Accelerating slow water dissociation kinetics is key to boosting the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media. We report the synthesis of atomically dispersed MoO x species anchored on Rh metallene using a one-pot solvothermal method. The resulting structures expose the oxide-metal interfaces to the maximum extent. This leads to a MoO x -Rh catalyst with ultrahigh alkaline HER activity. We obtained a mass activity of 2.32 A mg Rh À 1 at an overpotential of 50 mV, which is 11.8 times higher than that of commercial Pt/C and surpasses the previously reported Rh-based electrocatalysts. First-principles calculations demonstrate that the interface between MoO x and Rh is the active center for alkaline HER. The MoO x sites preferentially adsorb and dissociate water molecules, and adjacent Rh sites adsorb the generated atomic hydrogen for efficient H 2 evolution. Our findings illustrate the potential of atomic interface engineering strategies in electrocatalysis.

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to assess the performance of noninvasively prenatal testing (NIPT) for fetal copy number variants (CNVs) in clinical samples, using a whole-genome sequencing method.MethodA total of 919 archived maternal plasma samples with karyotyping/microarray results, including 33 CNVs samples and 886 normal samples from September 1, 2011 to May 31, 2013, were enrolled in this study. The samples were randomly rearranged and blindly sequenced by low-coverage (about 7M reads) whole-genome sequencing of plasma DNA. Fetal CNVs were detected by Fetal Copy-number Analysis through Maternal Plasma Sequencing (FCAPS) to compare to the karyotyping/microarray results. Sensitivity, specificity and were evaluated.Results33 samples with deletions/duplications ranging from 1 to 129 Mb were detected with the consistent CNV size and location to karyotyping/microarray results in the study. Ten false positive results and two false negative results were obtained. The sensitivity and specificity of detection deletions/duplications were 84.21% and 98.42%, respectively.ConclusionWhole-genome sequencing-based NIPT has high performance in detecting genome-wide CNVs, in particular >10Mb CNVs using the current FCAPS algorithm. It is possible to implement the current method in NIPT to prenatally screening for fetal CNVs.

a b s t r a c tChronic hypoxia triggers pulmonary vascular remodeling, which is associated with de-differentiation of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMC). Here, we show that miR-20a expression is up-regulated in response to hypoxia in both mouse and human PASMC. We also observed that miR-20a represses the protein kinase, cGMP-dependent, type I (PRKG1) gene and we identified two crucial miR-20a binding sites within the coding region of PRKG1. Functional studies showed that miR-20a promotes the proliferation and migration of human PASMC, whereas it inhibits their differentiation. In summary, we provided a possible mechanism by which hypoxia results in decreased PRKG1 expression and in the phenotypic switching of PASMC.

Our method had a favorable performance for noninvasively detecting fetal FGFR3 mutations in maternal plasma, highlighting its promising value in developing a noninvasive prenatal test for de novo and paternally inherited disorders.