Genetic variance of transforming growth factor β2 gene in conotruncal heart defects

<p><b>Objective:</b> The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between two haplotype-tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs6658835 and rs10495098) of <i>TGF-β2</i> and conotruncal heart defects (CTDs).</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> Two polymorphisms of <i>TGF-β2</i> gene were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) from 259 CTDs patients and 310 control subjects.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> The association between SNP rs6658835 in <i>TGF-β2</i> and CTDs has been found. The frequency of G allele in CTDs patients was significantly higher than that in control subjects (52.7% versus 40.3%, <i>p</i> < 0.001, OR =1.649).</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b><i>TGF-β2</i> gene polymorphisms may serve as a novel genetic marker for the risk of CTDs.</p

Capture of pure toxic gases through porous materials from molecular simulations

<p>In the last three decades, the air pollution is the main problem to affect human health and the environment in China and its contaminants include SO_2, NH_3, H₂S, NO₂, NO and CO. In this work, we employed grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the adsorption capability of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) for these toxic gases. Eighty-nine MOFs and COFs were studied, and top-10 adsorption materials were screened for each toxic gas at room temperature. Dependence of the adsorption performance on the geometry and constructed element of MOFs/COFs was determined and the adsorption conditions were optimised. The open metal sites have mainly influenced the adsorption of NH₃, H₂S, NO₂ and NO. Especially, the X-DOBDC and XMOF-74 (X = Mg, Co, Ni, Zn) series of materials containing open metal sites are all best performance for adsorption of NH₃ to illustrate the importance of electrostatic interaction. Our simulation results also showed that ZnBDC and IRMOF-13 are good candidates to capture the toxic gases NH_3, H₂S, NO₂, NO and CO. This work provides important insights in screening MOF and COF materials with satisfactory performance for toxic gas removal.</p