Direct solar-powered production of value-added chemicals from CO2 and H2O, a process that mimics natural photosynthesis, is of fundamental and practical interest. In natural photosynthesis, CO2 is first reduced to common biochemical building blocks using solar energy, which are subsequently used for the synthesis of the complex mixture of molecular products that form biomass. Here we report an artificial photosynthetic scheme that functions via a similar two-step process by developing a biocompatible light-capturing nanowire array that enables a direct interface with microbial systems. As a proof of principle, we demonstrate that a hybrid semiconductor nanowire-bacteria system can reduce CO2 at neutral pH to a wide array of chemical targets, such as fuels, polymers, and complex pharmaceutical precursors, using only solar energy input. The high surface-area silicon nanowire array harvests light energy to provide reducing equivalents to the anaerobic bacterium, Sporomusa ovata, for the photoelectrochemical production of acetic acid under aerobic conditions (21% O2) with low overpotential (η < 200 mV), high Faradic efficiency (up to 90%), and long-term stability (up to 200 hours). The resulting acetate (~ 6 g/L) can be activated to acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) by genetically engineered Escherichia coli and used as a building block for a variety of value-added chemicals, such as n-butanol, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) polymer, and three different isoprenoid natural products. As such, interfacing biocompatible solid-state nanodevices with living systems provides a starting point for developing a programmable system of chemical synthesis entirely powered by sunlight.
Natural photosynthesis harnesses solar energy to convert CO 2 and water to value-added chemical products for sustaining life. We present a hybrid bioinorganic approach to solar-to-chemical conversion in which sustainable electrical and/or solar input drives production of hydrogen from water splitting using biocompatible inorganic catalysts. The hydrogen is then used by living cells as a source of reducing equivalents for conversion of CO 2 to the value-added chemical product methane. Using platinum or an earth-abundant substitute, α-NiS, as biocompatible hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts and Methanosarcina barkeri as a biocatalyst for CO 2 fixation, we demonstrate robust and efficient electrochemical CO 2 to CH 4 conversion at up to 86% overall Faradaic efficiency for ≥7 d. Introduction of indium phosphide photocathodes and titanium dioxide photoanodes affords a fully solar-driven system for methane generation from water and CO 2 , establishing that compatible inorganic and biological components can synergistically couple light-harvesting and catalytic functions for solar-to-chemical conversion.artificial photosynthesis | solar fuels | photocatalysis | carbon dioxide fixation | water splitting M ethods for the sustainable conversion of carbon dioxide to value-added chemical products are of technological and societal importance (1-3). Elegant advances in traditional approaches to CO 2 reduction driven by electrical and/or solar inputs using homogeneous (4-16), heterogeneous (17-26), and biological (7, 27-31) catalysts point out key challenges in this area, namely (i) the chemoselective conversion of CO 2 to a single product while minimizing the competitive reduction of protons to hydrogen, (ii) long-term stability under environmentally friendly aqueous conditions, and (iii) unassisted light-driven CO 2 reduction that does not require external electrical bias and/or sacrificial chemical quenchers. Indeed, synthetic homogeneous and heterogeneous CO 2 catalysts are often limited by product selectivity and/or aqueous compatibility, whereas enzymes show exquisite specificity but are generally less robust outside of their protective cellular environment. In addition, the conversion of electrosynthetic systems to photosynthetic ones is nontrivial owing to the complexities of effectively integrating components of light capture with bond-making and bond-breaking chemistry.Inspired by the process of natural photosynthesis in which lightharvesting, charge-transfer, and catalytic functions are integrated to achieve solar-driven CO 2 fixation (32-35), we have initiated a program in solar-to-chemical conversion to harness the strengths inherent to both inorganic materials chemistry and biology (36). As shown in Fig. 1, our strategy to drive synthesis with sustainable electrical and/or solar energy input (37) interfaces a biocompatible photo(electro)chemical hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst with a microorganism that uses this sustainably generated hydrogen as an electron donor for CO 2 reduction. Impo...
A signature characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is aggregation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) fibrils in the brain. Nevertheless, the links between Aβ and AD pathology remain incompletely understood. It has been proposed that neurotoxicity arising from aggregation of the Aβ peptide can in part be explained by metal ion binding interactions. Using advanced X-ray microscopy techniques at sub-micron resolution, we investigated relationships between iron biochemistry and AD pathology in intact cortex from an established mouse model over-producing Aβ. We found a direct correlation of amyloid plaque morphology with iron, and evidence for the formation of an iron-amyloid complex. We also show that iron biomineral deposits in the cortical tissue contain the mineral magnetite, and provide evidence that Aβ-induced chemical reduction of iron could occur in vivo. Our observations point to the specific role of iron in amyloid deposition and AD pathology, and may impact development of iron-modifying therapeutics for AD.
Mounting evidence implicates axonal transport defects, typified by the presence of axonal varicosities with aberrant accumulations of cargo, as an early event in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis. Work identifying amyloid precursor protein (APP) as a vesicular motor receptor for anterograde axonal transport further implicates axonal transport in AD. Manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) detects axonal transport dynamics in preclinical studies. Here we pursue an understanding of the role of APP in axonal transport in the central nervous system by applying MEMRI to hippocampal circuitry and to the visual pathway in living mice homozygous for either wild type or a deletion in the APP gene (n = 12 for each genotype). Following intra-ocular or stereotaxic hippocampal injection, we performed time-lapse MRI to detect Mn2+ transport. Three dimensional whole brain datasets were compared on a voxel-wise basis using within-group pair-wise analysis. Quantification of transport to structures connected to injection sites via axonal fiber tracts was also performed. Histology confirmed consistent placement of hippocampal injections and no observable difference in glial-response to the injections. APP −/− mice had significantly reduced transport from the hippocampus to the septal nuclei and amygdala after 7 hours and reduced transport to the contralateral hippocampus after 25 hours; axonal transport deficits in the APP −/− animals were also identified in the visual pathway. These data support a system-wide role for APP in axonal transport within the central nervous system and demonstrate the power of MEMRI for assessing neuronal circuitry involved in memory and learning.
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