Traditional Chinese Medicine in Treatment of COVID-19 and Viral Disease: Efficacies and Clinical Evidence.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remains an uncontained, worldwide pandemic. While battling the disease in China, the Chinese government has actively promoted the use of traditional Chinese medicine, and many studies have been conducted to determine the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine for treating COVID-19. The present review discusses the effectiveness and safety of traditional Chinese medicine in curing COVID-19 and provides clinical evidence from all confirmed cases in China. Applications of traditional Chinese medicine and specific recipes for treating other viral infections, such as those caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus and influenza A viruses (including H1N1), are also discussed. Studies have reported that traditional Chinese medicine treatment plays a significant role in improving clinical symptoms. Therefore, further investigation may be of high translational value in revealing novel targeted therapies for COVID-19.

Bioinformatics analysis of the structure, function and prokaryotic expression of SARS-CoV-2 nonstructural protein

The Nsp1 protein, the main virulence factor of the virus of SARS-CoV-2, mediates viral immune escape in host cells and expands the viral infection range. Systematic bioinformatics analysis and prokaryotic expression of Nsp1 protein were performed to aid the understanding of the molecular mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection in host cells. Pfam, TMHMM, ProtScale, ExPASy, SignalP 4.0 and other tools were used to systematically analyze the post-translational modifications, physicochemical properties, transmembrane helix, interaction network, homology and evolutionary characteristics of Nsp1 protein. The recombinant expression vector pET-22b-Nsp1 was constructed through molecular cloning technology and expressed in a prokaryotic system. Nsp1 is composed of 180 amino acids, with a molecular weight of 19.78 kDa, an isoelectric point of 5.36 and an instability index of 28.83. It has a half-life of 30 h in mammalian reticulocytes and more than 10 h in E. coli. It has 12 potential phosphorylation sites, three potential O-glycosylation sites and no signal peptide. It is a hydrophilic protein without a transmembrane helix. Secondary structure analysis indicated that the highest proportion of structural components comprised random coils (45.00%), followed by a-helices (25.56%) and extended chains (20.56%);the lowest proportion comprised ss-turns (8.89%). Multiple sequence alignment and evolutionary analysis revealed that Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1 had the highest sequence identity (85.00%) with the Nsp1 protein of SARS-CoV-2. After prokaryotic expression, Nsp1 protein was found to be mainly expressed in the precipitate after centrifugation of bacterial lysate. The target protein was further identified as Nsp1 by mass spectrometry. This study provides an important reference for the expression, purification and functional analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Nsp1 protein, and further reveals the biological functions of Nsp1, thus providing a reference for research and development of related inhibitors and antiviral drugs.

Robust humoral and cellular immune responses in long-term convalescent COVID-19 individuals following one-dose SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccination

COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in hundreds of millions of infections and millions of deaths worldwide. Preliminary results exhibited excellent efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in preventing hospitalization and severe disease. However, data on inactivated vaccine-induced immune responses of naturally infected patients are limited. Here, we characterized SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific IgG (anti-S-RBD IgG) and neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against SARS-CoV-2 wild type and variants of concerns (VOCs), as well as RBD-specific IgG-secreting B cells and antigen-specific T cells respectively in 51 SARS-CoV-2 recovered subjects and 63 healthy individuals. In SARS-CoV-2 recovered patients, a single dose vaccine is sufficient to reactivate robust anti-S-RBD IgG and NAbs. The neutralizing capacity against VOCs increased significantly post-vaccination no matter healthy individuals or SARS-CoV-2 recovered patients. In addition, RBD-specific IgG-secreting B cells in SARS-CoV-2 recovered patients were significantly higher than that in healthy vaccine recipients. After the vaccine booster, the frequencies of specific IFN-γ+ CD4+ T cell, IL-2+ CD4+ T cell, and TNF-α+ CD4+ T cell responses were significantly increased in SARS-CoV-2 recovered patients. Our data highlighted the safety and utility of SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccine and demonstrated that robust humoral and cellular immune response can be reactivated by one-dose inactivated vaccine in SARS-CoV-2 recovered patients.

