“Supergold” is a very powerful gender-neutral warrior with superpowers who fights against cancer! The warrior's golden armor and sword represent the pharmacological power of the gold atom. Engraved on the shield, the gold-thiosemicarbazones molecules are the warrior's coat of arms. Supergold selectively destroys different cancer cells. More information can be found in the Research Article by Esteban Rodríguez-Arce, María Contel, and co-workers.
Making ammonia: How and where? Novel biological and electrochemical pathways require further large improvements to compete with Haber-Bosch. While their production flexibility improves the economics of on-farm synthesis, other drivers will encourage centralized green ammonia production.
Prospects of recent promising methods of producing ammonia without fossil fuels are discussed. Despite demonstrating efficiency gains over previous similar approaches, the novel biological and electrochemical pathways require further large improvements to compete with electricity-powered Haber-Bosch. As some literature asserts that future production will shift to smaller scales, such as on-farm, we qualitatively discuss the economics of scale of future green ammonia production.
Polysaccharides are rich in Panax notoginseng residue after extraction. This study aims to explore the structural characteristics of PNP-20, which is a homogeneous polysaccharide, separated from P. notoginseng residue by fractional precipitation and evaluate the anti-enteritis effect of PNP-20. The structure of PNP-20 was determined by spectroscopic analyses. A mouse model with enteritis induced by restraint stress (RS) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was used to evaluate the pharmacological effect of PNP-20. The results indicated that PNP-20 consisted of glucose (Glc), galactose (Gal), Mannose (Man) and Rhamnose (Rha). PNP-20 was composed of Glcp-(1→, →4)-α-Glcp-(1→, →4)-α-Galp-(1→, →4,6)-α-Glcp-(1→, →4)-Manp-(1→ and →3)-Rhap-(1→, and contained two backbone fragments of →4)-α-Glcp-(1→4)- α-Glcp-(1→ and →4)-α-Galp-(1→4)-α-Glcp-(1→. PNP-20 reduced intestinal injury and inflammatory cell infiltration in RS- and LPS-induced enteritis in mice. PNP-20 decreased the expression of intestinal tumor necrosis factor-α, NOD-like receptor family pyrin domain containing 3, and nuclear factor-κB and increased the expression of intestinal superoxide dismutase 2. In conclusion, PNP-20 may be a promising material basis of P. Notoginseng for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.
Analytical methods for diagnosing the deterioration of waste batteries are reported. More specifically, the study focuses on: (1) trend analysis based on eleven key performance indicators as a method of deterioration diagnosis by fitting fifth-degree polynomial curves, and (2) comparison analysis of the second derivatives of open circuit voltage, V′′ ocv,t and simulated open circuit, voltage V′′ ocv,t,sim using a concept of model-in-the-loop simulation to verify the effectiveness of the former.
We defined four major deterioration factors (electrolyte loss (EL), lithium loss (LL), lithium precipitation (LP), and compound deterioration (CD)). Then, we derived eleven key performance indicators (KPIs) for comparative analysis. After that, we fabricated three deteriorated cells for each of three deterioration factors (EL, LL, and LP) and one cell with CD (for verification) with four individual (dis)charging experiment manuals. The two major contributions of this study are the performance of 1) trend analysis to determine a suitable diagnostic metric by inspecting the eleven KPIs and 2) comparison analysis of and to verify the effectiveness of utilizing as a real-time deterioration diagnostic factor using a concept of model-in-the-loop simulation. The results show that 1) has the most conspicuous trendline tendency among the eleven comparison targets for all four major deterioration factors, and 2) the angle difference between the two trends of and lies within a minimum of 9° and a maximum of 43° (with a sscale on the x-axis and a scale on the y-axis for a clear trend line analysis). From this, we can conclude that the trendline-based real-time deterioration analysis employing may be practically applicable to a limited extent.
When an electron is added to the Li-molecule pair, it may go to the lithium-ion and neutralize it. Instead, we suggest placing this additional electron on the molecule using constrained density functional theory (CDFT).
Li-molecule pair is a widely used model for the simulation of reduction in Li-ion batteries. We demonstrate that this model provides incorrect results for some solvents. When an electron is added to the Li-molecule pair, it may go to the lithium-ion and neutralize it. Instead, we suggest placing this additional electron on the molecule using constrained density functional theory (CDFT). This approach resembles electron behaviour in the condensed phase and reproduces the physics of the reduction. We demonstrate that suggested in this work approach provides improved agreement with experimental data. Suggested CDFT-based method is fast, reliable and may be used in computational screening of solvents. We demonstrate the practical application of the method by benchmarking it on a set of 30 molecules from the electrolyte solvent database.
