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CRISPR technology has revolutionized fungal genetic engineering by accelerating the pace and expanding the feasible scope of experiments in this field. Among various CRISPR-Cas systems, Cas9 and Cas12a are widely used in genetic and metabolic engineering. In filamentous fungi, both Cas9 and Cas12a have been utilized as CRISPR nucleases. In this work we first compared efficacies and types of genetic edits for CRISPR-Cas9 and -Cas12a systems at the polyketide synthase (albA) gene locus in Aspergillus niger. By employing a tRNA-based gRNA polycistronic cassette, both Cas9 and Cas12a have demonstrated equally remarkable editing efficacy. Cas12a showed potential superiority over Cas9 protein when one gRNA was used for targeting, achieving an editing efficiency of 86.5% compared to 31.7% for Cas9. Moreover, when employing two gRNAs for targeting, both systems achieved up to 100% editing efficiency for single gene editing. In addition, the CRISPR-Cas9 system has been reported to induce large genomic deletions in various species. However, its use for engineering large chromosomal segments deletions in filamentous fungi still requires optimization. Here, we engineered Cas9 and -Cas12a-induced large genomic fragment deletions by targeting various genomic regions of A. niger ranging from 3.5 kb to 40 kb. Our findings demonstrate that targeted engineering of large chromosomal segments can be achieved, with deletions of up to 69.1% efficiency. Furthermore, by targeting a secondary metabolite gene cluster, we show that fragments over 100 kb can be efficiently and specifically deleted using the CRISPR-Cas9 or -Cas12a system. Overall, in this paper, we present an efficient multi-gRNA genome editing system utilizing Cas9 or Cas12a that enables highly efficient targeted editing of genes and large chromosomal regions in A. niger.

Abstract Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is an economically important horticultural crop. Spotted rind at maturity is an important appearance quality trait in melons. However, the gene controlling this trait remains unknown. In this study, the inheritance pattern of this trait was explored, and the candidate gene underlying this trait was also successfully identified. Genetic analysis showed that a single dominant gene, Cucumis melo Spotted Rind (CmSR), regulates the spotted rind trait. A preliminary genetic mapping analysis was conducted based on a BSA-seq approach. The CmAPRR2 gene was identified to be linked with the spotted rind trait and was located on the short arm of chromosome 4. It harbored two single-nucleotide mutations (chr4: 687014 G/A and chr4: 687244 C/A) in the non-spotted line ‘Yellow 2’, which may result in the alternative splicing of the transcript and an amino acid change in the respective protein, from proline to glutamine, respectively. Moreover, marker SNP687014-G/A was developed and co-segregated with the spotted rind trait. Therefore, it is speculated that the CmAPRR2 gene may be involved in the regulation of the spotted rind trait in melon. This study provides a theoretical foundation for further research on the gene regulatory mechanism of the rind color in melon.

Abstract Organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs) hold great promise for applications in non‐volatile memories, detectors, and artificial synapses due to the good flexibility and biocompatibility. However, certain drawbacks such as high operating voltages and significant degradation in endurance characteristics have hindered their practical implementations. Herein, a novel approach is proposed to enhance the performance of OFETs by incorporating a bi‐functional n‐type polymer semiconductor interlayer, Poly‐{[N,N'‐bis(2‐octyldodecyl)naphthalene‐1,4,5,8‐bis(dicarboximide)‐2,6‐diyl]‐alt‐5,5′‐(2,2′‐bithiophene)} (N2200), into a pentacene OFET structure. The device exhibits remarkable improvements, with reliable P/E operation cycles of over than 104 and a retention time of more than 10 years. On one hand, the inclusion of N2200 as an n‐type semiconductor effectively reduces the height of hole‐injection barrier for trapping and thus reducing the working voltage based on the electrostatic induction theory. On the other hand, n‐type semiconductor N2200 serves as a native hole‐consumption (or hole‐trapping) dielectric, and its narrower bandgap restrains the formation of deep hole‐traps, thus favoring the endurance characteristics of the OFET.

Abstract Background Fungi have been utilized for centuries in medical, agricultural, and industrial applications. Development of systems biology techniques has enabled the design and metabolic engineering of these fungi to produce novel fuels, chemicals, and enzymes from renewable feedstocks. Many genetic tools have been developed for manipulating the genome and creating mutants rapidly. However, screening and confirmation of transformants remain an inefficient step within the design, build, test, and learn cycle in many industrial fungi because extracting fungal genomic DNA is laborious, time-consuming, and involves toxic chemicals. Results In this study we developed a rapid and robust technique called “Squash-PCR” to break open the spores and release fungal genomic DNA as a template for PCR. The efficacy of Squash-PCR was investigated in eleven different filamentous fungal strains. Clean PCR products with high yields were achieved in all tested fungi. Spore age and type of DNA polymerase did not affect the efficiency of Squash-PCR. However, spore concentration was found to be the crucial factor for Squash-PCR in Aspergillus niger, with the dilution of starting material often resulting in higher PCR product yield. We then further evaluated the applicability of the squashing procedure for nine different yeast strains. We found that Squash-PCR can be used to improve the quality and yield of colony PCR in comparison to direct colony PCR in the tested yeast strains. Conclusion The developed technique will enhance the efficiency of screening transformants and accelerate genetic engineering in filamentous fungi and yeast.

