We present a draft sequence of the genome of Aedes aegypti, the primary vector for yellow fever and dengue fever, which at ~1.38 Gbp is ~5-fold larger in size than the genome of the malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae. Nearly 50% of the Aedes aegypti genome consists of transposable elements. These contribute to a ~4-6 fold increase in average gene length and the size of intergenic regions relative to Anopheles gambiae and Drosophila melanogaster. Nevertheless, chromosomal synteny is generally maintained between all three insects although conservation of orthologous gene order is higher (~2-fold) between the mosquito species than between either of them and fruit fly. Three methods have provided transcriptional evidence for 80% of the 15,419 predicted protein coding genes in Aedes aegypti. An increase in genes encoding odorant binding, cytochrome P450 and cuticle domains relative to Anopheles gambiae suggests that members of these protein families underpin some of the biological differences between them.

Atomically dispersed transition metals confined with nitrogen on a carbon support has demonstrated great electrocatalytic performance, but an extremely low concentration of metal atoms (usually below 1.5%) is necessary to avoid aggregation through sintering which limits mass activity. Here, a salt‐template method to fabricate densely populated, monodispersed cobalt atoms on a nitrogen‐doped graphene‐like carbon support is reported, and achieving a dramatically higher site fraction of Co atoms (≈15.3%) in the catalyst and demonstrating excellent electrocatalytic activity for both the oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction. The atomic dispersion and high site fraction of Co provide a large electrochemically active surface area of ≈105.6 m2 g−1, leading to very high mass activity for ORR (≈12.164 A mgCo−1 at 0.8 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode), almost 10.5 times higher than that of the state‐of‐the‐art benchmark Pt/C catalyst (1.156 A mgPt−1 under similar conditions). It also demonstrates an outstanding mass activity for OER (0.278 A mgCo−1). The Zn‐air battery based on this bifunctional catalyst exhibits high energy density of 945 Wh kgZn−1 as well as remarkable stability. In addition, both density functional theory based simulations and experimental measurements suggest that the CoN4 sites on the carbon matrix are the most active sites for the bifunctional oxygen electrocatalytic activity.

Competitive coadsorption of water is a major problem in the deployment of adsorption-based CO capture. Water molecules may compete for adsorption sites, reducing the capacity of the material, and dehumidification prior to separating CO from N increases process complexity and cost. The development of adsorbent materials that can selectively adsorb CO in the presence of water would be a major step forward in the deployment of CO capture materials in practice. In this study, large-scale computational screening was carried out to search for metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with high selectivity toward CO over HO. Calculating framework charges for thousands of MOFs is a significant challenge, so initial screening used a fast, but approximate, charge calculation method. On the basis of the initial screening, 15 MOFs were selected, and Monte Carlo simulations were carried out to compute the adsorption isotherms for these MOFs using more accurate framework charges calculated by density functional theory. A detailed investigation was performed on the effect of using different methods for calculating partial charges, and it was found that electrostatic interactions contribute the majority of the adsorption energy of HO in the selected MOFs.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a newly discovered homolog of ACE whose actions oppose those of angiotensin II (AngII). However, the underlying mechanisms by which ACE2 effectively suppresses early atherosclerotic lesions remain poorly understood. Here, we show, both in vitro and in vivo, that ACE2 inhibited the development of early atherosclerotic lesions by suppressing the growth of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and improving endothelial function. In a relatively large cohort animal study (66 rabbits), aortic segments transfected by Ad-ACE2 showed significantly attenuated fatty streak formation, neointimal macrophage infiltration, and alleviation of impaired endothelial function. Segments also showed decreased expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein 1, lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor 1, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen, which led to the delayed onset of atherosclerotic lesions. At the cellular level, ACE2 significantly modulated AngII-induced growth and migration in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and VSMCs. The antiatherosclerotic effect of ACE2 involved down-regulation of the ERKp38, JAK-STAT, and AngII-ROS-NF-κB signaling pathways and upregulation of the PI3K-Akt pathway. These findings revealed the molecular mechanisms of the antiatherosclerotic activity of ACE2 and suggested that modulation of ACE2 could offer a therapeutic option for treating atherosclerosis.atherosclerosis | endothelial cell | gene therapy | smooth muscle cell | signaling pathway A ccumulating evidence indicates that endothelial cell (EC) dysfunction and the proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are salient features of early atherosclerotic lesions, and that the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis (1, 2). Angiotensin II (AngII) promotes EC dysfunction and VSMC proliferation and migration by increasing the expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) and lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor 1 (LOX-1), leading to aggravation of atherosclerotic lesions (3-5). Delivery of ACE inhibitors or AngII type 1 receptor (AT 1 R) blockers to limit AngII bioactivity is an effective approach against atherosclerosis.Recent studies show that endogenous levels of AngII are regulated by the opposing action of two carboxypeptidases, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The latter is thought to counterbalance ACE by cleaving AngI into the inactive angiotensin 1-9 and cleaving AngII into the vasodilating and antiproliferative angiotensin 1-7 [Ang(1-7)]. ACE2 is thus considered a potential therapeutic target of RAS for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases by virtue of its key role in the formation of vasoprotective peptides from AngII (6-8). Our recent study using a rabbit atherosclerosis model showed that ACE2 overexpression stabilized aortic plaques at a late stage and attenuated the progression of early atherosclerotic lesions. These ther...