The Prevalence of Mycoplasma Pneumoniae Among Children in Beijing Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objective: Mycoplasma pneumoniae (M. pneumoniae) is an important pathogen of community acquired pneumonia. With the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the prevalence of some infectious respiratory diseases has varied. Epidemiological features of M. pneumoniae in children from Beijing (China) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic were investigated. Methods: Between June 2016 and May 2021, a total of 569,887 children with respiratory infections from Children's Hospital Affiliated to Capital Institute of Pediatrics (Beijing, China) were included in this study. M. pneumoniae specific-IgM antibody in serum specimens of these patients was tested by a rapid immunochromatographic assay kit. The relevant clinical data of M. pneumoniae-positive cases were also collected, and analyzed by RStudio software. Results: The results showed that 13.08% of collected samples were positive for M. pneumoniae specific-IgM antibody. The highest annual positive rate was 17.59% in 2019, followed by 12.48% in 2018, 12.31% in 2017, and 11.73% in 2016, while the rate dropped to 8.9% in 2020 and 4.95% in 2021, with significant difference. Among the six years, the positive rates in summer and winter seasons were significantly higher than those in spring and autumn seasons (p < 0.001). The positive rate was the highest in school-age children (22.20%), and lowest in the infant group (8.76%, p < 0.001). The positive rate in boys (11.69%) was lower than that in girls (14.80%, p < 0.001). There were no significant differences in different seasons, age groups, or genders before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (p > 0.05). Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that an M. pneumoniae outbreak started from the summer of 2019 in Beijing. After the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in the end of 2019, the M. pneumoniae positive rates dropped dramatically. This may be due to the restrictive measures of the COVID-19 pandemic, which effectively controlled the transmission of M. pneumoniae. The relationships between M. pneumoniae positive rates and season, age, and gender were not statistically significant before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Energy Vehicle Consumer Demand Mining Research Based on Fusion Topic Model: A Case in China

This study extracted the demand preference topic words of new energy vehicle consumers with the help of the topic model, calculated the similarity between the word vectors and the topic keywords and expanded the topic keywords, analyzed and compared the demand topics and feature expansion words of different car models, and summarized the demand differences of other consumer groups. The analysis results show that consumers’ demands of different groups have the exact demand dimensions such as new energy features and brand features, and different demand dimensions such as application, services, and professional performance. The research findings help consumers filter valuable information from online review data and help car companies objectively and accurately obtain consumer demands, develop more reasonable marketing strategies, and achieve healthy and sustainable corporate development.

Time-course analysis reveals that corticosteroids resuscitate diminished CD8+ T cells in COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: To illustrate the effect of corticosteroids and heparin, respectively, on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients' CD8+ T cells and D-dimer. METHODS: In this retrospective cohort study involving 866 participants diagnosed with COVID-19, patients were grouped by severity. Generalized additive models were established to explore the time-course association of representative parameters of coagulation, inflammation and immunity. Segmented regression was performed to examine the influence of corticosteroids and heparin upon CD8+ T cell and D-dimer, respectively. RESULTS: There were 541 moderate, 169 severe and 156 critically ill patients involved in the study. Synchronous changes of levels of NLR, D-dimer and CD8+ T cell in critically ill patients were observed. Administration of methylprednisolone before 14 DFS compared with those after 14 DFS (ß = 0.154%, 95% CI=(0, 0.302), p=.048) or a dose lower than 40 mg per day compared with those equals to 40 mg per day (ß = 0.163%, 95% CI=(0.027, 0.295), p=.020) significantly increased the rising rate of CD8+ T cell in 14-56 DFS. CONCLUSIONS: The parameters of coagulation, inflammation and immunity were longitudinally correlated, and an early low-dose corticosteroid treatment accelerated the regaining of CD8+ T cell to help battle against SARS-Cov-2 in critical cases of COVID-19.

The Impact of the SARS-COV-2 Pandemic on the Mental Health and Employment Decisions of Medical Students in North China.

