Due to inherently poor healable and stretchable features, the most explored polyvinyl alcohol-based gel electrolytes cannot well meet the requirements of stretchable, healable and multifunctional supercapacitors. Here, we report a hydrogel of a copolymer cross-linked by double linkers of Laponite (synthetic hectorite-type clay) and graphene oxide. The resultant hydrogel shows high mechanical stretchability, excellent ionic conductivity, and superior healable performance. Along with designing wrinkled-structure electrodes, supercapacitors fabricated by using this hydrogel as a gel electrolyte not only exhibit ultrahigh mechanical stretchability of 1000%, but also achieve repeated healable performance under treatments of both infrared light irradiation and heating. More significantly, a broken/healed supercapacitor also possesses an ultrahigh stretchability up to 900% with slight performance decay. This hydrogel electrolyte could be easily functionalized by introducing other functional components, and extended for use in other portable and wearable energy related devices with multifunction.

SUMMARY Diet, genetics, and the gut microbiome are determinants of metabolic status, in part through production of metabolites by the gut microbiota. To understand the mechanisms linking these factors, we performed LC-MS-based metabolomic analysis of cecal contents and plasma from C57BL/6J, 129S1/SvImJ, and 129S6/SvEvTac mice on chow or a high-fat diet (HFD) and HFD-treated with vancomycin or metronidazole. Prediction of the functional metagenome of gut bacteria by PICRUSt analysis of 16S sequences revealed dramatic differences in microbial metabolism. Cecal and plasma metabolites showed multifold differences reflecting the combined and integrated effects of diet, antibiotics, host background, and the gut microbiome. Eighteen plasma metabolites correlated positively or negatively with host insulin resistance across strains and diets. Over 1,000 still-unidentified metabolite peaks were also highly regulated by diet, antibiotics, and genetic background. Thus, diet, host genetics, and the gut microbiota interact to create distinct responses in plasma metabolites, which can contribute to regulation of metabolism and insulin resistance.

The gut microbiota is involved in various physiological functions, and disturbances in the host-microbiome have been proven to contribute to the dysfunction of gut; however, whether microbiota participates in the pathogenesis of constipation remains unclear. In this study, we extracted and analyzed microbiota in feces from constipated donors who had undergone effective therapy with fecal microbiota transplantation, transplanted microbiota into pseudo-germ-free mice, and measured gut motility. These mice presented with lower pellet frequency and water percentage, smaller pellet size, delayed gastrointestinal transit time, and weaker spontaneous contractions of colonic smooth muscle. To determine the mechanism underlying delayed gut motility, microbial metabolites were measured. Short chain fatty acids and secondary bile acids were decreased in mice receiving microbiota from constipated donors. Moreover, the compositional changes of gut microbiota in constipated patients were identified, including the operational taxonomic unit, and the species richness and α diversity were much greater than those in healthy volunteers. These findings suggest that alterations of the microbiome might affect gut motility via altered microbial-derived metabolites in the development of constipation, and the restoration of disturbed microbiota might improve the clinical phenotype. This study indicates that regulating the intestinal environment may be a novel therapy strategy for constipation.