Catalytic hydrogenolysis of end-of-life polyolefins can produce value-added liquid fuels and therefore holds great promises in plastic waste reuse and environmental remediation. The major challenge limiting the recycling economic benefit is the severe methanation (usually >20%) induced by terminal C–C cleavage and fragmentation in polyolefin chains. Here, we overcome this challenge by demonstrating that Ru single-atom catalyst can effectively suppress methanation by inhibiting terminal C–C cleavage and preventing chain fragmentation that typically occurs on multi-Ru sites. The Ru single-atom catalyst supported on CeO₂ shows an ultralow CH₄ yield of 2.2% and a liquid fuel yield of over 94.5% with a production rate of 314.93 g_fuels g_Ru⁻¹ h⁻¹ at 250 °C for 6 h. Such remarkable catalytic activity and selectivity of Ru single-atom catalyst in polyolefin hydrogenolysis offer immense opportunities for plastic upcycling.

The recurrence and metastasis of children with mediastinal neuroblastoma (NB) are also occurred after surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy. Strategies targeting the tumor microenvironment have been reported to improve survival; however, thorough investigations of monocytes and tumor-associated macrophages (Mϕs) with specialized functions in NB are still lacking. Our data first demonstrated polypyrimidine tract binding protein 2 (PTBP2) as a possible identifier in patients with mediastinal NB screened by proteomic profiling and that PTBP2 predicted good outcomes. Functional studies revealed that PTBP2 in NB cells induced the chemotactic activity and repolarization of tumor-associated monocytes and Mϕs, which, in turn, inhibited NB growth and dissemination. Mechanistically, PTBP2 prevents interferon regulatory factor 9 alternative splicing and upregulates signal transducers and activators of transcription 1 to stimulate C-C motif chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) and interferon-stimulated gene factor-dependent type I interferon secretion, to induce monocyte/Mϕs chemotaxis, and to sustain monocytes in a proinflammatory phenotype. Our study defined a critical event of PTBP2-induced monocytes/Mϕs in NB progression and revealed that RNA splicing occurred by PTBP2 benefits immune compartmentalization between NB cells and monocytes. This work revealed the pathological and biological role of PTBP2 in NB development and indicates that PTBP2-induced RNA splicing benefits immune compartmentalization and predicted a favorable prognosis in mediastinal NB.

Nonspherical particles have attracted increasing interest because of their shape anisotropy. However, the current methods to prepare anisotropic particles suffer from complex generation processes and limited shape diversity. Here, we develop a piezoelectric microfluidic system to generate complex flow configurations and fabricate jellyfish-like microparticles. In this delicate system, the piezoelectric vibration could evolve a jellyfish-like flow configuration in the microchannel and the in situ photopolymerization could instantly capture the flow architecture. The sizes and morphologies of the particles are precisely controlled by tuning the piezoelectric and microfluidic parameters. Furthermore, multi-compartmental microparticles with a dual-layer structure are achieved by modifying the injecting channel geometry. Moreover, such unique a shape endows the particles with flexible motion ability especially when stimuli-responsive materials are incorporated. On the basis of that, we demonstrate the capability of the jellyfish-like microparticles in highly efficient adsorption of organic pollutants under external control. Thus, it is believed that such jellyfish-like microparticles are highly versatile in potential applications and the piezoelectric-integrated microfluidic strategy could open an avenue for the creation of such anisotropic particles.

