As the most important post-translational modification of proteins, phosphorylation plays essential roles in all aspects of biological processes. Besides experimental approaches, computational prediction of phosphorylated proteins with their kinase-specific phosphorylation sites has also emerged as a popular strategy, for its low-cost, fast-speed and convenience. In this work, we developed a kinase-specific phosphorylation sites predictor of GPS 2.1 (Group-based Prediction System), with a novel but simple approach of motif length selection (MLS). By this approach, the robustness of the prediction system was greatly improved. All algorithms in GPS old versions were also reserved and integrated in GPS 2.1. The online service and local packages of GPS 2.1 were implemented in JAVA 1.5 (J2SE 5.0) and freely available for academic researches at: http://gps.biocuckoo.org.

With the depletion of fossil fuels and the increasing demand of energy for economic development, it is urgent to develop renewable energy technologies to sustain the economic growth. Electrospinning is a versatile and efficient fabrication method for one-dimensional (1D) nanostructured fibers of metals, metal oxides, hydrocarbons, composites, and so forth. The resulting nanofibers (NFs) with controllable diameters ranging from nanometer to micrometer scale possess unique properties such as a high surface-area-to-volume and aspect ratio, low density, and high pore volume. These properties make 1D nanomaterials more advantageous than conventional materials in energy harvesting, conversion, and storage devices. In this review, the key parameters for e-spinning are discussed and the properties of electrospun NFs and applications in solar cells, fuel cells, nanogenerators, hydrogen energy harvesting and storage, lithium-ion batteries, and supercapacitors are reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of electrospinning and an outlook on the possible future directions are also discussed.

Enzyme mimics or artificial enzymes are a class of catalysts that have been actively pursued for decades and have heralded much interest as potentially viable alternatives to natural enzymes. Aside from having catalytic activities similar to their natural counterparts, enzyme mimics have the desired advantages of tunable structures and catalytic efficiencies, excellent tolerance to experimental conditions, lower cost, and purely synthetic routes to their preparation. Although still in the midst of development, impressive advances have already been made. Enzyme mimics have shown immense potential in the catalysis of a wide range of chemical and biological reactions, the development of chemical and biological sensing and anti-biofouling systems, and the production of pharmaceuticals and clean fuels. This Review concerns the development of various types of enzyme mimics, namely polymeric and dendrimeric, supramolecular, nanoparticulate and proteinic enzyme mimics, with an emphasis on their synthesis, catalytic properties and technical applications. It provides an introduction to enzyme mimics and a comprehensive summary of the advances and current standings of their applications, and seeks to inspire researchers to perfect the design and synthesis of enzyme mimics and to tailor their functionality for a much wider range of applications.

Au nanoparticles (NPs) have been found to be excellent glucose oxidase mimics, while the catalytic processes have rarely been studied. Here, we reveal that the process of glucose oxidation catalyzed by Au NPs is as the same as that of natural glucose oxidase, namely, a two-step reaction including the dehydrogenation of glucose and the subsequent reduction of O2 to H2O2 by two electrons. Pt, Pd, Ru, Rh, and Ir NPs can also catalyze the dehydrogenation of glucose, except that O2 is preferably reduced to H2O. By the electron transfer feature of noble metal NPs, we overcame the limitation that H2O2 must be produced in the traditional two-step glucose assay and realize the rapid colorimetric detections of glucose. Inspired by the electron transport pathway in the catalytic process of natural enzymes, noble metal NPs have also been found to mimic various enzymatic electron transfer reactions including cytochrome c, coenzymes as well as nitrobenzene reductions.