Nature of ‎Metal-Support Interaction Discovered by Interpretable Machine ‎Learning

Metal catalysts supported on oxides play a paramount role in numerous industrial reactions. ‎Modulating metal-support interaction is a key strategy to boost ‎catalytic productivity and ‎stability; however, the nature of metal-support interaction and quantification remain major ‎unsolved problems. By ‎leveraging interpretable ‎machine learning, domain knowledge, and ‎experimental data available, we discover a physical metal-support interaction equation ‎applicable ‎to metal nanoparticles and adatoms on oxides, and oxide films on metals. Though ‎metal-oxygen interaction dominates metal-support interaction and determines the metal ‎composition effect, metal-metal interaction delineates the support effect. This ensures a principle ‎of strong metal-metal interaction for encapsulation of suboxide over metal ‎nanoparticles, ‎substantiated comprehensively by molecular dynamics simulations and ‎previous experiments. The ‎developed theory provides valuable insights and guidance in engineering the metal-support ‎systems.

The epilepsy and intellectual disability-associated protein TBC1D24 regulates the maintenance of excitatory synapses and animal behaviors.

Perturbation of synapse development underlies many inherited neurodevelopmental disorders including intellectual disability (ID). Diverse mutations on the human TBC1D24 gene are strongly associated with epilepsy and ID. However, the physiological function of TBC1D24 in the brain is not well understood, and there is a lack of genetic mouse model that mimics TBC1D24 loss-of-function for the study of animal behaviors. Here we report that TBC1D24 is present at the postsynaptic sites of excitatory synapses, where it is required for the maintenance of dendritic spines through inhibition of the small GTPase ARF6. Mice subjected to viral-mediated knockdown of TBC1D24 in the adult hippocampus display dendritic spine loss, deficits in contextual fear memory, as well as abnormal behaviors including hyperactivity and increased anxiety. Interestingly, we show that the protein stability of TBC1D24 is diminished by the disease-associated missense mutation that leads to F251L amino acid substitution. We further generate the F251L knock-in mice, and the homozygous mutants show increased neuronal excitability, spontaneous seizure and pre-mature death. Moreover, the heterozygous F251L knock-in mice survive into adulthood but display dendritic spine defects and impaired memory. Our findings therefore uncover a previously uncharacterized postsynaptic function of TBC1D24, and suggest that impaired dendritic spine maintenance contributes to the pathophysiology of individuals harboring TBC1D24 gene mutations. The F251L knock-in mice represent a useful animal model for investigation of the mechanistic link between TBC1D24 loss-of-function and neurodevelopmental disorders