Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus has been known to damage multiple organs; however, little is known about its impact on the reproductive system. In the present study, we analyzed the pathological changes of testes from six patients who died of SARS. Results suggested that SARS caused orchitis. All SARS testes displayed widespread germ cell destruction, few or no spermatozoon in the seminiferous tubule, thickened basement membrane, and leukocyte infiltration. The numbers of CD3þ T lymphocytes and CD68þ macrophages increased significantly in the interstitial tissue compared with the control group (P , 0.05). SARS viral genomic sequences were not detected in the testes by in situ hybridization. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated abundant IgG precipitation in the seminiferous epithelium of SARS testes, indicating possible immune response as the cause for the damage. Our findings indicated that orchitis is a complication of SARS. It further suggests that the reproductive functions should be followed and evaluated in recovered male SARS patients.immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, orchitis, SARS, spermatogenesis, testis
A synthetic five-part molecular device has been prepared that uses a multistep electron transfer strategy similar to that of photosynthetic organisms to capture light energy and convert it to chemical potential in the form of long-lived charge separation. It consists of two covalently linked porphyrin moieties, one containing a zinc ion (P(Zn)) and the other present as the free base (P). The metailated porphyrin bears a carotenoid polyene (C) and the other a diquinone species (Q(A)-Q(B)). Excitation of the free-base porphyrin in a chloroform solution of the pentad yields an initial charge-separated state, C-P(Zn)-P(.+).-Q(A)(-)-Q(B), with a quantum yield of 0.85. Subsequent electron transfer steps lead to a final charge-separated state, C(.+)-P(Zn)-P-Q(A)-Q(B)(.-), which is formed with an overall quantum yield of 0.83 and has a lifetime of 55 microseconds. Irradiation of the free-base form of the pentad, C-P-P-Q(A)-Q(B), gives a similar charge-separated state with a lower quantum yield (0.15 in dichloromethane), although the lifetime is increased to approximately 340 microseconds. The artificial photosynthetic system preserves a significant fraction ( approximately 1.0 electron volt) of the initial excitation energy (1.9 electron volts) in the long-lived, charge-separated state.
A study of hybrid inverted quantum-dot (QD) light-emitting diodes constructed with and without AlO interlayers is presented. The AlO interlayers are deposited at ZnO/QDs or/and QDs/4,4'-bis(carbazol-9-yl)biphenyl interfaces, resulting in large improvement of device performance, including luminance, current efficiency, and device lifetime. Especially, the devices with QD emitters sandwiched by two AlO layers exhibits outstanding performance, the longest operation lifetime, and mediate efficiency. The maximum current efficiency of 15.3 cd/A is obtained, an enhancement factor of 35% in comparison to that (11.3 cd/A) of conventional device without AlO layer. Moreover, device lifetime is also largely enhanced, over 110 000 h for the device containing two AlO interlayers, nearly 40% enhancement relative to that of conventional device that shows a lifetime of only 80 000 h. On the basis of electrical property and photoluminescence spectroscopy studies, we demonstrate that the AlO interlayers play crucial roles in suppressing the leakage current across the device and reducing exciton quenching induced by ZnO.
The pressure-dependent optoelectronic properties of all-inorganic perovskite CsPbBr 3 nanocrystals (NCs) are investigated with steady-state and transient spectroscopy. The steady-state absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra under pressure show that CsPbBr 3 NCs pass through three electronic states (ES-I, ES-II, and ES-III) separated with two knee points located at 0.38 and 1.08 GPa, respectively, which are also confirmed by the PL dynamics. Analyzed with the two-carrier model of free carriers and trapped carriers, the PL dynamics show that the lifetime increases in ES-I, decreases in ES-II, and increases in ES-III for free carriers, while it is almost invariable for trapped carriers. The transformation from ES-I to ES-II is assigned to the contraction of the Pb−Br bond length while the transformation from ES-II to ES-III originated mostly from the distortion of the PbBr 6 octahedron. Apparently, the contraction of the Pb−Br bond and the distortion of octahedra benefit the tailoring of the generation and diffusion of carriers during the CsPbBr 3 NCs compression. These results in this work help us to design and optimize the perovskite-based optoelectronic devices of high performance.
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