Protein quantification at proteome-wide scale is an important aim, enabling insights into fundamental cellular biology and serving to constrain experiments and theoretical models. While proteome-wide quantification is not yet fully routine, many datasets approaching proteomewide coverage are becoming available through biophysical and MS techniques. Data of this type can be accessed via a variety of sources, including publication supplements and online data repositories. However, access to the data is still fragmentary, and comparisons across experiments and organisms are not straightforward. Here, we describe recent updates to our database resource "PaxDb" (Protein Abundances Across Organisms). PaxDb focuses on protein abundance information at proteome-wide scope, irrespective of the underlying measurement technique. Quantification data is reprocessed, unified, and quality-scored, and then integrated to build a meta-resource. PaxDb also allows evolutionary comparisons through precomputed gene orthology relations. Recently, we have expanded the scope of the database to include cell-line samples, and more systematically scan the literature for suitable datasets. We report that a significant fraction of published experiments cannot readily be accessed and/or parsed for quantitative information, requiring additional steps and efforts. The current update brings PaxDb to 414 datasets in 53 organisms, with (semi-) quantitative abundance information covering more than 300 000 proteins.
The programmed death-1 (PD-1) costimulatory pathway has been demonstrated to play a role in the regulation of immune responses and peripheral tolerance. We investigated the role of this pathway in establishing an immune privilege status of corneal allografts in mice. B7-H1, but not B7-DC or PD-1, was expressed constitutively in the eye, i.e., cornea, iris-ciliary body, and retina. After corneal allografting, PD-1+CD4+ T cells infiltrated and adhered with B7-H1+ corneal endothelium. Blockade of PD-1 or B7-H1, but not B7-DC, led to accelerated corneal allograft rejection. In B7-H1-expressing corneal allografts, apoptosis of the infiltrating PD-1+CD4+ or CD8+ T cells was observed, after which there was allograft acceptance. In contrast, B7-H1 blockade suppressed apoptosis of infiltrating PD-1+ T cells, which led to allograft rejection. In vitro, destruction of corneal endothelial cells by alloreactive T cells was enhanced when the cornea was pretreated with anti-B7-H1 Ab. This is the first demonstration that the constitutive expression of B7-H1 plays a critical role in corneal allograft survival. B7-H1 expressed on corneal endothelial cells maintains long-term acceptance of the corneal allografts by inducing apoptosis of effector T cells within the cornea.
The performance of perovskite solar cells with inverted polarity (
p-i-n
) is still limited by recombination at their electron extraction interface, which also lowers the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of
p-i-n
perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells. A ~1 nm thick MgF
x
interlayer at the perovskite/C
60
interface through thermal evaporation favorably adjusts the surface energy of the perovskite layer, facilitating efficient electron extraction, and displaces C
60
from the perovskite surface to mitigate nonradiative recombination. These effects enable a champion
V
oc
of 1.92 volts, an improved fill factor of 80.7%, and an independently certified stabilized PCE of 29.3% for a ~1 cm
2
monolithic perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell. The tandem retained ~95% of its initial performance following damp-heat testing (85 Celsius at 85% relative humidity) for > 1000 hours.
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