Lead-free potassium sodium niobate piezoelectric ceramics substituted with lithium and antimony (Na0.5K0.5)1−x(LiSb)xNb1−xO3 have been synthesized by conventional solid state sintering method. Compositionally engineered around the orthorhombic-tetragonal polymorphic phase transition, the dielectric and piezoelectric properties were further enhanced with the addition of lithium and antimony substituted into the perovskite structure. The combined effects of lithium and antimony additions resulted in a downward shift in the orthorhombic-tetragonal (TO-T) without significantly reducing TC. The dielectric, piezoelectric, and electromechanical properties were found to be ε∕ε0>1300, d33>260pC∕N, and kp>50%, while maintaining low dielectric loss. The enhanced polarizability associated with the polymorphic TO-T transition and high TC transition (∼390°C) should provide a wide range of temperature operation.
The current diminishing returns in finding useful antibiotics and the occurrence of drug-resistant bacteria call for the need to find new antibiotics. Moreover, the whole genome sequencing revealed that the biosynthetic potential of Streptomyces, which has produced the highest numbers of approved and clinical-trial drugs, has been greatly underestimated. Considering the known gene editing toolkits were arduous and inefficient, novel and efficient gene editing system are desirable. Here, we developed an engineered CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat/CRISPR-associated protein) combined with the counterselection system CodA(sm), the D314A mutant of cytosine deaminase, to rapidly and effectively edit Streptomyces genomes. In-frame deletion of the actinorhodin polyketide chain length factor gene actI-ORF2 was created in Streptomyces coelicolor M145 as an illustration. This CRISPR/Cas9-CodA(sm) combined system strikingly increased the frequency of unmarked mutants and shortened the time required to generate them. We foresee the system becoming a routine laboratory technique for genome editing to exploit the great biosynthetic potential of Streptomyces and perhaps for other medically and economically important actinomycetes.
The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) system, an RNA-guided nuclease for specific genome editing in vivo, has been adopted in a wide variety of organisms. In contrast, the in vitro application of the CRISPR/Cas9 system has rarely been reported. We present here a highly efficient in vitro
CRISPR/Cas9-mediated editing (ICE) system that allows specific refactoring of biosynthetic gene clusters in Streptomyces bacteria and other large DNA fragments. Cleavage by Cas9 of circular pUC18 DNA was investigated here as a simple model, revealing that the 3′→5′ exonuclease activity of Cas9 generates errors with 5 to 14 nucleotides (nt) randomly missing at the editing joint. T4 DNA polymerase was then used to repair the Cas9-generated sticky ends, giving substantial improvement in editing accuracy. Plasmid pYH285 and cosmid 10A3, harboring a complete biosynthetic gene cluster for the antibiotics RK-682 and holomycin, respectively, were subjected to the ICE system to delete the rkD and homE genes in frame. Specific insertion of the ampicillin resistance gene (bla) into pYH285 was also successfully performed. These results reveal the ICE system to be a rapid, seamless, and highly efficient way to edit DNA fragments, and a powerful new tool for investigating and engineering biosynthetic gene clusters.
To study the thermoelectric properties of SrTiO 3 doped with lanthanum and dysprosium, ceramic samples were prepared using the conventional solid-state reaction method. The total doping amount was fixed at 20 mol% with different amounts of lanthanum and dysprosium contents. The X-ray diffraction pattern suggests that the main crystal structure is cubic perovskite with a small amount of the second phase of Dy 2 Ti 2 O 7 . Scanning electronic microscope surface morphology images revealed that the ceramic samples consisted of homogeneous grains with an average grain size of 4.1-6.2 lm. The electrical conduction of the samples as a function of temperature had similar behavior to that of metallic conductivity. The Seebeck coefficients were negative, which indicates that electrons were the dominant carriers. As the dysprosium content increased, both the electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity decreased; in contrast, the absolute value of the Seebeck coefficient increased. The power factor reached 1318 lW/K 2 m at 570 K with 12% dysprosium and 8% lanthanum doped in SrTiO 3 . The lowest thermal conductivity was 2.3 W/mK for the sample with 20% dysprosium as a dopant. The maximum figure of merit (ZT) of 0.36 at 1076 K was obtained for SrTiO 3 doped with 12% dysprosium and 8% lanthanum, which is a result of the high power factor combined with low thermal conductivity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.