Search

The efficacy and safety of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) booster vaccines remain limited. We investigated the immunogenicity and adverse events of the third dose of mRNA vaccines in healthy adults.Volunteers vaccinated with two doses of the adenoviral vaccine (ChAdOx1) 12 weeks before were administered with an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. These were divided into three groups, full-dose mRNA-1273 (group 1); half-dose mRNA-1273 (group 2); and full-dose BNT-162b2 (group 3). Primary outcomes included serum anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike immunoglobulin G (IgG) titers and neutralizing antibody titers against B.1.1.7 (alpha), B.1.617.2 (delta), and B.1.1.529 (omicron) variants. Secondary outcomes included the evaluation of humoral and cellular immunity and vaccine-associated adverse events after the boost.Totally 300 participants were recruited, and 298 participants were enrolled. For all three groups, an increase in anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG geometric mean titers (30.12- to 71.80-fold) and neutralizing antibody titers against the alpha variant (69.80- to 173.23-folds), delta variant (132.69- to 324.63-folds), and omicron variant (135.36- to 222.37-folds) were observed on day 28. All groups showed robust T- and B-cell responses after boosting. Adverse events were overall mild and transient but with higher prevalence and severity in group 1 participants than in other groups.Third dose mRNA COVID-19 vaccines markedly enhanced cellular and humoral responses and were safe. Immunological responses and adverse events were higher in individuals receiving the full-dose mRNA-1273 vaccine, followed by a half-dose mRNA-1273 vaccine and BNT-162b2 vaccine.

Efficacy and safety data of heterologous prime-boost vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 remains limited.We recruited adult volunteers for homologous or heterologous prime-boost vaccinations with adenoviral (ChAdOx1, AstraZeneca) and/or mRNA (mRNA-1273, Moderna) vaccines. Four groups of prime-boost vaccination schedules were designed: Group 1, ChAdOx1/ChAdOx1 8 weeks apart; Group 2, ChAdOx1/mRNA-1273 8 weeks apart; Group 3, ChAdOx1/mRNA-1273 4 weeks apart; and Group 4, mRNA-1273/mRNA-1273 4 weeks apart. The primary outcome was serum anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG titers and neutralizing antibody titers against B.1.1.7 (alpha) and B.1.617.2 (delta) variants on day 28 after the second dose. Adverse events were recorded up until 84 days after the second dose.We enrolled 399 participants with a median age of 41 years and 75% were female. On day 28 after the second dose, the anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG titers of both heterologous vaccinations (Group 2 and Group 3) were significantly higher than that of homologous ChAdOx1 vaccination (Group 1), and comparable with homologous mRNA-1273 vaccination (Group 4). The heterologous vaccination group had better neutralizing antibody responses against the alpha and delta variant as compared to the homologous ChAdOx1 group. Most of the adverse events (AEs) were mild and transient. AEs were less frequent when heterologous boosting was done at 8 weeks rather than at 4 weeks.Heterologous ChAdOx1/mRNA-1273 vaccination provided higher immunogenicity than homologous ChAdOx1 vaccination and comparable immunogenicity with the homologous mRNA-1273 vaccination. Our results support the safety and efficacy of heterologous prime-boost vaccination using the ChAdOx1 and mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccines. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT05074368).

Previous studies showed that adding hydrogen (H2) can have an opposite chemical effect on soot formation: its chemical effect enhances and suppresses soot formation in methane (CH4) and ethylene (C2H4) diffusion flames, respectively. Such opposite chemical effect of H2 (CE-H2) remains unresolved. The different CE-H2 is studied numerically in the two laminar coflow diffusion flames. A detailed chemical mechanism with the addition of a chemically inert virtual species FH2 is used to model the gas-phase combustion chemistry in this study. Particularly, a reaction pathway analysis was performed based on the numerical results to gain insights into how H2 addition to fuel affects the pathways leading to the formation of benzene (A1) in CH4 and C2H4 flames. The numerical results show that the CE-H2 in CH4 diffusion flame to prompt soot formation is ascribed that the higher mole fraction of H atom promotes the formation of A1 and Acetylene (C2H2) and leads to higher nucleation rate and eventually higher soot surface growth rate. In contrast, adding H2 to C2H4 diffusion flames decreases soot nucleation and surface growth rate. The lower soot nucleation rate is due to the lower mole fractions of pyrene (A4), while the lower soot surface growth rate is due to the lower mole fractions of H atom and C2H2, higher mole fraction of H2 and lower soot nucleation rate. Furthermore, the CE-H2 in C2H4 diffusion flames promotes the formation of A1, but suppresses the formation of A4.