Solid solution strengthening enhances hardness of metals by introducing solute atoms to create local distortions in base crystal lattice, which impedes dislocation motion and plastic deformation, leading to increased strength but reduced ductility and toughness. In sharp contrast, superhard materials comprising covalent bonds exhibit high strength but low toughness via a distinct mechanism dictated by brittle bond deformation, showcasing another prominent scenario of classic strength–toughness tradeoff dilemma. Solving this less explored and understood problem presents a formidable challenge that requires a viable strategy of tuning main load-bearing bonds in these strong but brittle materials to achieve concurrent enhancement of the peak stress and related strain range. Here, we demonstrate a chemically tuned solid solution approach that simultaneously enhances hardness and toughness of superhard transition-metal diboride Ta_1−xZr_xB₂. This striking phenomenon is achieved by introducing solute atom Zr that has lower electronegativity than solvent atom Ta to reduce the charge depletion on the main load-bearing B–B bonds during indentation, leading to prolonged deformation that gives rise to notably higher strain range and the corresponding peak stress. This finding highlights the crucial role of properly matched contrasting relative electronegativity of solute and solvent atoms in creating concurrent strengthening and toughening and opens a promising avenue for rational design of enhanced mechanical properties in a large class of transition-metal borides. This strategy of concurrent strength–toughness optimization via solute-atom-induced chemical tuning of the main load-bearing bonding charge is expected to work in broader classes of materials, such as nitrides and carbides.

Understanding the details of metabolic reprogramming in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is critical to improve stratification for therapy. Both multiomics analysis and cross-cohort validation were performed to investigate the metabolic dysregulation of 562 HCC patients from 4 cohorts. On the basis of the identified dynamic network biomarkers, 227 substantial metabolic genes were identified and a total of 343 HCC patients were classified into 4 heterogeneous metabolic clusters with distinct metabolic characteristics: cluster 1, the pyruvate subtype, associated with upregulated pyruvate metabolism; cluster 2, the amino acid subtype, with dysregulated amino acid metabolism as the reference; cluster 3, the mixed subtype, in which lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism, and glycan metabolism are dysregulated; and cluster 4, the glycolytic subtype, associated with the dysregulated carbohydrate metabolism. These 4 clusters showed distinct prognoses, clinical characteristics and immune cell infiltrations, which was further validated by genomic alterations, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and immune cell profiles in the other 3 independent cohorts. Besides, the sensitivity of different clusters to metabolic inhibitors varied depending on their metabolic features. Importantly, cluster 2 is rich in immune cells in tumor tissues, especially programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)-expressing cells, which may be due to the tryptophan metabolism disorders, and potentially benefiting more from PD-1 treatment. In conclusion, our results suggest the metabolic heterogeneity of HCC and make it possible to treat HCC patients precisely and effectively on specific metabolic characteristics.

Localized intestine inflammation could induce short-term increases in colonic oxygenation and leads to increases in the aerobic bacteria population and reduction in the anaerobic bacteria population by changing the intestinal environment. However, the mechanisms involved and the associated functions of intestinal anaerobes in gut health still remain unclear. Here, we found that early-life depletion of gut microbiota exacerbated later colitis, while mid-life microbiota depletion showed partially reduced colitis. Notably, we observed that early-life gut microbiota depletion confers susceptibility to ferroptosis in colitis. In contrast, restitution of early-life microbiota conferred protection against colitis and inhibited ferroptosis triggered by gut microbiota dysbiosis. Similarly, colonization with anaerobic microbiota from young mice suppressed colitis. These results may attribute to high abundance of plasmalogen-positive (plasmalogen synthase [PlsA/R]-positive) anaerobes and plasmalogens (one of the common ether lipids) in young mice but reduced abundance in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. Early-life anaerobic bacteria elimination also resulted in the aggravation of colitis, while this aggravation phenotype was reverted by plasmalogen administration. Interestingly, plasmalogens inhibited ferroptosis triggered by microbiota dysbiosis. We further find that the alkenyl-ether group of plasmalogens was critical to colitis prevention and ferroptosis inhibition. These data point to one of the mechanisms by which the gut microbiota controls susceptibility to colitis and ferroptosis early in life via microbial-derived ether lipids.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Recent studies have shown that circular RNAs (circRNAs) have emerged as important players in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. circRNAs are a class of endogenous noncoding RNAs that are generated by back-splicing and are involved in many pathophysiological processes. In this review, we outline the current research progress on the regulatory roles of circRNAs in cardiovascular diseases. Further, new technologies and methods available for identifying, validating, synthesizing, and analyzing circRNAs, as well as their applications in therapeutics, are highlighted here. Moreover, we summarize the increasing insights into the potential use of circRNAs as circulating diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. Finally, we discuss the prospects and challenges of circRNA therapeutic applications for cardiovascular disease therapy, with a particular focus on developing circRNA synthesis and engineering delivery systems.