Three luminescent polymorphs based on a new copper(I) complex Cu(2-QBO)(PPh3)PF6 (1, PPh3 = triphenylphosphine, 2-QBO = 2-(2'-quinolyl)benzoxazole) have been synthesized and characterized by FT-IR, UV-vis, elemental analyses, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. Each polymorph can reversibly convert from one to another through appropriate procedures. Interestingly, such interconversion can be distinguished by their intrinsic crystal morphologies and colors (namely α, dark yellow plate, β, orange block, γ, light yellow needle) as well as photoluminescent (PL) properties. X-ray crystal structure analyses of these three polymorphs show three different supramolecular structures from 1D to 3D, which are expected to be responsible for the formation of three different crystal morphologies such as needle, plate, and block. Combination of the experimental data with DFT calculations on these three polymorphs reveals that the polymorphic interconversion is triggered by the conformation isomerization of the 2-QBO ligand and can be successfully controlled by the polarity of the process solvents (affecting the molecular dipole moment) and thermodynamics (affecting the molecular total energy). It is also found that the different crystal colors of polymorphs and their PL properties are derived from different θ values (dihedral angle between benzoxazolyl and quinolyl group of the 2-QBO ligand) and P-Cu-P angles based on TD-DFT calculations. Moreover, an interesting phase interconversion between γ and β has also been found under different temperature, and this result is consistent with the DFT calculations in which the total energy of β is larger than that of γ. This polymorphism provides a good model to study the relationship between the structure and the physical properties in luminescent copper(I) complexes as well as some profound insights into their PL properties.

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Multivariate metal-organic frameworks (MTV-MOFs) contain multiple linker types within a single structure. Arrangements of linkers containing different functional groups confer structural diversity and surface heterogeneity and result in a combinatorial explosion in the number of possible structures. In this work, we carried out high-throughput computational screening of a large number of computer-generated MTV-MOFs to assess their CO capture properties using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations. The results demonstrate that functionalization enhances CO capture performance of MTV-MOFs when compared to their parent (unfunctionalized) counterparts, and the pore size plays a dominant role in determining the CO adsorption capabilities of MTV-MOFs irrespective of the combinations of the three functional groups (-F, -NH, and -OCH) that we investigated. We also found that the functionalization of parent MOFs with small pores led to larger enhancements in CO uptake and CO/N selectivity than functionalization in larger-pore MOFs. Free energy contour maps are presented to visually compare the influence of linker functionalization between frameworks with large and small pores.

Exploring high-performing adsorption-driven heat pumps (AHPs) remains a challenging task owing to the low working capacity, high regeneration temperature, and low energy efficiency of conventional adsorbents. Quick discovery of the novel promising adsorbents could help to improve the coefficient of performance of AHPs for heating (COP H ) and cooling (COP C ). Herein, we reported an approach to identify the high-performing covalent−organic frameworks (COFs) for heating, cooling, and ice making by high-throughput computational screening based on grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations and, for the first time, machine learning. It was demonstrated that compared with metal−organic frameworks (MOFs), COFs were more suitable adsorbents of AHPs for cooling because of their weak interaction toward ethanol that favors stepwise adsorption. Structure−property relationship analysis revealed that the average enthalpy of adsorption commensurate with the enthalpy of evaporation will benefit the performance of AHPs besides the high working capacity and low step positions of adsorption isotherms. In order to reduce the computational cost of screening, a random forest model was developed to successfully predict the COP C of both COFs and MOFs.