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SARS-CoV-2 infection has been described in a wide range of species, including domestic animals such as dogs and cats. Illness in dogs is usually self-limiting, and further diagnostics may not be pursued if clinical signs resolve or they respond to empirical treatment. As new variants emerge, the clinical presentation and role in transmission may vary in animals. This report highlights different clinical presentations and immunological responses in two SARS-CoV-2 Delta-variant-positive dogs with similar exposure to the same fully vaccinated human with a SARS-CoV-2 infection and emphasizes the need for active surveillance and additional One Health research on SARS-CoV-2 variant infections in companion animals and other species.

One new siaresinolic acid saponin (1)and three new rotundic acid saponins (2-4) were isolated from the roots of Ilex centrochinensis. Their structures were confirmed by detailed analysis of standard spectroscopic data (IR, MS, 1D and 2D NMR). Compounds (1-4) exhibited anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting nitric oxide production in a lipopolysaccharide-induced RAW264.7 cell inflammatory model. However, they showed no significant lipid-lowering activity against the production of triglycerides in the lipid-accumulation model of HepG2 cells induced by oleic acid.

Safe and effective strategies are urgently needed to fight against the life-threatening diseases of various cancers. However, traditional therapeutic modalities, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery, exhibit suboptimal efficacy for malignant tumors owing to the serious side effects, drug resistance and even relapse. Phototherapies, including photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT), are emerging therapeutic strategies for localized tumor inhibition, which can produce a large amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or elevate the temperature to initiate cell death by non-invasive irradiation. In consideration of the poor bioavailability of phototherapy agents (PTAs), lots of drug delivery systems have been developed to enhance the tumor targeted delivery. Nevertheless, the carriers of drug delivery systems inevitably bring biosafety concerns on account of their metabolism, degradation, and accumulation. Of note, carrier-free nanomedicine attracts great attention for clinical translation with synergistic antitumor effect, which is characterized by high drug loading, simplified synthetic method and good biocompatibility. In this review, the latest advances of phototherapy with various carrier-free nanomedicines are summarized, which may provide a new paradigm for the future development of nanomedicine and tumor precision therapy.

Acute statin treatment has been reported to be critical in protecting the cardiac cells against ischemia/reperfusion injury by activating PI3K/Akt signal pathway. In vitro rat myocardial ischemia/reperfusion model, chronic statin treatment led to upregulation of phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN). This has been potentially indicated the correlation in PTEN and protective effect of statin on myocardium. In this current study, we evaluated the role of sodium orthovanadate a nonspecific inhibitor to PTEN and its correlation with atorvastatin on protecting myocardium against ischemia/reperfusion injury. We found a long-term statin treatment could increase the PTEN level, and this process was counteracted in the presence of sodium orthovanadate. However, the phosphotyrosine level was not affected by this statin. Besides, this process was mediated by Akt signaling since phosphorylated Akt level was altered by statin and sodium orthovanadate treatment. In a conclusion, this study showed a potential mechanism underlying PTEN-induced attenuation in long-term statin's therapeutic effect, which provided the new insight into the synergic role of PTEN and atorvastatin in protecting cardiac cells against ischemia/reperfusion injury.

Glycosylated small molecules are often bioactive and obtained mainly via microbial biotransformation especially by fungi. However, no responsible glycosylation gene/enzyme has yet been uncovered in a filamentous fungus. We report here the first identification of a phenolic glycosyltransferase MhGT1 from Mucor hiemalis. The substrate promiscuity of the new phenolic O-glycosyltransferase was explored by using phenols from Traditional Chinese Medicinal herbs as substrates. MhGT1 exhibited robust capabilities for the regio- and stereospecific O-glycosylation of 72 structurally diverse drug-like scaffolds and sterols with uridine diphosphate (UDP) glucose as a sugar donor. Unprecedentedly, MhGT1 showed higher regiospecificities and activities for prenylated phenols than for their non-prenylated analogues. Computational modelling of MhGT1 uncovered a truncated N-terminal domain of the enzyme consisting of hydrophobic and charged amino acid residues which contributed to the broad substrate scope and regiospecificity towards prenylated compounds. Our findings expand the ways to obtain new glycosyltransferases and also effectively apply the enzymatic approach to obtain glycosylated compounds in drug discovery.

Hard carbon (HC) is recognized as a promising anode material with outstanding electrochemical performance for alkali metal-ion batteries including lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), as well as their analogs sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) and potassium-ion batteries (PIBs). Herein, a comprehensive review of the recent research is presented to interpret the challenges and opportunities for the applications of HC anodes. The ion storage mechanisms, materials design, and electrolyte optimizations for alkali metal-ion batteries are illustrated in-depth. HC is particularly promising as an anode material for SIBs. The solid-electrolyte interphase, initial Coulombic efficiency, safety concerns, and all-climate performances, which are vital for practical applications, are comprehensively discussed. Furthermore, commercial prototypes of SIBs based on HC anodes are extensively elaborated. The remaining challenges and research perspectives are provided, aiming to shed light on future research and early commercialization of HC-based SIBs.

Rechargeable aqueous zinc (Zn) ion-based energy storage systems have been reviving recently because of their low cost and high safety merits; however, they still suffer from the problems of corrosion and dendrite growth on Zn metal anodes that cause gas generation and early battery failure. Unfortunately, the corrosion problem has not received sufficient attention until now. Here, it is pioneeringly demonstrated that decorating the Zn surface with a dual-functional metallic indium (In) layer, acting as both a corrosion inhibitor and a nucleating agent, is a facile but effective strategy to suppress both drastic corrosion and dendrite growth. Symmetric cells assembled with the treated Zn electrodes can sustain up to 1500 h of plating/stripping cycles with an ultralow voltage hysteresis (54 mV), and a 5000 cycle-life is achieved for a prototype full cell. This work will instigate the further development of aqueous metal-based energy storage systems.

