Recent advances in electronic and optoelectronic Devices Based on Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2D TMDCs) offer several attractive features for use in next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices. Device applications of TMDCs have gained much research interest, and significant advancement has been recorded. In this review, the overall research advancement in electronic and optoelectronic devices based on TMDCs are summarized and discussed. In particular, we focus on evaluating field effect transistors (FETs), photovoltaic cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), photodetectors, lasers, and integrated circuits (ICs) using TMDCs

Integration of single-cell RNA sequencing and bulk RNA transcriptome sequencing reveals a heterogeneous immune landscape and pivotal cell subpopulations associated with colorectal cancer prognosis

IntroductionColorectal cancer (CRC) is a highly heterogeneous cancer. The molecular and cellular characteristics differ between the colon and rectal cancer type due to the differences in their anatomical location and pathological properties. With the advent of single-cell sequencing, it has become possible to analyze inter- and intra-tumoral tissue heterogeneities.MethodsA comprehensive CRC immune atlas, comprising 62,398 immune cells, was re-structured into 33 immune cell clusters at the single-cell level. Further, the immune cell lineage heterogeneity of colon, rectal, and paracancerous tissues was explored. Simultaneously, we characterized the TAM phenotypes and analyzed the transcriptomic factor regulatory network of each macrophage subset using SCENIC. In addition, monocle2 was used to elucidate the B cell developmental trajectory. The crosstalk between immune cells was explored using CellChat and the patterns of incoming and outgoing signals within the overall immune cell population were identified. Afterwards, the bulk RNA-sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were combined and the relative infiltration abundance of the identified subpopulations was analyzed using CIBERSORT. Moreover, cell composition patterns could be classified into five tumor microenvironment (TME) subtypes by employing a consistent non-negative matrix algorithm. Finally, the co-expression and interaction between SPP1+TAMs and Treg cells in the tumor microenvironment were analyzed by multiplex immunohistochemistry.ResultsIn the T cell lineage, we found that CXCL13+T cells were more widely distributed in colorectal cancer tissues, and the proportion of infiltration was increased. In addition, Th17 was found accounted for the highest proportion in CD39+CD101+PD1+T cells. Mover, Ma1-SPP1 showed the characteristics of M2 phenotypes and displayed an increased proportion in tumor tissues, which may promote angiogenesis. Plasma cells (PCs) displayed a significantly heterogeneous distribution in tumor as well as normal tissues. Specifically, the IgA+ PC population could be shown to be decreased in colorectal tumor tissues whereas the IgG+ PC one was enriched. In addition, information flow mediated by SPP1 and CD44, regulate signaling pathways of tumor progression. Among the five TME subtypes, the TME-1 subtype displayed a markedly reduced proportion of T-cell infiltration with the highest proportion of macrophages which was correlated to the worst prognosis. Finally, the co-expression and interaction between SPP1+TAMs and Treg cells were observed in the CD44 enriched region.DiscussionThe heterogeneity distribution and phenotype of immune cells were analyzed in colon cancer and rectal cancer at the single-cell level. Further, the prognostic role of major tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and TME subtypes in CRC was evaluated by integrating bulk RNA. These findings provide novel insight into the immunotherapy of CRC

Recent advancement on the optical properties of two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) thin films

The emergence of two-dimensional (2D) materials has led to tremendous interest in the study of graphene and a series of mono- and few-layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Among these TMDCs, the study of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has gained increasing attention due to its promising optical, electronic, and optoelectronic properties. Of particular interest is the indirect to direct band-gap transition from bulk and few-layered structures to mono-layered MoS2, respectively. In this review, the study of these properties is summarized. The use of Raman and Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy of MoS2 has become a reliable technique for differentiating the number of molecular layers in 2D MoS2

Contrast, Attend and Diffuse to Decode High-Resolution Images from Brain Activities