Abstract The ability to stack multiple genes in plants is of great importance in the development of crops with desirable traits but can be challenging due to limited selectable marker options. Here we establish split selectable marker systems using protein splicing elements called “inteins” for Agrobacterium-mediated co-transformation in plants. First, we show that such a split selectable marker system can be used effectively in plants to reconstitute a visible marker, RUBY, from two non-functional fragments through tobacco leaf infiltration. Next, to determine the general applicability of our split selectable marker systems, we demonstrate the utility of these systems in the model plants Arabidopsis and poplar by successfully stacking two reporters eYGFPuv and RUBY, using split Kanamycin or Hygromycin resistance markers. In conclusion, this method enables robust plant co-transformation, providing a valuable tool for the simultaneous insertion of multiple genes into both herbaceous and woody plants efficiently.

It is a big challenge to in situ monitor the health status of high-temperature magnetic equipment such as electric motors and generators since it is difficult to achieve a high-temperature magnetoelectric sensor. Here, the Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 film with a ferroelectric Curie temperature of 400 °C and the Metglas alloy slice with a magnetic Curie temperature of 430 °C were combined by using a high-temperature inorganic glue to achieve a high-temperature magnetoelectric sensor. The magnetoelectric coefficient αE of the flexible sensor is as high as 104 V/(cm Oe) at 25 °C, 63.6 V/(cm Oe) at 200 °C, and 39.7 V/(cm Oe) at 330 °C. Besides, the magnetic sensor has a detection accuracy of ∼0.3 nT at 25–330 °C. Most importantly, the high-temperature sensor is flexible, high precision, low cost, light weight, and low power consumption simultaneously.

Abstract The Salicaceae family is of growing interest in the study of dioecy in plants because the sex determination region (SDR) has been shown to be highly dynamic, with differing locations and heterogametic systems between species. Without the ability to transform and regenerate Salix in tissue culture, previous studies investigating the mechanisms regulating sex in the genus Salix have been limited to genome resequencing and differential gene expression, which are mostly descriptive in nature, and functional validation of candidate sex determination genes has not yet been conducted. Here, we used Arabidopsis to functionally characterize a suite of previously identified candidate genes involved in sex determination and sex dimorphism in the bioenergy shrub willow Salix purpurea. Six candidate master regulator genes for sex determination were heterologously expressed in Arabidopsis, followed by floral proteome analysis. In addition, 11 transcription factors with predicted roles in mediating sex dimorphism downstream of the SDR were tested using DAP‐Seq in both male and female S. purpurea DNA. The results of this study provide further evidence to support models for the roles of ARR17 and GATA15 as master regulator genes of sex determination in S. purpurea, contributing to a regulatory system that is notably different from that of its sister genus Populus. Evidence was also obtained for the roles of two transcription factors, an AP2/ERF family gene and a homeodomain‐like transcription factor, in downstream regulation of sex dimorphism.

Microalgae are recognized for their versatility in providing renewable energy, biopharmaceuticals, and nutraceuticals, attributed to their sustainable, renewable, and cost-effective nature. Genetic engineering has proven highly effective in enhancing microalgae production. PCR-based genotyping is the primary method for screening genetically transformed microalgae cells. Recently, we developed a novel PCR method, namely Squash-PCR, and employed it for the molecular analysis of industrially important fungi and yeasts. In this study, we successfully implemented the Squash-PCR technique in 12 industrially significant algae species. This approach offers a quick and reliable means of obtaining DNA templates directly from squashed algal cells, eliminating the need for time-consuming and labor-intensive cultivation and genomic DNA extraction steps. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of Squash-PCR in detecting and characterizing target genes of interest in 12 different algae species. Overall, this study establishes the Squash-PCR method as a valuable tool for molecular studies in algae, enabling researchers to rapidly screen and manipulate genetic traits in diverse algal species.

Tooth whitening becoming a common cosmetic treatment has led to the development of catalytic whitening solutions. Here, the authors report upon a thermally triggered, pyrocatalytic, catalyst which can use temperature changes from normal oral activity to breakdown stains and whiten teeth.

Abstract Recently lead halide perovskite based solar cells have rapidly advanced and their power conversion efficiency (PCE) increased to 25.7%. The progress has been attributed to the super‐long carriers’ lifetime (τ) and long diffusion length (LD) of the photocarriers, however it has been a challenge to precisely characterize and understand the super‐long τ and LD of photocarriers. Here, a MAPbI3 single crystal exhibits four different τ which increase with LD extending from nm scale to mm scale. The prior two lifetimes estimated by transient photoluminescence (TPL) spectra are in the range of ns which comes from the recombination of photocarriers in the tens of nm thick surface layer. In contrast, the third lifetime estimated by transient open‐circuit voltage is hundreds of µs, which is a result of the excess photocarriers diffusing hundreds of µm to electrodes. Finally, the fourth lifetime estimated from the transient photoconductance is as long as sub‐second since the low‐density photocarriers under an electric field drift across the mm‐scale high‐quality single crystal. This study not only clarifies the physical mechanisms of four different lifetimes of photocarriers but also facilitates the design of novel electronics with the halide perovskite semiconductors.

