Biocomputing Based on DNA Strand Displacement Reactions

The high sequence specificity and precise base complementary pairing principle of DNA provides a rich orthogonal molecular library for molecular programming, making it one of the most promising materials for developing bio-compatible intelligence. In recent years, DNA has been extensively studied and applied in the field of biological computing. Among them, the toehold-mediated strand displacement reaction (SDR) with properties including enzyme free, flexible design and precise control, have been extensively used to construct biological computing circuits. This review provides a systemic overview of SDR design principles and the applications. Strategies for designing DNA-only, enzymes-assisted, other molecules-involved and external stimuli-controlled SDRs are described. The recently realized computing functions and the application of DNA computing in other fields are introduced. Finally, the advantages and challenges of SDR-based computing are discussed.     

Reduction of Dimerization Tendency Due to the Decrease in Hybridization Index by Inclusion of 4s and 4p Semicore States as Valence States in Mon (n=2-18) Clusters: A First-Principles Study

Owing to the unique structural, electronic, and physico-chemical properties, molybdenum clusters are expected to play an important role in future nanotechnologies. However, their ground states are still under debate. In this study, the crystal structure analysis by particle swarm optimization (CALYPSO) approach is used for the global minimum search, which is followed by first-principles calculations, to detect an obvious dimerization tendency in Mo\begin{document}$ _n $\end{document} (\begin{document}$ n $\end{document} = 2\begin{document}$ - $\end{document}18) clusters when the 4s and 4p semicore states are not regarded as the valence states. Further, the clusters with even number of atoms are usually magic clusters with high stability. However, after including the 4s and 4p electrons as valence electrons, the dimerization tendency exhibits a drastic reduction because the average hybridization indices \begin{document}$ H_{ \rm{sp}} $\end{document}, \begin{document}$ H_{ \rm{sd}} $\end{document}, and \begin{document}$ H_{ \rm{pd}} $\end{document} are reduced significantly. Overall, this work reports new ground states of Mo\begin{document}$ _n $\end{document} (\begin{document}$ n $\end{document} = 11, 14, 15) clusters and proves that semicore states are essential for Mo\begin{document}$ _n $\end{document}     

Form-stable and tough paraffin-Al2O3/high density polyethylene composites as environment-friendly thermal energy storage materials: preparation,characterization and analysis

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - In this study, we focus on important global issue containing both environmental pollution control and energy saving. High density polyethylene (HDPE)...     

Ni-N-C单原子催化剂活化过硫酸盐降解苯酚

采用煅烧法制备了以木质素生物炭为载体的单原子催化剂(Ni-N-C-10), 用于高效活化过硫酸盐(PMS)降解苯酚. 利用扫描电子显微镜(SEM)、 透射电子显微镜(TEM)、 经球差校正的高角度环形暗场扫描透射电子显微镜(AC-HAADF-STEM)、 X射线粉末衍射仪(XRD)以及X射线光电子能谱仪(XPS)等对材料进行了表征分析, 证明合成了原子分散的催化剂Ni-N-C-10. 探究了制备过程中双氰胺的投加量和降解实验中催化剂投加量、 PMS投加量、 pH值以及温度对苯酚降解的影响. 结果表明, 在催化剂制备过程中, 加入10倍质量比的双氰胺更有利于实现原子分散. Ni-N-C-10/PMS体系在较低的催化剂和PMS投加量、 以及较宽的pH值范围(3~9)内都能有效活化PMS降解苯酚. 此外, 该体系的稳定性好且应用范围广, 除了能高效降解苯酚外还能快速降解双酚A、 四环素和亚甲基蓝. 电子顺磁共振检测和自由基淬灭实验结果表明, Ni-N-C-10/PMS体系降解苯酚为SO₄^?-、 ·OH和¹O₂ 3种主要活性物种共同作用的结果, 其中¹O₂起主导作用. 反应前后Ni-N-C-10催化剂的XPS分析结果表明, 催化降解苯酚的效率与Ni位点呈正相关.     

