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Inhibiting vascular endothelial foam is the focus of clinical attention. Using SonoVue (an ultrasound contrast agent), the salusin-α gene was transfected into the arterial intima of an atherosclerotic rabbit model induced by a high-fat diet in this study. Subsequently the model of blood lipid indexes, the pathological structure of the intima, and changes in molecules regulating atherosclerosis were investigated. The high-density lipoprotein C and apolipoprotein A values in the salusin-α gene overexpression (P) group were higher than those in the salusin-α gene interference (RP) group (P < 0.05), whereas the total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein C, and apolipoprotein B values were reversed. Rabbits in the P group showed significantly thinner vascular intimal thickness than that of other experimental groups (P < 0.05). The expression of positive regulators of atherosclerosis (ABCA1, ABCG1) was higher in the P group than that in the RP group (P < 0.05), and the opposite effect was observed for negative regulators (ACAT1, CD36). Thus, our results showed that the overexpression of salusin-α gene inhibited the proliferation of the vascular intima, thereby throwing some light on understanding the mechanism how salusin-α gene expression interfered with the foaming of vascular intimal cells.

It is commonly accepted that the increased degree of graphitization leads to a higher electrical conductivity of carbon materials. However, more and more evidence reveals that heteroatom doping on carbon host can also improve the conductivity, owing to the dopant atoms contributing to higher charge delocalization and density of donor states near Fermi level. The reality is, such conductivity improvement from doping is often overwhelmed by graphitized carbon. Although heteroatom‐doped carbon is widely used as active materials in the fields of energy storage and electrocatalysis, which still requires extra carbon‐based conductive additives to enhance the overall conductivity. In this stu, it is demonstrated that the electrical conductivity of finely designed nitrogen‐doped carbon is even beyond the commercialized carbon conductors over 3.5 times, endowing such conductive agent‐free electrode material an excellent performance in an all‐solid‐state flexible supercapacitor. The theoretical simulation further demonstrates that N‐doped sp2/sp3 hybrid carbon can migrate the Fermi level to the conduction band, leading to an n‐type conductivity due to the additional electrons caused by the N dopant.

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is pivotally involved in proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers (PEMWEs). However, the commercialized iridium‐based catalysts often suffer from severe sluggish kinetics, eventually deteriorating the polarization and overall PEMWEs performance. Therefore, to develop OER electrocatalysts with promising reaction kinetics and high stability is of great significance for PEMWEs. Compared to iridium, the ruthenium‐based catalysts possess lower price and higher activity in acidic water oxidation, which promises Ru‐based materials to replace the state‐of‐the‐art IrOx. Yet, the less stable ruthenium than iridium impedes its real applications. In this mini review, recent knowledge of feasible engineering strategies for migrating the Ru‐based electrocatalysts' stability is summarized. In order to improve performance and durability, basic fundamentals of acidic OER on nanoscale and molecular engineered Ru‐based electrocatalysts are briefly introduced. In the end, the challenges and outlook for engineering novel Ru‐based electrocatalysts are presented.

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