Gradually modulating the three parts of D-π-A type polymers for high-performance organic solar cells

Organic solar cells(OSCs)have received great attention for the prominent advantage of low-cost,light-weight and potential for fabricating flexible and semi-transparent device via roll-to-roll printing toward making better use of inexhaustible renewable clean energy during the past years[1-4].

Tuning the optoelectronic properties of vinylene linked perylenediimide dimer by ring annulation at the inside or outside bay positions for fullerene-free organic solar cells

Among various perylenediimide(PDI)-based small molecular non-fullerene acceptors(NFAs),PDI dimer can effectively avoid the excessive aggregation of single PDI and improve the photovoltaic performance.However,the twist of perylene core in PDI dimer will destroy the effective conjugation.Thus,ring annulation of PDI dimer is a feasible method to balance the film quality and electron transport,but the systematic study has attracted few attentions.Herein,we choose a simple vinylene linked PDI dimer,V-PDI2,and then conduct further studies on the structure-property-performance relationship of four kinds of derived fused-PDI dimers,namely V-TDI2,V-FDI2,V-PDIS2 and V-PDISe2 respectively.The former two are incorporated thianaphthene and benzofuran at the inside bay positions,and the latter two are fused thiophene and selenophene at the outside bay positions,respectively.Theoretical calculations reveal the inside-and outside-fused structures largely affect the skeleton configuration,the former two tend to be planar structure and the latter two maintain the distorted backbone.The photovoltaic characterizations show that the inside-fused PDI dimers offer high open circuit voltage(VOC),while the outside-fused PDI dimers afford large short-circuit current density(JSC).This variation tendency results from the reasonably tunable energy levels,light absorption,molecular crystallinity and film morphology.As a result,PBDB-T:V-PDISe2 device exhibits the highest power conversion efficiency(PCE)of 6.51%,and PBDB-T:VFDI2 device realizes the highest VOC of 1.00 V.This contribution indicates that annulation of PDI dimers in outside or inside bay regions is a feasible method to modulate the properties of PDI-based non-fullerene acceptors.

Production of non-mosaic genome edited porcine embryos by injection of CRISPR/Cas9 into germinal vesicle oocytes

Genetically modified pigs represent a great promise for generating models of human diseases and producing new breeds.Generation of genetically edited pigs using somatic cell nuclear transfer(SCNT)or zygote cytoplasmic microinjection is a tedious process due to the low developmental rate or mosaicism of the founder(FO).Herein,we developed a method termed germinal vesicle oocyte gene editing(GVGE)to produce non-mosaic porcine embryos by editing maternal alleles during the GV to MII transition.Injection of Cas9 mRNA and X-linked Dmd gene-specific gRNA into GV oocytes did not affect their developmental potential.The MII oocytes edited during in vitro maturation(IVM)could develop into blastocysts after parthenogenetic activation(PA)or in vitro fertilization(IVF).Genotyping results indicated that the maternal gene X-linked Dmd could be efficiently edited during oocyte maturation.Up to81.3% of the edited IVF embryos were non-mosaic Dmd gene mutant embryos.In conclusion,GVGE might be a valuable method for the generation of non-mosaic maternal allele edited FO embryos in a short simple step.

Effective generation of maternal genome point mutated porcine embryos by injection of cytosine base editor into germinal vesicle oocytes

Cytosine and adenine base editors are promising new tools for introducing precise genetic modifications that are required to generate disease models and to improve traits in pigs. Base editors can catalyze the conversion of C→T(C>T) or A→G(A>G) in the target site through a single guide RNA. Injection of base editors into the zygote cytoplasm can result in the production of offspring with precise point mutations, but most F0 are mosaic, and breeding of F1 heterozygous pigs is time-intensive. Here, we developed a method called germinal vesicle oocyte base editing(GVBE) to produce point mutant F0 porcine embryos by editing the maternal alleles during the GV to MⅡ transition. Injection of cytosine base editor 3(BE3) mRNA and X-linked Dmdspecific guide RNAs into GVoocytes efficiently edited maternal Dmd during in vitro maturation and did not affect the maturation potential of the oocytes. The edited MⅡ oocytes developed into blastocysts after parthenogenetic activation(PA) or in vitro fertilization(IVF). However, BE3 may reduce the developmental potential of IVF blastocysts from 31.5%±0.8% to 20.4%±2.1%. There 40%–78.3% diploid PA blastocysts had no more than two different alleles, including up to 10% embryos that had only C>T mutation alleles. Genotyping of IVF blastocysts indicated that over 70% of the edited embryos had one allele or two different alleles of Dmd. Since the male embryos had only a copy of Dmd allele, all five(5/19) F0 male embryos are homozygous and three of them were Dmd precise C>T mutation. Nine(9/19) female IVF embryos had two different alleles including a WT and a C>T mutation. DNA sequencing showed that some of them might be heterozygous embryos. In conclusion, the GVBE method is a valuable method for generating F0 embryos with maternal point mutated alleles in a single step.