Nucleic acid nanoassembly-enhanced RNA therapeutics and diagnosis

RNAs are involved in the crucial processes of disease progression and have emerged as powerful therapeutic targets and diagnostic biomarkers. However, efficient delivery of therapeutic RNA to the targeted location and precise detection of RNA markers remains challenging. Recently, more and more attention has been paid to applying nucleic acid nanoassemblies in diagnosing and treating. Due to the flexibility and deformability of nucleic acids, the nanoassemblies could be fabricated with different shapes and structures. With hybridization, nucleic acid nanoassemblies, including DNA and RNA nanostructures, can be applied to enhance RNA therapeutics and diagnosis. This review briefly introduces the construction and properties of different nucleic acid nanoassemblies and their applications for RNA therapy and diagnosis and makes further prospects for their development.

Necessity and feasibility of viral RNA detection in specialist ophthalmic institute during the COVID-19 epidemic / 中华实验眼科杂志

The prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in China is now at a key stage. The tasks faced by the medical organs are fighting against the COVID-19 while providing the medical services orderly. As a Specialist medical institution nationwide, ophthalmic hospitals are resuming receiving patients and performing operations gradually, including precision interruption of the epidemic, prevention of the secondary virus transmission, and avoidance of nosocomial cross infection among health care providers are required. We explored a multifaceted management for the prevention and control of epidemic, with a special focus on the individual protection for patients and medical staffs. A preliminary positive effect can be observed as a result. The main measures taken cover two aspects. On the one hand, 2019-nCoV ribonucleic acid (RNA) detection and hematological indices inspection including C-reactive protein (CRP) and serum amyloid A (SAA) are listed as routine tests of preoperative screening for ocular surgical patients. These tests are required to be completed upon the admission to avoid the possibility of accepting any asymptomatic infected individual and to reduce the risk of nosocomial cross infection. On the other hand, the 2019-nCoV RNA detection is also provided to high-risk employees who visited affected area recently. This assists in obtaining guarantee in both safety and quality of medical services provided, but also helps in lessening the mental and spiritual stress for medical staffs. It is expected that these measures can contribute to the work of our peers of ophthalmology in the prevention and control of COVID-19 and to the safe environment where the medical services are provided, and provide a reference for other outbreak of virus-causing disease.

THE DETECTION OF FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE VIRUS IN ANIMAL TISSUE BY RT-PCR TECHNIQUE / 微生物学通报

A set of primers amplified the VP1 gene of foot-and-mouth disease vims (FMDV) was designed and synthesized. A reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique detected the RNA of FMDV was established after selecting the best purification method, reagents and reaction conditions. Samples of fresh milk, lymph node, spinal cord, vesicular skin, milk powder, cotton swab, mouse and meat in daughter-house were detected by RT-PCR, positive rates were41.4% (24/58), 13.33% (2/15), 20% (1/5), 100% (1/1), 100% (1/1), 37.5% (12/32), 100% (2/2) and 10% - 70%, respectively. However, positive rate of cockroach detected by RT-PCR was 0. The results showed that the established FMDV RT-PCR technique provided a more sensitive, specific and reliable method for diagnosis and epizootic study of the foot-and-mouth disease.