Electroreduction of nitrate to ammonia offers a promising pathway for nutrient recycling and recovery from wastewater with energy and environmental sustainability. There have been considerable efforts on the regulation of reaction pathways to facilitate nitrate-to-ammonia conversion over the competing hydrogen evolution reaction but only with limited success. Here, we report a Cu single-atom gel (Cu SAG) electrocatalyst that produces NH 3 from both nitrate and nitrite under neutral conditions. Given the unique mechanism of NO 2 − activation on Cu SAGs with spatial confinement and strengthened kinetics, a pulse electrolysis strategy is presented to cascade the accumulation and conversion of NO 2 − intermediates during NO 3 − reduction with the prohibited competition from the hydrogen evolution reaction, thus substantially enhancing the Faradaic efficiency and the yield rate for ammonia production compared with constant potential electrolysis. This work underlines the cooperative approach of the pulse electrolysis and SAGs with threedimensional (3D) framework structures for highly efficient nitrate-to-ammonia conversion enabled by tandem catalysis of unfavorable intermediates.

The major etiology of liver cirrhosis in Southern China is viral hepatitis. However, the proportions of viral hepatitis and HBV are gradually decreasing. Alcoholic LC patients exhibit a greater risk of experiencing UGIB, and HBV LC patients may have a greater risk of HCC.

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Many studies show that dietary factors may affect the risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We examined the association between overall diet quality and NPC risk in a Chinese population. This case-control study included 600 NPC patients and 600 matched controls between 2009 and 2011 in Guangzhou, China. Habitual dietary intake and various covariates were assessed via face-to-face interviews. Diet quality scores were calculated according to the Healthy Eating Index-2005 (HEI-2005), the alternate Healthy Eating Index (aHEI), the Diet Quality Index-International (DQI-I), and the alternate Mediterranean Diet Score (aMed). After adjustment for various lifestyle and dietary factors, greater diet quality scores on the HEI-2005, aHEI, and DQI-I—but not on the aMed—showed a significant association with a lower risk of NPC (p-trends, <0.001–0.001). The odds ratios (95% confidence interval) comparing the extreme quartiles of the three significant scores were 0.47 (0.32–0.68) (HEI-2005), 0.48 (0.33–0.70) (aHEI), and 0.43 (0.30–0.62) (DQI-I). In gender-stratified analyses, the favorable association remained significant in men but not in women. We found that adherence to the predefined dietary patterns represented by the HEI-2005, aHEI, and DQI-I scales predicted a lower risk of NPC in adults from south China, especially in men.

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[reaction: see text] Oxidosqualene-lanosterol cyclases convert oxidosqualene to lanosterol in yeast and mammals. Site-saturated mutants' construction of Saccharomyces cerevisiae oxidosqualene-lanosterol cyclase, at Trp232 exchanges against proteinogenic amino acids, and product profiles are shown. All mutants, except Lys and Arg, produced protosta-12,24-dien-3beta-ol, lanosterol, and parkeol. Overall, Trp232 plays a catalytic role in the influence of rearrangement process and determination of deprotonation position but does not involve intervention in the cyclization steps.

MicroRNAs (miRs) carried in exosomes serve an important role in the pre-metastatic microenvironment and in intercellular interactions. However, the function of exosomal-miR-10a derived from primary colorectal cancer (CRC) cells on fibroblasts in the lung metastatic microenvironment of patients with CRC remains unclear. Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR was performed using samples from patients with CRC, and demonstrated that the expression levels of miR-10a were significantly lower in serum and cancer tissue samples from patients with CRC compared with in serum from healthy individuals and paired non-cancerous tissues, respectively. In addition, the expression levels of miR-10a were inversely associated with the invasion depth of CRC. Exosomal-miR-10a derived from CRC cells reduced the proliferative and migratory activities of primary normal human lung fibroblasts (NHLFs), and the expression levels of IL-6, IL-8 and IL-1β in NHLFs. The present study provided insight into the phenotypic alterations of NHLFs induced by exosomal-miR-10a derived from CRC cells, which may aid understanding of the mechanism underlying the process of CRC lung metastasis.