, the underlying mechanisms are complex and not completely understood. In the present study, we have elucidated the role of EGFR in high-fat diet-induced atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E null mice. We show increased EGFR phosphorylation and activity in atherosclerotic lesion development. EGFR inhibition prevented oxidative stress, macrophage infiltration, induction of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and SMC proliferation within the lesions. We further show that EGFR is activated through toll-like receptor 4. Disruption of toll-like receptor 4 or the EGFR pathway led to reduced inflammatory activity and foam cell formation. These studies provide evidence that EGFR plays a key role on the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, and suggests that EGFR may be a potential therapeutic target in the prevention of atherosclerosis development

Large-scale single-photon imaging

Benefiting from its single-photon sensitivity, single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) array has been widely applied in various fields such as fluorescence lifetime imaging and quantum computing. However, large-scale high-fidelity single-photon imaging remains a big challenge, due to the complex hardware manufacture craft and heavy noise disturbance of SPAD arrays. In this work, we introduce deep learning into SPAD, enabling super-resolution single-photon imaging over an order of magnitude, with significant enhancement of bit depth and imaging quality. We first studied the complex photon flow model of SPAD electronics to accurately characterize multiple physical noise sources, and collected a real SPAD image dataset (64 $\times$ 32 pixels, 90 scenes, 10 different bit depth, 3 different illumination flux, 2790 images in total) to calibrate noise model parameters. With this real-world physical noise model, we for the first time synthesized a large-scale realistic single-photon image dataset (image pairs of 5 different resolutions with maximum megapixels, 17250 scenes, 10 different bit depth, 3 different illumination flux, 2.6 million images in total) for subsequent network training. To tackle the severe super-resolution challenge of SPAD inputs with low bit depth, low resolution, and heavy noise, we further built a deep transformer network with a content-adaptive self-attention mechanism and gated fusion modules, which can dig global contextual features to remove multi-source noise and extract full-frequency details. We applied the technique on a series of experiments including macroscopic and microscopic imaging, microfluidic inspection, and Fourier ptychography. The experiments validate the technique's state-of-the-art super-resolution SPAD imaging performance, with more than 5 dB superiority on PSNR compared to the existing methods

13.4 % Efficiency from All-Small-Molecule Organic Solar Cells Based on a Crystalline Donor with Chlorine and Trialkylsilyl Substitutions

How to simultaneously achieve both high open-circuit voltage (Voc) and high short-circuit current density (Jsc) is a big challenge for realising high power conversion efficiency (PCE) in all-small-molecule organic solar cells (all-SM OSCs). Herein, a novel small molecule (SM)-donor, namely FYSM−SiCl, with trialkylsilyl and chlorine substitutions was designed and synthesized. Compared to the original SM-donor FYSM−H, FYSM−Si with trialkylsilyl substitution showed a decreased crystallinity and lower highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level, while FYSM−SiCl had an improved crystallinity, more ordered packing arrangement, significantly lower HOMO level, and predominant “face-on” orientation. Matched with a SM-acceptor Y6, the FYSM−SiCl-based all-SM OSCs exhibited both high Voc of 0.85 V and high Jsc of 23.7 mA cm−2, which is rare for all-SM OSCs and could be attributed to the low HOMO level of FYSM−SiCl donor and the delicate balance between high crystallinity and suitable blend morphology. As a result, FYSM−SiCl achieved a high PCE of 13.4 % in all-SM OSCs, which was much higher than those of the FYSM−H- (10.9 %) and FYSM−Si-based devices (12.2 %). This work demonstrated a promising method for the design of efficient SM-donors by a side-chain engineering strategy via the introduction of trialkylsilyl and chlorine substitutions

10.13% Efficiency All-Polymer Solar Cells Enabled by Improving the Optical Absorption of Polymer Acceptors

The limited light absorption capacity for most polymer acceptors hinders the improvement of the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs). Herein, by simultaneously increasing the conjugation of the acceptor unit and enhancing the electron-donating ability of the donor unit, a novel narrow-bandgap polymer acceptor PF3-DTCO based on an A–D–A-structured acceptor unit ITIC16 and a carbon–oxygen (C–O)-bridged donor unit DTCO is developed. The extended conjugation of the acceptor units from IDIC16 to ITIC16 results in a red-shifted absorption spectrum and improved absorption coefficient without significant reduction of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy level. Moreover, in addition to further broadening the absorption spectrum by the enhanced intramolecular charge transfer effect, the introduction of C–O bridges into the donor unit improves the absorption coefficient and electron mobility, as well as optimizes the morphology and molecular order of active layers. As a result, the PF3-DTCO achieves a higher PCE of 10.13% with a higher short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 15.75 mA cm−2 in all-PSCs compared with its original polymer acceptor PF2-DTC (PCE = 8.95% and Jsc = 13.82 mA cm−2). Herein, a promising method is provided to construct high-performance polymer acceptors with excellent optical absorption for efficient all-PSCs

AIDA通过内质网相关的蛋白质降解途径选择性下调脂肪合成途径的代谢酶从而减缓肠道脂肪吸收并防止肥胖发生

文章简介肠道对膳食脂肪吸收的效率是个人是否易患肥胖的主要决定因素之一。然而,目前人们还不清楚脂肪吸收是如何受调控并导致肥胖的。本研究表明,抑制内质网相关的蛋白质降解途径会提高甘油三酯合成途径的数个代谢酶的水平,并促进小肠对脂肪的吸收。包含C2结构域的蛋白AIDA作为一个重要国家重点基础研发计划;;\n国家自然科学基金;;\n厦门大学校长基金等支

Preparation of a novel iron cryptate as an electrochemical probe for biosensing

A novel dicarboxyl-functionalized iron cryptate with a 2,2-pyridine unit has been synthesized, which displays outstanding electrochemical properties in water as a potential biosensing probe. Taking the silver ion (Ag+) as an example, we report a novel Ag+ assay by recording the electrochemical signals of Fe cryptate. In summary, a hairpin-structured DNA probe is designed and modified with the synthesized Fe cryptate. In the absence of Ag+, this is absorbed on the surface of a reduced graphene oxide modified electrode and a significant electrochemical response is obtained. In the presence of Ag+, cytosine–cytosine mismatches in the DNA probe recognize target ions and it is transformed into a conformation which cannot resist digestion by exonuclease III. As a result, Fe cryptate is released and Ag+ is recycled for continuous DNA digestion. By analyzing the reduced electrochemical signals of Fe cryptate, it is possible to quantify the target ions. Keywords: Biosensor, DNA conformation, Silver ions, Exonuclease, Cryptat

Single-Photon-Camera-Based Time and Spatially Resolved Electroluminescence Spectroscopy for Micro-LED Analysis

To investigate the operational mechanisms of micrometer-sized light-emitting diodes (micro-LEDs), we here demonstrate a transient methodology of time and spatially resolved electroluminescence spectroscopy (TSR-EL) to measure the spatial distribution of light emission from LED devices. By combining a single-photon camera (SPC) with the time-gated sampling method, we derived the time and spatially resolved electroluminescence intensity with increasing time. Benefiting from the high sensitivity of the SPC, this methodology can detect ultralow electroluminescence (EL) at the delay stage from the device operated around the turn-on voltage. Furthermore, we investigated the spatial light distribution of a typical quantum dots light-emitting diode (QLED) under different applied voltages and varied temperatures. It was found that the EL emission of the QLED device became more uniform with increasing temperature and applied voltage. Moreover, the methodology of TSR-EL is versatile to investigate other LEDs such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), micro-LEDs, etc