Preeclampsia, a syndrome affecting 5% of pregnancies, causes substantial maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. The pathophysiology of preeclampsia remains largely unknown. It has been hypothesized that placental ischemia is an early event, leading to placental production of a soluble factor or factors that cause maternal endothelial dysfunction, resulting in the clinical findings of hypertension, proteinuria, and edema. Here, we confirm that placental soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt1), an antagonist of VEGF and placental growth factor (PlGF), is upregulated in preeclampsia, leading to increased systemic levels of sFlt1 that fall after delivery. We demonstrate that increased circulating sFlt1 in patients with preeclampsia is associated with decreased circulating levels of free VEGF and PlGF, resulting in endothelial dysfunction in vitro that can be rescued by exogenous VEGF and PlGF. Additionally, VEGF and PlGF cause microvascular relaxation of rat renal arterioles in vitro that is blocked by sFlt1. Finally, administration of sFlt1 to pregnant rats induces hypertension, proteinuria, and glomerular endotheliosis, the classic lesion of preeclampsia. These observations suggest that excess circulating sFlt1 contributes to the pathogenesis of preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia, a syndrome affecting 5% of pregnancies, causes substantial maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. The pathophysiology of preeclampsia remains largely unknown. It has been hypothesized that placental ischemia is an early event, leading to placental production of a soluble factor or factors that cause maternal endothelial dysfunction, resulting in the clinical findings of hypertension, proteinuria, and edema. Here, we confirm that placental soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt1), an antagonist of VEGF and placental growth factor (PlGF), is upregulated in preeclampsia, leading to increased systemic levels of sFlt1 that fall after delivery. We demonstrate that increased circulating sFlt1 in patients with preeclampsia is associated with decreased circulating levels of free VEGF and PlGF, resulting in endothelial dysfunction in vitro that can be rescued by exogenous VEGF and PlGF. Additionally, VEGF and PlGF cause microvascular relaxation of rat renal arterioles in vitro that is blocked by sFlt1. Finally, administration of sFlt1 to pregnant rats induces hypertension, proteinuria, and glomerular endotheliosis, the classic lesion of preeclampsia. These observations suggest that excess circulating sFlt1 contributes to the pathogenesis of preeclampsia.

As an electrical energy storage device, supercapacitor finds attractive applications in consumer electronic products and alternative power source due to its higher energy density, fast discharge/charge time, low level of heating, safety, long-term operation stability, and no disposable parts. This work reviews the recent development of supercapacitor based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and their composites. The purpose is to give a comprehensive understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of carbon nanotubes-related supercapacitor materials and to find ways for the improvement in the performance of supercapacitor. We first discussed the effects of physical and chemical properties of pure carbon nanotubes, including size, purity, defect, shape, functionalization, and annealing, on the supercapacitance. The composites, including CNTs/oxide and CNTs/polymer, were further discussed to enhance the supercapacitance and keep the stability of the supercapacitor by optimally engineering the composition, particle size, and coverage.

splitting (2H 2 O → 2H 2 + O 2 ), consisting of hydrogen evolution and oxygen evolution reaction (HER/OER), can convert electricity to chemical energy in H 2 and O 2 for further energy applications. The practical application of overall water splitting, however, is still limited due to the lack of effective and stable catalysts to reduce reaction energy barrier and enhance Faraday efficient for both reactions. [6][7][8][9][10] Different materials have been studied for overall water splitting catalysis, like metal chalcogenides, metal carbides, oxides, etc. The transition metal carbides, especially graphene, have a better electroconductivity, ductility, and high surface area which display excellent performance in water splitting. [11][12][13] Oxides as another abundant species on the earth also show better water splitting performance, but their stability in hard media is not very good. [14][15][16] The layered double hydroxides (LDH) with unique structure, abundant interstratified electrons and channels for intermediate adsorption and desorption display wonderful water splitting performance. [17][18][19][20] Additionally, the metalorganic frameworks (MOFs) and their based nanocrystals as newly nanomaterials have got much attention in various fields, but their structure limited the active sites exposure for the complete coordinative metal sites. [21][22][23][24][25] Therefore, it is important to enable the cost-effective, large-scale production of these catalysts, and further improve the performance and efficiency of overall water splitting.Transition metal chalcogenides have many different compositions with various lattice structure, while those materials also have unique electronic structures. [26] Based on those superior properties, the transition metal chalcogenides show promising application in many energy applications, [27] such as electrochemical catalysis, photocatalysis, metal-air batteries, and other energy conversion reactions. Especially for their abundant defects sties, [26][27][28] tunable electronic structure, [29][30][31][32] and various morphology, [33][34][35][36][37] the transition metal chalcogenides exhibit boosting performance for water splitting. However, they still have some disadvantages, such as poor conductivity, activity, and stability, in water splitting limited their large-scale industrial application. [38][39][40][41][42] How to synthesize the active and stable transition metal chalcogenides is still a big challenge for wide application. In this Review, the several promising strategies are designed to prepare the active and stable transition metal chalcogenides (Scheme 1). → 2H 2 + O 2 ) is a very promising avenue to effectively and environmentally friendly produce highly pure hydrogen (H 2 ) and oxygen (O 2 ) at a large scale. Different materials have been developed to enhance the efficiency for water splitting. Among them, chalcogenides with unique atomic arrangement and high electronic transport show interesting catalytic properties in various electrochemical reactions, such as the ...