Although fruit expansion during ripening has been extensively studied, the structural and metabolic mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here, we report the critical roles of cell separation and cell wall metabolism in the coordinated regulation of fruit expansion in Fragaria vesca. Anatomical observations indicated that a syndrome of cell separation occurred from the very earliest stage of fruit set. Cell separation led to an increase in apoplastic space, and the time course of this increase coincided with the period of fruit development and ripening. Moreover, massive cellulose disassembly occurred when cells were fully separated, which coincided with the expansion of cell and fruit volume. Consistent with the anatomical observations, both histochemistry and composition analysis indicated correlations between cell separation and the cell wall metabolism. These observations suggest that cell separation, cell elongation and cell wall disassembly occur simultaneously during fruit ripening in Fragaria vesca.

Although real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) remains as a golden standard for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, it can not be easily expanded to large-scaled screening during outbreaks, and the positive results do not necessarily correlate with infectious status of the identified subjects. In this study, the performance of Vstrip® RV2 COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test (RAT) and its correlation with virus infectivity was examined by virus culture using 163 sequential respiratory specimens collected from 26 SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. When the presence of cytopathic effects (CPE) in cell culture was used as a reference method for virus infectivity, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of Vstrip® RV2 COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test was 96.43%, 89.63%, and 90.8%, respectively. The highest Ct value was 27.7 for RdRp gene and 25.79 for E gene within CPE-positive samples, and the highest Ct value was 31.9 for RdRp gene and 29.1 for E gene within RAT positive samples. When the Ct values of specimens were below 25, the CPE and RAT results had high degree of consistency. We concluded that the RAT could be a great alternative method for determining the infectious potential of individuals with high viral load.

While increasing evidence suggests that ozone (O3) exposure is associated with adverse birth outcomes, only one study has focused on its impact on the premature rupture of membranes (PROM). Therefore, we thus examined the effect of O3 on PROM in Xinxiang, China, using an over-dispersed Poisson generalized additive model. Several confounding factors, including meteorological factors, temporal trends, the day of the week, and public holidays, were considered in the model. We identified a total of 3255 instances of PROM from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2017, and there was a significant association between the daily maximum 8-h mean concentrations (O3–8h) and PROM. Each 10 μg/m3 increase in the 3-day average concentration (lag02) of O3–8h corresponded to an increment in PROM of 5.42% (95% CI: 1.45–9.39%). Although the results of the stratified analyses were insignificant, a few trending results were observed: stronger associations between O3 and PROM would occur in women with advanced age (≥35) or during the warm season than those in younger women (

This article reports that a metastructure of polypeptides with the bound water can have high and stable electron conductivity without classic electron-conducting components. We used gelatin as the model protein since the peptide chains contain numerous sites capable of forming hydrogen bonds with water molecules. The lack of redox sites and the trace amounts of aromatic amino acids also eliminate the possibility that the electron transfer is due to redox reactions or pi-stacking. Our Raman spectroscopy results show that the high electron-conductive metastructure is composed of bound water and unwound gelatin polypeptides. Further removal of bound water from the metastructure dramatically decreases the electron-conductivity, indicating that bound water is crucial to connect the polypeptide chains for the electron-conductivity. In addition, the ability to switch between the low-electron-conductive typical hydrogel state and the high-electron-conductive metastructure state of the gelatin hydrogel allows the gelatin hydrogel to exhibit rewritable nonvolatile resistive memory features. The high ON/OFF current ratio of 105 at a low reading voltage of 0.09 V is superior to that of conventional nonvolatile resistive memories by one order of magnitude. The discovered phenomenon of using bound water and flexible polypeptide structure for long-distance electron transfer could provide a new direction for designing highly biocompatible conducting materials or functional devices in bioelectronics.