Climate-driven changes including rising air temperatures, enhanced permafrost degradation, and altered precipitation patterns can have profound effects on contaminants, such as mercury (Hg), in High Arctic lakes. Two physically similar lakes, East Lake and West Lake at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory on Melville Island, Nunavut, Canada are being affected by climate change differently. Both lakes have experienced permafrost degradation in their catchments; however, West Lake has also undergone multiple underwater Mass Movement Events (MME; beginning in fall 2008), leading to a sustained 50-fold increase in turbidity. This provided the unique opportunity to understand the potential impacts of permafrost degradation and other climate-related effects on Hg concentrations and body condition of landlocked Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus), an important sentinel species across the Circum-Arctic. The objectives of this work were to assess temporal trends in char Hg concentrations and to determine potential mechanisms driving the trends. There was a significant decrease in Hg concentrations in East Lake char averaging 6.5 %/y and 3.8 %/y for length-adjusted and age- adjusted means, respectively, from 2008 to 2019. Conversely, in West Lake there was a significant increase, averaging 7.9 %/y and 8.0 %/y for length-adjusted and age-adjusted mean Hg concentrations, respectively, for 2009 to 2017 (last year with sufficient sample size). The best predictors of length-adjusted Hg concentrations in West Lake were carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios, indicating a shift in diet including possible dietary starvation brought on by the profound increase in lake turbidity. This work provides an example of how increasing lake turbidity, a likely consequence of climate warming in Arctic lakes, may influence fish condition and Hg concentrations.
Flumioxazin is a widely applicated herbicide in the control of aquatic plants. Current evidence suggested that flumioxazin could induce cardiac defects (ventricular septal defects) in vertebrates, but the underlining mechanisms remain unclear. Because of the inhibitory effect of flumioxazin on polyphenol oxidase (PPO), the assumption is made that flumioxazin-induced cardiotoxicity is caused by oxidative stress. The results show that flumioxazin induced cardiac malformations and abnormal gene expression associated with cardiac development. Cardiac malformations include pericardium edema, cardiac linearization, elongated heart, cardiomegaly, cardiac wall hypocellularity, myocardial cell atrophy into granular, and a significant gap between the myocardial intima and the adventitia. An increase in oxidative stress and apoptosis was observed in the cardiac region of zebrafish after exposure to flumioxazin. Antioxidant astaxanthin reversed the cardiac malformations, excessive ROS production and expression of genes for cardiac developmental and apoptosis regulation induced by flumioxazin. In addition, flumioxazin also activated AHR signaling pathway genes (ahr2, cyp1a1, and cyp1b1) and increased porphyrins concentration. In conclusion, the results suggest that excessive ROS production, which could be mediated through AHR, led to apoptosis, contributing to the cardiotoxicity of flumioxazin in zebrafish embryos.
The US EPA is faced with long lists of chemicals that require hazard assessment. This research is part of a larger effort to develop in vitro assays and QSARs applicable to untested chemicals on US EPA inventories through study of estrogen receptor (ER) binding and estrogen mediated gene expression in fish. The current effort investigates metabolic activation of chemicals resulting in increased estrogenicity. Phenolphthalin (PLIN) was shown not to bind rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) ER (rtER) in a competitive binding assay but vitellogenin (Vtg) expression was induced in trout liver slices exposed to 10-4 and 10-3.7 M PLIN. Phenolphthalein (PLEIN), metabolite of PLIN, was subsequently determined to be formed when slices were exposed to PLIN. PLEIN binds rtER with a relative binding affinity (RBA) to 17β-estradiol of 0.020%. Slices exposed to PLEIN expressed Vtg mRNA at 10-4.3, 10-4, and 10-3.7 M, with no detectable PLIN present. Thus, Vtg expression noted in PLIN slice exposures was explained by metabolism to PLEIN in trout liver slices. A second model chemical, 4,4’-methylenedianiline (MDA) was not shown to bind rtER but did induce Vtg mRNA production in tissue slices at 10-4.3, 10-4, and 10-3.7 M in amounts nearly equal to reference estradiol induction, thus indicating metabolic activation of MDA. A series of experiments were performed to identify a potential metabolite responsible for the observed increase in activity. Potential metabolites hydroxylamine-MDA, nitroso-MDA, azo-MDA, or azoxy-MDA were not observed. However, acetylated-MDA was observed and tested in both ER-binding and tissue slice Vtg induction assays.
Per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) are a group of thousands of ubiquitously applied persistent industrial chemicals. The field of PFAS environmental research is developing rapidly, but suffers from substantial biases toward specific compounds, environmental compartments, and organisms. The aim of our study was therefore to highlight current developments and to identify knowledge gaps and subsequent research needs that would contribute to a comprehensive environmental risk assessment for PFAS. To this end, we consulted the open literature and databases and found that knowledge of the environmental fate of PFAS is based on the analysis of <1% of the compounds categorized as PFAS. Moreover, soils and suspended particulate matter remain largely understudied. The bioavailability, bioaccumulation, and food web transfer studies of PFAS also focus on a very limited number of compounds and are biased toward aquatic biota, predominantly fish, and less frequently aquatic invertebrates and macrophytes. The available ecotoxicity data revealed that only a few PFAS have been well studied for their environmental hazards, and that PFAS ecotoxicity data are also strongly biased toward aquatic organisms. Ecotoxicity studies in the terrestrial environment are needed, as well as chronic, multigenerational, and community ecotoxicity research, in light of the persistency and bioaccumulation of PFAS. Finally, we identified an urgent need to unravel the relationships among sorption, bioaccumulation, and ecotoxicity on the one hand and molecular descriptors of PFAS chemical structures and physicochemical properties on the other, to allow predictions of exposure, bioaccumulation, and toxicity. Environ Toxicol Chem 2023;00:1–15. © 2023 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.