Antibody persistence and safety up to 12 months of heterologous orally administered adenovirus type-5 vector-based COVID-19 vaccine (Ad5-nCoV) in individuals who were primed with two-dose inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (CoronaVac) previously, has not been reported yet. This randomized, open label, single-center trial included Chinese adults who have received two-dose CoronaVac randomized to low-dose or high-dose aerosolised Ad5-nCoV group, or CoronaVac group. In this report, we mainly evaluated the geometric mean titres (GMTs) of neutralising antibodies (NAbs)...

Testlet design is very popular in educational and psychological assessments. This article proposes a new cognitive diagnosis model, the Multiple-Choice Cognitive Diagnostic Testlet (MC-CDT) model for a test with testlets consisting of multiple-choice (MC) items. The MC-CDT model uses the original examinees' responses to MC items instead of dichotomously scored data (i.e. correct or incorrect) to retain the information from different distractors and thus enhance the MC items' diagnostic power. The MCMC algorithm is adopted...

Bismuth-based photocatalytic technology has been a promising way to degrade contaminants in the aqueous system. In this work, a direct Z-scheme BiOCl/Bi3NbO7 heterojunction with a different molar ratio of Bi and Nb elements was fabricated through a facile in situ growth method. The structural and photoelectric characteristics of these as-prepared samples were investigated by SEM, XPS, TEM, XRD, BET, UV-vis DRS, PL, EIS and TPC. The photocatalytic activity was evaluated by the degradation of RhB,...

Over one billion people have received 2–3 dosages of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine for basic immunization. Whether a booster dose should be delivered to protect against the Omicron variant and its sub-lineages, remains controversial. Here, we tested different vaccine platforms targeting the ancestral or Omicron strain as a secondary booster of the ancestral inactivated vaccine in mice. We found that the Omicron-adapted inactivated viral vaccine promoted a neutralizing antibody response against Omicron in mice. Furthermore,...

Acinetobacter baumannii is an important nosocomial pathogen. Upon colonizing a host, A. baumannii are subjected to selective pressure by immune defenses as they adapt to the host environment. However, the mechanism of this pathoadaptation is unknown. Here, we established an in vitro system to evolve A. baumannii driven by the continuous selective pressure exerted by epithelial cells, and we used a combination of experimental evolution, phenotypic characterization and multi-omics analysis to address the underlying mechanism....

Pangolins have gained increasing global attention owing to their public health significance as potential zoonotic hosts since the identification of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses in them. Moreover, these animals could carry other respiratory viruses. In this study, we investigated the virome composition of 16 pangolins that died in 2018 with symptoms of pneumonia using metagenomic approaches. A total of eight whole virus sequences belonging to the Paramyxoviridae or Pneumoviridae families were identified, including one human parainfluenza virus...

Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) such as H5N1, H5N6, and H7N9 have been reported to frequently infect human, but acute encephalitis caused by HPAIV in human have been rarely reported. We report the first critical case of acute encephalitis with mild pneumonia caused by H5N6 virus. On January 25 of 2022, a 6-year-old girl with severe neurological symptoms was admitted to our hospital and rapidly developed to seizures and coma. Brain imaging showed abnormalities....

Acute acidic stress from sources such as acid rain might impact on lake ecosystems in many aspects. Because zooplankton is sensitive to environmental change, it could be a good biotic indicator of the effects of acidification. We investigated survival and metabolic rates of three dominant zooplankton taxa in Lake Biwa, the cladoceran Daphnia pulicaria, and the copepods Eodiaptomus japonicus and Cyclopoida spp., when subjected to different pH values (pH 4.0−8.0) at low (10 °C) and...

Bismuth-based photocatalytic technology has been a promising way to degrade contaminants in the aqueous system. In this work, a direct Z-scheme BiOCl/Bi3NbO7 heterojunction with a different molar ratio of Bi and Nb elements was fabricated through a facile in situ growth method. The structural and photoelectric characteristics of these as-prepared samples were investigated by SEM, XPS, TEM, XRD, BET, UV-vis DRS, PL, EIS and TPC. The photocatalytic activity was evaluated by the degradation of RhB,...

Prolonged infection and possible evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in patients living with uncontrolled HIV-1 infection highlight the importance of an effective vaccination regimen, yet the immunogenicity of COVID-19 vaccines and predictive immune biomarkers have not been well investigated. Herein, we report that the magnitude and persistence of antibody and cell-mediated immunity (CMI) elicited by an Ad5-vectored COVID-19 vaccine are impaired in SIV-infected macaques with high viral loads (> 105 genome copies per ml plasma, SIVhi) but...

With the wide application of nanometer materials in daily life, people pay more attention to the potential toxicity of nanoparticles to human fetal development once the nanoparticles are absorbed into the human body during pregnancy. However, there was no directly solid evidence for ZnO NPs-caused congenital heart defects. Hence, we investigated the effect of ZnO NPs exposure on early cardiogenesis using the chicken/mouse embryo models. First, we showed ZnO NPs reduced H9c2 cell viability in...

In the past three decades, a large body of data on the effects of exposure to ionizing radiation and the ensuing changes in gene expression has been generated. These data have allowed for an understanding of molecular-level events and shown a level of consistency in response despite the vast formats and experimental procedures being used across institutions. However, clarity on how this information may inform strategies for health risk assessment needs to be explored. An...

