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Rye is a valuable food and forage crop, an important genetic resource for wheat and triticale improvement and an indispensable material for efficient comparative genomic studies in grasses. Here, we sequenced the genome of Weining rye, an elite Chinese rye variety. The assembled contigs (7.74 Gb) accounted for 98.47% of the estimated genome size (7.86 Gb), with 93.67% of the contigs (7.25 Gb) assigned to seven chromosomes. Repetitive elements constituted 90.31% of the assembled genome. Compared to previously sequenced Triticeae genomes, Daniela, Sumayaand Sumanaretrotransposons showed strong expansion in rye. Further analyses of the Weining assembly shed new light on genome-wide gene duplications and their impact on starch biosynthesis genes, physical organization of complex prolamin loci, gene expression features underlying early heading trait and putative domestication-associated chromosomal regions and loci in rye. This genome sequence promises to accelerate genomic and breeding studies in rye and related cereal crops.

Dynamic therapies, which induce reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in situthrough endogenous and exogenous stimulation, are emerging as attractive options for tumor treatment. However, the complexity of the tumor substantially limits the efficacy of individual stimulus-triggered dynamic therapy. Herein, bimetallic copper and ruthenium (Cu@Ru) core–shell nanoparticles are applied for endo–exogenous stimulation-triggered dynamic therapy. The electronic structure of Cu@Ru is regulated through the ligand effects to improve the adsorption level for small molecules, such as water and oxygen. The core–shell heterojunction interface can rapidly separate electron–hole pairs generated by ultrasound and light stimulation, which initiate reactions with adsorbed small molecules, thus enhancing ROS generation. This synergistically complements tumor treatment together with ROS from endogenous stimulation. In vitroand in vivoexperiments demonstrate that Cu@Ru nanoparticles can induce tumor cell apoptosis and ferroptosis through generated ROS. This study provides a new paradigm for endo–exogenous stimulation-based synergistic tumor treatment.

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COVID-19 has become a public health emergency due to its rapid transmission. The appearance of pneumonia is one of the major clues for the diagnosis, progress and therapeutic evaluation. More and more literatures about imaging manifestations and related research have been reported. In order to know about the progress and prospective on imaging of COVID-19, this review focus on interpreting the CT findings, stating the potential pathological basis, proposing the challenge of patients with underlying diseases, differentiating with other diseases and suggesting the future research and clinical directions, which would be helpful for the radiologists in the clinical practice and research.

Temperature-dependent modification is an effective way to reversibly tailor graphene’s electronic properties. We present the reversible modification of a uniform monolayer nitrogen-doped graphene (NG) film by the formation and cleavage of temperature-dependent Se–N dynamic covalent bonds. The increasing binding energy in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicates that phenylselenyl bromine (PhSeBr) bonds with pyridinic N and pyrrolic N rather than graphitic N by accepting the lone pair of electrons. The temperature dependence of Raman spectra (the increasing D band and the shifts of the 2D band) and XPS spectra (Se 3d and N 1s) indicates that the Se–N dynamic covalent bond is gradually cleaved by treatment at increasing temperatures and is also recovered by the reversible modification. Field-effect transistors (FETs) based on Se–NG exhibit a temperature-dependent change from n-type to p-type conduction and tunable electron and hole mobilities owing to the reversible formation or cleavage of Se–N dynamic covalent bonds. This result opens up opportunities for reversibly controlling electrical properties of FETs by optimizing dynamic covalent bonds.

Polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on small molecule non-fullerene acceptors typically have a range of disadvantages including unfavorable thermal stability and charge carrier transportation. Here, we developed a high-performance non-fullerene ternary PSCs by incorporating a narrow-bandgap polymer acceptor N2200 into a binary blend film comprising of a wide-bandgap conjugated polymer PTzBI-2FP and a small-molecule non-fullerene acceptor ITIC-4F. The resulting ternary devices exhibit an outstanding power conversion efficiency of 13.0%, which is attributable to the efficient energy transfer, enhanced charge carrier mobility, and improved morphology. These findings indicate that the selection of an appropriate third polymer component that affords improved photovoltaic performance and thermal stability, representing a facile and promising route to enhance the performance and stability of PSCs.

A series of novel wide bandgap small molecules (IFT-ECA, IFT-M, IFT-TH and IFT-IC) based on the A-D-A structure with indenofluorene core, thiophene bridge, and different electron-deficient end-capping groups, were synthesized and used as non-fullerene acceptors in organic solar cells. The influences of end-capping groups on the device performance were studied. The four materials exhibited different physical and chemical properties due to the variation of end-capping groups, which further affect the exciton dissociation, charge transport, morphology of the bulk-heterojunction films and device performance. Among them, IFT-IC-based device delivered the best power conversion efficiency of 7.16% due to proper nano-scale phase separation morphology and high electron mobility, while the devices based on the other acceptors achieved lower device performance (4.14% for IFT-TH, <1% for IFT-ECA and IFT-M). Our results indicate the importance of choosing suitable electron-withdrawing groups to construct high-performance non-fullerene acceptors based on A-D-A motif.

Two naphthalene diimide (NDI) and perylene diimide (PDI) based n-type water/alcohol soluble small molecules (NFN and PFP) are designed and utilized as electron transport layers (ETLs) for organic solar cells (OSCs). NFN and PFP are synthesized by using Sonogashira coupling from alkynyl modified fluorene with mono-bromo substituted NDI and PDI. Density functional theory study results of NFN and PFP show that they possess excellent planarity due to the employment of triple bonds as connection units. Moreover, it was shown by electron paramagnetic resonance study that both NFN and PFP possess obvious self-doping behaviors, which may effectively enhance their charge transporting capability as ETLs in OSCs. Power conversion efficiencies of 8.59% and 9.80% can be achieved for OSCs with NFN and PFP as ETLs, respectively. The higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of PFP based photovoltaic device is originated from the stronger doping property and higher mobility of PFP.