High-precision bioengineering and synthetic biology require fine-tuning gene expression at both transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels. Gene transcription is tightly regulated by promoters and terminators. Promoters determine the timing, tissues and cells, and levels of the expression of genes. Terminators mediate transcription termination of genes and affect mRNA levels posttranscriptionally, e.g., the 3′-end processing, stability, translation efficiency, and nuclear to cytoplasmic export of mRNAs. The promoter and terminator combination affects gene expression. In the present article, we review the function and features of plant core promoters, proximal and distal promoters, and terminators, and their effects on and benchmarking strategies for regulating gene expression.

Objective: Using a network pharmacological approach, this study will evaluate the effect of Xuefu Zhuyu Decoction in the treatment of atherosclerosis.Methods: The data were imported into the STRING database to construct a protein-protein interaction network, and the network topology was analysed with the Bisogenet plug-in by Cytoscape 3.7.2. Using the R language Bioconductor platform, Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis for potential targets of Xuefu Zhuyu Decoction in the treatment of atherosclerosis were performed, and import the results were imported into Cytoscape 3.7.2. To map the results and create a KEGG network diagram, we used Cytoscape 3.7.2 for analysis.Results: A total of 91 chemical components and 1320 disease targets were obtained, including 138 cross-targets. TNF, AKT1 and ALB were identified as important targets, and Gene Ontology functional analysis indicated that biological process was the primary cause of oxidative stress. The primary action of molecular function is binding. KEGG has explored and enriched 149 signalling pathways, including the AGE-RAGE signalling system and the TNF signalling network. According to a study involving molecular docking, quercetin and β-carotene have a strong binding affinity for AKT1 and ALB.Conclusion: The potential of Xuefu Zhuyu Decoction to treat atherosclerosis through multiple components and targets provides a way to further study its mechanism.

Myocardial infarction (MI) is an acute and persistent myocardial ischemia caused by coronary artery disease. This study screened potential genes related to MI. Three gene expression datasets related to MI were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened using the MetaDE package. Afterward, the modules and genes closely related to MI were screened and a gene co-expression network was constructed. A support vector machine (SVM) classification model was then constructed based on the GSE61145 dataset using the e1071 package in R. A total of 98 DEGs were identified in the MI samples. Next, three modules associated with MI were screened and an SVM classification model involving seven genes was constructed. Among them, BCL6, CEACAM8, and CUGBP2 showed co-interactions in the gene co-expression network. Therefore, ACOX1, BCL6, CEACAM8, and CUGBP2, in addition to GPX7, might be feature genes related to MI.

Male sterility can reduce cost and enable high seed purity during hybrid seed production. However, the commercial application of male sterility in hybrid seed production has not been widely used in tomatoes. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing can facilitate acceleration for the practical application of male sterility in hybrid seed production. Here, by using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, two genes DYSFUNCTIONAL TAPETUM1 (SlDYT1) and Glutathione S-transferase (SlGSTAA), which underly the two closely linked loci Male sterile 10 (Ms10) and Anthocyanin absent (AA), were knocked out simultaneously in two tomato parental lines. The generated dyt1gstaa double mutants developed green hypocotyl owing to anthocyanin deficiency and exhibited stable male sterility. Up to 92% effectiveness in selecting male sterility was achieved using green hypocotyl as a morphological marker, and thereafter an efficient and stable propagation strategy of male sterility with the aid of the morphological marker selection was developed. Furthermore, dyt1gstaa-derived hybrid seeds were produced and found to have comparable yield, weight, and germination rate with the corresponding WT-derived F1 seeds. The dyt1gstaa system not only increased hybrid seed purity to 100% but also facilitated its rapid and cost-effective determination. Moreover, this system was discovered to have no evident side effects on important agronomic traits. This study suggested that our CRISPR/Cas9-created dyt1gstaa system can be deployed in tomato hybrid seed production.

Although CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing has been widely used for plant genetic engineering, its application in the genetic improvement of trees has been limited, partly because of challenges in Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. As an important model for poplar genomics and biotechnology research, eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) clone WV94 can be transformed by A. tumefaciens, but several challenges remain unresolved, including the relatively low transformation efficiency and the relatively high rate of false positives from antibiotic-based selection of transgenic events. Moreover, the efficacy of CRISPR-Cas system has not been explored in P. deltoides yet. Here, we first optimized the protocol for Agrobacterium-mediated stable transformation in P. deltoides WV94 and applied a UV-visible reporter called eYGFPuv in transformation. Our results showed that the transgenic events in the early stage of transformation could be easily recognized and counted in a non-invasive manner to narrow down the number of regenerated shoots for further molecular characterization (at the DNA or mRNA level) using PCR. We found that approximately 8.7% of explants regenerated transgenic shoots with green fluorescence within two months. Next, we examined the efficacy of multiplex CRISPR-based genome editing in the protoplasts derived from P. deltoides WV94 and hybrid poplar clone ‘52-225’ (P. trichocarpa × P. deltoides clone ‘52-225’). The two constructs expressing the Trex2-Cas9 system resulted in mutation efficiency ranging from 31% to 57% in hybrid poplar clone 52-225, but no editing events were observed in P. deltoides WV94 transient assay. The eYGFPuv-assisted plant transformation and genome editing approach demonstrated in this study has great potential for accelerating the genome editing-based breeding process in poplar and other non-model plants species and point to the need for additional CRISPR work in P. deltoides.

