Objectives Severe or critical COVID-19 is associated with intensive care unit admission, increased secondary infection rate, and would lead to significant worsened prognosis. Risks and characteristics relating to secondary infections in severe COVID-19 have not been described. Methods Severe and critical COVID-19 patients from Shanghai were included. We collected lower respiratory, urine, catheters, and blood samples according to clinical necessity and culture and mNGS were performed. Clinical and laboratory data were archived. Results We found...

Following emergence in late 2019, SARS-CoV-2 rapidly became pandemic and is presently responsible for millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. There is currently no approved vaccine to halt the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and only very few treatment options are available to manage COVID-19 patients. For development of preclinical countermeasures, reliable and well-characterized small animal disease models will be of paramount importance. Here we show that intranasal inoculation of SARS-CoV-2 into Syrian...

Toxoplasma gondii oocysts in the environment are a threat to humans and animals. This study is aimed to evaluate the prevalence of T. gondii in white spoonbills and isolate viable T. gondii from white spoonbills. In 28.6% (2/7) of white spoonbills, T. gondii antibodies were found in heart juice by the modified agglutination test (cut-off: 1:4). T. gondii DNA was detected in tissues of 42.9% (3/7) white spoonbills. One viable T. gondii strain, named TgSpoonbillCHn1,...

Episodic Neoproterozoic magmatic suites in the Altyn Tagh, NW China, are thought to be related break-up of the Rodinia supercontinent. These suites resulted from long-term extension of the lithosphere during orogenic collapse and subsequent rifting. New geochemical and U-Pb-Hf zircon data indicate that the 825 Ma Hongliugou granite displays the characteristics of A-type granites derived from a juvenile source. Gneissic granites (780–760 Ma) are characterized by high Rb (>200 × 10−6), low Zr/Hf (23.28–29.28) and...

The emerging COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection poses severe challenges to global public health. Serum antibody testing is becoming one of the critical methods for the diagnosis of COVID-19 patients. We investigated IgM and IgG responses against SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) and spike (S) protein after symptom onset in the intensive care unit (ICU) and non-ICU patients. 130 blood samples from 38 COVID-19 patients were collected. The levels of IgM and IgG specific to N and...

Objectives Severe or critical COVID-19 is associated with intensive care unit admission, increased secondary infection rate, and would lead to significant worsened prognosis. Risks and characteristics relating to secondary infections in severe COVID-19 have not been described. Methods Severe and critical COVID-19 patients from Shanghai were included. We collected lower respiratory, urine, catheters, and blood samples according to clinical necessity and culture and mNGS were performed. Clinical and laboratory data were archived. Results We found...

Previous research revealed that lncRNA ZFAS1 could promote nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) by inhibiting its downstream target axis. However, the association between ZFAS1 and radioresistant NPC cells is unclear. This study aimed to explore the roles of ZFAS1 in the radioresistance of NPC. Bioinformatics analysis was conducted to identify the significant factors (ENO2 and miR-7-5p) that contributed to the radioresistance of NPC cells. After performing qRT-PCR analysis, we found that the expression of ZFAS1 and ENO2...

To investigate whether introduction of colistin into the clinical settings selected colistin-resistant CRE, we performed molecular epidemiological study of 1868 CRE strains collected from different geographical locales in China during the period 2014–2019. 1755 (96.18%) isolates carried the carbapenemase genes blaKPC and blaNDM; 14 Escherichia coli isolates (0.75%) carrying mcr-1 and blaNDM (MCR-CREC) were also identified. Importantly, the number and relative prevalence of MCR-CREC isolates increased from 5 (0.41%) to 9 (1.38%) after introduction of...

Previous research revealed that lncRNA ZFAS1 could promote nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) by inhibiting its downstream target axis. However, the association between ZFAS1 and radioresistant NPC cells is unclear. This study aimed to explore the roles of ZFAS1 in the radioresistance of NPC. Bioinformatics analysis was conducted to identify the significant factors (ENO2 and miR-7-5p) that contributed to the radioresistance of NPC cells. After performing qRT-PCR analysis, we found that the expression of ZFAS1 and ENO2...

In males, aging is accompanied by decline in serum testosterone levels due to impairment of testicular Leydig cells. The polycomb protein BMI1 has recently been identified as an anti-aging factor. In our previous study, BMI1 null mice showed decreased serum testosterone and Leydig cell population, excessive oxidative stress and p16/p19 signaling activation. However, a cause-and-effect relationship between phenotypes and pathways was not investigated. Here, we used the rescue approach to study the role of oxidative...

Human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63) is primarily associated with common cold in children, elderly and immunocompromised individuals. Outbreaks caused by HCoV-NL63 are rare. Here we report a cluster of HCoV-NL63 cases with severe lower respiratory tract infection that arose in Guangzhou, China, in 2018. Twenty-three hospitalized children were confirmed to be HCoV-NL63 positive, and most of whom were hospitalized with severe pneumonia or acute bronchitis. Whole genomes of HCoV-NL63 were obtained using next-generation sequencing. Phylogenetic and...

Following emergence in late 2019, SARS-CoV-2 rapidly became pandemic and is presently responsible for millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. There is currently no approved vaccine to halt the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and only very few treatment options are available to manage COVID-19 patients. For development of preclinical countermeasures, reliable and well-characterized small animal disease models will be of paramount importance. Here we show that intranasal inoculation of SARS-CoV-2 into Syrian...

Toxoplasma gondii oocysts in the environment are a threat to humans and animals. This study is aimed to evaluate the prevalence of T. gondii in white spoonbills and isolate viable T. gondii from white spoonbills. In 28.6% (2/7) of white spoonbills, T. gondii antibodies were found in heart juice by the modified agglutination test (cut-off: 1:4). T. gondii DNA was detected in tissues of 42.9% (3/7) white spoonbills. One viable T. gondii strain, named TgSpoonbillCHn1,...

Episodic Neoproterozoic magmatic suites in the Altyn Tagh, NW China, are thought to be related break-up of the Rodinia supercontinent. These suites resulted from long-term extension of the lithosphere during orogenic collapse and subsequent rifting. New geochemical and U-Pb-Hf zircon data indicate that the 825 Ma Hongliugou granite displays the characteristics of A-type granites derived from a juvenile source. Gneissic granites (780–760 Ma) are characterized by high Rb (>200 × 10−6), low Zr/Hf (23.28–29.28) and...