Decoding visual stimuli from neural responses recorded by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) presents an intriguing intersection between cognitive neuroscience and machine learning, promising advancements in understanding human visual perception and building non-invasive brain-machine interfaces. However, the task is challenging due to the noisy nature of fMRI signals and the intricate pattern of brain visual representations. To mitigate these challenges, we introduce a two-phase fMRI representation learning framework. The first phase pre-trains an fMRI feature learner with a proposed Double-contrastive Mask Auto-encoder to learn denoised representations. The second phase tunes the feature learner to attend to neural activation patterns most informative for visual reconstruction with guidance from an image auto-encoder. The optimized fMRI feature learner then conditions a latent diffusion model to reconstruct image stimuli from brain activities. Experimental results demonstrate our model's superiority in generating high-resolution and semantically accurate images, substantially exceeding previous state-of-the-art methods by 39.34% in the 50-way-top-1 semantic classification accuracy. Our research invites further exploration of the decoding task's potential and contributes to the development of non-invasive brain-machine interfaces.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, conferenc

Simultaneous rapid detection of Hantaan virus and Seoul virus using RT-LAMP in rats

Background Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome is in most cases caused by the Hantaan virus (HTNV) and Seoul virus (SEOV). To develop and apply reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) to detect HTNV and SEOV simultaneously, which was faster, more cost effective, and easier to perform as the target gene amplified rapidly. In this article an assay based on LAMP is demonstrated, which only employs such apparatus as a water bath or a heat block. Methods A chromogenic method using the calcein/Mn2+ complex and real-time turbidity monitoring method were used to assess reaction progress of the reaction, and the specificity of the RT-LAMP-based assay was assessed by detecting cDNAs/cRNAs generated from Coxsackievirus A16, Influenza virus, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, mouse poxvirus, rotavirus, mouse hepatitis virus. In addition, 23 clinical specimens were used to determine the agreement between the RT-LAMP assay with reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunofluorescence (IFT) method. Results The detection limit of RT-LAMP to HNTV and SEOV was as low as 10 copies/μL with optimized reaction conditions, which was much more sensitive than the RT-PCR method (100–1,000 copies/μL). At the same time, the detection results of 23 clinical specimens have also illustrated the agreement between this the RT-LAMP assay with RT-PCR and IFT. Discussion This RT-LAMP assay could be used to perform simultaneous and rapid detection of HTNV and SEOV to the clinical specimens

Characterization and mechanism of simultaneous degradation of aflatoxin B1 and zearalenone by an edible fungus of Agrocybe cylindracea GC-Ac2

Contamination with multiple mycotoxins is a major issue for global food safety and trade. This study focused on the degradation of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and zearalenone (ZEN) by 8 types of edible fungi belonging to 6 species, inclulding Agaricus bisporus, Agrocybe cylindracea, Cyclocybe cylindracea, Cyclocybe aegerita, Hypsizygus marmoreus and Lentinula edodes. Among these fungi, Agrocybe cylindracea strain GC-Ac2 was shown to be the most efficient in the degradation of AFB1 and ZEN. Under optimal degradation conditions (pH 6.0 and 37.4°C for 37.9 h), the degradation rate of both AFB1 and ZEN reached over 96%. Through the analysis of functional detoxification components, it was found that the removal of AFB1 and ZEN was primarily degraded by the culture supernatant of the fungus. The culture supernatant exhibited a maximum manganese peroxidase (MnP) activity of 2.37 U/mL. Interestingly, Agrocybe cylindracea strain GC-Ac2 also showed the capability to degrade other mycotoxins in laboratory-scale mushroom substrates, including 15A-deoxynivalenol, fumonisin B1, B2, B3, T-2 toxin, ochratoxin A, and sterigmatocystin. The mechanism of degradation of these mycotoxins was speculated to be catalyzed by a complex enzyme system, which include MnP and other ligninolytic enzymes. It is worth noting that Agrocybe cylindracea can degrade multiple mycotoxins and produce MnP, which is a novel and significant discovery. These results suggest that this candidate strain and its enzyme system are expected to become valuable biomaterials for the simultaneous degradation of multiple mycotoxins

P21cip-Overexpression in the Mouse β Cells Leads to the Improved Recovery from Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes

Under normal conditions, the regeneration of mouse β cells is mainly dependent on their own duplication. Although there is evidence that pancreatic progenitor cells exist around duct, whether non-β cells in the islet could also potentially contribute to β cell regeneration in vivo is still controversial. Here, we developed a novel transgenic mouse model to study the pancreatic β cell regeneration, which could specifically inhibit β cell proliferation by overexpressing p21cip in β cells via regulation of the Tet-on system. We discovered that p21 overexpression could inhibit β-cell duplication in the transgenic mice and these mice would gradually suffer from hyperglycemia. Importantly, the recovery efficiency of the p21-overexpressing mice from streptozotocin-induced diabetes was significantly higher than control mice, which is embodied by better physiological quality and earlier emergence of insulin expressing cells. Furthermore, in the islets of these streptozotocin-treated transgenic mice, we found a large population of proliferating cells which expressed pancreatic duodenal homeobox 1 (PDX1) but not markers of terminally differentiated cells. Transcription factors characteristic of early pancreatic development, such as Nkx2.2 and NeuroD1, and pancreatic progenitor markers, such as Ngn3 and c-Met, could also be detected in these islets. Thus, our work showed for the first time that when β cell self-duplication is repressed by p21 overexpression, the markers for embryonic pancreatic progenitor cells could be detected in islets, which might contribute to the recovery of these transgenic mice from streptozotocin-induced diabetes. These discoveries could be important for exploring new diabetes therapies that directly promote the regeneration of pancreatic progenitors to differentiate into islet β cells in vivo

Tolerance of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana overexpressing apple MdAGO4.1 gene to drought and salt stress

The regulatory role of apple MdAGO4.1 gene in plant drought and salt resistance is unclear. In this study, transgenic A. thaliana in which the apple MdAGO4.1 gene was over-expressed was used to analyze the regulatory effects of the MdAGO4.1 gene on plant drought and salt resistance, to verify the function of the apple MdAGO4.1 gene. The seed germination rate, seedling fresh weight and root length of transgenic Arabidopsis strains in MS medium containing different concentrations of NaCl and mannitol were better than those of the wild type. The transgenic A. thaliana seedlings were more resistant to drought than wild type under drought stress. The transgenic strains were less affected by salt stress than thewild type. Exposure to drought and salt stress reduced the relative elektrolyte leakage, malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide anion (O2-), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) levels of the transgenic strain significantly compared with the levels in the wild type. The levels of proline, protective enzyme activities, and the expression of genes related to drought and salt stress resistance were significantly higher than those of the wild type. These results indicate that MdAGO4.1 overexpression improved drought and salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis. This study can provide a theoretical basis for future research on stress tolerance mechanisms and breeding new varieties of fruit trees resistant to drought and salt

CYP-omega-hydroxylation-dependent metabolites of arachidonic acid inhibit the basolateral 10pS chloride channel in the rat thick ascending limb

Metabolites of arachidonic acid influence sodium chloride (NaCl) transport in the thick ascending limb. Because a 10pS Cl channel is the major type of chloride channel in the basolateral membrane of this nephron segment, we explored the effect of arachidonic acid on this channel in cell-attached patches. Addition of 5μmol arachidonic acid significantly decreased channel activity (a product of channel number and open probability) while linoleic acid had no effect. To determine if this was mediated by acachidonic acid per se or by its metabolites, we measured channel activity in the presence of the cyclooxygenase inhibitor indomethacin, the selective lipoxygenase inhibitor nordihydroguaiaretic acid, and the cytochrome P-450 (CYP)-ω-hydroxylation inhibitor 17-octadecynoic acid. Neither cyclooxygenase nor lipoxygenase inhibition had an effect on basal chloride channel activity; further they failed to abolish the inhibitory effect of arachidonate on the 10pS channel. However, inhibition of CYP-ω-hydroxylation completely abolished the effect of arachidonic acid. The similarity of the effects of 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE) and arachidonic acid suggests that the effect of arachidonic acid was mediated by CYP-ω-hydroxylation-dependent metabolites. We conclude that arachidonic acid inhibits the 10pS chloride channel in the basolateral membrane of the medullary thick ascending limb, an effect mediated by the CYP-ω-hydroxylation-dependent metabolite 20-HETE