Driving behavior analysis is vital for the advanced driving assistance system, aiming to improve driving behavior and decrease traffic accidents. Most existing driving behavior learning methods focus on either vehicle sensor information or driver's attention information, and provide a classification result on the current time data samples. The visualization of driving behavior on time series data samples could give an understanding and review of the driver's continuous actions. However, there has been little progress in combining the multi-modal vehicle and driver information on driving behavior learning and visualization. A multi-information driving behavior learning and visualization method with natural gaze prediction is proposed in this paper, which automatically integrates driver's gaze direction estimated from face camera, and various vehicle sensor data collected from on-board diagnostics (OBD) system. To accurately estimate the eye gaze under large head movement, a novel head pose-free eye gaze prediction method without calibration is proposed based on global and local scale sparse encoding, which treats the direction mapping as small gaze region classification. To understand driving behavior more intuitively, the latent features that represent different driving behaviors are extracted by FastICA from the fused time series data, and mapped into RGB color space for distinguished visualization. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and show that the proposed method performs better than the compared methods.

Monitoring structural vibration can provide quantitative information for both structural health evaluations and early-warning maintenance. The most classic vibration-based structural health monitoring is equipped with piezoelectric accelerometers, which is expensive and inconvenient due to cumbersome and time-consuming sensor installation and high power-consumptive data acquisition systems. One other main challenge with these systems is the inherent limitations for multi-point monitoring in critical elements with curvature due to their non-conformability. Here, inspired by the chameleon, we report a cost-effective, flexible and conformal, self-powered vibration sensor based on elasto-electro-chemical synergistic effect of piezoelectricity and electrochromism. The sensor can provide not only in-situ visualization, but also ex-situ recording of structural vibration due to the non-volatile color memory effect of electrochromism. The passive sensor system is composed of two distinct electronic components — ternary Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3PbTiO3 piezoelectric single crystal ribbon sensors and a solid-state tungsten trioxide electrochromic indicator driven by vibration-induced voltage generated by the piezoelectric ribbons. The proposed piezo-electrochromic based passive non-volatile visualization sensor may find diverse applications in structural health monitoring, smart wallpapers, and medical injury rehabilitation.

Abstract Halide perovskite single crystal (HPSC) films have demonstrated extraordinary performance in solar cells, photodetectors, and lighting applications, owing to the high carrier mobility, long carrier diffusion length, tunable bandgap, and large light absorption coefficients of these materials. Here, the recent development of the major HPSC thin films is reviewed systematically, including MAPbI3, α‐FAPbI3, MAPbBr3, CsPbBr3, with special emphasis on different classes of fabrication methods and thin‐film characteristics. Finally, the conclusion and prospects in this field are discussed in detail. It is anticipated that the HPSC thin films will lead to a compelling future for the rising electronic applications.

Tooth whitening has attracted significant interest; however, most techniques are potentially destructive. Here, the authors model the replacement of standard abrasives in toothpaste with piezoelectric particles for catalytic degradation of organic stains and report less damage than hydrogen peroxide treatment.

Many perovskite oxide ferroelectrics (e.g. PbZr1-xTixO3, BaTiO3, LiNbO3) are born with multitudinous robust performances and have been widely used in sensors, actuators, surface acoustic wave devices, and memories et al. However, their hardness, brittleness and harsh synthesis conditions (i.e. high temperature and oxygen ambience) restrain their application into flexible electronic devices which are significant components among the three pillars of modern society development, i.e. energy, information and materials. Here we review the preparation of flexible devices based on these oxide ferroelectrics, including transferring these freestanding films to flexible substrates after separating ferroelectric oxide films from the hard substrates, such as Si and SrTiO3 crystals, and also direct fabrication methods without transferring process. Subsequently, we summarize three kinds of representative flexible devices, i.e. flexible ferroelectric memories, sensors and generators. These inorganic electronics not only show excellent electric properties competitive with those corresponding electronics on hard substrates but also exhibit good flexibility similar to many organic flexible electronics. Keywords: Perovskite oxides, Flexible devices, Sensors, Energy harvesters, Memories

Plants adapt to their changing environments by sensing and responding to physical, biological, and chemical stimuli. Due to their sessile lifestyles, plants experience a vast array of external stimuli and selectively perceive and respond to specific signals. By repurposing the logic circuitry and biological and molecular components used by plants in nature, genetically encoded plant-based biosensors (GEPBs) have been developed by directing signal recognition mechanisms into carefully assembled outcomes that are easily detected. GEPBs allow for in vivo monitoring of biological processes in plants to facilitate basic studies of plant growth and development. GEPBs are also useful for environmental monitoring, plant abiotic and biotic stress management, and accelerating design-build-test-learn cycles of plant bioengineering. With the advent of synthetic biology, biological and molecular components derived from alternate natural organisms (e.g., microbes) and/or de novo parts have been used to build GEPBs. In this review, we summarize the framework for engineering different types of GEPBs. We then highlight representative validated biological components for building plant-based biosensors, along with various applications of plant-based biosensors in basic and applied plant science research. Finally, we discuss challenges and strategies for the identification and design of biological components for plant-based biosensors.