Barley malt is produced through a malting process; it begins with steeping followed by germination and kilning, in which dramatic changes happen for a large number of physiological and biochemical traits in barley seeds. The objectives of this study were to comprehensively investigate the phenotypic changes during malting, and identify the key regulators that modulate the expression of genes associated with malt quality traits. The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between gibberellic acid (GA) content and the activities of some hydrolytic enzymes, including α-amylases, β-amylases, and limit dextrinase (LD), and a significant negative correlation between GA and β-glucan content. Starch content had little change, but starch granules were pitted severely during malting. Weighted gene coexpression analysis (WGCNA) identified the genes associated with the greatest changes of the examined malt traits during malting. The correlation analysis and protein–protein interaction (PPI) analysis detected several key transcriptional factor (TF) regulating genes associated with malt quality. These genes and TFs regulating malting traits are potentially useful in barley breeding for malt quality improvement.

Hypoxia, as a main feature of the tumor microenvironment, has greatly limited the efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT), as well as its clinical application. Here, a multifunctional composite nanoplatform, the peptide/Ce6/MnO2nanocomposite (RKCM), has been constructed to alleviate tumor hypoxia and increase the efficacy of PDT using rationally designed peptide fibrils to encapsulate chlorin e6 (Ce6) inside and to mineralize MnO2nanoparticles on the surface. As a result, RKCMsignificantly improved the PDT efficacy by increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, decreasing tumor cell viability, and inhibiting tumor growth and metastasis. Besides, decreased HIF-1α expression and increased immune-activated cell infiltration were also observed in RKCM/laser treatment xenograft. Mechanically, (1) Ce6 can induce singlet oxygen (1O2) generation under laser irradiation to give photodynamic therapy (PDT); (2) MnO2can react with H2O2in situ to supply additional O2to alleviate tumor hypoxia; and (3) the released Mn2+ions can induce a Fenton-like reaction to generate •OH for chemical dynamic therapy (CDT). Moreover, RKCM/laser treatment also presented with an abscopal effect to block the occurrence of lung metastasis by remolding the pre-metastasis immune microenvironment. With these several aspects working together, the peptide/Ce6/MnO2nanoplatform can achieve highly efficient tumor therapy. Such a strategy based on peptide self-assembly provides a promising way to rationally design a cancer-responsive multifunctional nanoplatform for highly efficient combined cancer therapy by alleviating hypoxia and improving the immune microenvironment.

A new thiourea-containing metal–organic framework (MOF) catalyst was synthesized. It overcomes recycling, self-aggregation and solvation issues that exist in homogeneous thiourea catalysts. Nanomorphology was introduced to increase the dispersion of the solid catalyst in solvent. Acetalization and Morita–Baylis–Hillman reactions were catalyzed using the new thiourea MOF catalyst.

Image-guided phototherapy is considered to be a prospective technique for cancer treatment because it can provide both oncotherapy and bioimaging, thus achieving an optimized therapeutic efficacy and higher treatment accuracy. Compared to complicated systems with multiple components, using a single material for this multifunctional purpose is preferable. In this work, we strategically fabricated poly(acrylic acid)- (PAA-) coated Cu2(OH)PO4quantum dots [denoted as Cu2(OH)PO4@PAA QDs], which exhibit a strong near-infrared photoabsorption ability. As a result, an excellent photothermal conversion ability and the photoactivated formation of reactive oxygen species could be realized upon NIR irradiation, concurrently meeting the basic requirements for photothermal and photodynamic therapies. Moreover, phototherapeutic investigations on both cervical cancer cells in vitro and solid tumors of an in vivo mice model illustrated the effective antitumor effects of Cu2(OH)PO4@PAA upon 1064-nm laser irradiation, with no detectable lesions in major organs during treatment. Meanwhile, Cu2(OH)PO4@PAA is also an exogenous contrast for photoacoustic tomography (PAT) imaging to depict tumors under NIR irradiation. In brief, the Cu2(OH)PO4@PAA QDs prepared in this work are expected to serve as a multifunctional theranostic platform.

Radiotherapy (RT) is a popular clinical therapy method for extending cancer patient survival, but is hampered by severe side effects and the weak therapy effect. Herein, responsive degradable selenium (Se) theranostic agents (Se@SiO2@Bi nanocomposites (NCs)) are fabricated, which combine computed tomography (CT) imaging and simultaneously enhance the therapeutic effects of photothermal therapy (PTT) and RT, while reducing the side effects of radiation. The Se@SiO2@Bi theranostic agents can accumulate at the tumor site, and responsively decompose to releease Se, avoiding systemic toxicity by the element. Se enhances the effect of PTT/RT, simultaneously reducing the side effects of RT. The Se@SiO2@Bi NCs as CT agents also exhibit significantly enhanced contrast imaging performance due to the high atomic number of Bi. More importantly, the Se@SiO2@Bi NCs can be rapidly excreted without long‐term toxicity, owing to responsive degradation into ultrasmall particles (<5 nm) at the tumor site. In vitro and in vivo results show that the Se@SiO2@Bi NCs can remarkably inhibit tumor cells, without causing appreciable toxicity during the treatment. This study opens a new perspective in rationally designing responsive degradable theranostic agents for future tumor therapy with enhanced therapeutic efficacy and lesser side effects. The responsive degradable selenium (Se) theranostic agents (Se@SiO2@Bi nanocomposites (NCs)), which are successfully prepared using the facile method, enhances the synergistic effect of photothermal radiotherapy and reduces side effects without long‐term retention/toxicity in tumor treatment.