Biomimetic color-changing skin based on temperature-responsive hydrogel microspheres with the photonic crystal structure

The responsive color-changing bionic skin imitation of certain organisms such as chameleons has potential applications in the fields of chemical sensing and information transfer. Inspired by the cellular structure of the chameleon iridophores, a flexible and scalable fabrication strategy was proposed in the present study, which centers on the modular assembly of miniature color-changing pixel dots. The color-changing pixel dots were formed by self-assembling charged silica particles inside hydrogels and fabricated in bulk using microfluidic methods. The pixel dots were immobilized in hydrogels to encapsulate in a membrane structure similar to biological skin. With thermal stimulation, the bionic color-changing skin can change color from green to red and has an angle-independent color display with good environmental adaptability.     

Conformational Control of Organocatalyst in Strongly Brønsted-Acidic Metal-Organic Frameworks for Enantioselective Catalysis

Chiral imidodiphosphates (IDPs) have emerged as strong Brønsted acid catalysts for many enantioselective processes. However, the dynamic transformation between O,O-syn and O,O-anti conformers typically results in low enantioselectivity. Here we demonstrate that topologies of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can be exploited to control IDP conformations and local chiral microenvironments for enantioselective catalysis. Two porous Dy-MOFs with different topologies are obtained from an enantiopure 1,1′-biphenol IDP-based tetracarboxylate ligand. While the ligand adopts a 4- or 3-connected (c) binding mode, all IDPs are rigidified to get only a single O,O-syn conformation and display greatly enhanced Brønsted acidity relative to the free IDP. The MOF with the 4-c IDP that has a relatively less compact shape than the 3-c IDP can be an efficient and recyclable heterogeneous Brønsted acid catalysing the challenging asymmetric O,O-acetalization reaction with up to 96 % enantiomeric excess.     

Western blot normalization: Time to choose a proper loading control seriously

Recent research has questioned the validity of housekeeping proteins in Western blot. Our present study proposed new ideas for Western blot normalization that improved the reproducibility of scientific research. We used the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and the web tool GEO2R to exclude unstable housekeeping genes quickly. In ischemic heart tissues, actin and tubulin changed significantly, whereas no statistically significant changes were observed in the expression of genes relative to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). Besides, the reliability of GAPDH was further examined by Western blot. Additionally, unstable housekeeping genes were found in other animal models of cardiovascular medicine. We also found that sodium dodecyl sulfate and temperature significantly impacted the results of Ponceau S staining. Membranes stained with Ponceau S after immunodetection could avoid this interference, and the coefficients of variation for post-immunodetection staining are lower than those produced by GAPDH immunodetection. Overall, we described a new use of differential gene expression analysis and proposed a modified Ponceau S staining method, which provided researchers with a proper loading control for Western blot and hence could improve reproducibility in research.     

非线性随机分数阶延迟积分微分方程Euler-Maruyama方法的强收敛性

本文研究了一类新的模型问题:非线性随机分数阶延迟积分微分方程.当方程中的漂移项和扩散项满足全局Lipschitz条件和线性增长条件时,基于压缩映射原理给出了该方程解存在唯一的充分条件.由于理论求解的困难,构造了一种数值方法(Euler-Maruyama方法),并证得强收敛阶为α-1/2,α∈(1/2,1].最后通过数值试验,验证了这一理论结果.