To explore the role and possible mechanism of miRNA-212 in heart failure (HF). The rat model of abdominal aortic constriction was constructed, the changes of myocardial morphology were observed by hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining, and the hypertrophy-related marker molecules were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). At the cellular level, phenylephrine and angiotensin II were added to induce cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. The overexpression of miR-212 adenovirus was constructed, and the expression of miR-212 was overexpressed, and its effect on cardiac hypertrophy (CH) was detected by immunofluorescence and qRT-PCR. Then, the mechanism of miR-212 regulating CH was verified by website prediction, luciferase reporter gene assay, qRT-PCR, and western blotting assay. In the successfully constructed rat model of abdominal aortic constriction and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, ANP and myh7 were dramatically increased, myh6 expression was decreased, and miRNA-212 expression was increased. Overexpression of miRNA-212 in cardiomyocytes can promote cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, while knocking down miR-212 in cardiomyocytes can partially reverse cell hypertrophy. In addition, miR-212 targets TCF7L2 and inhibits the expression of this gene. miRNA-212 targets TCF7L2 and inhibits the expression of this gene, possibly through this pathway to promote cardiomyocyte hypertrophy.

Shrub willows (Salix section Vetrix) are grown as a bioenergy crop in multiple countries and as ornamentals across the northern hemisphere. To facilitate the breeding and genetic advancement of shrub willow, there is a strong interest in the characterization and functional validation of genes involved in plant growth and biomass production. While protocols for shoot regeneration in tissue culture and production of stably transformed lines have greatly advanced this research in the closely related genus Populus, a lack of efficient methods for regeneration and transformation has stymied similar advancements in willow functional genomics. Moreover, transient expression assays in willow have been limited to callus tissue and hairy root systems. Here we report an efficient method for protoplast isolation from S. purpurea leaf tissue, along with transient overexpression and CRISPR-Cas9 mediated mutations. This is the first such report of transient gene expression in Salix protoplasts as well as the first application of CRISPR technology in this genus. These new capabilities pave the way for future functional genomics studies in this important bioenergy and ornamental crop.

Intelligent robots have assisted mankind in achieving and operating thousands of functions, especially with the arrival of the artificial intelligent. However, heat dissipation and thermal management in the intelligent robots remain big challenges, which limit their miniaturization and performance. Electrocaloric (EC) materials, which exhibit temperature change in response to the application or withdrawal of an electric field, open a new strategy for cooling technology and have gained a flurry of research interest in recent years. Toward artificial intelligent self-cooling electronic skins, large-scale flexible materials with high EC effect near room temperature are in demand. Here, we report a large room temperature EC effect in flexible Pb0.82Ba0.08La0.1Zr0.9Ti0.1O3 (PBLZT) inorganic thin films via a transfer-free cost-effective sol-gel process, assisted by unique two-dimensional mica substrates. The maximum adiabatic temperature change and isothermal entropy change of the flexible PBLZT thin films reach to 22.5 K and 25.9 J K− 1 kg− 1 at room temperature. In particular, the flexible PBLZT thin films exhibit a stable EC effect both under bending state and after bending for 20000 times. Our flexible EC materials offer an alternative strategy to the development of cooling technologies for both artificial intelligent robots and personal wearable cooling devices. Keywords: Electrocaloric effect, Ferroelectric thin film, Flexible electronics, Mica, Wearable device

Multiplexed CRISPR technologies have great potential for pathway engineering and genome editing. However, their applications are constrained by complex, laborious and time-consuming cloning steps. In this research, we developed a novel method, PARA, which allows for the one-step assembly of multiple guide RNAs (gRNAs) into a CRISPR vector with up to 18 gRNAs. Here, we demonstrate that PARA is capable of the efficient assembly of transfer RNA/Csy4/ribozyme-based gRNA arrays. To aid in this process and to streamline vector construction, we developed a user-friendly PARAweb tool for designing PCR primers and component DNA parts and simulating assembled gRNA arrays and vector sequences.

Ever-evolving advances in flexible magnetic sensors are promising to fuel technological developments in the fields of touchless human–machine interaction, implantable medical diagnosis, and magnetoreception for artificial intelligence. However, the realization of highly flexible and extremely sensitive magnetic sensors remains a challenge. Here, we report a cost-effective, flexible, and ultra-sensitive heterostructural magnetoelectric (ME) sensor consisting of piezoelectric Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) thick films and Metglas foils. The flexible sensor exhibits a strong ME coefficient of 19.3 V cm−1 Oe−1 at low frequencies and 280.5 V cm−1 Oe−1 at resonance due to the exceptionally high piezoelectric coefficient d33 ∼ 72 pC N−1 of the constituent PZT thick films. The flexible ME sensor possesses not only ultrahigh sensitivities of 200 nT at low frequencies and 200 pT at resonance but also shows an excellent mechanical endurance. Through 5000 bending cycles (radii of ∼1 cm), the sensors showed no fatigue-induced performance degradation. This ultrasensitive flexible sensor provides a platform capable of sensing and responding to external magnetic fields and will find applications in soft robotics, wearable healthcare monitoring, and consumer electronics.