Dithienylmaleimide-based D-A Conjugated Polymer Film: Photo-Responsive Behavior and Application in Electrical Memory and Logic Gates

Solid-stated smart polymers responsive to external stimuli have attracted much attention for potential application in the field of photoelectron devices, logic gates, sensor, data storage and security. However, it is a bigger challenge for polymers than that for small molecules in solid state to acquire stimuli-responsive properties, because polymers with high molecular weight are not as easy to change the packing structure as small molecules under external stimulation. Here, a D-A type alternating copolymer PTMF-o containing 3,4-bisthienylmaleimide(A unit) and fluorene(D unit) is designed and synthesized. Upon irradiation of sunlight, PTMF-o film exhibits a photo-response with the color altering from purple to colorless. It is attributed to the structure of copolymer transformed from ring-opening form(PTMF-o) to ring-closure form(PTMF-c), resulting from the oxidative photocyclization of 3,4-bisthienylmaleimide unit. Consequently, the ability of charge transfer(CT) from fluorene to 3,4-bisthienylmaleimide unit in PTMF-o can be easily weakened by light stimuli. PTMF-o film displays a WORM-type resistive storage performance for the strong CT. Interestingly, after exposure, the electrical memory behavior in situ transfers into FLASH type, due to weak CT in PTMF-c. PTMF-o film can also be employed as smart material to construct NAND and NOR logic gates by using light as input condition. The work provides a simple way to modify the electronic properties of polymers and realize stimuli-response in solid states.     

Isoselective Ring-opening Polymerization of Racemic Lactide Catalyzed by N-heterocyclic Olefin/(Thio)urea Organocatalysts

The isoselective ring-opening polymerization of racemic lactide was achieved by combining N-heterocyclic olefin(NHO) with mono(thio)ureas or bis(thio)ureas as catalytic systems. The polymerization process shows high stereoselectivity, controllability and reactivity,delivering multi-block isotactic polylactides with high chain-end fidelity and narrow molecular weight distributions. The enhancement of catalytic performance was observed in the following order: bisthiourea(DTU) monothiourea(TU) bisurea(DU) urea(U). The highest Pm(probability of forming a meso dyad) = 0.91 was observed at-70 °C when using NHO/U1 catalytic system and the high stereoselectivity was attributed to chain-end control mechanism.     

A cosolvent pretreatment: effect of solvent–water on enzymatic hydrolysis of glucan,lignin structure,and dynamics

Cellulose - In this study, a biomass pretreatment strategy with a recyclable cosolvent (toluene sulfonic acid/ethanol) was developed. The low boiling point solvent (78.15 °C),...     

Rapid and label-free classification of pathogens based on light scattering,reduced power spectral features and support vector machine

The rapid identification of pathogens is crucial in controlling the food quality and safety. The proposed system for the rapid and label-free identification of pathogens is based on the principle of laser scattering from the bacterial microbes. The clinical prototype consists of three parts: the laser beam, photodetectors, and the data acquisition system. The bacterial testing sample was mixed with 10 mL distilled water and placed inside the machine chamber. When the bacterial microbes pass by the laser beam, the scattering of light occurs due to variation in size, shape, and morphology. Due to this reason, different types of pathogens show their unique light scattering patterns. The photo-detectors were arranged at the surroundings of the sample at different angles to collect the scattered light. The photodetectors convert the scattered light intensity into a voltage waveform. The waveform features were acquired by using the power spectral characteristics, and the dimensionality of extracted features was reduced by applying minimal-redundancy-maximal-relevance criterion (mRMR). A support vector machine (SVM) classifier was developed by training the selected power spectral features for the classification of three different bacterial microbes. The resulting average identification accuracies of E. faecalis,E. coli and S. aureus were 99%, 87%, and 94%, respectively. The overall experimental results yield a higher accuracy of 93.6%, indicating that the proposed device has the potential for label-free identification of pathogens with simplicity, rapidity, and cost-effectiveness.     

Simultaneous photoelectrochemical detection of dual microRNAs by capturing CdS quantum dots and methylene blue based on target-initiated strand displaced amplification

Herein,we propose a novel photoelectrochemical(PEC) biosensor for dual microRNAs(miRNAs) highly sensitive and simultaneous biosensing based on strand displaced amplification(SDA) reaction.The recognition of H_(miR-21) and H_(let-7 a) by microRNA-21 and let-7 a leads to their change in hairpin structures,subsequently initiating the immobilization of abundant CdS quantum dots(CdS QD s) and methylene blue(MB) based on SDA reaction.The immobilized CdS QDs and MB produce both high PEC currents under430 nm light and 627 nm light illumination,respectively,and the generated PEC currents are closely relied on target miRNAs amounts.Thus,highly sensitive and simultaneous detection of microRNA-21 and let-7 a was readily achieved with detection limit at 6.6 fmol/L and 15.4 fmol/L based on 3σ,respectively.Further,this PEC biosensor was applied in simultaneous analysis of miRNA-21 and let-7 a in breast cancer patient's serum with acceptable results.We expect this biosensor will find more useful application in diagnosis of miRNA-related diseases.