Incorporating synthetic macrocycles with unique structures and distinct conformations into conjugated macrocycle polymers (CMPs) can endowthe resulting materials with great potentials in gas uptake and pollutant adsorption. Here, four CMPs (CMP-n, n = 1-4) capable of reversibly capturing iodine and efficiently separating carbon dioxide are constructed from per-triflate functionalized leaning tower[6]arene (LT6-OTf) and [2]biphenyl-extended pillar[6]arene (BpP6-OTf) via Pd-catalyzed Sonogashira-Hagihara cross-coupling reaction. Intriguingly,o wing to the appropriate cavity sizeo f LT6-OTf and the numerous aromatic rings in the framework, the newly designed CMP-4 possesses an outstanding I 2 affinity with alarge uptake capacity of 208 wt %i nv apor and ag reat removal efficiency of 94 %i na queous solutions.T oo ur surprise,w ith no capacity to accommodate nitrogen, CMP-2 constructed from BpP6-OTf is able to specifically capture carbon dioxide at ambient conditions.

Barium titanate/polyvinylidene fluoride- (BT/PVDF-) based nanocomposite film exhibits excellent energy storage and mechanical properties and can be used as flexible electronic components.

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An Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak in China in 1999 caused 177 deaths due to hemolytic uremic syndrome. Sixteen outbreak associated isolates were found to belong to a new clone, sequence type 96 (ST96), based on multilocus sequence typing of 15 housekeeping genes. Whole genome sequencing of an outbreak isolate, Xuzhou21, showed that the isolate is phylogenetically closely related to the Japan 1996 outbreak isolate Sakai, both of which share the most recent common ancestor with the US outbreak isolate EDL933. The levels of IL-6 and IL-8 of peripheral blood mononuclear cells induced by Xuzhou21 and Sakai were significantly higher than that induced by EDL933. Xuzhou21 also induced a significantly higher level of IL-8 than Sakai while both induced similar levels of IL-6. The expression level of Shiga toxin 2 in Xuzhou21 induced by mitomycin C was 68.6 times of that under non-inducing conditions, twice of that induced in Sakai (32.7 times) and 15 times higher than that induced in EDL933 (4.5 times). Our study shows that ST96 is a novel clone and provided significant new insights into the evolution of virulence of E. coli O157:H7.

We report a new strategy to construct a multi-stimuli-responsive fluorescent supramolecular polymer by the strong host–guest interactions between a diselenium bond-bridged pillar[5]­arene dimer and an AIE-active tetraphenylethylene (TPE)-containing neutral guest bearing two imidazole terminal binding sites. The resulting supramolecular polymer shows a remarkable fluorescence emission decrease at low concentration. Significantly, the diselenium bonds introduced into the supramolecular polymer serve as redox-responsive building blocks. Upon addition of reductants, the supramolecular polymer depolymerized owing to the cleavage of the covalent diselenium bonds in the system. On the other hand, competitive guests such as adiponitrile, which bind strongly with pillar[5]­arenes, could lead the disassembly of the polymer to oligomers without breaking any covalent bonds in the system. These two types of depolymerization approaches can both result in the fluorescence intensity recovery of the system to a certain extent, which will hopefully enrich the methodology toward the construction of smart supramolecular polymeric materials with different properties.