Within the context of global warming, long-living plants such as perennial woody species endure adverse conditions. Among all of the abiotic stresses, drought stress is one of the most detrimental stresses that inhibit plant growth and productivity. Plants have evolved multiple mechanisms to respond to drought stress, among which transcriptional regulation is one of the key mechanisms. In this review, we summarize recent progress on the regulation of drought response by transcription factor (TF) families, which include abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent ABA-responsive element/ABRE-binding factors (ABRE/ABF), WRKY, and Nuclear Factor Y families, as well as ABA-independent AP2/ERF and NAC families, in the model plant Arabidopsis. We also review what is known in woody species, particularly Populus, due to its importance and relevance in economic and ecological processes. We discuss opportunities for a deeper understanding of drought response in woody plants with the development of high-throughput omics analyses and advanced genome editing techniques.

A grand challenge facing society is climate change caused mainly by rising CO2 concentration in Earth’s atmosphere. Terrestrial plants are linchpins in global carbon cycling, with a unique capability of capturing CO2 via photosynthesis and translocating captured carbon to stems, roots, and soils for long-term storage. However, many researchers postulate that existing land plants cannot meet the ambitious requirement for CO2 removal to mitigate climate change in the future due to low photosynthetic efficiency, limited carbon allocation for long-term storage, and low suitability for the bioeconomy. To address these limitations, there is an urgent need for genetic improvement of existing plants or construction of novel plant systems through biosystems design (or biodesign). Here, we summarize validated biological parts (e.g., protein-encoding genes and noncoding RNAs) for biological engineering of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) traits in terrestrial plants to accelerate land-based decarbonization in bioenergy plantations and agricultural settings and promote a vibrant bioeconomy. Specifically, we first summarize the framework of plant-based CDR (e.g., CO2 capture, translocation, storage, and conversion to value-added products). Then, we highlight some representative biological parts, with experimental evidence, in this framework. Finally, we discuss challenges and strategies for the identification and curation of biological parts for CDR engineering in plants.

Summary: Ferroelectric synapses using polarization switching (a purely electronic switching process) to induce analog conductance change have attracted considerable interest. Here, we propose ferroelectric photovoltaic (FePV) synapses that use polarization-controlled photocurrent as the readout and thus have no limitations on the forms and thicknesses of the constituent ferroelectric and electrode materials. This not only makes FePV synapses easy to fabricate but also reduces the depolarization effect and hence enhances the polarization controllability. As a proof-of-concept implementation, a Pt/Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3/LaNiO3 FePV synapse is facilely grown on a silicon substrate, which demonstrates continuous photovoltaic response modulation with good controllability (small nonlinearity and write noise) enabled by gradual polarization switching. Using photovoltaic response as synaptic weight, this device exhibits versatile synaptic functions including long-term potentiation/depression and spike-timing-dependent plasticity. A simulated FePV synapse-based neural network achieves high accuracies (>93%) for image recognition. This study paves a new way toward highly controllable and silicon-compatible synapses for neuromorphic computing.

Head pose and eye gaze are vital clues for analysing a driver’s visual attention. Previous approaches achieve promising results from point clouds in constrained conditions. However, these approaches face challenges in the complex naturalistic driving scene. One of the challenges is that the collected point cloud data under non-uniform illumination and large head rotation is prone to partial facial occlusion. It causes bad transformation during failed template matching or incorrect feature extraction. In this paper, a novel estimation method is proposed for predicting accurate driver head pose and gaze zone using an RGB-D camera, with an effective point cloud fusion and registration strategy. In the fusion step, to reduce bad transformation, continuous multi-frame point clouds are registered and fused to generate a stable point cloud. In the registration step, to reduce reliance on template registration, multiple point clouds in the nearest neighbor gaze zone are utilized as a template point cloud. A coarse transformation computed by the normal distributions transform is used as the initial transformation, and updated with particle filter. A gaze zone estimator is trained by combining the head pose and eye image features, in which the head pose is predicted by point cloud registration, and the eye image features are extracted via multi-scale spare coding. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed strategy achieves better results on head pose tracking, and also has a low error on gaze zone classification.

The human eye gaze plays a vital role in monitoring people’s attention, and various efforts have been made to improve in-vehicle driver gaze tracking systems. Most of them build the specific gaze estimation model by pre-annotated data training in an offline way. These systems usually tend to have poor generalization performance during the online gaze prediction, which is caused by the estimation bias between the training domain and the deployment domain, making the predicted gaze points shift from their correct location. To solve this problem, a novel driver’s eye gaze tracking method with non-linear gaze point refinement is proposed in a monitoring system using two cameras, which eliminates the estimation bias and implicitly fine-tunes the gaze points. Supported by the two-stage gaze point clustering algorithm, the non-linear gaze point refinement method can gradually extract the representative gaze points of the forward and mirror gaze zone and establish the non-linear gaze point re-mapping relationship. In addition, the Unscented Kalman filter is utilized to track the driver’s continuous status features. Experimental results show that the non-linear gaze point refinement method outperforms several previous gaze calibration and gaze mapping methods, and improves the gaze estimation accuracy even on the cross-subject evaluation. The system can be used for predicting the driver’s attention.

