Decreased Amino Acid Transporter LAT2 Is the Main Determinant of Impaired Protein Utilization During Aging

As the global demographic shifts toward an aging population,understanding the efficiency of protein uti-lization in older adults becomes crucial.Our study explores the intricate relationship between protein intake and aging,with a focus on precision nutrition for older people.Through a meta-analysis,we con-firm a decline in protein-utilization capacity in older individuals and examine the different contributions of plant and animal protein.In experiments involving mice of different ages,older mice exhibited decreases in the biological utilization of four proteins(casein,beef protein,soy protein,and gluten),par-ticularly casein.In subsequent research,casein was studied as a key protein.A decline in gastric digestion function was observed through peptidomics and the examination of pepsin levels using casein.Nevertheless,this decline did not significantly affect the overall protein digestion during the aging pro-cess.The combined application of targeted amino acid metabolomics identified abnormal absorption of amino acids as the underlying cause of decreased protein utilization during aging,particularly emphasiz-ing a reduction in branched-chain amino acids(BCAAs)in older mice.Delving deeper into the proteomics of the intestinal protein digestion and absorption pathway,a reduction of over 60%in large neutral amino acid transporter 2(LAT2)protein expression was observed in both older humans and aged mice.The reduction in LAT2 protein was found to be a key factor influencing the diminished BCAA availability.Overall,our study establishes the significance of amino acid absorption through LAT2 in protein utiliza-tion during aging and offers a new theoretical foundation for improving protein utilization in the older adults.

High performance organic transistors and phototransistors based on diketopyrrolopyrrole-quaterthiophene copolymer thin films fabricated via low-concentration solution processing

Conjugated polymers have received considerable attentions over the past years due to their large-area potential applications via low-cost solution processing. Improving crystallinity of conjugated polymer molecules in solution-processed thin films is crucial for their efficient charge transport and thus high performance optoelectronic devices. Herein, with diketopyrrolopyrrole-quaterthiophene （PDQT） copo/ymer as an example, it is found that by simply reducing the solution concentration for spincoating meanwhile with the assistance of post-annealing, significantly enhanced film crystallinity with formation of typical single crystalline domains is obtained, which benefits from the enough space for better molecular assembly especially at the semiconductor/dielectric interface. High performance polymer transistors and phototransistors were finally constructed based on the optimal lowconcentration （2 mg/mL） spin-coated PDQT films （～12 nm）, which giving a high charge carrier mobility of 2.28 cm2 V-1 s-1 and a photoresponse on/off ratio of 2.1 ×107 at VG = 0 V under white light irradiation of 6mW/cm2. The results suggest that the bright future of PDQT crystalline films for large-area flexible integrated optoelectronic devices and the application of effective low-concentration processing approach in solution-processed organic electronics with reduced material waste.

Organic single-crystal phototransistor with unique wavelength-detection characteristics

Organic phototransistors based on high-quality 2,8-dichloro-5,11-dihexyl-indolo[3,2-b]carbazo(CHICZ)single crystals show the highest photoresponsivity of 3×10^3 A W^-1, photosensitivity of 2×10^4 and the detectivity can achieve 8.4×10^14 Jones. We also discovered good linear dependence of log(photosensitivity) versus the wavelength when the devices were illuminated with a series of sameintensity but different-wavelength lights. The organic phototransistors based on CHICZ single crystal have potential applications in wavelength-detection.

Well-balanced ambipolar diketopyrrolopyrrole-based copolymers for OFETs,inverters and frequency doublers

Conjugated polymers with well-balanced ambipolar charge transport is essential for organic circuits at low cost and large area with simplified fabrication techniques.Aiming at this point,herein,a novel asymmetric thiophene/pyridine-flanked diketopyrrolopyrrole-based copolymer(PPyTDPP-2FBT)is designed and synthesized.Due to the effect of incorporating F atoms on molecular energy alignment and conjugation conformation,the PPyTDPP-2FBT copolymer exhibits typical V-shaped ambipolar field-effect transfer characteristics with well-balanced hole and electron mobilities of 0.64 and 0.46 cm^(2)V^(−1)s^(−1),respectively.Furthermore,organic digital and analog circuits such as inverters and frequency doublers are successfully constructed based on solution-processed films of the PPyTDPP-2FBT copolymers which show a typical circuit operating mode with a high gain of 133 due to the well-balanced electrical properties.In addition,PPyTDPP-2FBT-based devices also demonstrate good stability and batch repeatability,suggesting their great potential applications in organic integrated electronic circuits.