Variations in EXD3 caused congenital cataracts in three Chinese families

Congenital cataract is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous disease characterized by any opacity of the lens presenting at birth or in the first year of life,with an incidence of 1–6/10,000 live births in developed countries and 5–15/10,000 live births in developing countries.Congenital cataract accounts for 7.4%–15.5%of all childhood blindness,and it occurs as either a syndromic disease or an isolated(nonsyndromic)disease with or without other ocular malformations,such as microcornea.

Group VB transition metal dichalcogenides for oxygen reduction reaction and strain-enhanced activity governed by p-orbital electrons of chalcogen

Developi ng alter native oxyge n reducti on reactio n (ORR) catalysts to replace precious Pt-based metals with abundant materials is the key challe nge of commercial application of fuel cells. Owing to their various compositi ons and tun able electronic properties, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have the great potential to realize high-efficiency catalysts for ORR. Here, various 3R-phase dichalcogenides of group VB and VIB transition metals (MX2, M = Nb, Ta, Mo, W;X = S, Se, Te) are investigated for ORR catalysts by using density functional theory calculations. The computed over-potentials of group VB TMDs are much less than those of group VIB TMDs. For group VB TMDs, a volcano-type plot of ORR catalytic activity is established on the adsorption energies of *OH, and NbS2 and TaTe2 exhibit best ORR activity with an oveepotential of 0.54 V. To achieve even better activity, strain engineering is performed to tune ORR catalytic activity, and the minimum over-potential of 0.43 V can be realized. We further dem on strate that the shift of p orbital center of surface chalcoge n elements under strain is responsible for tuning the catalytic activity of TMDs.