Avian Tembusu virus infection effectively triggers host innate immune response through MDA5 and TLR3-dependent signaling pathways

Additional file 4 ATMUV infection causes significant up-regulation of TLR3 and MDA5. RT-PCR was performed to examine the mRNA expression of TLR3 and MDA5 in CEF (A), chickens (B) and 293T cells (C) at the indicated time after ATMUV infection, respectively

Increasing trend of primary NO 2 exhaust emission fraction in Hong Kong

Despite the successful reduction in roadside NO x levels, no such decrease has been detected in roadside NO 2 concentration in Hong Kong. One underlying cause could be the rising primary NO 2 fraction of the total emission of NO x. Primary NO 2 can be particularly detrimental to Hong Kong because a large fraction of the population are exposed to the traffic-related primary pollutants in the street canyons formed by congested high-rise buildings. In this study, hourly mean concentration data for roadside nitrogen oxides (NO x), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2), and background ozone (O 3) were used to estimate the mean primary NO 2 fraction from vehicle exhausts in Hong Kong. An overall increasing trend was observed for the primary NO 2 fraction (f-NO 2) values in all the three roadside air monitoring sites. The primary NO 2 as a fraction of total NO x (f-NO 2) increased approximately from 2% in 1998 to 13% in 2008 in Hong Kong. The two particular periods of rising f-NO 2 coincided with the two implementation periods of the diesel retrofit programs for the light-duty vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles. Future vehicle emission control strategies should target not only total NO x but also primary NO 2. Health benefit or disease burden estimates should be taken into account and updated in the process of policy planning and evaluation. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Alkoxy Substitution on Asymmetric Conjugated Molecule Enabling over 18% Efficiency in Ternary Organic Solar Cells by Reducing Nonradiative Voltage Loss

A ternary strategy is considered to be an efficient and simple way to further enhance the performance of organic photovoltaics (OPVs). However, the “structure–performance” correlation of the third component in the ternary device has rarely been clearly understood from the aspect of the material’s eigenproperties. Herein, this relationship is investigated in depth by employing three asymmetric skeleton nonfullerene acceptors as the third component in the host system of PM6:BTP-eC9, respectively. Compared with TB-S and TB-S1, the alkoxy-substituted TB-S1-O possesses a more stable planar conformation, a higher surface energy, and a larger ordered stacking domain due to the existence of noncovalent conformational locking (O···H). Consequently, the PM6:BTP-eC9:TB-S1-O device exhibits the highest efficiency of 18.14% as compared with the devices based on PM6:BTP-eC9:TB-S (16.16%) and PM6:BTP-eC9:TB-S1 (16.18%). Most interestingly, only the PM6:BTP-eC9:TB-S1-O device can maintain the positive effect of VOC improvement, because a significant reduction in nonradiative voltage loss can be observed in this device. Our systematic study reveals that alkoxy substitution on an asymmetric backbone is an efficient method to construct the third component for high-performance ternary organic solar cells

Indoor secondary organic aerosols formation from ozonolysis of monoterpene: An example of D-limonene with ammonia and potential. impacts on pulmonary inflammations

Monoterpene is one class of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) which widely presents in household cleaning products and air fresheners. It plays reactive role in secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) formation with ozone (O-3) in indoor environments. Such ozonolysis can be influenced by the presence of gaseous pollutants such as ammonia (NH3). This study focuses on investigations of ozone-initiated formation of indoor SOAs with D-limonene, one of the most abundant indoor monoterpenes, in a large environmental chamber. The maximum total particle number concentration from the ozonolysis in the presence of NH3 was 60% higher than that in the absence of NH3. Both of the nuclei coagulation and condensation involve in the SOAs growth. The potential risks of pulmonary injury for the exposure to the secondary particles formed were presented with the indexes of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) expression levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) upon intratracheal instillation in mice lung for 6 and 12 h. The results indicated that there was 22-39% stronger pulmonary inflammatory effect on the particles generated with NH3. This is a pilot study which demonstrates the toxicities of the indoor SOAs formed from the ozonolysis of a monoterpene. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved