Establishing the “Materials 4.0” paradigm requires intimate knowledge of the virtual space in materials design.

Although tremendous efforts have been devoted to enhance thermal conductivity in polymer fibers, correlation between the thermal-drawing conditions and the resulting chain alignment, crystallinity, and phonon transport properties have remained obscure. Using a carefully trained coarse-grained force field, we systematically interrogate the thermal-drawing conditions of bulk polyethylene samples using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. An optimal combination of moderate drawing temperature and strain rate is found to achieve highest degrees of chain alignment, crystallinity, and the resulting thermal conductivity. Such combination is rationalized by competing effects in viscoelastic relaxation and condensed to the Deborah number, a predictive metric for the thermal-drawing protocols, showing a delicate balance between stress localizations and chain diffusions. Upon tensile deformation, the thermal conductivity of amorphous polyethylene is enhanced to 80% of the theoretical limit, that is, its pure crystalline counterpart. An effective-medium-theory model, based on the serial-parallel heat conducting nature of semicrystalline polymers, is developed here to predict the impacts from both chain alignment and crystallinity on thermal conductivity. The enhancement in thermal conductivity is mainly attributed to the increases in the intrinsic phonon mean free path and the longitudinal group velocity. This work provides fundamental insights into the polymer thermal-drawing process and establishes a complete process–structure–property relationship for enhanced phonon transport in all-organic electronic devices and efficiency of polymeric heat dissipaters.

Erigeron breviscapus, a traditional Chinese medicinal plant, is enriched in flavonoids that are beneficial to human health. While we know that R2R3-MYB transcription factors (TFs) are crucial to flavonoid pathway, the transcriptional regulation of flavonoid biosynthesis in E. breviscapus has not been fully elucidated. Here, EbMYBP1, a R2R3-MYB transcription factor, was uncovered as a regulator involved in the regulation of flavonoid accumulation. Transcriptome and metabolome analysis revealed that a large group of genes related to flavonoid biosynthesis were significantly changed, accompanied by significantly increased concentrations of the flavonoid in EbMYBP1-OE transgenic tobacco compared with the wild-type (WT). In vitro and in vivo investigations showed that EbMYBP1 participated in flavonoid biosynthesis, acting as a nucleus-localized transcriptional activator and activating the transcription of flavonoid-associated genes like FLS, F3H, CHS, and CHI by directly binding to their promoters. Collectively, these new findings are advancing our understanding of the transcriptional regulation that modulates the flavonoid biosynthesis.

Erigeron breviscapus is a Compositae plant, and its rich flavonoids have shown strong preventative and curative effects in the treatment of cardio- and cerebrovascular diseases. bHLH genes play a crucial role in plant growth and development. There are 116 EbbHLH genes in E. breviscapus, and each gene has been named based on its chromosome location. Our phylogenetic analysis divided these genes into 18 subfamilies. To further investigate its function, EbbHLH80 was isolated from E. breviscapus leaves. Next, transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses of tobacco leaves were performed. Among 421 differentially accumulated compounds, 98 flavonoids were identified. In addition, differentially expressed genes were identified using RNA-seq, and further analysis suggested that EbbHLH80-OE could not only regulate the expression of some structural genes in the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway to achieve flavonoid accumulation but also be involved in the regulation of a series of downstream pathways, such as stress response, ABA and ethylene signal transduction, to affect plant growth and development. The results of our analysis provide new insights into the function of EbbHLH80 and lay the foundation for future functional studies on E. breviscapus.

bHLH transcription factors are involved in multiple aspects of plant biology, such as the response to abiotic stress. Erigeron breviscapus is a composite plant, and its rich flavonoids have strong preventive and therapeutic effects on cardio cerebral vascular disease. EbbHLH80, a gene from E. breviscapus that positively regulates flavonoid synthesis, was previously characterized. However, it is unclear whether EbbHLH80 increases flavonoid accumulation, which affects salt tolerance. The function of EbbHLH80 in transgenic tobacco seeds was identified by phylogenetic analysis and metabolome-transcriptome analysis. We investigated the role of EbbHLH80 in salt stress response. Our results showed that the expression of EbbHLH80 increased following salt treatment. Integrating the metabolome and transcriptome analysis of EbbHLH80-OE and Yunyan 87 (WT) seeds, we identified several genes and metabolites related to flavonoid biosynthesis and salt stress. Moreover, EbbHLH80-OE plants displayed higher salt tolerance than wild-type plants during seed germination and seedling growth. After salt treatment, transgenic tobacco had significantly lower levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) than WT, with enhanced levels of antioxidant enzyme expression. Altogether, our results demonstrated that EbbHLH80 might be a positive regulator, promoting salt tolerance by modulating ROS scavenging and increasing stress-responsive genes.