Metal ions are indispensable to life, as they can serve as essential enzyme cofactors to drive fundamental biochemical reactions, yet paradoxically, excess is highly toxic. Higher-order cells have evolved functionally distinct organelles that separate and coordinate sophisticated biochemical processes to maintain cellular homeostasis upon metal ion stimuli. Here, we uncover the remodeling of subcellular architecture and organellar interactome in yeast initiated by several metal ion stimulations, relying on near-native three-dimensional imaging, cryo-soft X-ray tomography. The three-dimensional architecture of intact yeast directly shows that iron or manganese triggers a hormesis-like effect that promotes cell proliferation. This process leads to the reorganization of organelles in the preparation for division, characterized by the polar distribution of mitochondria, an increased number of lipid droplets (LDs), volume shrinkage, and the formation of a hollow structure. Additionally, vesicle-like structures that detach from the vacuole are observed. Oppositely, cadmium or mercury causes stress-associated phenotypes, including mitochondrial fragmentation, LD swelling, and autophagosome formation. Notably, the organellar interactome, encompassing the interactions between mitochondria and LDs and those between the nuclear envelope and LDs, is quantified and exhibits alteration with multifaceted features in response to different metal ions. More importantly, the dynamics of organellar architecture render them more sensitive biomarkers than traditional approaches for assessing the cell state. Strikingly, yeast has a powerful depuration capacity to isolate and transform the overaccumulated cadmium in the vacuole, mitochondria, and cytoplasm as a high-value product, quantum dots. This work presents the possibility of discovering fundamental links between organellar morphological characteristics and the cell state.

Sodium (Na)-ion batteries have received widespread attention due to their low cost and good safety. The possibility of two-dimensional vanadium boride (V2B2, MBene) as the anode material for Na-ion batteries is explored by first principles. It is found that V2B2 has good dynamic stability, thermodynamic stability, and conductivity. V2B2 has a good performance as anode material: it can adsorb nearly 3 layers of Na ions, and the maximum capacity reaches 814 mAhg-1. It is found that V2B2 has a very low Na ion diffusion barrier, about 0.011 eV, which represents the ultrahigh ion diffusion rate of Na ions on the surface of V2B2. The average open circuit voltage of V2B2 is 0.65 V, and good metallicity is maintained during the entire Na ion adsorption process. The results indicate that two-dimensional V2B2 has a low diffusion barrier, low open circuit voltage, and high theoretical capacity and is a potential anode material for Na-ion batteries.

With the rapid development of electric vehicles and portable electronic devices, high-performance energy storage devices such as Na-ion batteries (NIBs) have received increasing attention. Here, the possibility of two-dimensional (2D) zirconium-nitrogen compounds as anode materials for Na-ion batteries has been discussed by first-principles calculations. The results show that t-Zr2N is the most stable compared with other structures (ZrN, h-Zr2N, t-ZrN2, h-ZrN2, and p-ZrN2). On this basis, the most stable adsorption structures of t-Zr2N with various functional groups (-O, -OH, -F) were established, and their performance as NIBs anode materials was evaluated. We found that sodium (Na) ions were not easily adsorbed on Zr2NF2 and therefore were not suitable as electrode materials, while the other three structures (Zr2N, Zr2NO2, and Zr2N(OH)2) were all metallic and had a good performance as anode materials. Zr2N is the most suitable anode material owes to its high theoretical capacity (545.9 mAhg-1), extremely low diffusion barrier (0.018 eV), good stability and suitable open-circuit voltage, which makes its application in battery with great potential. Meanwhile, our investigations found that functional groups will affect the performance of 2D materials as electrode materials, which can provide useful guidance for future relevant researches.