show superb activities than either of the parent metal catalyst, and comparable to the best noble catalysts (e.g., IrO 2 and RuO 2 ) [ 12 ] for oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is a key component for a number of energy storage and conversion processes. [ 13 ] However, the lack of investigations on the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activities of LDHs greatly limits their further application in rechargeable metal-air battery and unitized regenerative fuel cell. Thus it is intriguing to evaluate the bifunctional performance of LDH-based materials in order to broadening the usages in electrochemistry.The specifi c activity of the material for the target reaction is usually highly dependent on the chemical composition and their electronic structures. [ 14,15 ] For OER, it is found that a small amount of Fe doping was effective for enhancing the OER activities of Ni hydroxides or oxides, possibly due to the enhanced structure disorder and conductivity. [ 16 ] Recently, an excellent OER performance was observed on amorphous NiCoFe oxides which were prepared by a photochemical route. [ 17 ] As to the ORR, Co and Fe ions are believed to be the active center with specifi c crystal and electronic structures. [ 18,19 ] Moreover, Co-based compounds have been widely studied recently as bifunctional materials for oxygen electrocatalysis. [ 20 ] LDHs, which offer a wide tunability of diverse metal species and ratios in the intralayer as well as a large interlayer spacing which may accelerate the ion diffusion, should be of great potential with high bifunctional performance.In this work, the ORR and OER activities of trinary NiCoFe-LDHs have been systematically investigated. It is observed that the NiCoFe-LDH showed a reasonable bifunctional performance while the sample after preoxidation treatment (denoted as O-NiCoFe-LDH) would lead to a signifi cant enhancement. This improvement was attributed to the formation of Co 3+ in the intralayer, result in the conductivity improvement of the material. To demonstrate the practical application of the LDH catalyst, the O-NiCoFe-LDH loaded on Tefl on-treated carbon fi ber paper (T-CFP) only required a potential hysteresis of ≈800 mV to achieve stable current densities of ≈20 mA cm −2 for ORR and OER for matching the current requirement of rechargeable zinc-air batteries, [ 21 ] much smaller than those of the commercial 60 wt% Pt/C and 20 wt% Ir/C catalysts. This fi rst investigation on the bifunctional performance of LDHs not Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are a family of high-profi le layer materials with tunable metal species and interlayer spacing, and herein the LDHs are fi rst investigated as bifunctional electrocatalysts. It is found that trinary LDH containing nickel, cobalt, and iron (NiCoFe-LDH) shows a reasonable bifunctional performance, while exploiting a preoxidation treatment can signifi cantly enhance both oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction activity. This phenomenon is attributed to the partial conversion of Co 2+ to Co 3+ state in the pr...

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are a family of layer materials that receive heightened attention. Herein a ternary NiFeMn-LDH is investigated with superior oxygen evolution activity, which is attributed to the Mn(4+) doping in the intralayer, which modifies the electronic structure and improves the conductivity of the electrocatalyst.

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Allostery tweaks innumerable biological processes and plays a fundamental role in human disease and drug discovery. Exploration of allostery has thus been regarded as a crucial requirement for research on biological mechanisms and the development of novel therapeutics. Here, based on our previously developed allosteric data and methods, we present an interactive platform called AlloFinder that identifies potential endogenous or exogenous allosteric modulators and their involvement in human allosterome. AlloFinder automatically amalgamates allosteric site identification, allosteric screening and allosteric scoring evaluation of modulator–protein complexes to identify allosteric modulators, followed by allosterome mapping analyses of predicted allosteric sites and modulators in human proteome. This web server exhibits prominent performance in the reemergence of allosteric metabolites and exogenous allosteric modulators in known allosteric proteins. Specifically, AlloFinder enables identification of allosteric metabolites for metabolic enzymes and screening of potential allosteric compounds for disease-related targets. Significantly, the feasibility of AlloFinder to discover allosteric modulators was tested in a real case of signal transduction and activation of transcription 3 (STAT3) and validated by mutagenesis and functional experiments. Collectively, AlloFinder is expected to contribute to exploration of the mechanisms of allosteric regulation between metabolites and metabolic enzymes, and to accelerate allosteric drug discovery. The AlloFinder web server is freely available to all users at http://mdl.shsmu.edu.cn/ALF/.

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To search for new protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO, EC 1.3.3.4) inhibitors with improved bioactivity, a series of novel pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine-2,4-dione-benzoxazinone hybrids, 9-13, were designed and synthesized. Several compounds with improved tobacco PPO (mtPPO)-inhibiting and promising herbicidal activities were found. Among them, the most potent compound, 3-(7-fluoro-3-oxo-4-(prop-2-yn-1-yl)-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[b][1,4] oxazin-6-yl)-1-methylpyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine-2,4(1H,3H)-dione, 11q, with a K value of 0.0074 μM, showed six times more activity than flumioxazin (K = 0.046 μM) against mtPPO. Compound 11q displayed a strong and broad spectrum of weed control at 37.5-150 g of active ingredient (ai)/ha by both post- and pre-emergence application, which was comparable to that of flumioxazin. 11q was safe to maize, soybean, peanut, and cotton at 150 g ai/ha, and selective to rice and wheat at 75 g ai/ha by pre-emergence application, indicating potential applicability in these fields.

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