Abstract Theoretical and experimental work has revealed that a positively charged insulator layer formed by oxygen‐related defects near pentacene–dielectric interface in organic field‐effect‐transistors (OFETs) severely affects their performance. A novel OFET memory structure with an n‐type organic buffer layer at the pentacene/polymer interface is proposed. In this structure, electrons are induced on the surface of the n‐type organic layer near the interface due to the electrostatic field of the positively charged insulator and partly compensate the local positive charges at the interface, leading to a reduction in the height of hole barrier formed at the interface. On the other hand, the positive space charges will be induced in an extended region in n‐type organic layer due to the limited density of ionized donors, blocking the back transfer of holes to pentacene as a result of the thicker positively charged layer. This idea is implemented in the n‐type PTCDI‐C13‐buffered OFETs with poly(2‐vinyl naphthalene) (PVN) dielectric, in which greatly reduced P/E gate voltages, reliable P/E endurance of more than 10 000 cycles, and excellent retention time of more than 104 s with an ION/IOFF of more than 104 under a set of P/E pulses with low amplitudes and short pulses are achieved in air.

Global demand for food and bioenergy production has increased rapidly, while the area of arable land has been declining for decades due to damage caused by erosion, pollution, sea level rise, urban development, soil salinization, and water scarcity driven by global climate change. In order to overcome this conflict, there is an urgent need to adapt conventional agriculture to water-limited and hotter conditions with plant crop systems that display higher water-use efficiency (WUE). Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) species have substantially higher WUE than species performing C3 or C4 photosynthesis. CAM plants are derived from C3 photosynthesis ancestors. However, it is extremely unlikely that the C3 or C4 crop plants would evolve rapidly into CAM photosynthesis without human intervention. Currently, there is growing interest in improving WUE through transferring CAM into C3 crops. However, engineering a major metabolic plant pathway, like CAM, is challenging and requires a comprehensive deep understanding of the enzymatic reactions and regulatory networks in both C3 and CAM photosynthesis, as well as overcoming physiometabolic limitations such as diurnal stomatal regulation. Recent advances in CAM evolutionary genomics research, genome editing, and synthetic biology have increased the likelihood of successful acceleration of C3-to-CAM progression. Here, we first summarize the systems biology-level understanding of the molecular processes in the CAM pathway. Then, we review the principles of CAM engineering in an evolutionary context. Lastly, we discuss the technical approaches to accelerate the C3-to-CAM transition in plants using synthetic biology toolboxes.

Many applications in plant biology requires editing genomes accurately including correcting point mutations, incorporation of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and introduction of multinucleotide insertion/deletions (indels) into a predetermined position in the genome. These types of modifications are possible using existing genome-editing technologies such as the CRISPR-Cas systems, which require induction of double-stranded breaks in the target DNA site and the supply of a donor DNA molecule that contains the desired edit sequence. However, low frequency of homologous recombination in plants and difficulty of delivering the donor DNA molecules make this process extremely inefficient. Another kind of technology known as base editing can perform precise editing; however, only certain types of modifications can be obtained, e.g., C/G-to-T/A and A/T-to-G/C. Recently, a new type of genome-editing technology, referred to as “prime editing,” has been developed, which can achieve various types of editing such as any base-to-base conversion, including both transitions (C→T, G→A, A→G, and T→C) and transversion mutations (C→A, C→G, G→C, G→T, A→C, A→T, T→A, and T→G), as well as small indels without the requirement for inducing double-stranded break in the DNA. Because prime editing has wide flexibility to achieve different types of edits in the genome, it holds a great potential for developing superior crops for various purposes, such as increasing yield, providing resistance to various abiotic and biotic stresses, and improving quality of plant product. In this review, we describe the prime editing technology and discuss its limitations and potential applications in plant biology research.

For decades, plants have been the subject of genetic engineering to synthesize novel, value-added compounds. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a large class of biodegradable biopolymers naturally synthesized in eubacteria, are among the novel products that have been introduced to make use of plant acetyl-CoA metabolic pathways. It was hoped that renewable PHA production would help address environmental issues associated with the accumulation of nondegradable plastic wastes. However, after three decades of effort synthesizing PHAs, and in particular the simplest form polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), and seeking to improve their production in plants, it has proven very difficult to reach a commercially profitable rate in a normally growing plant. This seems to be due to the growth defects associated with PHA production and accumulation in plant cells. Here, we review major breakthroughs that have been made in plant-based PHA synthesis using traditional genetic engineering approaches and discuss challenges that have been encountered. Then, from the point of view of plant synthetic biology, we provide perspectives on reprograming plant acetyl-CoA pathways for PHA production, with the goal of maximizing PHA yield while minimizing growth inhibition. Specifically, we suggest genetic elements that can be considered in genetic circuit design, approaches for nuclear genome and plastome modification, and the use of multiomics and mathematical modeling in understanding and restructuring plant metabolic pathways.

Human life intimately depends on plants for food, biomaterials, health, energy, and a sustainable environment. Various plants have been genetically improved mostly through breeding, along with limited modification via genetic engineering, yet they are still not able to meet the ever-increasing needs, in terms of both quantity and quality, resulting from the rapid increase in world population and expected standards of living. A step change that may address these challenges would be to expand the potential of plants using biosystems design approaches. This represents a shift in plant science research from relatively simple trial-and-error approaches to innovative strategies based on predictive models of biological systems. Plant biosystems design seeks to accelerate plant genetic improvement using genome editing and genetic circuit engineering or create novel plant systems through de novo synthesis of plant genomes. From this perspective, we present a comprehensive roadmap of plant biosystems design covering theories, principles, and technical methods, along with potential applications in basic and applied plant biology research. We highlight current challenges, future opportunities, and research priorities, along with a framework for international collaboration, towards rapid advancement of this emerging interdisciplinary area of research. Finally, we discuss the importance of social responsibility in utilizing plant biosystems design and suggest strategies for improving public perception, trust, and acceptance.

