Insights into the mechanism of Sub3 inhibiting Fusarium moniliforme infection in maize

Fusarium moniliforme(F.moniliforme) and its secondary metabolite fumonisin pose a severe threat to food safety,and searching for effective antimicrobial agents is a focus of current research.In this study,the secondary structure of Sub3 was analyzed by circular dichroism,meanwhile,the inhibition rate of Sub3 against spores,mycelia of F.moniliforme and infected maize was studied.To explore the possible inhibition mechanisms,morphological and structural changes of spores treated with Sub3 at0,1/2 MIC(minimum inhibitory concentration) and MIC were observed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy;the cell wall integrity,membrane integrity,reactive oxygen species,mitochondrial membrane potential,ATP synthase activity,redox reactions,and the nuclear damage of F.moniliforme were also investigated.The results showed that Sub3 was mostly in the state of random in deionized water,while mainly showed the β-sheet structure in the hydrophobic environment of 50% Trifluoroethanol(TFE) solution,indicating that Sub3 might generate partial structure deformation when acting on the cell membrane;and its MIC on F.moniliforme spores was 0.2 g/L.Under the 1/2 MIC and MIC,the inhibition rates of Sub3 against F.moniliforme infected maize were 34.3% and75.6%,respectively.The results of inhibition mechanisms revealed that the defective pathogenicity of F.moniliforme caused by Sub3 was attributed to damages on both the cell wall and the cell membrane,which might upset balance of intracellular redox system and mitochondrial energy metabolism and trigger nucleus damage,ultimately leading to cell death.Meanwhile,Sub3 could diminished ATP synthase enzyme activity in a dose-dependent manner.The results provided direct evidence for inhibition of F.moniliforme infection of maize by Sub3,and useful knowledge applicable for food preservation.

Optimization of solvent swelling for efficient organic solar cells via sequential deposition

Compared to bulk heterojunction(BHJ)organic solar cells(OSCs)prepared by the blend casting in“one step process”,sequential deposition(SD)processed OSCs can realize an ideal profile of vertical component distribution due to the swelling of polymer films.Herein,we did trials on several kinds of second solvents for swelling the polymer layer,and investigated the packing structure and morphology of the swollen films and the performance of the resulting devices.We found that an optimized morphology can be achieved by solvent swelling while using orthodichlorobenzene(o-DCB)as the second layer processing-solvent,with polymer donor PffBT-3 as bottom layer,PC71BM as top layer and bicontinuous networks in the middle.Such solvent swelling process also makes the SD method exempt from thermal annealing treatment.The device based on SD yields a power conversion effi-ciency(PCE)up to 8.7%without any post-treatment,outperforming those from the devices based on SD using other solvents and that(7.06%)from BHJ device,respectively.We also extended the use of this approach to allpolymer blend system,and successfully improved the efficiency from 4.72%(chloroform)to 9.35%(o-DCB),which is among the highest PCEs in all-polymer-based OSCs fabricated with SD method.The results demonstrate that the swelling of the polymer by the second layer solvent is a necessity for SD,paving the way towards additivefree high-performance OSCs.

Over 16% efficiency all-polymer solar cells by sequential deposition

All-polymer solar cells(all-PSCs) have received extensive attention due to their excellent mechanical robustness and performance stability. However, the power conversion efficiency(PCE) of all-PSCs still lags behind those of organic solar cells(OSCs)based on non-fullerene small molecule acceptors. Herein, we report highly efficient all-PSCs via sequential deposition(SD) with donor and acceptor layers coated sequentially to optimize the film microstructure. Compared with the bulk heterojunction(BHJ)all-PSCs, an optimized morphology with vertical component distribution was achieved for the SD-processed all-PSCs due to the synergistic effect of swelling of polymer films and using additive. Such strategy involves using chlorobenzene as the first layer processing-solvent for polymer donor, chloroform as the second processing-solvent for polymer acceptor with trace 1-chloronaphthalene, efficiently promoting exciton dissociation and charge extraction and reducing trap-assisted recombination.Consequently, over 16% all-PSCs fabricated via SD method was realized for the first time, which is much higher than that(15.2%) of its BHJ counterpart and also among the highest PCEs in all-PSCs. We have further demonstrated the generality of this approach in various all-polymer systems. This work indicates that the SD method can yield excellent all-PSCs and provides a facile approach to fabricating high-performance all-PSCs.