Background: The outbreak of severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) has led to long periods of social isolation for individuals across the world. Although medical students generally have a high prevalence of mental health problems, they have received less attention than other groups concerning the impact of SARS-COV-2. Therefore, the present study investigated the mental health status, risk factors, and protective factors for mental health problems in medical students in North China during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic. Methods: A WeChat-based survey, which included the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 and measures of social demographics, was performed twice. Risk and protective factors were identified by binary logistic regression analysis. Results: A total of 702 effective questionnaires were collected in two separate surveys. In total, 24.55% of medical students were suffering anxiety to different degrees of severity, 13.18% were suffering depression in the first survey, and 3.71% wanted to give up working in primary medical care during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in the second survey. In contrast, during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, a risk factor for anxiety and depression was gender which is male, while being knowledgeable about the SARS-COV-2 pandemic and having a lower academic burden were both protective factors. Conclusions: Measures are required to prevent increases in mental health problems in medical students. Our findings suggest that increasing knowledge about the SARS-COV-2 pandemic and reducing academic burden in medical students is extremely important during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic.

Magnesium treatment on methylation changes of transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2).

OBJECTIVES: The viral entry of SARS-CoV-2 requires host-expressed TMPRSS2 to facilitate the viral spike protein priming. This study aims to test the hypothesis that magnesium (Mg) treatment leads to DNA methylation changes in TMPRSS2. METHODS: This study is nested within the Personalized Prevention of Colorectal Cancer Trial, a double-blind 2 × 2 factorial randomized controlled trial, which enrolled 250 participants from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. RESULTS: We found that 12 wk of personalized Mg treatment significantly increased 5-methylcytosine methylation at cg16371860 (TSS1500, promoter) by 7.2% compared to the placebo arm (decreased by 0.1%) in those ages < 65 y. The difference remained statistically significant after adjusting for age, sex, and baseline methylation as well as correction for false discovery rate (adjusted P = 0.014). Additionally, Mg treatment significantly reduced 5-hydroxymethylcytosine levels at cg26337277 (close proximity to TSS200 and the 5' untranslated region, promoter) by 2.3% compared to an increase of 7.1% in the placebo arm after adjusting for covariates in those ages < 65 y (P = 0.003). The effect remained significant at a false discovery rate of 0.10 (adjusted P = 0.088). CONCLUSIONS: Among individuals ages < 65 y with calcium-to-magnesium intake ratios equal to or over 2.6, reducing the ratio to around 2.3 increased 5-methylcytosine modifications (i.e., cg16371860) and reduced 5-hydroxymethylcytosine modifications (i.e., cg26337277) in the TMPRSS2 gene. These findings, if confirmed, provide another mechanism for the role of Mg intervention in the prevention of COVID-19 and treatment of early and mild disease by modifying the phenotype of the TMPRSS2 genotype.

Detection of Respiratory Infections Using RGB-Infrared Sensors on Portable Device

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has become a serious global pandemic in the past few months and caused huge loss to human society worldwide. For such a large-scale pandemic, early detection and isolation of potential virus carriers is essential to curb the spread of the pandemic. Recent studies have shown that one important feature of COVID-19 is the abnormal respiratory status caused by viral infections. During the pandemic, many people tend to wear masks to reduce the risk of getting sick. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a portable non-contact method to screen the health conditions of people wearing masks through analysis of the respiratory characteristics from RGB-infrared sensors. We first accomplish a respiratory data capture technique for people wearing masks by using face recognition. Then, a bidirectional GRU neural network with an attention mechanism is applied to the respiratory data to obtain the health screening result. The results of validation experiments show that our model can identify the health status of respiratory with 83.69% accuracy, 90.23% sensitivity and 76.31% specificity on the real-world dataset. This work demonstrates that the proposed RGB-infrared sensors on portable device can be used as a pre-scan method for respiratory infections, which provides a theoretical basis to encourage controlled clinical trials and thus helps fight the current COVID-19 pandemic. The demo videos of the proposed system are available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12028032.