Manipulating the active species and improving the structural stabilization of sulfur-containing catalysts during the OER process remain a tremendous challenge. Herein, we constructed NiO/NiS 2 and FeÀ NiO/NiS 2 as catalyst models to study the effect of Fe doping. As expected, FeÀ NiO/NiS 2 exhibits a low overpotential of 270 mV at 10 mA cm À 2 . The accumulation of hydroxyl groups on the surface of materials after Fe doping can promote the formation of highly active NiOOH at a lower OER potential. Moreover, we investigated the level of corrosion of MÀ S bonds and compared the stability variation of MÀ S bonds with Fe at different locations. Interestingly, Fe bonded with S in the bulk as the sacrificial agent can alleviate the oxidation corrosion of partial NiÀ S bonds and thus endow FeÀ NiO/NiS 2 long-term durability. This work could motivate the community to focus more on resolving the corrosion of sulfur-containing materials.

Background: Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) have become one of the most utilized adult stem cells due to their abundance and accessibility. Recent studies have shown that paracrine cytokines, exosomes, and other active substances are the main factors through which ADSCs exert their biological effects. Main body: Adipose cell-free derivatives have been recently gaining attention as potential therapeutic agents for various human diseases. These derivatives include ADSC-conditioned medium (ADSC-CM), ADSC exosomes (ADSC-Exo), and cell-free adipose tissue extracts (ATEs), all of which can be conveniently carried, stored, and transported. Currently, research on ADSC-conditioned medium (ADSC-CM) and ADSC exosomes (ADSC-Exo) is surging. Moreover, cell-free adipose tissue extracts (ATEs), obtained by purely physical methods, have emerged as the focus of research in recent years. Conclusion: Adipose cell-free derivatives delivery can promote cell proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis, suppress cell apoptosis, and inflammation, as well as reduce oxidative stress and immune regulation. Thus, adipose cell-free derivatives have a broad therapeutic potential in many areas, as they possess anti-skin aging properties, promote wound healing, reduce scar formation, and provide myocardial protection and neuroprotection. This article summarizes these effects and reviews research progress in the use of adipose cell-free derivatives.

evolution and oxygen reduction reaction (OER and ORR) performance of the air cathode limits the efficiency of Zn-air batteries owing to the sluggish kinetics and multistep proton-coupled electron transfer process on the catalyst surface. [4-6] Anode passivation typically reduces the performance of Zn-air batteries in hard alkaline electrolytes. Moreover, aqueous electrolytes limit the temperature range of the Zn-air battery applications. [7,8] Several strategies, such as the preparation of superior catalysts with remarkable OER and ORR activity and excellent stability, [9-12] the design of new Zn-air battery systems in facile media (such as natural conditions), [13-15] and tailoring the electrolyte properties to achieve a wide temperature range for Zn-air battery applications, [7,8,16-18] have been developed to address these problems and enhance the performance of Zn-air batteries. Although many efforts have been dedicated to increasing the use of Zn-air battery in different fields, the current performance of the Zn-air batteries is still unsatisfactory utilizations in many fields, particularly under low temperature condition. The performance of Zn-air batteries depends on the bifunctional catalytic activity of the air-cathode electrode. Typically, noble Herein, a strategy is reported for the fabrication of NiCo 2 O 4-based mesoporous nanosheets (PNSs) with tunable cobalt valence states and oxygen vacancies. The optimized NiCo 2.148 O 4 PNSs with an average Co valence state of 2.3 and uniform 4 nm nanopores present excellent catalytic performance with an ultralow overpotential of 190 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 and long-term stability (700 h) for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline media. Furthermore, Zn-air batteries built using the NiCo 2.148 O 4 PNSs present a high power and energy density of 83 mW cm −2 and 910 Wh kg −1 , respectively. Moreover, a portable battery box with NiCo 2.148 O 4 PNSs as the air cathode presents long-term stability for 120 h under low temperatures in the range of 0 to −35 °C. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the prominent electron exchange and transfer activity of the electrocatalyst is attributed to the surface lower-coordinated Co-sites in the porous region presenting a merging 3d-e g-t 2g band, which overlaps with the Fermi level of the Zn-air battery system. This favors the adsorption of the *OH, and stabilized *O radicals are reached, toward competitively lower overpotential, demonstrating a generalized key for optimally boosting overall OER performance. Zn-air batteries, as a promising alternative to fossil fuel, have received much attention owing to their safety, cleanliness, and efficiency. [1-3] However, Zn-air batteries still present shortcomings for large-scale applications, as follows. The oxygen The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under

We identified the formation of nanowhiskers of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) in the gel with xylene in situ by means of small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). In the freshly prepared solution, the rodlike segments of P3HT were found to form local network aggregates characterized by the mass fractal dimension of ca. 2.5. Upon prolonged aging at room temperature, the originally viscous liquid solution transformed into a gel, in which a rodlike entity with the cross-sectional radius of gyration of 7.31 nm was disclosed. Real-space observation of the morphology of the film cast from the gel revealed the presence of long nanowhiskers. The fact that the width and height of these whiskers closely agreed with those of the rodlike entity in the gel deduced from model fitting of the SAXS profile indicated that the nanowhiskers were present in the wet gel. Time-resolved SAXS experiment revealed that the nanowhisker formation was accompanied by the crystallization of P3HT. The ultimate crystallinity attained in the nanowhiskers was only 32%, and the limited crystallizability was attributed to the network aggregate structure formed by P3HT prior to the gelation. The integrity of the nanowhiskers was largely maintained by the crystallinity of P3HT, as the dissipation of the nanowhisker morphology upon heating was found to occur concurrently with the melting of P3HT crystallites that led to homogenization of the solution.