Heterogeneous distribution of components in the biological membrane is critical in the process of cell polarization. However, little is known about the mechanisms that can generate and maintain the heterogeneous distribution of the membrane components. Here, we report that the propagating wave patterns of the bacterial Min proteins can impose steric pressure on the membrane, resulting in transport and directional accumulation of the component in the membrane. Therefore, the membrane component waves represent transport of the component in the membrane that is caused by the steric pressure gradient induced by the differential levels of binding and dissociation of the Min proteins in the propagating waves on the membrane surface. The diffusivity, majorly influenced by the membrane anchor of the component, and the repulsed ability, majorly influenced by the steric property of the membrane component, determine the differential spatial distribution of the membrane component. Thus, transportation of the membrane component by the Min proteins follows a simple physical principle, which resembles a linear peristaltic pumping process, to selectively segregate and maintain heterogeneous distribution of materials in the membrane. VIDEO ABSTRACT

Although numerous studies have investigated the association between air pollution and hospitalization, few studies have focused on the health effect of air pollution on populations with hypertension. In this study, we conducted a time-series study to investigate the acute adverse effect of six criteria ambient air pollutants (fine particulate matter [PM2.5], inhalable particulate matter [PM10], nitrogen dioxide [NO2], sulfur dioxide [SO2], ozone [O3], and carbon monoxide [CO]) on hospitalization of patients for hypertension in Shijiazhuang, China, from 2013 to 2016. An over-dispersed Poisson generalized addictive model adjusting for weather conditions, day of the week, and long-term and seasonal trends was used. In addition, we evaluated the effect of modification by season, sex, and age. A total of 650,550 hospitalization records were retrieved during the study period. A 10 μg/m3 increase of PM2.5 (lag06), PM10 (lag06), NO2 (lag03), O3 (lag6), and CO (lag04) corresponded to 0.56% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.28–0.83%), 0.31% (95% CI: 0.12–0.50%), 1.18% (95% CI: 0.49–1.87%), 0.40% (95% CI: 0.09–0.71%), and 0.03% (95% CI: 0.01–0.05%) increments in hospitalization of patients for hypertension, respectively. We observed statistically significant associations with PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3, and CO, while positive but insignificant associations with SO2. The effects of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3, and CO were robust when adjusted for co-pollutants. We found stronger associations in the cool season than in the warm season. Moreover, there were non-significant differences in the associations between air pollution and sex or age group. This study suggests that patients with hypertension had an increased risk of hospital admission when exposed to air pollution.

Niclosamide, a widely-used anthelmintic drug, inhibits SARS-CoV-2 virus entry through TMEM16F inhibition and replication through autophagy induction, but the relatively high cytotoxicity and poor oral bioavailability limited its application. We synthesized 22 niclosamide analogues of which compound 5 was found to exhibit the best anti-SARS-CoV-2 efficacy (IC