1. Methyltransferase-like 21C (METTL21C) and insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 1 (IGF2BP1) play important roles in the proliferation of chicken myoblasts. However, it remains unclear whether there is protein-protein interaction between METTL21C and IGF2BP1 to regulate proliferation of chicken myoblasts. 2. In this study, the Igf2bp1 gene was amplified from cDNA of liver tissue of Lueyang black-bone chicken to construct the overexpression vector HA-Igf2bp1. The HA-Igf2bp1 and Flag-Mettl21c vectors were individually transfected and co-transfected...

Three inactivated enterovirus A71 (EV-A71) vaccines have been widely vaccinated among children in the targeted age group in mainland China since mid-2016. However, comprehensive virological surveillance of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) over multiple years after the use of EV-A71 vaccines has rarely been conducted. Using long-term data extracted from the Public Health and Clinical Center of Chengdu, we described the clinical, aetiological, and epidemiological characteristics of HFMD inpatients after the use of EV-A71...

During an investigation in October 2018, two people with diarrhoea, mild abdominal pain, and mild arthralgia symptoms in Guangxi, China, were identified as infected by H9N2 avian influenza virus (AIV). Four H9N2 AIVs were isolated from one of two patients, a pet cat, and a dead chicken (two respective isolates from its lung and kidney tissues) bred by the patients at a backyard farm. Epidemiological investigation indicated that the newly bought chicken died first, and...

SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-2r) from Guangdong and Guangxi pangolins have been implicated in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and future pandemics. We previously reported the culture of a SARS-CoV-2r GX_P2V from Guangxi pangolins. Here we report the GX_P2V isolate rapidly adapted to Vero cells by acquiring two genomic mutations: an alanine to valine substitution in the nucleoprotein and a 104-nucleotide deletion in the hypervariable region (HVR) of the 3′-terminus untranslated region (3′-UTR). We further report the...

The pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis (UC) is unclear. House dust mite (HDM) is associated with immune inflammation in the body. This study is designed to identify the association between HDM and UC clinical symptoms. UC patients (n = 86) and non-UC control (NC) subjects (n = 64) were recruited. Colon lavage fluids (CLF) were collected from HDM skin prick test positive patients during colonoscopy, and analyzed by immunological approaches. HDM was detected in fecal samples,...

The chemical examination of the rice solid fermentation products of the deep-sea-derived fungus Aspergillus puniceus A2 resulted in the isolation of one new sesquiterpenoid malfilanol C (1), together with a rare analogue malfilanol B (2). The planar structure of 1 was resolved on the basis of the extensive analyses of the spectroscopic data (HRESIMS and NMR spectra), and its absolute configuration was assigned by quantum chemical calculation of the ECD data. Compound 1, featuring a...

Coxsackievirus A10 (CV-A10) has become one of the major pathogens of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), and studies on the vaccine and animal model of CV-A10 are still far from complete. Our study used a mouse adapted CV-A10 strain, which was lethal for 14-day-old mice, to develop an infected mouse model. Then this model was employed to establish an actively immunized-challenged mouse model to evaluate the efficacy of a formaldehyde-inactivated CV-A10 vaccine, which was...

Judging the conformity of binary events in macroeconomics and finance has often been done with indices that measure synchronization. In recent years, the use of Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve has become popular for this task. This paper shows that the ROC and synchronization approaches are closely related, and each can be derived from a decision-making framework. Furthermore, the resulting global measures of the degree of conformity can be identified and estimated using the standard...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a pathogen of global significance, but the value of HEV-related markers in the diagnosis of hepatitis E remains controversial. Previous studies on hepatitis E profiles have been mainly cross-sectional and conducted among inpatients in large hospitals, and hepatitis E cases have been primarily defined by limited partial markers. In this community-based study, 4,110 active hepatitis cases from a population of nearly 600,000 were followed over 48 months and serial serum...

Water pollution is becoming more and more serious nowadays, and water resources are in shortage. As an environmentally friendly wastewater treatment technology without secondary pollution, the three-dimensional electrode method has received more and more attention. However, the conventional direct current (DC) three-dimensional electrode method has the disadvantages of high energy consumption and low current efficiency. Based on this, this work investigated the treatment of malachite green (MG) dye wastewater by pulse three-dimensional electrode method. The...

Analysis of large-scale gene expression post vaccination can provide an overview of immune responses. We used transcriptional approaches to comprehensively analyze the innate immune response signatures elicited by protein subunit (PS) vaccine ZF2001 and a mRNA vaccine named RRV. A fine-grained time-dependent dissection of large-scale gene expression post immunization revealed that ZF001 induced MHC class II-related genes, including cd74 and H2-Aa, more expeditiously than RRV. Notably, RRV induced MHC class I-related genes like Tap1/2, B2m...

Distinct SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sublineages have evolved showing increased fitness and immune evasion than the original Omicron variant BA.1. Here we report the neutralization activity of sera from BNT162b2 vaccinated individuals or unimmunized Omicron BA.1-infected individuals against Omicron sublineages and “Deltacron” variant (XD). BNT162b2 post-dose 3 immune sera neutralized USA-WA1/2020, Omicron BA.1-, BA.2-, BA.2.12.1-, BA.3-, BA.4/5-, and XD-spike SARS-CoV-2s with geometric mean titers (GMTs) of 1335, 393, 298, 315, 216, 103, and 301, respectively; thus, BA.4/5...

Late Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian (Cadomian) magmatic rocks are abundant in Iran, but their occurrence in east-central Iran is voluminous. This paper reports, for the first time, on the Cadomian rocks of the eastern Iranian region known as Tapeh Tagh and deals with their geochemistry and uranium-lead (U-Pb) zircon ages. The Tapeh Tagh region contains masses of Cadomian meta-igneous rocks (including various types of granitic gneiss) and overlying meta-sedimentary rocks. The granitic gneisses show tectonic...