A bionic controllable strain membrane for cell stretching at air–liquid interface inspired by papercutting

Lung diseases associated with alveoli,such as acute respiratory distress syndrome,have posed a long-term threat to human health.However,an in vitro model capable of simulating different deformations of the alveoli and a suitable material for mimicking basement membrane are currently lacking.Here,we present an innovative biomimetic controllable strain membrane(BCSM)at an air–liquid interface(ALI)to reconstruct alveolar respiration.The BCSM consists of a high-precision three-dimensional printing melt-electrowritten polycaprolactone(PCL)mesh,coated with a hydrogel substrate—to simulate the important functions(such as stiffness,porosity,wettability,and ALI)of alveolar microenvironments,and seeded pulmonary epithelial cells and vascular endothelial cells on either side,respectively.Inspired by papercutting,the BCSM was fabricated in the plane while it operated in three dimensions.A series of the topological structure of the BCSM was designed to control various local-area strain,mimicking alveolar varied deformation.Lopinavir/ritonavir could reduce Lamin A expression under over-stretch condition,which might be effective in preventing ventilator-induced lung injury.The biomimetic lung-unit model with BCSM has broader application prospects in alveoli-related research in the future,such as in drug toxicology and metabolism.

High-temperature dielectric switch and second harmonic generation integrated in a stimulus responsive material

Stimulus re s ponsive materials can provide a variety of desirable properties in one equipment unit,such as optoelectronic devices,data communications,actuators,memories,sensors and capacitors.However,it remains a large challenge to design such stimulus responsive materials,especially functional materials having both dielectric switch and second harmonic generation(SHG).Here,a new stimuli-responsive switchable material [(CH_(3))_(3)N(CH_(2))_(2)Cl]_(2)]Mn(SCN)_(4)(H_(2)O)_(2)] was discovered as a potential secondharmonic generation(SHG) dielectric switch.It is worth noting that it has SHG characteristics before and after undergoing reversible high-temperature phase transitions.In this work,we successfully refined the tetramethylammonium cation to obtain a quasi-spherical cation,which is tetramethylchloroethylamine(TMCEM) cation.By substituting H with a halogen,the increased steric hindrance of the molecular makes energy barrier increased,resulting in the reversible high-temperature phase transition.At the same time,the interactions of quasi-spherical cations and [Mn(SCN)_(4)(H_(2)O)_(2)]^(2-) anions affect a noncentrosymmetric structure to induce the SHG effect.These findings provide a new approach to design novel functional switch materials.

Deuteration triggered downward shift of dielectric phase transition temperature in a hydrogen-bonded molecular crystal

Deuteration of hydrogen-bonded phase transition crystals can increase the transition temperatures due to the isotope effect. But rare examples show the opposite trend that originates from the structural changes of the hydrogen bond, known as the geometric H/D isotope effect. Herein, we report an organic crystal, diethylammonium hydrogen 1,4-terephthalate, exhibits a reversible structural phase transition and dielectric switching. Structural study shows the cations reside in channels formed by one-dimensional hydrogen-bonded anionic chains and undergo an order-disorder transition at around 206 K. The deuterated counterpart shows an elongation of the O…O hydrogen bond by about 0.005 A. This geometric isotope effect releases the internal pressure of the anionic host on the cation guests and results in a downward shift of the phase transition temperature by 10 K.