The serious safety issues caused by uncontrollable lithium (Li) dendrite growth, especially at high current densities, seriously hamper the rapid charging of Li metal‐based batteries. Here, the construction of Al–Li alloy/LiCl‐based Li anode (ALA/Li anode) is reported by displacement and alloying reaction between an AlCl3‐ionic liquid and a Li foil. This layer not only has high ion‐conductivity and good electron resistivity but also much improved mechanical strength (776 MPa) as well as good flexibility compared to a common solid electrolyte interphase layer (585 MPa). The high mechanical strength of the Al–Li alloy interlayer effectively eliminates volume expansion and dendrite growth in Li metal batteries, so that the ALA/Li anode achieves superior cycling for 1600 h (2.0 mA cm−2) and 1000 cycles at an ultrahigh current density (20 mA cm−2) without dendrite formation in symmetric batteries. In lithium–sulfur batteries, the dense alloy layer prevents direct contact between polysulfides and Li metal, inhibiting the shuttle effect and electrolyte decomposition. Long cycling performance is achieved even at a high current density (4 C) and a low electrolyte/sulfur (6.0 µL mg−1). This easy fabrication process provides a strategy to realize reliable safety during the rapid charging of Li‐metal batteries.

Gelation is an effective way to realize the self-assembly of nanomaterials into different macrostructures, and in a typical use, the gelation of graphene oxide (GO) produces various graphene-based carbon materials with different applications. However, the gelation of MXenes, another important type of 2D materials that have different surface chemistry from GO, is difficult to achieve. Here, the first gelation of MXenes in an aqueous dispersion that is initiated by divalent metal ions is reported, where the strong interaction between these ions and OH groups on the MXene surface plays a key role. Typically, Fe2+ ions are introduced in the MXene dispersion which destroys the electrostatic repulsion force between the MXene nanosheets in the dispersion and acts as linkers to bond the nanosheets together, forming a 3D MXene network. The obtained hydrogel effectively avoids the restacking of the MXene nanosheets and greatly improves their surface utilization, resulting in a high rate performance when used as a supercapacitor electrode (≈226 F g-1 at 1 V s-1 ). It is believed that the gelation of MXenes indicates a new way to build various tunable MXene-based structures and develop different applications.

A detailed investigation of the structural geometry and magnetic fabrics together with rock magnetism has been carried out along Jingzhuba-Shiwo section located in the foreland fold belt of the South Dabashan, which aims to shed light on the superimposed deformation and tectonic evolution. As a whole, the intensity of deformation decreases from the northeast to the southwest, and the axial planes dip northeastward and the hinges of large-scale folds plunge northwestward at small angle. Moreover, the maximum principal stress indicates that the compression of the South Dabashan is dominant as per palaeostress analysis. The sampling horizons before the Late Jurassic are mainly characterized by magnetic fabrics in deformed rocks, whereas the sampling horizons ranging from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous are characterized by incipient magnetic fabrics in weakly deformed rocks. The magnetic lineations are dominantly oriented NW-SE and remain almost parallel to the main tectonic structures of the section, suggesting that AMS can be ascribed to tectonic processes. Also there are two types of unusual magnetic fabrics revealed. The first one merely occurring in the northeast section is characterized by an oblique magnetic foliation with respect to bedding, which is related with parallel-bedding simple shear during fold growth. The other one caused by tectonic superimposition is characterized by an oblique magnetic lineation with respect to bedding strike. The plunges of Kmin increase with decreasing deformation intensity from northeast to southwest along the section, which can be taken as a gauge to distinguish the deformation intensity of weakly-deformed sedimentary rocks according to the relativity. Consequently it can be concluded that the superimposed structure of the section was formed by the combined compression which arose from the South Dabashan primarily and the Micangshan and the eastern Sichuan fold belt secondly during the Late Jurassic. Afterwards the compression from the South Dabashan was still dominant, the compression from the other two directions, however, became much weaker in the Early Cretaceous than in the Late Jurassic. Furthermore, the effects resulting from Qinling intracontinental orogeny during J3-K1 and Xuefeng intracontinental deformation could be reflected by the results mentioned above, which can also provide evidences for exploration of continental dynamics.

International audience; Assembly of 2D MXene sheets into a 3D macroscopic architecture is highly desirable to overcome the severe restacking problem of 2D MXene sheets and develop MXene‐based functional materials. However, unlike graphene, 3D MXene macroassembly directly from the individual 2D sheets is hard to achieve for the intrinsic property of MXene. Here a new gelation method is reported to prepare a 3D structured hydrogel from 2D MXene sheets that is assisted by graphene oxide and a suitable reductant. As a supercapacitor electrode, the hydrogel delivers a superb capacitance up to 370 F g−1 at 5 A g−1, and more promisingly, demonstrates an exceptionally high rate performance with the capacitance of 165 F g−1 even at 1000 A g−1. Moreover, using controllable drying processes, MXene hydrogels are transformed into different monoliths with structures ranging from a loosely organized porous aerogel to a dense solid. As a result, a 3D porous MXene aerogel shows excellent adsorption capacity to simultaneously remove various classes of organic liquids and heavy metal ions while the dense solid has excellent mechanical performance with a high Young's modulus and hardness.

Huan Li, Changsheng Qi, Ying Tao, Huabo Liu, Da‐Wei Wang, Feng Li Quan‐Hong Yang, Hui‐Ming Cheng