The importance of understory herbs for soil erosion controlling in forests is well accepted, but its effectiveness was rarely reported. Understanding how understory shading affects herbs growth and soil erosion controlling benefits is essential for better policy management. Here, we investigated grassland characteristics and soil erosion process before and after grasslands placed beneath the forest canopies. Four typical grasslands (Trifolium repens, Medicago sativa, Elymus dahuricus and Bromus inermis) of the Loess Plateau were selected, and bare land was used as the control. Total fifteen plots (three replicates for each treatment) with a slope of 20° were constructed. All plots were placed outdoor (open areas) in the first year, and were moved to the undergrowth and remained in the Sophora japonica and Populus cathayana forests over the next five years. Time to runoff, runoff volume and sediment yield were examined by two simulated rainfall experiments before and after understory shading. Results showed that understory shading promoted the disappearance of the original grass species, increasing weeds with poor roots. Further, these changes led to more soil loss in all understory grassland treatments. After understory shading, the runoff volume (67.0–125.5 L) and biological soil crust coverage (1.0–15.7%) significantly decreased for all plots, whereas the sediment yield (5.0–1650.5 g), species richness (>5) and litter mass (75.8–241.0 g) significantly increased. Therefore, understory shading changed the community composition and structure of understory grasslands. Besides, we found that herb species difference, but not species richness difference, more determined understory soil erodibility. Our findings indicate that the shade-tolerant herb species application could effectively reduce soil erosion in forest-grassland complex ecosystem will help to achieve the sustainability of understory grassland during vegetation restoration.

In the early growth stage, nutrient uptake by rice roots is weak. However, rice tillering at this stage would require high N input. Thus, it is vital to clarify the mechanism involved in tillering capacity with low N inputs. In this report, two widely-planted japonica cultivars (cvs Yangyujing 2 and Nanjing 45) were selected mainly because, unlike cv. Nanjing 45, cv. Yangyujing 2 shows low-N-induced tiller outgrowth. Responses of tillers in two rice cultivars to mixture of N forms versus sole NH4+ supply were similar, suggesting that NH4+ plays a pivotal role in N-modulated rice tillering. Under low NH4+ supply, higher expression of OsAMT1.2, OsAMT1.3, OsGS1;2, and OsGS2 was recorded in the roots of cv. Yangyujing 2 in comparison with cv. Nanjing 45, ultimately resulting in higher N content and dry weight in cv. Yangyujing 2. Stronger 3H-IAA export from tiller stems was observed in cv. Yangyujing 2, mainly due to higher expression level of auxin efflux transporters. Moreover, tillers in auxin efflux transporter mutant ospin9 did not respond to NH4+ supply relative to wild-type plants. These findings can be used in the molecular breeding of rice varieties to simultaneously improve rice population productivity and reduce N fertilizer input.

Three-dimensional porous structures are constructed via vapor deposition onto a sublimating solid template. Construction upon deposition of vapor-phase material occurs at a dynamic vapor–solid interface and is directed by the solid surface vanishing by sublimation. A proof-of-concept demonstration showed vapor depositions of poly- para -xylylenes (PPXs) on sublimating templates, including ice and mixtures with ethanol and hexane. The material construction macroscopically produces a replica architecture of the parent template. Characteristics of the pore structures are formed during the construction process as a result of the gas vapor and the space that is vacated by sublimation, thus enabling control of the porosity through regulation of the sublimation speed and/or the thermodynamic properties of the templates. The technology introduced herein provides a novel approach for 3D porous material manufacturing and overturns the notion that vapor deposition necessarily forms dense thin films on substrates.