The second near-infrared (NIR-II, 1,000 to 1,700 nm) molecular fluorophores containing donor–acceptor–donor conjugated backbone have attracted substantial attention due to their outstanding advantages, such as stable emission and facilely tuned photophysical properties. However, it is still challenging for them to simultaneously achieve high brightness and red-shifted absorption and emission. Herein, furan is adopted as the D unit to construct NIR-II fluorophores, demonstrating red shift of absorption, enhanced absorption coefficient, and fluorescent quantum yield when compared with the generally used thiophene counterparts. The high brightness and desirable pharmacokinetics of the optimized fluorophore, IR-FFCHP, endows improved performance for angiography and tumor-targeting imaging. Furthermore, dual-NIR-II imaging of tumor and sentinel lymph nodes (LNs) has been achieved with IR-FFCHP and PbS/CdS quantum dots, enabling the in vivo imaging navigated LN surgery in tumor-bearing mice. This work demonstrates the potential of furan for constructing bright NIR-II fluorophores for biological imaging.

Layered materials with unique structures and symmetries have attracted tremendous interest for constructing 2-dimensional (2D) structures. The weak interlayer interaction renders them to be readily isolated into various ultrathin nanosheets with exotic properties and diverse applications. In order to enrich the library of 2D materials, extensive progress has been made in the field of ternary layered materials. Consequently, many brand-new materials are derived, which greatly extend the members of 2D realm. In this review, we emphasize the recent progress made in synthesis and exploration of ternary layered materials. We first classify them in terms of stoichiometric ratio and summarize their difference in interlayer interaction, which is of great importance to produce corresponding 2D materials. The compositional and structural characteristics of resultant 2D ternary materials are then discussed so as to realize desired structures and properties. As a new family of 2D materials, we overview the layer-dependent properties and related applications in the fields of electronics, optoelectronics, and energy storage and conversion. The review finally provides a perspective for this rapidly developing field.

Tumor metastasis is a hallmark of colorectal cancer (CRC), in which exosome plays a crucial role with its function in intercellular communication. Plasma exosomes were collected from healthy control (HC) donors, localized primary CRC and liver-metastatic CRC patients. We performed proximity barcoding assay (PBA) for single-exosome analysis, which enabled us to identify the alteration in exosome subpopulations associated with CRC progression. By in vitro and in vivo experiments, the biological impact of these subpopulations on cancer proliferation, migration, invasion, and metastasis was investigated. The potential application of exosomes as diagnostic biomarkers was evaluated in 2 independent validation cohorts by PBA. Twelve distinct exosome subpopulations were determined. We found 2 distinctly abundant subpopulations: one ITGB3-positive and the other ITGAM-positive. The ITGB3-positive cluster is rich in liver-metastatic CRC, compared to both HC group and primary CRC group. On the contrary, ITGAM-positive exosomes show a large-scale increase in plasma of HC group, compared to both primary CRC and metastatic CRC groups. Notably, both discovery cohort and validation cohort verified ITGB3+ exosomes as potential diagnostic biomarker. ITGB3+ exosomes promote proliferation, migration, and invasion capability of CRC. In contrast, ITGAM+ exosomes suppress CRC development. Moreover, we also provide evidence that one of the sources of ITGAM+ exosomes is macrophage. ITGB3+ exosomes and ITGAM+ exosomes are proven 2 potential diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic biomarkers for management of CRC.