To probe the energy of dielectric coupling between the dipole chains and the quasipolarons based on extension of the polaron concept, dielectric and magnetic properties of antiferromagnetic insulators, namely Ca _4-x Cu _x Ti _4 O _12 (x = 3, 2 and 1), are investigated at different temperatures. The energy is estimated larger than 56 meV of the dipole interaction energy, but smaller than 88 meV of the dipole-chain thermal activation energy which is for the Dissado-Hill type dielectric relaxation. In particular, the quasipolaron ingredient is at least 28 meV of the total superexchange interaction which bond one singe titanium ion of the dipole chain with four quasipolarons. Then, the energy of the coupling is in the range from 84 meV to 88 meV. The experimental observation, suggests the dielectric coupling may provide an approach to obtain large permittivity in strongly-correlating systems of antiferromagnetic insulators.

Two-dimensional (2D) ferroelectrics refer to those ferroelectrics with layered structure and weak interlayer interactions (e.g., van de Waals interlayer coupling). A number of basic physical issues in the framework of ferroelectricity deserve clarifications, and one of them is the size effect regarding the dependence of ferroelectricity on material thickness. In this work, we investigate the ferroelectric domain structures of 2D ferroelectric CuInP2S6 nanoflakes attached on heavily doped Si wafers and polarization switching using the piezoresponse force microscopy. While the domain structure shows highly irregular morphology and 180° domain walls, the statistics on domain size (diameter) W and nanoflake thickness d demonstrates the remarkable thickness dependence of domain size, illustrated by the shrinking domain size from 630 nm to 75 nm with decreasing thickness d from ∼130 nm to ∼11 nm. This dependence fits the Landau-Lifshitz-Kittel (LLK) scaling law with the scaling exponent of ∼0.65, slightly larger than 0.5 for 3D ferroelectrics. It is suggested that the size effect in terms of the LLK scaling law does not show an essential difference between the 2D and 3D ferroelectric systems.

Abstract A rapid surge in the research of lightweight, invisible, and flexible electronics is occurring with the arrival of Internet of Things (IoT). However, multifunctional perovskite oxide electronics are commonly hard and should be synthesized at high temperature and oxygen ambience, where most transparent conductive films will become brittle or highly resistive. Thus, the realization of transparent and flexible nonvolatile perovskite oxide resistive memory remains a big challenge. Here, a transparent, flexible, nonvolatile, and all‐inorganic memory with the mica substrate is prepared: the 2.7 wt% Ag‐doped indium–tin oxide (Ag–ITO) film as bottom electrodes, the BaTi0.95Co0.05O3−δ (BTCO) film as resistive‐switching functional layer, and the Ag/ITO films as top electrodes. The Ag–ITO/BTCO/Ag/ITO heterosturcture shows a unipolar resistive‐switching behavior, and its high/low resistance ratio is up to 5 × 103 under a low operating voltage (

The photophysics of lead halide perovskites is under intense investigation. Here, the authors use force microscopy on single crystals to show that light induces drastic lattice changes, and propose that the weakening of the hydrogen coupling under illumination is responsible for the lattice dilatation.

The driver gaze zone is an indicator of a driver’s attention and plays an important role in the driver’s activity monitoring. Due to the bad initialization of point-cloud transformation, gaze zone systems using RGB-D cameras and ICP (Iterative Closet Points) algorithm do not work well under long-time head motion. In this work, a solution for a continuous driver gaze zone estimation system in real-world driving situations is proposed, combining multi-zone ICP-based head pose tracking and appearance-based gaze estimation. To initiate and update the coarse transformation of ICP, a particle filter with auxiliary sampling is employed for head state tracking, which accelerates the iterative convergence of ICP. Multiple templates for different gaze zone are applied to balance the templates revision of ICP under large head movement. For the RGB information, an appearance-based gaze estimation method with two-stage neighbor selection is utilized, which treats the gaze prediction as the combination of neighbor query (in head pose and eye image feature space) and linear regression (between eye image feature space and gaze angle space). The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the baseline methods on gaze estimation, and can provide a stable head pose tracking for driver behavior analysis in real-world driving scenarios.

Upward self-poling phenomenon was observed in PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 ferroelectric films which were grown on (001) SrTiO3 substrate with either p-type La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 or n-type SrRuO3 buffered layer, or on n-type (001) Nb-SrTiO3 substrate. Both upward self-poling and epitaxial strain are strong in the super-thin PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 epitaxial films, while they become weak and finally disappear in thick epitaxial films or thin epitaxial films with high-density oxygen vacancies. Besides, both of them disappear in PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 polycrystalline films on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrate. Therefore, the main origin of upward self-poling is epitaxial strain rather than p-n/Schottky junction or charged vacancies in PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 epitaxial films here.