In the queueing literature, an arrival process with random arrival rate is usually modeled by a Markov-modulated Poisson process (MMPP). Such a process has discrete states in its intensity and is able to capture the abrupt changes among different regimes of the traffic source. However, it may not be suitable for modeling traffic sources with smoothly (or continuously) changing intensity. Moreover, it is less parsimonious in that many parameters are involved but some are lack of interpretation. To cope with these issues, this paper proposes to model traffic intensity by a geometric mean-reverting (GMR) diffusion process and provides an analysis for the Markovian queueing system fed by this source. In our treatment, the discrete counterpart of the GMR arrival process is used as an approximation such that the matrix geometric method is applicable. A conjecture on the error of this approximation is developed out of a recent theoretical result, and is subsequently validated in our numerical analysis. This enables us to calculate the performance measures with high efficiency and precision. With these numerical techniques, the effects from the GMR parameters on the queueing performance are studied and shown to have significant influences. HighlightsA new traffic source is proposed to accommodate continuously changing intensity.This model is parsimonious with two key parameters having clear physical meanings.A conjecture relating continuous and discrete systems is established and validated.Matrix geometric method and extrapolation are jointly applied for queueing analysis.The effects of the two key traffic parameters on queueing systems are investigated.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a causative agent for the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This global pandemic is now calling for efforts to develop more effective COVID-19 therapies. Here we use a host-directed approach, which focuses on cellular responses to diverse small-molecule treatments, to identify potentially effective drugs for COVID-19. This framework looks at the ability of compounds to elicit a similar transcriptional response to IFN-β, a type I interferon that fails to be induced at notable levels in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. By correlating the perturbation profiles of ~3,000 small molecules with a high-quality signature of IFN-β-responsive genes in primary normal human bronchial epithelial cells, our analysis revealed four candidate COVID-19 compounds, namely homoharringtonine, narciclasine, anisomycin, and emetine. We experimentally confirmed that the predicted compounds significantly inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication in Vero E6 cells at nanomolar, relatively non-toxic concentrations, with half-maximal inhibitory concentrations of 165.7 nM, 16.5 nM, and 31.4 nM for homoharringtonine, narciclasine, and anisomycin, respectively. Together, our results corroborate a host-centric strategy to inform protective antiviral therapies for COVID-19., Systems biology; COVID-19; Host-directed therapy; Type I interferon; Drug repurposing; Bioinformatics; Infectious disease; Transcriptomics; Pharmaceutical science

The preparations and properties of three new homochiral three-dimensional (3D) coordination polymers, [M(D-cam)(pyz)(H2O)2]n (M=Co (1) and Ni (2); D-H2cam=(+) D-camphoric acid; pyz=pyrazine) and [Mn2(D-cam)2(H2O)2] (3), under solvothermal conditions is described. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses revealed that all of compounds are homochiral 3D structure. 1 and 2 are isostructural and crystallize in the trigonal space group P3221, while 3 crystallizes in monoclinic space group P21. The structure of 1 and 2 consists of metal-D-cam helical chains which are pillared with pyrazine ligands into a 3D framework structure and 3 features a 3D homochiral framework involving one-dimensional manganese-carboxylate chains that are aligned parallel to the b axis. Magnetic susceptibility data of all compounds were collected. The findings indicate that μ2-pyrazine dominate weak antiferromagnetic coupling within 1 and 2, while 3 exhibits antiferromagnetic behavior through the carboxylate groups of D-cam ligand.

We propose a jump-diffusion model where the bivariate jumps are serially correlated with a mean-reverting structure. Mathematical analysis of the jump accumulation process is given, and the European call option price is derived in analytical form. The model and analysis are further extended to allow for more general jump sizes. Numerical examples are provided to investigate the effects of mean-reversion in jumps on the risk-neutral return distributions, option prices, hedging parameters, and implied volatility smiles.

Air pollution is one of the most serious environmental crises globally. As concentrations of pollutants increase, respiratory illness and cardiovascular ailments become more prevalent. Few studies have analyzed the correlations between ambient nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution and eye and adnexa diseases (EADs). We investigated the short-term association between NO2 and outpatients with EADs in Xinxiang, China. Daily NO2 concentrations, meteorological and outpatients’ data from 2015 to 2017 were analyzed using an over-dispersed generalized additive model. Several potential confounding factors including time trend, weather conditions, day of week, and holidays were controlled for. A total of 78384 cases of EADs outpatients were identified. Significant association was observed between NO2 and EADs outpatients. A 10 μg/m3 increase of NO2 in the current day correspond to a 1.15% (95% CI: 0.21%–2.09%) increment in daily outpatients with EADs. Furthermore, the association between NO2 and keratitis outpatients was the strongest with an estimates of 2.67% (95% CI: 1.24%–4.11%). This research confirmed the association between NO2 and EADs outpatients in Xinxiang, China. Our research highlight the importance of stricter environmental policies by the Chinese government to reduce the emission of air pollutants and to protect the health of citizens.