Search

Pandemics refract sociopolitical tensions within societies and highlight how national belonging hinges on informal performances as much as legal status. While return migration has become a common practice and institutionalized strategy of state development, little scholarly work has probed how domestic populations view returnees and their claims to national membership. Using a large-scale, pre-registered online survey experiment deploying a give-or-take Dictator Game, this paper leverages the dynamics of COVID-19 to explore how Chinese nationals envision and treat returnees. First, our results illustrate that the Chinese population imagines returnees as a group of elites with substantial social and financial capital, even though returnees are a socio-economically diverse population. Next, by applying information priming, we demonstrate that Chinese nationals discriminated against overseas returnees during the pandemic and that this behavior was not primarily driven by fears of viral contagion. Finally, using mediation analysis, we show that participants’ differential behavior towards returnees can largely be explained by participants’ perceptions of returnees’ class status and adherence to key markers of national membership. Ultimately, this paper broadens our understanding of the informal dynamics of national membership and intergroup relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infections of the central nervous system (CNS) are potentially life-threatening and can cause serious morbidity. We evaluated the clinical value of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in the diagnosis of infectious encephalitis and meningitis and explored the factors affecting the results of mNGS. Patients with suspected cases of encephalitis or meningitis who presented in Northern Jiangsu People's Hospital from 1 March 2018 to 30 September 2022 were collected. Demographic, historical, and clinical information were obtained, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples were treated with mNGS. The pathogen was identified using National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank sequence data. Ninety-six patients were screened and finally 90 subjects enrolled. Of the 90 enrolled cases, 67 (74.4%) were diagnosed with central nervous system infections, which included 48 cases (71.6%) of viral infection, 11 (12.2%) of bacterial infection, 5 (7.5%) of mycobacterium tuberculosis, 2 (3.0%) of fungal infection, and 1 (1.5%) of rickettsia infection. From these cases, mNGS identified 40 (44.4%) true-positive cases, 3 (3.3%) false-positive case, 22 (24.4%) true-negative cases, and 25 (27.8%) false-negative cases. The sensitivity and specificity of mNGS were 61.5% and 88%, respectively. mNGS of CSF could show a higher positive rate in patients with marked CSF abnormalities, including elevated protein concentrations and monocyte counts. mNGS of CSF is an effective method for detecting infectious encephalitis and meningitis, and the results should be analyzed combined with conventional microbiological testing results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thoracic aortic dissection (TAD) is a severe disease, characterized by numerous apoptotic vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). EDIL3/Del-1 is a secreted protein involved in macrophage efferocytosis in acute inflammation. Here, we aimed to investigate whether EDIL3 promoted the internalization and degradation of apoptotic VSMCs during TAD. The levels of EDIL3 were decreased in the serum and aortic tissue from TAD mice. Global edil3 knockout (edil3−/−) mice and edil3−/− bone marrow chimeric mice exhibited a considerable exacerbation in β-aminopropionitrile monofumarate (BAPN)-induced TAD, accompanied with increased apoptotic VSMCs accumulating in the damaged aortic tissue. Two types of phagocytes, RAW264.7 cells and bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) were used for in vitro efferocytosis assay. edil3-deficient phagocytes exhibited inefficient internalization and degradation of apoptotic VSMCs. Instead, EDIL3 promoted the internalization phase through interacting with phosphatidylserine (PtdSer) on apoptotic VSMCs and binding to the macrophage ITGAV/αv-ITGB3/β3 integrin. In addition, EDIL3 accelerated the degradation phase through activating LC3-associated phagocytosis (LAP). Mechanically, following the engulfment, EDIL3 enhanced the activity of SMPD1/acid sphingomyelinase in the phagosome through blocking ITGAV-ITGB3 integrin, which facilitates phagosomal reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by NAPDH oxidase CYBB/NOX2. Furthermore, exogenous EDIL3 supplementation alleviated BAPN-induced TAD and promoted apoptotic cell clearance. EDIL3 may be a novel factor for the prevention and treatment of TAD.Abbreviations: BAPN: β-aminopropionitrile monofumarate; BMDM: bone marrow-derived macrophage; C12FDG: 5-dodecanoylaminofluorescein-di-β-D-galactopyranoside; CTRL: control; CYBB/NOX2: cytochrome b-245, beta polypeptide; DCFH-DA: 2’,7’-dichlorofluorescin diacetate; EDIL3/Del-1: EGF-like repeats and discoidin I-like domains 3; EdU: 5-ethynyl-2’-deoxyuridine; EVG: elastic van Gieson; H&E: hematoxylin and eosin; IL: interleukin; LAP: LC3-associated phagocytosis; MAP1LC3/LC3: microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3; NAC: N-acetylcysteine; PtdSer: phosphatidylserine; rEDIL3: recombinant EDIL3; ROS: reactive oxygen species; SMPD1: sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase 1; TAD: thoracic aortic dissection; TEM: transmission electron microscopy; VSMC: vascular smooth muscle cell; WT: wild-type [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]